Down here in basingstoke all we usally get on the Manchester Picadilly to Bournemouth and vice versa services are single 220's, thats right, single...As usal there full and standing except for a few mid day services and very late evening services, Theyve actually cut the number of services down this way ever since they first started, there staff are hardly the most helpfull, Aswell as National Express, they have seriuosly ruined the catering facilities on board down to a mere trolly service of drinks and light refreshments...key word light...and to top that off...
Actually, Bomo - Manc runs are meant to be single 221s. Capacity needed elsewhere really, and the 221s rostered in are a hangover from the Virgin days when they were EPS enabled, thus running to a faster time Brum - Manc. And your overcrowding, with the exception of Brum - Banbury is the best on the XC network, so quit complaining! The double Voyager sets are where they belong; on the Newcastle - Bristol corridor!
As for the HST's, ok, so they have HST's, not there desicion but the goverments...so whoever got the XC franchise would have had to introduce HST's back on it...But one thing i thaught the HST's were also for...To free up other units to increase capacity on other XC serivces...So Where are they Then ?
Doubling up services on the Newcastle - Bristol corridor! And actually, 5 SuperVoyager sets had to return to Virgin so it's really only an increase in capacity on the 5 diagrams.
And Another thing, why is it XC have this wonderfull habit to run quite a considerable amount of empty stock mooves ? take a look at several of the services that start in the morning from Reading - where do they come from? ECS from Eastleigh DBS depot...whilst several of the evening terminating services have also ran ECS to Central Rivers...Then there was last sat - freind of mine was waiting for the XC service to PZ - a Voyager - It was lat running... What did they do...Cancel it from Exeter St Davids...and where did it go? ECS to Laira... Why is it that with AXC, if something seems to disrupt there service pattern, they cancel the service...Again i feel, as with many other TOC's nowadays, its rapidly coming down to a case of Take the money, Sod the passenger...
Crew hours most likely. ECS only requires a driver, thus running the train ECS to it's needed destination relieves the crew who are probably going to be over hours in delay. Plus, they don't pick up delay minutes from running ECS.
Another i voted for... C2C... quite literally one of the most bizare TOC's ive ever come across... Whilst the timetables arnt that bad, the interiors of the 357's are worn and some pretty scruffy, the toilet door on the unit i had today failed just outside of Limehouse, on a service to Southend, oh and by the way, for those who dont know it there is only 1 toilet on the 357's.... but by far the worst thing ive come across on C2C are the staff... Today i was moaned at twice just for taking pictures... With the main one at Upminster with LUL engineering locos and tampers etc in the LUL side of the station, but Mr C2C didnt like that and tried to order a group of us off the station... for taking pictures... of things with no relation to C2C...
The 357s are having a light refurbishment at the moment. And staff all over the network have a problem with taking pictures, not just c2c. They've won punctuality and customer satisfaction awards before now.