Double deck trains in the UK

I Guess you are gate-line staff ! ????????

Traindesign said:

The units/power cars can be 3rd rail, OHL or diesel

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You couldn't fit a double deck train under current wires, which would restrict services to "Southern Region" only.

It might work on a self contained railway, but the trains involved would be stuck there, with no scope for cascades anywhere else. Still not convinced, sorry.

Traindesign said:

Well it works as the DFT will tell you, there will be a mock-up in the near future

to back this up, 6,6 headroom on both decks...

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Hi there,
I'm fascinated as to how you've got this headroom and you say it fits in C1 Gauge.
Roughly 6'6" headroom with some thickness for the metal floor & roof is about 200cm.
200cm time 2 is 400cm.
C1 Loading Gauge is 3.91m from railhead to the carriage apex.

To get sufficient height clearance you're going to need a UIC loading gauge. And of course, virtually none of the UK track, bar HS1 and probably HS2, are built to that type of design and there are many double decker variants that fit in this already.


Of course, you say you've got something new. I'm happy to accept that people come up with new ideas so I look forward to seeing how you've done this...
Perhaps you might have borrowed an idea from Mr O Bullied and arranged to use the space under the seats themselves for additional headroon and space...?

Can't wait to see your ideas on what at first glance does appear to be an insoluable matter...
Jason

Well im not sure if im "the" Bob Clark, ive been playing with this project for quite a while and have spoken to a fair few people. The design has changed over the years to accomadate the many issues which were raised by both TOC's and the DFT. What has come out of this is a workable solution which can be used for high volume inner London or fast/semi fast serices together with a part passenger part frieght/parcel vehicle. The reason for posting on here is just to get the word out as i seem to have lost most of my contacts over the last few years since i basicly buried the project due to lack of interest by the powers that be!
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Olivier Bullied did his best with what was available, this is a totaly new concept bourne of 16 years testing and fixing design faults on other manufacturers rolling stock.
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tbtc, you dont need to be convinced !!! If it fits C1 it will run below or with wires.

Traindesign said:

No this train runs within C1 gauge so no problems.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but C1 loading gauge is 13ft 1 high. With 6ft 6 headroom, that would have the bottom of the lower-deck 'well' skimming along 1in above the sleepers. hock: I'm not doubting that you can do it, I just can't quite get my head around the idea. Probably my misunderstanding.

Could work, some suburban services on the continent are duplex utilising low floor bogies designed originally for trams, limits the max speed heavily but does improve the room available considerably.

You are not far out, C1 static gauge is 12ft 9 1/2 inches above the rail to the highest part of the roof. The space is created through cunning!!

Anyone else recall those double decker busses whose upper deck was staggered?
The downstairs seating was as usual, 2+2 format with a central gangway, but the clever bit of the design was upstairs.
The upper gangway was along one side (not in the middle of the bus) and was in a 'well' which was about 300mm lower than the rest of the upper floor (where the seats were bolted).
The fact that the gangway would drop into headspace below didn't matter because it was along the side where the seats were and even when people were getting in and out of their seats, they's stoop slightly.
Similarly, passenger upstairs would step up, out of the gangway and move along the bench seating in a slightly stooped position.

The benefits included: a lower headroom for bridge clearances, less material to construct the bus, lower centre of gravity to assist balance on bends.

The upshot is, there are ways of providing passenger headroom in the gangways which, if they are not above each other, don't need to be added together to reach the total vehicle height. Is this of any help?

Sydney's double deck trains max out at approx 4.4m, and even then that's smaller than european gauge (suburban cars being 20m x 3m width, the intercity trailer cars 24m x 2.9m). Doors are ± 1100mm off the rail.

Why not check out the DfT report from 2007...

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.dft.gov.uk/about/strategy/whitepapers/whitepapercm7176/railwhitepapersupportingdocs/provevalddtrains.pdf

DaveNewcastle said:

Anyone else recall those double decker busses whose upper deck was staggered?
The downstairs seating was as usual, 2+2 format with a central gangway, but the clever bit of the design was upstairs.
The upper gangway was along one side (not in the middle of the bus) and was in a 'well' which was about 300mm lower than the rest of the upper floor (where the seats were bolted).
The fact that the gangway would drop into headspace below didn't matter because it was along the side where the seats were and even when people were getting in and out of their seats, they's stoop slightly.
Similarly, passenger upstairs would step up, out of the gangway and move along the bench seating in a slightly stooped position.

