When the report on IEP deployment was first published, I was surprised that the first area to see the trains introduced would have been the East Coast in order to oust the 225s from the route. Such a scheme, with IEPs’ or with Pendolinos, would be completely pointless: The mark 4 carriages have good ride quality and comfort levels, and are well laid out as concerns passenger amenities. And the class 91 locos are very good at what they do, having been designed for the ECML (After initial plans would have seen them deployed on the West Coast), especially after a comprehensive programme of reliability modifications.
The 225s are only 20 years old or less, so they have at least a decades’ worth of useful working life in them, probably more, and replacing them on the route they were built for just for changes’ sake is completely irrational, especially when you consider that there would be a very limited market for second hand 225s and suitable routes to operate them on.
However, if Virgin were to get the East Coast franchise, and I believe that it will be a close run contest between them and First, I have a sinking feeling that we will see a squadron fleet of Pendolinos on the route within five years of the takeover, to give Virgin a standard corporate image and train fleet if they also retained the West Coast franchise (Which I however see as unlikely).
I’m disappointed with the new vinyl “liveries”; for Bombardier on 221115 and now Alstom on 390004; when I heard about a Pendolino being repainted in Alstom colours, I was hoping for some sort of snazzy all over livery, not just grey mid-body vinyls: Something a bit more like the Porterbroook livery that was applied to 47807 and 47817 in the late nineties.