Somewhat extreme ...

[whole diary]

[grahame]

This train will be formed of 1 coach instead of 8 between Cheltenham Spa and Swindon ...

From this morning, at Silly O'Clock.  Probably one of those cases where the country end of the journey isn't all that busy, and a 153 will be able to handle the traffic; far preferable to a cancellation.

Talking of 153s ... they were originally 2 car trains, converted from class 155 with extra cabs.  Now if driving cabs could be put into the middle of an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) set, some interesting things could be done with the country end of Paddington services ... split at Castle Cary for Weymouth and Taunton / Exeter, at Swindon for Cheltenham and Westbury, and at Oxford for a Hereford express and a  Worcester stopper.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Splitting an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) into two would be straightforward. Gluing them back together would be more exciting. It'd only take a couple of days for them to be in random order, whereupon you'd end up with two power cars in the middle of the set.

Look at the order of the coach letters on a Virgin / CrossCountry / East Midlands double set.

East Midlands manage the manic state of affairs where a double-length set will stop at Leicester, but only the front half will stop at Loughborough. Which makes "the front three coaches" on the Cotswold line seem quite sensible!