The benefits included: a lower headroom for bridge clearances, less material to construct the bus, lower centre of gravity to assist balance on bends.

The upshot is, there are ways of providing passenger headroom in the gangways which, if they are not above each other, don't need to be added together to reach the total vehicle height. Is this of any help?

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I was thinking of those earlier - glad you reminded me!

They got round the height problem by a "side" gangway, as you say, which meant a "bench" of four people - not the kind of thing which will go down well with passengers in 2010!

Such lopsided coaches seem a good "space saving" idea, but if passengers resent "3/2" seating then they're really not going to like benches of four seats in a row!

Exactly what I was thinking 6'6" headroom on the aisle but not above the seats. In some ways it's just the Bulleid design turned 90%, although the compartments of Bulleid's design must have reduced dwell times compared to saloon double deckers

Go to the top of the class !! You are half way there.

I don't really understand the argument about slow loading times. I have seen Double Decker trains literally suck up passengers like a vacuum on the continent.

Might help that that the trains have wide doors and large "mid-level" vestibules. Everyone filters up and down the wide stairs, depending on where the space is! It wouldn't take that much longer than a single deck train

That's right, they have the width to allow fast alighting and boarding. The designs sound interesting, I look forward to seeing them.

A good approach is to have a few exit only doors too !!

tbtc said:

Capacity would be nothing like "double", given the space needed for stairs etc.

Would it be worth doing for a 50% capacity increase and longer "dwell" times?

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True about allowing space for stairs. However, you probably would have less toilets on a 4 carriage double decker over a 8 carriage single decker. If they are multiple units there could be seating above the driving cabs to compensate for the space required for stairs.

DB tend to use some longitudinal seating on lower decks of their double deckers, which obviously increases standing space but lowers the number of seats.

I don't know about the longer dwell times. Each type of unit we have in this country has a different door arrangement and their advantages vary depend on what type of service they are being used on. 142s and 156s are commonly classed as being in the 'longer dwell time' category, while 150s and 170s are commonly classed as being in the opposite category, so would a 170 type door arrangement on a double decker be any worse than on a 142 or 156?

jcollins said:

If they are multiple units there could be seating above the driving cabs to compensate for the space required for stairs

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That'd be great for taking pictures from - great observation point
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Greenback said:

That's right, they have the width to allow fast alighting and boarding

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True, but wide doors eats into seating capacity (as well as the space for stairs - which would presumably need to be fairly wide to suit UK legislation).

Passengers would not be permitted to be right at the front of the vehicle and in the crumple zone.

Traindesign said:

Passengers would not be permitted to be right at the front of the vehicle and in the crumple zone.

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Awwww!
There goes one excellent Unique Selling Point at a stroke! (Tho I think most of on here are aware (to some extent) of the requirements for a passenger-free leading area post the Polmont cows incident).

Something I've been mulling over is the allocation of available volume within the envelope of a rail vehicle across its various resources. These obviously include the payload (passengers or freight cargo) but also include very many other bulky components (fuel tanks, engines, batteries, compressors, alternators, toilet retention, water tanks, radiatiors, coolant circuit, air tanks, exhaust management, transformers, electrical distribution & control, hotel services, door mechanics, aircon heat exchangers etc.) plus all the volume that is required to be clear of the bogies' movements.
Now in recent rail vehicle design, much of the available space below the "floor level" has been allocated to these resources, to the extent that its pretty well optomised as it is.
Any new design hoping to lower the passenger floor is simply going to have to re-locate those resources elsewhere higher up. And that's going to be within the payload area. However, some of these resources can't just be relocated anywhere - they need to be accessible, related in height to their facility (gravity flow eg toilets) and related to the environment (radiators & exhaust).

So my first though is: is there really any net gain in volume by expanding the payload carrying element of the vehicle whilst redistributing other resources? And secondly: are the services which are currently underfloor (though at head height from trackside in a depot) going to be readily accessible for tanking and maintaining vehicles?
I can see that this is feasible with container freight (loco hauled) but am struggling to find much available volue to re-distribute within passenger stock, particularly diesel powered stock with toilets, aircon and high battery capacity.

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Okay Traindesign, maybe you are right to keep your drawings to yourself at present, but if you want to continue receiving serious (professional or amateur) assistance from this forum, I think you could at least identify yourself to us now so that we know who we're 'giving' our collective expertise to (after all, it can't be in your commercial interest to have us contributing anything crucial to your Intelectual Propert on a public forum before you attempt to establish copyright). Can you agree?

tbtc said:

True, but wide doors eats into seating capacity (as well as the space for stairs - which would presumably need to be fairly wide to suit UK legislation).

