I doubt that we will see any significant improvement for some years, if ever.
Almost any shortcoming can now be blamed on the pandemic "stop complaining, you are lucky to get a train at all"
In the longer term, a future operator MIGHT add a buffet, or fit padded seats, or even extend some of the half trains to full length. Seems very unlikely in the near term.
Downgrades are generally permanent.
No space for a buffet in a 'sardine midget' 5-car set...
If you ask me they should have had padded seats and plug doors from new (no chance of fixing the latter mistake now) and a minimum of 7 coaches per set with none of this portion working the 5-car units were built to do. However, there is a possible silver lining; the class 220, 221 and 222 fleets will need replacement sometime in the late 2020s or (more likely) early 2030s. When Oxford, Swansea and Bristol were expected to be wired by December 2019 the 21 9-car
IEP▸ trains were all going to be class 801s (that averages out at 7 units each for the three destinations). If I recall correctly, 7 class 802s were ordered when it was announced that electrification to Oxford would not be completed in
CP5▸ . Thus, I expect delivering the missing electrification to Bristol Temple Meads and Oxford would allow
GWR▸ to introduce 14 class 800 derived
EMUs▸ and release 14 bi-modes to CrossCountry.
I understand the power-to-weight ratio of the current class 800 trains in diesel mode is not up to the job of replacing high-performance diesel trains such as the Voyagers. However, I see that as an opportunity to address the issue of too many 5-car sets without wasted vehicles. Instead of building 14 new EMUs for GWR, you build 98 intermediate coaches (no cabs) to replace the centre cars from 14 class 800s (which would go into 14 other units, making 14 8-car units with six diesel engines for
XC▸ ). 28 class 800 5-car bi-mode units would thus become 14 8-car bi-modes for XC and 14 9-car EMUs for GWR.
