IEP - Hitatchi making good out of a bad spec?

[Dave1987]

Just been leant the latest copy of Modern Railways by my father and read the article on the mock up of the IEP. It would seem that with a few exceptions Hitatchi are doing the best job they can with a bad spec from the DFT. Seems that station dwell times will not be improved due the the tapering required and the narrow gangways that will result. Also the high floors because of the obsession with bi-mode isn't going to be great for those of us that are taller and the windows also look very low down so another train where you can't see where you are if standing up. I'm still not convinced this highly expensive train is worth the cost. But it does seem Hitatchi has done the best it can with a bad spec from the DFT

 

[BestWestern]

I have no doubt it'll be an adequate train that will plod up and down without drama. It'll be awfully boring, no buffet or fresh air, just rows and rows of seats. Rock hard ones, probably. No point getting up for a wander, nowhere to go, just a stressed trolley person hammering up and down the aisles. The generally pleasant tradition of evening commuters gathering at the bar for a few beers and some putting the world to rights will be long gone, instead they'll all be sat down and subdued into silence like the masses. The computerised voice of Big Brother will churn away, mind numbingly repeating the same message tone-for-tone before and after every stop, any shred of personality through manual announcements safely stamped out. The five car sets will end up rammed at some point, inevitably. Just another average plastic train, devoid of any trace of glamour and designed to make everybody's journey sterile and grey.

Most people are pretty indifferent to train design in my opinion. Rail travel is seen mostly as overpriced and unreliable, local services are like sitting on a bus and intercity stuff is like sitting on a budget aeroplane. The vast majority wont care in the slightest. Shame.

 

[Dave1987]

It was pointed out though due to the length of the coaches that the ends are going to be tapered which means a narrow door to the seated area and a double step to the platform will mean station dwell times will not be decreased. The reason for the steps is due to the high floor caused by the underfloor engines. The aim was to decrease station dwell times over a HST but that is unlikely now with this design. So in the future when the engines are removed when all the routes are electrified you will still be stuck with a high floor train for no reason. Where is the sense in that? Considering these are designed to last 27 years but the wires will all be up on the main routes before that there's potential for 10-15 odd years with a high floor train with nothing below it.

 

[Sheepy1209]

Hatches in the floor for luggage?
'Stowaway' class, for the real budget traveller?
Beer tanks?

All you need is imagination.....

 

[NotATrainspott]

Aren't the floors on Mk3/4 coaches higher than the floors on standard multiple unit stock? I seem to remember there being an internal step up when I was last on one of them.

 

[Aldaniti]

I have no doubt it'll be an adequate train that will plod up and down without drama. It'll be awfully boring, no buffet or fresh air, just rows and rows of seats. Rock hard ones, probably. No point getting up for a wander, nowhere to go, just a stressed trolley person hammering up and down the aisles. The generally pleasant tradition of evening commuters gathering at the bar for a few beers and some putting the world to rights will be long gone, instead they'll all be sat down and subdued into silence like the masses. The computerised voice of Big Brother will churn away, mind numbingly repeating the same message tone-for-tone before and after every stop, any shred of personality through manual announcements safely stamped out. The five car sets will end up rammed at some point, inevitably. Just another average plastic train, devoid of any trace of glamour and designed to make everybody's journey sterile and grey.

Most people are pretty indifferent to train design in my opinion. Rail travel is seen mostly as overpriced and unreliable, local services are like sitting on a bus and intercity stuff is like sitting on a budget aeroplane. The vast majority wont care in the slightest. Shame.

I couldn't have put it any better! Spot on.

 

[Johnny_w]

I have no doubt it'll be an adequate train that will plod up and down without drama. It'll be awfully boring, no buffet or fresh air, just rows and rows of seats. Rock hard ones, probably. No point getting up for a wander, nowhere to go, just a stressed trolley person hammering up and down the aisles. The generally pleasant tradition of evening commuters gathering at the bar for a few beers and some putting the world to rights will be long gone, instead they'll all be sat down and subdued into silence like the masses. The computerised voice of Big Brother will churn away, mind numbingly repeating the same message tone-for-tone before and after every stop, any shred of personality through manual announcements safely stamped out. The five car sets will end up rammed at some point, inevitably. Just another average plastic train, devoid of any trace of glamour and designed to make everybody's journey sterile and grey.

Most people are pretty indifferent to train design in my opinion. Rail travel is seen mostly as overpriced and unreliable, local services are like sitting on a bus and intercity stuff is like sitting on a budget aeroplane. The vast majority wont care in the slightest. Shame.

Without doubt one of the most brilliantly depressing posts I've ever read!

and frighteningly accurate. Top work Sir, My hat is off to you!

JW

 

[starrymarkb]

It was pointed out though due to the length of the coaches that the ends are going to be tapered which means a narrow door to the seated area and a double step to the platform will mean station dwell times will not be decreased. The reason for the steps is due to the high floor caused by the underfloor engines. The aim was to decrease station dwell times over a HST but that is unlikely now with this design. So in the future when the engines are removed when all the routes are electrified you will still be stuck with a high floor train for no reason. Where is the sense in that? Considering these are designed to last 27 years but the wires will all be up on the main routes before that there's potential for 10-15 odd years with a high floor train with nothing below it.

