Cross Country - my fleet change ideas

[HST43257]

So the existing Cross Country services have nearly no free space on many of their services. In the short term, there’s a couple of things I think could help this problem: You could have half a coach of first class instead of a full one and (this is the main one) you could also cascade Avanti West Coast Class 221s and East Midlands Railway Class 222s onto Cross Country routes. This second one would be possible because of the Class 805s, 807s and 810s entering WCML/MML service in 2022 or perhaps slightly later.

Below is a list of all the Voyagers and their quantities:

34x 4 coach XC Class 220s
4x 4 coach XC Class 221s
20x 5 coach XC Class 221s

20x 5 coach AWC Class 221s

4x 4 coach EMR Class 222s
17x 5 coach EMR Class 222s
6x 7 coach EMR Class 222s


So my thinking is that you could have services as either 5 coaches or 7/8 coaches (depending on the stock). This would involve a fair bit of multiple working. I’ll put all the quantities post-cascade below:

19x 2x4 coach Class 220/221 workings
2x 2x4 coach Class 222 workings
6x 7 coach Class 222 workings
5x 7 coach HST workings
57x 5 Coach Class 221/222 workings

I might try and put the 5 coach sets on Newcastle to Reading and Manchester to Bournemouth, with the 7 coach HSTs, 7 coach 222s and 2x4 coach 222s on the Scotland to South West services. The 19 2x4 220/221 trains would go on Manchester to South West services probably. I’m not sure how many trains are required for each diagram so these unit allocation bits may be completely off. If you have extra sets available, I’d say they could put single class 220s on the busiest Birmingham to Nottingham and/or Stansted services.

In the long term, Tri-mode trains would be good. They would have 3rd rail and overhead electric power as well as hydrogen for the sections not electrified. These would be formed of 4 coaches working in multiple on all the existing voyager routes (some extensions) and new routes like North East England to South Wales. They’d be single sets on the current class 170 operated routes.

Thoughts would be appreciated below

 

[swt_passenger]

If they merged the fleets the likeliest solution would be modifying the lengths of at least some of the 222s, and I think it’s highly likely they’d lose the HSTs.

But all this has been suggested quite recently, with various attempts made at sorting out how to use west coast 221s and 222s.

From August:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/222s-for-crosscountry.208030/

 

[py_megapixel]

We've had this discussion many, many times on this forum.

Ultimately, having that many different possible train formations would be pointless, when you could reform the sets and have them all the same.

As an example, all Voyagers and Meridians could be reformed in multiples of 4 coaches (i.e. either 4 or 8). Every train could then be 8 coaches. With an extensive interior refurbishment (which they all need anyway) you could get the seating layout to match across all trains as well.

Also, 5 car sets are not enough on Manchester to Bournemouth, at least not in the peak. I've been jammed into the vestibules many times on a 5 car set on that route.
They are also - as has been pointed out by others - not a great use of paths on a very congested mainline.

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

I like the suggestions here but if it was up to me, I would, on a short to medium term basis, bring in the Avanti West Coast 221's for the following reasons...

1. The entire XC 22x fleet would be Voyagers rather than part Voyagers and Meridians - running a mixed fleet (rather than 2 types) on InterCity routes would not be a good idea. Look at the situation with Scotrail and GWR.

2. All come in 5-car sets (the 222's come in 3, 4 and 7-car sets).

3. As many (or all) of us know, batteries are going to be trialled in the XC Voyagers. So it makes sense to bring in 221's.

4. Would be literally the only InterCity trains that would be, for now, quicker to introduce.

Also, I'd be having the following 125mph train formations...

5 x 7-coach HST's*
17 x 8-coach (4x2-formed) 220's
46 x 5-coach 221's.

*I emailed XC not long ago, largely regarding one of my cancelled trips and they basically told me that the HST's have had a £20million pound investment so that they could continue in service in the years to come.

Quite a while ago I did some calculating and the Voyagers from Avanti would be enough to have the HST diagrams replaced by say 10-car formations. However, the HST's will be hear for quite some time yet so that means an extra 10 x 5-car Voyagers to play around with.

All the Avanti ones need is the same seating (and luggage rack) layouts as the XC Voyagers and a refurbishment and I'd be happy.

 

[peteb]

Agree need longer XC trains on all routes; even post-covid I doubt there will be an appetite for ever playing sardines again on long cross-britain journeys. So merging cascaded units is a good priority, forget refurb or repaint, noone really cares if their seat patterns match or the carriages all carry the same livery. Invest in good power sockets and USB ports, better lighting eg: not so bright at night time & sort out those XC toilet smells- why could I never smell the toilets on the East Mids trains?

