Had to travel from Colchester to Inverness at short notice last week, via London and Glasgow rather than picking up an LNER service at Peterborough and going via Edinburgh (my preferred route), as LNER were out of reservations.
Caught a mid-morning intercity service to Liverpool Street which, while not as busy as I'd normally expect (though I'd be better at judging this on the Mk3s than the 745s!), wasn't quiet either. Underground service to Euston Square had people sitting about every three seats and a few standing, so a bit quieter than normal but not unreasonably so.
Euston felt fairly busy and I was surprised (though perhaps I shouldn't have been) when the platform was announced for those with reservations a good 20 plus minutes before departure. This did mean that it was difficult to assess quite how full the train was going to be, and my reserved seat facing forward at the end of a carriage also didn't help! That said, I got the impression that more window seats were taken than not by the time of departure, at least in my carriage, with some passengers ignoring the announced request not to sit in aisle seats, though this fell quite significantly before reaching Glasgow.
Glasgow Central felt fairly busy but Glasgow Queen Street seemed far too quiet for what ought to have been the evening peak. I don't know how busy the service to Inverness should normally have been, but leaving Glasgow there were about half a dozen people in my carriage. By the time we got to Inverness (about 2130), I was one of just two passengers on the whole train.
Ticket barriers or manual checks were in operation at each station, except Glasgow Central. The only on-train staff I saw were a cleaner on Avanti and a guard who walked up the train a couple of times on Scotrail.
On Sunday I needed to head from North London back to Essex. The Great Northern Stevenage to Moorgate service seemed pretty quiet, but when I changed to the Overground at Highbury and Islington it was a different story. There was a gap in the service and the first Stratford-bound train arrived pretty full and left rammed. I waited for the second as I had a fair bit of luggage, and this had people sitting in pretty much alternate seats and some (myself included) standing. I had some stuff to do in Dalston before continuing, and the next Overground service I caught was a little quieter than the first. Finally, the Liverpool Street to Ipswich service I caught at Stratford seemed reasonably busy with roughly alternate sets of seats occupied in my carriage (and it seemed busier further back), though it emptied out as it headed north.
I have to say the loadings, while generally lower than normal, didn't fill me with the doom some have reported. I suspect I need to catch some peak services and more non-London services to experience that, though.