Power doors will reduce dwell regardless. It's why a Sprinter can beat HST timings through Cornwall.

 

[tbtc]

Just been leant the latest copy of Modern Railways by my father and read the article on the mock up of the IEP. It would seem that with a few exceptions Hitatchi are doing the best job they can with a bad spec from the DFT

So, you were complaining a lot about various aspects of them before you'd seen one; now that you are seeing the specifications then you're understanding that the "Voyager Clone" grumblings aren't that fair?

I have no doubt it'll be an adequate train that will plod up and down without drama. It'll be awfully boring, no buffet or fresh air, just rows and rows of seats. Rock hard ones, probably. No point getting up for a wander, nowhere to go, just a stressed trolley person hammering up and down the aisles. The generally pleasant tradition of evening commuters gathering at the bar for a few beers and some putting the world to rights will be long gone, instead they'll all be sat down and subdued into silence like the masses. The computerised voice of Big Brother will churn away, mind numbingly repeating the same message tone-for-tone before and after every stop, any shred of personality through manual announcements safely stamped out. The five car sets will end up rammed at some point, inevitably. Just another average plastic train, devoid of any trace of glamour and designed to make everybody's journey sterile and grey.

Most people are pretty indifferent to train design in my opinion. Rail travel is seen mostly as overpriced and unreliable, local services are like sitting on a bus and intercity stuff is like sitting on a budget aeroplane. The vast majority wont care in the slightest. Shame.

That's probably going to be quite accurate (as others have said).

But most passengers will just want "an adequate train that will plod up and down without drama" - the "bar" idea sounds quaint/ romantic, but these trains aren't going for that market.

They'll have some funky colours somewhere (turquoise grab rails, a pink stripe along the outside, maybe some yellow on the seat covers)... they aren't going to encourage a generation of schoolboys to fall in love with the majesty of rail in the way that an A4 did, such is the modern world.

Aren't the floors on Mk3/4 coaches higher than the floors on standard multiple unit stock? I seem to remember there being an internal step up when I was last on one of them.

That's what I thought - I understood that you are generally higher up in an "Inter City" train (compared to a "local" train) just like you are generally higher up in a coach (than you would be in a bus) - something to do with the vantage point? Or just history? Dunno.

 

[Dave1987]

So, you were complaining a lot about various aspects of them before you'd seen one; now that you are seeing the specifications then you're understanding that the "Voyager Clone" grumblings aren't that fair?

I accept to a point the arguments for brand new stock for the ECML. But with the price tag I expected IEP to have glowing reviews from the experts. But from what I have gathered from reading the article is the Hitatchi have done the best they could do with what the DFT specified. My point is also that because the DFT are determined to have Bi-modes, 10-15 years down the line when bi-modes are no longer needed, you will still have the high floor from the diesel engine but with no diesel engine underneath. To me that makes no sense what so ever.

 

[WatcherZero]

The test of the design will be if they are ordered by choice, if Alliance or another OAO purchases them over other designs then you know the critics were wrong.

 

[Domh245]

Might it be the case that ic stock has higher floors because they have larger wheels. The wheels on pendos certainly seem quite big

 

[gordonthemoron]

whereas the ones on Voyagers seem rather small

 

[TheKnightWho]

I have no doubt it'll be an adequate train that will plod up and down without drama. It'll be awfully boring, no buffet or fresh air, just rows and rows of seats. Rock hard ones, probably. No point getting up for a wander, nowhere to go, just a stressed trolley person hammering up and down the aisles. The generally pleasant tradition of evening commuters gathering at the bar for a few beers and some putting the world to rights will be long gone, instead they'll all be sat down and subdued into silence like the masses. The computerised voice of Big Brother will churn away, mind numbingly repeating the same message tone-for-tone before and after every stop, any shred of personality through manual announcements safely stamped out. The five car sets will end up rammed at some point, inevitably. Just another average plastic train, devoid of any trace of glamour and designed to make everybody's journey sterile and grey.

Most people are pretty indifferent to train design in my opinion. Rail travel is seen mostly as overpriced and unreliable, local services are like sitting on a bus and intercity stuff is like sitting on a budget aeroplane. The vast majority wont care in the slightest. Shame.

I'm pretty sure people have said the same about what you know and love today, and no doubt people said it about them and so on.

I find these things only become depressing if you let them - people want reliability and comfort, they want to get where they're going, and they want to get there quickly. There's no use being sad that people don't like what you like, and it's certainly not fair to say that because they don't that somehow they're just faceless masses with no sense of fun. I mean, what proportion of commuters regularly use the bar on the train to socialise rather than to just get a bit of a drink on the way home? It's easy to romanticise something in your mind, but I've no doubt that in the 1930s very few people were any more bothered about how they travelled by train than people today, as everything's boring when it's routine.

Hell, people complained when the train itself was invented that it was a sad day for society - I'm sure we'll all survive fine with the SET.

