To be fair I think plenty of people would rather drive, and I know plenty of people people who prefer to go by coach from say, Cardiff to London. I wouldn't know about National Express, but megabus is leagues cheaper than a train ticket. I think cost plays a big factor in what mode of transport people prefer, not to mention some people just prefer to drive or take a coach.
Yes, people have other options and all sort of factors, price included, drive their decisions - but that is a different matter from forum posts alleging that everyone will all of a sudden stop using trains because they once got on a very busy one. Will everyone whose journey on the M1 was disrupted yesterday because of the lorry crash stop using their cars as a result of getting stuck in congestion on roads being used for diversions?
Alot of older people (of which there are plenty in the south west) prefer a comfortable slower trip over an awful but quicker one. I suspect this will be the demographic we lose most of over the coming years. Also the business types may well be tempted onto the flights from Newquay or Exeter .
Another of your old lines. If the alternatives to GWR are so immensely attractive, why is it that National Express and FlyBe are providing no more than 300 to 400 seats each per day between London and Cornwall? As opposed to the best part of 3,000 per day that GWR is providing even at this time of the year, never mind in the summer season.
FlyBe runs a whole one direct flight per day each way between Exeter and London City, which are already aimed squarely at the business types, 07.00 to London, 17.25 back. According to the Business Traveller website, its main function each morning is actually to get a plane up to London to operate a flight to Amsterdam, not because the business types of the east of Devon are all clamouring to fly up to London.
In truth, Flybe only runs Exeter-London City for operational reasons. Soon after the aircraft arrives it departs for Amsterdam.
https://www.businesstraveller.com/b...morning-exeter-london-city-flight-in-january/
I haven't read this entire thread, but I'd say the answer to the thread title is obvious, of course all IET sets should be permanent 9 or 10 car formations, and 5 car sets should definitely be lengthened to 9 or 10 cars.
We're in a climate crisis, we don't get cold winters anymore in this country but just get mild, wet and windy winters and Australia is currently on fire. But the govt still can't see the urgent need to get people out of polluting cars. Electric cars aren't the 'answer' either.
Drastically increasing rail capacity is. Eg. A 9 or 10 car IET can accommodate 700-800 people (at a guess) or you could have the same number of people each in an individual car.
And of course it's too easy with so many 5 car sets for a 5 car set to turn up alone on a peak working that should be 9 or 10 cars. I mean for most people, a 5 car IET is actually just 3.5 cars, totally inadequate for a long distance service.
This is why we desperately need the DfT and civil service to have no involvement in the running and specifying of the railways and we need an overarching rail organisation, run by professionals from the rail industry, running things, not civil servants working from spreadsheets.
Why may all sound fine and dandy but doesn't actually address the fundamental point that the people of Cornwall are not crying out to spend their entire lives travelling up and down to London, nor are people living along the Cotswold Line or between Kemble and Cheltenham.
Using nine-car trains in all those places all that time would be a colossal waste of resources and do a fine job of contributing to the climate crisis by wasting energy carting lots of empty coaches up and down and accelerating track wear, requiring more steel rails to be produced by not-exactly-green blast furnaces.
Where drastically increasing rail capacity would make a big difference is in and around large towns and cities, not least by providing lots of light rail systems. Most journeys made in this country are short ones, in urban areas, in cars, not on trains between the capital and a sparsely-populated largely rural county in the far south west.
Where do you think much of the cost of running the railway come from? The government - which for some inexplicable reason takes an interest in how money raised in taxes is spent.
There may well be a need to rethink policies, but that is not going to result in a no-holds-barred, buy-what-you-like, no-matter-what-the-cost spending spree on the railways or anywhere else. Recent policy moves in Germany may offer an example to follow, but DB has to meet all sorts of targets in coming years to receive all the money planned - and the other passengers and freight operators in Germany are far from happy at so much funding being funnelled into DB.