There are no booked double sets on the south coast route, and the vast majority are only 4 cars
I think we can take it from the plans that it won’t be anytime soon.
I saw one yesterday!
To be left with 0 cars instead of 4 presumably?
Well you can’t have one as they’re being used elsewhere, and CrossCountry aren’t interested in ordering any
So in hindsight the shop’s removal was a complete waste of time given most customers probably preferred its wider choice of stock compared to a trolley anyway.
Yes, 1M34 0840 Bournemouth to Man Picc has been recorded as a double set on RTT all last week. But there were rarely more than a couple of doubles per day pre 2020, and some only ran on specific days.
The vast majority of passengers aren’t going to use a buffet for fear of losing their seat or getting their belongings stolen, and that’s assuming they can even walk down the train to the buffet in the first place.
I was thinking a single 8 car would have similar capacity to a 4+5, rather than a 7 car which has much less capacity than a 10 car. Narrowing the gap for consistency.
Agreed, it’ll never happen. But it does show just how many trains XC would need if it were to double up all services.
I like this idea - would increase standing space in the vestibule too. Could replace the existing luggage stacks with longitudinal seating to create a small standing area.
In fairness, I believe they’re considered very reliable and that’s certainly a redeeming feature in most people’s eyes!
From their track access application, phased in between June 2024 and June 2025:
There are two all day diagrams for double sets on the South Coast route. South of Birmingham, these cover:
So us on the South coast should remain the poor relations on the XC network then? Cheers. I've had many trips where I and many other passengers have travelled standing up from Southampton / Winchester / Basingstoke / Reading to Birmingham. With only two booked double diagrams, the rest of our services are also single handedly ran by single Voyagers, with an hourly service to boot. At least until recently on your side you had the luxury of the HSTs to boost capacity, we didn't and have been further hard done by by the withdrawal of those and the reduction of doubled up Voyagers from our side to pay for that. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I'm sure I have seen somewhere that 3 Voyagers will be refurbished at a time. Then one hopes at the time they start, they have more than 3 ex AWC Voyagers to cover, else it will be 2025/2026 before we see improvement...well assuming they have adequate train crew.
Post #65. The screenshot therein says 2/3 units at a time.
But my point is the journey times are generally going to be longer on the south west axis and this is the reason why if there are double sets , that's the route they should be on. Yes we did used to have the luxury of a couple of HSTs a day where you could more or less guarantee a seat, but that luxury is very much gone and not coming back. Of course its not an ideal situation, and it's not as if there are countless double sets on the SW route, we have loads of 4 car sets on our hourly service. If only XC had the kind of clout the London headed TOCs have we wouldn't be in this mess.
In theory yes, in practicality of My experience no.
Maybe your right, however LNER & Avanti for example who’ve retained Buffet counters that as far as I’m aware are still trading reasonably well doesn’t particularly endorse that view .
I agree that LNER and Avanti have a successful buffet, I regularly use Avanti and enjoy using the shop. However, they don’t have as bad of an issue with overcrowding, which helps keep seats safe. The ideal solution could likely be an at seat order system and a buffet (or just a trolley and buffet), but it’s not like you can walk down a voyager half the time!
What short memories people have!
