>>1983873fair point. still, regarding glasgow, i'd imagine directly duplicating the service already offered by Avanti was a no-no, whereas offering a brand-new intercity service to quieter stations, at GU's own commercial risk, was an 'alright then, off you go' kind of thing. like you could argue that's the purpose of a privatised railway, to incentivise that sort of entrepeneurship.
re the trains, the original application was for GU to use 'new build bi-mode rolling stock': presumably another 800, going by the lovely render i found, and hitachi are probably ram-jam as it is. there's also apparently issues with the WCML power supply and the big 'nobody knows' issue around HS2, so, it's a known quantity instead