Gareth Marston
Established Member
Thought there was Halton Curve thread already?
Being devil's advocate, Runcorn (East) already has an hourly service to Chester (and beyond), and Runcorn (Main) has 3tph electric to Liverpool.
I can't see a vast increase in usage from there with the Halton Curve service.
The draw of Liverpool airport is overdone.
It is not in the same league as Manchester, and a through train service via Runcorn makes it only a fraction more accessible from Chester/North Wales.
You still end up on the circuitous bus from Parkway.
It will be "South Liverpool" which makes or breaks the service, in my view, and through services beyond Chester, none of which will exist at the start.
I realise that Liverpool is quite an emotive subject for some, and yes the city was mentioned, but can I suggest if people want to talk about the imminent catastrophic business case failure of the Halton Curve project (or not, as the case may/will be) perhaps take it to the Halton Curve thread instead?
Diolch ymlaen llaw!
Bulid it and they will come.
Whilst the Halton curve would seem the perfect route for these units (keeps them close to the Northern fleet at Allerton, has a large section of AC electrification, would be easy to keep them captive to one depot so only Chester crew would need to sign them), isn't that line not due to open until December 2018? To be honest, given the hint in the announcements made already, and given its a part of the world already used to 4 car 150s, I'd be amazed if these end up any where other than the Cardiff valleys.
If they are unreliable ATW will find out prior to taking delivery when Northern's units cause chaos by blocking the WCML or block the cross-Manchester line.
Agreed that operationally the obvious place for the 319 Flexs is based at Allerton, but WG are paying around two thirds of the cost and will want them visible where they perceive they are most needed which is the Valleys.
Looking at the longer term, it is the Pacers which will need to go by 2020 so evaluating and gaining experience of them on the Pacer-operated routes makes sense.
Read what the funders (WG/ATW) actually say not media reports Halton Curve is a massive red herring.
The real question is whether they will try and target them on a particular route/particular diagrams or whether they just go into the common user pool. As I said up thread in theory there's 4 daily diagrams they can do and provide extra capacity plus they can free up 4/5 units to strengthen other services.
The other real point of interest is how ATW will target the 158's to be withdrawn for modification. Currently 2 158's overnight in S Wales it seems fairly logical to take these and replace them with 150's displaced by the Flex units and therefore no more 158's will operate in S Wales apart from maybe a couple of Holyhead to Cardiff diagrams as Cardiff Mainline will have to keep traction knowledge as they often have to step up on Marches services when short of 175's.
On those particular routes they will be in ac mode as now.
The answer to both of your questions I suspect is traincrew related. If you make them common user you'll have to train up a lot more staff, and given how few of these units there are, and how close to the end of the franchise we are (after which presumably there are going to be some very large changes taking place) it would make sense to train as few people as possible - realistically that means either just the Valleys crews, just Cardiff Mainline (and keep them on Maesteg, Ebbw Vale and Cheltenham services) or Chester for the Halton Curve.
Take 158s off South Wales and Carmarthen lose competency - meaning you can't use them on Manchester-South Wales services without shuffling things around at Cardiff frequently, and given the size of Cardiff Mainline depot 2 Holyhead diagrams (which incidentally would use 2 units all day) I think wouldn't be enough to keep them competent either. Until a decision is made to commit them 100% to Cambrian and Birmingham-Holyhead services (which hopefully with new stock coming next franchise will be possible) I'm struggling to see a way of freeing up 158s for mods without pinching them from the North.
There is one daily diagram for a 158 that starts in Crewe, finishes in Chester, and spends the whole day away from the Cambrian (it's mostly on Llandudno to Manchester services). Swap that out for a 150 released from the south by a 319 and you have a fairly simple solution.
Maliphant depot, Swansea.Have any 25kV wires been commissioned in Wales yet?
Paddington to Cardiff is supposed to be operational by December 2018.What are the proposed commissioning dates?
Seems unlikely as one of the two lines it connects is not electrified or planned for electrification.Is it now envisaged that work about to start on the Halton Curve will include preliminaries for electrification?
Paddington to Cardiff is supposed to be operational by December 2018.
I wonder how it's possible for these Flex units to match the performance of a doubled 150, when a 150 has two motored bogies (so four on a 4 car doubled train ) and these units only have two?
I wonder how it's possible for these Flex units to match the performance of a doubled 150, when a 150 has two motored bogies (so four on a 4 car doubled train ) and these units only have two?
You never see doubled up 150's there usually Pacer/150 combos or doubled Pacers so the whole tt is based on what they can do not the 150's.
Anyway Heads of the Valleys trains almost roll back down the hill to Cardiff due to line speeds/ stations spaced closely.
I've seen a couple of references to the Class 158s in this thread.
A very quick question - do the Cardiff Canton based 158s have the radio equipment installed like the Machynlleth based 158s do to enable them to operate between Shrewsbury - Aberystwyth and Pwlhelli, or are the Canton based ones kept off that route?
It's a single pool of 158s - there's none based at Canton as such - they all are based at Machynlleth.
A 158 does three days in South Wales, coming down from Shrewsbury on the first train of the day, does the tour of South Wales for three days before heading back up the Marches and eventually back to Machynlleth.
Plenty of doubled up 150s running around
In theory anyway - the set that came down from Shrewsbury this morning is going back north again tonight but given a building has collapsed on to the line near Cardiff things are a little disjointed today!
However next train could be doubled up Pacer/ single Pacer or 150/pacer combo the tt does not assume it's doubled up 150 bit is built around the slowest poorly accelerated option.
However next train could be doubled up Pacer/ single Pacer or 150/pacer combo the tt does not assume it's doubled up 150 bit is built around the slowest poorly accelerated option.
Let's try and stick to the diagrams rather than exceptions!!
It just gets way too confusing otherwise for people to follow!
But will they? A pair of 150s has 1140bhp at engine (4x285bhp). Just how powerful are those engines they'll be fitting to the 319s?By virtue of them having twice as much power going through those bogies presumably? Although it'll make Autumn rather interesting.
I think this might have been said before. But I think it would be better to install a generator pack (something like a Cummins QSK19 gen set) in the trailer next to the toilet and use the gen set pack to feed 750 volts DC into the former third rail system. As I think its going to be a tight fit to shoehorn two small diesel units on the undersides of the driving units .But will they? A pair of 150s has 1140bhp at engine (4x285bhp). Just how powerful are those engines they'll be fitting to the 319s?
By virtue of them having twice as much power going through those bogies presumably? Although it'll make Autumn rather interesting.
Plenty of doubled up 150s running around
True enough - on the valleys at least it's a bit like Northern rail where anything can turn up! Bit more complicated on the mainline though since there are more restrictions on where 14x can go. But yes, the timetables do take that into account.
Fair point! The only reason I know is that I was going to post the 3 day diagram but when I went to check it out realised it's been messed about with today. But yes, suffice to say they come down on the 0610 Shrewsbury-Maesteg, and spend 3 days in the south before returning North on the 20:17 Cardiff-Manchester. The 150s and 153s do something similar in reverse, spending most of their time in the south but coming up north for 3 days (153 via the Heart of Wales) or 5 (150 via the last Marches service of the day in each direction) at a time.
In theory, if enough of these new units end up in the franchise the same thing could be done, with units being used both in the North and the South, but with just the 5 coming initially that seems very unlikely.