I make regular early morning trips trips London KX to Leeds Monday to Friday.
I aim to travel for the 0703 or 0733, regret to advise the passenger loadings are minimal, not empty, but not far off. the benefit for me "Peace and Quiet"
How many other LNER express long-distance services are operating well below economic ridership levels?,
If LNER are seeking financial savings, then surely there is scope to trim back those early morning timetables, eg from two services per hour to one.
By the same action, cull the 91 microi fleet and rely upon the Azumas for the reduced mileage and trains in service daily requirement
Very few services run with loadings like that, and most of those that do only do so for part of the journey. Taking the 06:22 Newcastle - Edinburgh as an example, it starts off virtually as a fresh air carrier, but gets busier at each stop, particularly at Berwick, Dunbar and to some extent even Reston, and by the time it leaves Dunbar most seats are occupied.
Indeed those two services you mention wouldn’t run like that if it wasn’t for LNER’s apparent incapability of offering anything remotely resembling an affordable advance far on services considered to be ‘Peak’ in or out of London.
In the specific case of the 07:03 and 07:33, they’re running in the opposite direction to the peak flow anyway. People mainly want to be travelling into London at that time of day not out of it.
Depot requirements also have to be considered. Of the depots that LNER use, Heaton is the only one that isn’t heavily limited by space. So the correct number of trains have to start and end the day in certain locations. Quiet services at the start and end of the day aren’t always the financial burden they may seem to be when the wider operational picture is looked at.
In any case axing some of the early and late services wouldn’t save any diagrams, the set would just have to come off depot into service later in the day when it’s busier. Cutting the timetable or even just shortening individual services to 5 car for much of the day from Kings Cross would see people left behind at stations like Peterborough.