Declining quality of 'Inter City' standard class passenger accommodation

[Mikey C]

An interesting ally on that point is Peter Hendy and those he consulted for his Union Connectivity report, which concluded that Cardiff to Birmingham (XC 170s) needed better quality rolling stock.

From my experience of the XC 170s, longer trains would be a far better improvement than simply having end doored stock...

 

[slowroad]

Those aren't units, and I think @route101 was talking about "open" vehicles, not ones with compartments.

How is whether they are units relevant to the issue of door position? And lots of Mark 1s and 2s were open saloons.

 

[Harpo]

How is whether they are units relevant to the issue of door position? And lots of Mark 1s and 2s were open saloons.

Mid doors in open InterCity coaches ceased around 50 years ago during Mk2 development and there were none on 2def, Mk3/4, or even 155-158.

There was also the placement of saloon doors, toilets and or luggage racks at the vehicle ends making seats in the saloon very well insulated from the effects of open doors in cold weather unlike any 1/3 2/3 door vehicle.

 

[tfw756rider]

How is whether they are units relevant to the issue of door position?

It isn't really, but @route101 said units.

And lots of Mark 1s and 2s were open saloons.

Oops, I didn't realise that mid doors (in addition to end doors) were a thing in any of those vehicles with open saloons. I stand corrected.

Mid doors in open InterCity coaches ceased around 50 years ago during Mk2 development and there were none on 2def, Mk3/4, or even 155-158.

There was also the placement of saloon doors, toilets and or luggage racks at the vehicle ends making seats in the saloon very well insulated from the effects of open doors in cold weather unlike any 1/3 2/3 door vehicle.

Thanks for the info

 

[slowroad]

Mid doors in open InterCity coaches ceased around 50 years ago during Mk2 development and there were none on 2def, Mk3/4, or even 155-158.

There was also the placement of saloon doors, toilets and or luggage racks at the vehicle ends making seats in the saloon very well insulated from the effects of open doors in cold weather unlike any 1/3 2/3 door vehicle.

Not quite. Windows and saloon doors typically left open.

 

[HSTEd]

The distance is irrelevant to the discussion on this thread, as is the speed, - it's the time that the average passenger spends on the train that should determine the interior layout etc..

If you adopt this criteria, and I agree that it's probably the correct one.... How many 'InterCity' flows are actually left?

As travel times have shrunk, average journey length has done likewise.
We now have a railway dominated by comparatively short journeys

 

[AM9]

Those aren't units, and I think @route101 was talking about "open" vehicles, not ones with compartments.

If you adopt this criteria, and I agree that it's probably the correct one.... How many 'InterCity' flows are actually left?

As travel times have shrunk, average journey length has done likewise.
We now have a railway dominated by comparatively short journeys

In terms of travel time between main centres of population, and a very limited number of stops at lesser settlements, it'd probably down to:

London - Bristol (parkway) - Cardiff​

London - Exeter - Plymouth​

London - Liverpool/Manchester​

London - Glasgow​

London - York - Newcastle - Edinburgh​

London - Leeds​

London - Sheffield​

London - Nottingham​

That's about it. Most of the journeys are about 2hrs or more from their capital origin. Norwich is a marginal case as the intention at least is to drive the time down to 90mins. Birmingham is somewhere between a fast regional service and a pseudo IC service because it is on an IC route, (maybe in a few years faster services in the route will be a 200km/h 397 type of train, - the really fast services will of course be on HS2.

 

[Transilien]

In terms of travel time between main centres of population, and a very limited number of stops at lesser settlements, it'd probably down to:

London - Bristol (parkway) - Cardiff​

London - Exeter - Plymouth​

London - Liverpool/Manchester​

London - Glasgow​

London - York - Newcastle - Edinburgh​

London - Leeds​

London - Sheffield​

London - Nottingham​

That's about it. Most of the journeys are about 2hrs or more from their capital origin. Norwich is a marginal case as the intention at least is to drive the time down to 90mins. Birmingham is somewhere between a fast regional service and a pseudo IC service because it is on an IC route, (maybe in a few years faster services in the route will be a 200km/h 397 type of train, - the really fast services will of course be on HS2.

How about Manchester/Liverpool-Glasgow/Edinburgh?

 

[duffield]

In terms of travel time between main centres of population, and a very limited number of stops at lesser settlements, it'd probably down to:

London - Bristol (parkway) - Cardiff​

London - Exeter - Plymouth​

London - Liverpool/Manchester​

London - Glasgow​

London - York - Newcastle - Edinburgh​

London - Leeds​

London - Sheffield​

London - Nottingham​

That's about it. Most of the journeys are about 2hrs or more from their capital origin. Norwich is a marginal case as the intention at least is to drive the time down to 90mins. Birmingham is somewhere between a fast regional service and a pseudo IC service because it is on an IC route, (maybe in a few years faster services in the route will be a 200km/h 397 type of train, - the really fast services will of course be on HS2.

How about the three-hour journey on a class 802 from Liverpool to Newcastle? Only a couple of "lesser stops" on that route.