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I know, I was referring to the width of the stairs and gangways between the seats that allow people to move around inside the train easily, even with bags. I don't think the doors on the double deck Italian trains we were on in October were any wider than those on a 150, or at least they didn't seem to be.

There's also the difference between high platform countries, which usually place the doors over the bogies on a mezzanine deck, and low platform countries, where they usually lead straight onto the lower deck. Direct boarding onto the lower deck actually speeds things up when compared to a climb up to a single-decker on a 3ft ladder, at least from my experience of Swiss trains. I don't have much experience when comparing with high-platform countries, at least not under the same conditions, but I can imagine a negative impact on the length of station stops. A reduction from ten doors per side (4-EPB) to two per side (455) doubled or trebled station dwell times on the Southern. I would imagine something similar.

Pity we can't have double-decker platforms as well.

To the original poster: Are you a structural design engineer or are you involved in concept design? What I mean is, to what level of detail are you personally designing? Are you stressing the geometry or involved with packaging of systems, etc? What CAD system are you using.

Excuse all the questions - I'm a rolling stock engineer and on top of that experience, have about 11 years of design work myself using CATIA and ProEngineer. I still use CATIA now in my current job.

But to answer your question, double-deck trains - I'm not sold on the idea. Unless you have a large loading gauge to work with, it's too compromised in my opinion. That's not to say it can't be done as you are alluding to - but with what success? I've been on duplex TGV's and even with their massive loading gauge it feels more claustrophobic and less airy - also has less luggage space PER PASSENGER which is a flaw on long distance trains I think. So with a small gauge like C1 - I think it'll be unpopular with passengers for any journey of any great length. Also what about disabled and parent/buggy access?

Has it got many more doors than a conventional train? Are you using saloon end doors or 1/3 and 2/3 double sliding leaf doors?

Are the bogies a particularly small and compact design? Is it a multiple unit? If so how are the traction motors, and underframe equipment located? Fuel tanks and engines for diesel or transformers, inverters and rectification equipment for electric? And how would you cool it all in such a small environment? Does it have airbag suspension? Where are the air conditioning units located? Are they on the roof like a desiro? Are the coaches of a fairly standard length or are you using articulation to keep the bogies out of the way of the seating section?

If it is to be articulated, that has advantages, but also disadvantages such as kinematic gauging which would be an issue especially on Southern region.

Anyway, it's an interesting idea - like other posters though, I'd like to see more than vague comments - any engineer uses diagrams and drawings to communicate an idea better than words. All the best engineers start a description with "Here, give us a pen..."! Of course, you can't do that here on this forum, but I'd like to see some more meat on the bones of the idea. You may be concerned that you're bound by some patented idea, but I wouldn't worry about that - it's clear that we haven't come up with whatever idea you are talking about.

Or are you concerned that your superiors will be disapproving of sharing the information on a public forum - if so, then I'd tread carefully if you value your job!

Either way - it's an interesting idea... I'll watch this space with interest.

Aye, persoanlly, if the launch is so far away, I wouldn't be chatting about it on a public forum. I NEVER discuss development products outside of my company.

Traindesign said:

The design is very innivative as it needed to be, it will operate without any changes to platforms, bridges, tunnels or track circuits.

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I believe this design was patented several hundred years ago...............

Em, i dont think there is a conflict with the patent !!!!!

moonrakerz said:

I believe this design was patented several hundred years ago...............

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oh come on at least get it right, thats the sleeper

An interesting thread this for me as I sketched my own a few years ago just to see what could be done.

I would postulate that if this were to be a DD coach with gangways throughout, and to provide the headroom you suggest, the gangways would have to be offset in some way.

12ft 10in from top of coach to rail. I am intrigued as to what your designs will be.

Yes your right, 3912mm doesnt leave much scope to work with from a DD vehicle point of view. My mission was to created a light airy space which will be pleasent to travel in unlike the Bullied design, ok to be fair to him he did his best with the scope that was available in 1949 ! My design uses platform height main vestibules with a mezzanine floor, the vehicles are 90ft with a DLR type joint in the centre. As mentioned before this has been looked over by several key people from the DFT and Lloyds. There will be a mock-up before Easter and im hoping to get it to Railtex.

The only comment that I would make is about the seating. 4 or even 5 seat benches are ok providing that you can easily get from the window to the gangway when the other seats are all occupied. This works if the seats are facing and back, but not if they are airline style.