Four-car units inadequate for CrossCountry numbers

It is a mystery to me why the Department for Transport quite recently granted an extension to the CrossCountry franchise without securing any commitment whatsoever to additional rolling stock from the franchisee. Indeed, it is a mystery as to why the franchise was ever awarded to Arriva in the first place.

CrossCountry services serve numerous West Country and South Coast destinations, to where there is heavy summer peak traffic. Yet the operator persists in operating ‘fun-sized’ four-coach trains - train formations that should never have been provided in the first place.

In the pre-Voyager age, services were operated using with Class 47s and rakes of Mk 2 coaches, or HSTs. After 20 years of traffic growth, we now have four-coach units.

Even if the service frequency has been doubled over the trunk section, this still makes virtually no allowance for two decades of growth, other than by squeezing in more cramped seats and abolishing buffets.

What particularly angers me is that the franchise is managed from London, which by definition is not on the CrossCountry network. Those who made these decisions never ever use these services. Meanwhile, the cities (and indeed entire regions) served by the franchise have had little or no real say in the way it is managed.

I am not being nostalgic when I take the view that I would much rather have the ‘47s’ and HSTs back. At least their passengers could sit in comfort. Those standing alongside me as I write these words are standing all the way to Devon, a dreadful advertisement for UK rail travel.