While looking at changes from December I noticed that a Cl.80x is booked to do an evening round trip between Bristol Parkway and Weston SM.
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What I hadn't previously spotted is that one is currently working a the above trains vice an XC▸ service - not sure if the use of a Cl.2 headcode is meantegional to mean anything ?
Not sure why this particular pair seem to be the only train nationwide that is being covered by a different TOC▸
I have not looked at the detail, but I can make an educated guess at the principle.
Cross Country run long distance trains, but passenger journeys on them are very often regional or even local, especially in some patches. Long distance travel is decimated and cross country trains overmuch thinned, but shorter journeys relatively robust, which means that gaps have been opened as services were planned forward.
Two specific areas / journeys strike me - the Bristol / Taunton run, where Cross Country trains have formed a decent express, and Cardiff to Bristol where the morning peak Cross Country train from Cardiff to (?) Scotland brought a flood of passengers into Temple Meads. There is logic in filling in significant commuter gaps loclally, and 80x availability to do so - either using a set that might in other times have been a "super fast" or even splitting a 10 car for a quieter part of its diagram.
Class 1 - long distance trains, given signalling priority to reduce delays and minimise cross-regional knock on issues. Class 2 - more local trains. A fill in train within a region to replace a long distance train is naturally a class 2 not a class 1.
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