A fleet and route swap

The introduction of new bi-mode fleets at East Midlands Railway and Avanti West Coast gives a perfect opportunity for a wider DfTinitiated fleet rationalisation and route adjustment strategy.

If the Avanti Class 221 Super Voyager and EMR Class 222 Meridian fleets were transferred to CrossCountry, that company could become a Bombardier fleet operator throughout.

The cascaded stock would be sufficient to strengthen existing capacity-stretched services and enable withdrawal of the remaining HST fleet. Any surplus Persons of Reduced Mobility-compliant HSTs could be offered to either ScotRail (for its Inter7City fleet) or Great Western Railway (as additional ‘Castle’ sets).

The Liverpool Lime StreetNorwich service (with or without a planned split at Nottingham) could be transferred from EMR to XC, and together with the existing Birmingham New Street-Stansted Airport service be operated by

the combined Voyager fleet, which is better suited to the longer ‘regional-express’ routes.

Meanwhile, the Class 170 Turbostars could be transferred from XC to EMR, enabling EMR to standardise its regional fleet on the Class 170s. It would also permit withdrawal of the Class 158 fleet, which would become available for other operators such as Northern.

XC could also transfer the

Cardiff Central-Nottingham, Birmingham New StreetNottingham and Birmingham New Street-Leicester routes to EMR, so that they could continue to be operated by the Turbostar fleet.

The strategy would simplify fleet maintenance through increased stock standardisation and improve commonality with benefits to both staff training and roster availability.

Chris Brown, Bedfordshire