The main issue with the Voyagers is that they are too short by about three coaches. I'm in the minority I think but after they sorted out the worst of the sewage smell I quite enjoy travelling on them!
I personally don't mind the voyager. I don't need to use them very often (other than Bristol - Birmingham occasionally) but the ones I have used have smelt fine and I think they're quite good at what they do. My main moan is the seats aren't great for long distances.
Down here in the 'Extremities' (Hah!) the main issue with XC is, as pretty much everywhere else - short formed services and the smelly vestibules in the Voyagers. Other than that, they are a smooth ride compared to the rest of the stuff used down here.
They could do with some extra leg room as well.
I see two patterns there, Voyagers are too short and are too uncomfortable to sit on for long journeys (due to seats and the spacing of them). Mind you, the latter point applies to most stock, and when you get a window (coach D on a VT Voyager, I think) there is a much better view than on a 390.
release the Voyagers to another operator and route such as Cardiff - Portsmouth which they'd be more suited to.
Voyagers more suited for Cardiff-Portsmouth? I'm not so sure. 125mph 5-car units with 262 seats (5-car XC 221) or a 4-car 90mph 158 formation with 268 seats? At least the Voyagers would have the doors in the right place though, unlike the class 166 units which some have proposed for the route. I don't think Voyagers in their current form are well suited to anything, too short for
INTERCITY work, too fast/expensive for Regional Express and too poorly furnished for either. Fix the length and the interior and they would probably be quite suitable for XC.
The base problem is that it is a "national" service - with low high income traffic , lots of small flows and a service which is very busy in the core - but quiet at the extremities. Any worthwhile suggestions as to how to square the circle , no doubt welcome.
I'm with tbtc on this one:
I don't know how we solve the problem (short of replacing all services by coupled up 153s so that an eight coach 153 at New Street sheds coaches every half hour and becomes a single unit by Penzance
)
It is a difficult problem. I'm not sure if it truely is quiet at the extremities but assuming it is then portion working would seem to be the answer. However, XC uses 125mph units, which in my opinion are unsuitable for portion working. They cannot have passenger-corridors between the units, which makes boarding the wrong portion rather too critical and increases the minimum required staffing level. They also lose seating space because they cannot have passengers too close behind the cabs.
Things will get better if the electric spine goes through as Manchester-South Coast can go to dual voltage 110mph electrics.
110mph? Is there no 125mph running on the route at all, despite the current use of Voyagers? If a 110mph unit can do the job, it sounds like another job for an EMU version of a 158/159 (which might be similar to a 5-WES (class 442), but with a pantograph). Portion working then becomes a much more reasonable solution.
HSTs are unlikely to be used even if they were available (too expensive, too big, too old).
Voyagers are also very expensive, so I'm not sure if they are actually any cheaper, and I don't think IC125s are too big either (maybe reduce them to 2+7 sets). I agree however that IC125s are unlikely to move to XC because they are too old (although I hope some IC125s are retained, because, for some routes, I can't see any feesible alternative which would not be a retrograde step).
Who on earth thought replacing the 8 or 9 carriage loco hauled stock with a 4 car unit? absolutely scandalous. how did that ever pass?
Think it was more like loco plus 7 coaches or 2+7 HST.
Yes so that would give a capacity of around 330 standard class on a Loco hauled set and more on an HST, and what's the capacity on a Voyager wasn't it 162 standard on a 4 car and 221 on a 5 car, possibly a couple more seats have been shoved in since then.
Arh but XC got a more frequent service, well yes on some parts yes, but other parts not really particularly at times when people wanted to travel.
So hardly surprising there was lots of overcrowding, those responsible for it should have been sacked.
I agree, overcrowding is not supprising given the short trains ordered and the fact that improving frequency attracts more passengers. So, let's suppose many XC trains saw a reduction from 330 seats to 221. That's 109 fewer seats per train.
I also think that it would be foolish to repeat the error of XC by buying a lot of short IC trains again.
My sentiments exactly. No wonder I like to call the department for transport DaFT, since they seem to have repeated the error. The currently planned TOTAL (first+std) seating capacity of the new 5-car class 800/801 units is 315. Following the reduction in first class, a FirstGW full-buffet IC125 set will, I think, have 475 seats in standard class alone. The standard class capacity of the IC125s will thus be 160 greater than the entire capacity of a 5-car 800/801.
The use of 4 cars means you aren't parading round a 9 car set at silly hours of the day no one wants to travel.
The use of 4 cars also means you are using short trains at busy times, unless you have enough of them that every one can be coupled to another (not a great idea with 125mph stock for the reasons listed above) at busy times which means you have sidings full of 'spare' units at the quiet times when you are running the shorter trains.
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Anyway, the question that hasn't been asked yet in this topic (I think):
Are there any differences between class 220 and class 222 carriages other than software? If not, when the MML is wired could cascade the 222s to XC and insert the intermediate carriages from the 220s into them? You would then have some longer units (the lengthened 222s) and a load of redundant 2-car class 220 units which I doubt have much more capacity than a single 153 (if that). It's not ideal to throw away those driving cars, but the improved seats:train-length ratio would be rather benfitial I would suspect.