(02 May 2021, 5:04 am)Dan wrote God, such cynicism. I thought we’d got over that in this thread.
Yes, something has changed. The coach is now the preferred output meaning that most passengers now benefit from a toilet on-board and better comfort: yes this comes at the detriment of the X9/X10 but 7156 has now entered service and Riverside still retain two Levantes as spares, so a coach should still be allocated, just of a slightly lesser specification (no next stop AV).
Beyond this weekend, it’s unlikely that a duplicate will be required in my opinion. There’s been an initial burst of people wishing to use the service, including a small number of enthusiasts, and now the novelty is beginning to wear off, I think we’ll now settle down into more normal passenger number levels, which is effectively a full (in social distancing terms) coach.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Me, cynical, I've never heard such nonsense!
I'm honestly surprised passenger numbers are still high enough to warrant a duplicate, I thought the novelty would have already worn off.
Now, the big question is at what point do passenger numbers stabilise.
If they were to stabilise at what is now considered a 'full' coach, would that be enough to call it a success in 'normal' times?
Plus, realistically this summer is going to be unique given that foreign travel is going to be fairly minimal, so even assuming things are basically back to normal next year, there's no guarantee that people will want to sit three hours on a coach to get to a mediocre beach (in my opinion) when they can spend the same amount of time on a plane (and probably money if they go Ryanair!) and be in Spain!