 

[Purple Orange]

If the Avanti & EMR units are cascaded, trains should never just be 5-cars on the core network. Those 57 x 5-car tra8ns the OP mentions should be paired up.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Assuming COVID-19 is eventually dealt with and we no longer have to deal with social distancing and face masks, I think XC should take on all the 221s and the 222s with the following aims:

• Put an end to the use of single 4-car class 22x anywhere
• Put an end to the use of class 170s on Cardiff - Nottingham services
• Provide additional capacity across the current Voyager / HST routes
• Permit a refurbishment of all retained class 22x vehicles removing some seats to provide more legroom, more tables and alignment with windows without reducing overall capacity - I would also add a small toilet where the shop used to be during the refurb

I don't know how different the class 220s and 222s are; I know they have different software, interiors and possibly couplers but the refurbishment would standardise the interiors anyway. The main difference is therefore possibly the software, could that be copied across to allow class 220 centre cars to be inserted into Meridians? If so, I'd scrap all the class 220 driving cars and use the middle cars in 222s. If not, I would either remove first class from half the 220s (permanently coupling them in pairs as 8-car trains with one first class carriage) or reform them into 17 six car units and 34 spare driving cars, most of which would be scrapped. Either way, the 221s have different bogies etc. to the 220s so I would just remove first class from the 4-car sets and couple them to 5-car sets to effectively make four 9-car 221s. Either a subfleet of 5-car 221s or the 5-car 222s would have 1st class reduced (or removed) for use on Cardiff - Nottingham.

Assuming the Meridans can't accept class 220 centre coaches, I would store the eight driving vehicles from the 4-car units and use the other eight coaches to make another four 7-car class 222s.

I think XC currently has 92 trains (including 170s), the above changes could increase this to 114 trains:

• 29x class 170
• 17x six-car class 220
• 4x nine-car class 221 (4-car plus 5-car)
• 36x five-car class 221
• 10x seven-car class 222
• 13x five-car class 222
• 5x IC125 (2+7 sets)

I don't know how often XC run double Voyagers at present, or how many diagrams are required to run each route, so I'm not sure if the increase of up to 22 units would be sufficient to do what I am about to suggest in terms of deployment. The class 170s would be concentrated on Birmingham - Nottingham/Leicester/Stansted, increasing capacity and possibly allowing a few (perhaps the two 170/3 units) to be cascaded elsewhere. Cardiff - Nottingham would be run using 5-car class 222s or 5-car 221s. If you extended it to Lincoln I think it would require 9 or 10 diagrams making it quite a neat fit with the option of 13x five-car 222s.

Penzance/Plymouth - Edinburgh/Aberdeen would use 9-car class 221s, 7-car class 222s and the IC125s. This would total a fleet of 19 trains, I'm not sure how many diagrams are required so you may need to deploy some pairs of 221s and/or 6-car 220s on the route as well. That leaves the Manchester and Newcastle services in the hands of 5-car 221s (in pairs if possible) and 6-car 220s. I would like to suggest deployment of EMUs and/or bi-modes, but without knowing the sequencing and timing of future electrification it is hard to know what would be sensible.

 

[greatvoyager]

If the Avanti & EMR units are cascaded, trains should never just be 5-cars on the core network. Those 57 x 5-car tra8ns the OP mentions should be paired up.

True, and wouldn’t reforming them all cost a lot of money?

 

[43096]

I don't know how different the class 220s and 222s are; I know they have different software, interiors and possibly couplers but the refurbishment would standardise the interiors anyway. The main difference is therefore possibly the software, could that be copied across to allow class 220 centre cars to be inserted into Meridians?

Different owners of the two fleets as well: Beacon (220/221) and Eversholt (222).

 

[Purple Orange]

True, and wouldn’t reforming them all cost a lot of money?

I’m sure it would cost money, but on day 1 I’d advocate simplybpairing the existing fleet up. If it works, then fantastic. If not and there is a sound business case, then reform.

 

[Energy]

True, and wouldn’t reforming them all cost a lot of money?

Indeed, the plan for XC has to be cheaper than just ordering new Hitachi trains.

 

[greatvoyager]

Indeed, the plan for XC has to be cheaper than just ordering new Hitachi trains.

If there is any reforming that should be done, it would probably be moving the shop vehicle to its original position in the Avanti units.

 

[Energy]

If there is any reforming that should be done, it would probably be moving the shop vehicle to its original position in the Avanti units.

If there is a need to, I wouldn't be suprised if XC remove the buffet from the Avanti trains if they take them.

 

[greatvoyager]

If there is a need to, I wouldn't be suprised if XC remove the buffet from the Avanti trains if they take them.

They would probably have to if they want consistency.