 

[sprinterguy]

Might it be the case that ic stock has higher floors because they have larger wheels. The wheels on pendos certainly seem quite big

I'm not sure that's correct: Wasn't 1092mm more or less a standard for wheel diameters in the UK at one point?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

whereas the ones on Voyagers seem rather small

Indeed. The non-tilt 220s feature the lightweight inside frame bogie that has 800mm(?) diameter wheels.

 

[SkinnyDave]

Personally the bit I'm more interested in (The Cab) looks very comfortable!!

 

[route:oxford]

It was pointed out though due to the length of the coaches that the ends are going to be tapered which means a narrow door to the seated area.

The door to the seating area doesn't look very small...

double step to the platform will mean station dwell times will not be decreased. The reason for the steps is due to the high floor caused by the underfloor engines. The aim was to decrease station dwell times over a HST but that is unlikely now with this design.

The dwell times with the HST are due to staff running up and down the platform to close doors.

So in the future when the engines are removed when all the routes are electrified you will still be stuck with a high floor train for no reason. Where is the sense in that? Considering these are designed to last 27 years but the wires will all be up on the main routes before that there's potential for 10-15 odd years with a high floor train with nothing below it.

Why would the engines be removed? They are there to permit the unit to "limp home" should there be problems with the knitting. Also any issues with power supply and the hotel services will keep working too.

 

[rebmcr]

Why would the engines be removed? They are there to permit the unit to "limp home" should there be problems with the knitting. Also any issues with power supply and the hotel services will keep working too.

The full bi-mode version will have many engines; the so-called "electric only" version will still have a single diesel engine under one carriage — thus all but one of the engines can be removed from a bi-mode to produce an "electric only".

 

[IanXC]

The test of the design will be if they are ordered by choice, if Alliance or another OAO purchases them over other designs then you know the critics were wrong.

A recent issue of Rail suggests they're on the shortlist for Hull Trains....

In terms of the floor, my understanding was it would be sloped up, rather than by way of steps?

 

[Dave1987]

The door to the seating area doesn't look very small...



The dwell times with the HST are due to staff running up and down the platform to close doors.




Why would the engines be removed? They are there to permit the unit to "limp home" should there be problems with the knitting. Also any issues with power supply and the hotel services will keep working too.

The article does say something about the ends of the coaches being tapered so the vestibule and door in seating area are quite narrow and the step due to high floor will make dwell times longer than they could be with a shorter coach and a lower floor.

And again the whole point of the bi-mode was that the large Diesel engines used to go off the wires would be removed after the wires are all up with a "donkey engine" for if a dewirement occurs. That would mean you still have the high floor and the disadvantages that brings with a big empty space underneath.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

A recent issue of Rail suggests they're on the shortlist for Hull Trains....

In terms of the floor, my understanding was it would be sloped up, rather than by way of steps?

It's both, step up from platform and an inclined gangway into seating area.

 

[jimm]

I accept to a point the arguments for brand new stock for the ECML. But with the price tag I expected IEP to have glowing reviews from the experts. But from what I have gathered from reading the article is the Hitatchi have done the best they could do with what the DFT specified. My point is also that because the DFT are determined to have Bi-modes, 10-15 years down the line when bi-modes are no longer needed, you will still have the high floor from the diesel engine but with no diesel engine underneath. To me that makes no sense what so ever.

And as I, and others, have pointed out before, if you build small numbers of expensive, high-power, high-accelerating diesel locos to drag electric IEPs around, then in 10 or 15 years' time, you will have a bunch of locos that won't have anything to do... where's the sense in that?

That assumes that someone would finance and build such a thing anyway - because a class 68 is not designed for stop-start cycling up to 100mph and back between stations seven or eight minutes apart, as found along the Cotswold Line - along with all the supporting infrastructure such as depots.

 

[irish_rail]

Personally the bit I'm more interested in (The Cab) looks very comfortable!!

Only somebody who has never driven a HST could say that.....:roll:

 

[47802]

The full bi-mode version will have many engines; the so-called "electric only" version will still have a single diesel engine under one carriage — thus all but one of the engines can be removed from a bi-mode to produce an "electric only".

Yes but its the same design for both trains, my understanding was that the floor will taper down towards the end of the carriages and that the floor will be lower ie it will not ramp up like the trailer carriages in the driving trailers as they don't carry an engine but will have the pantograph.

I also think all the idea that the engines will be removed because its all electrified is a long way off and I think the East Coast will still suffer from non electrified diversionary routes for much of the line throughout the lifetime of IEP, possibly the number of hybrids might be reduced eventually but I think some will be retained.

 

[SkinnyDave]

Only somebody who has never driven a HST could say that.....:roll:

Never driven them true but I've set many a cab up over last year and sat second man side..
Don't think you will get anywhere near as good visibility as you do on HSTs

 

[B&W]

I'm pretty sure people have said the same about what you know and love today, and no doubt people said it about them and so on.

I find these things only become depressing if you let them - people want reliability and comfort, they want to get where they're going, and they want to get there quickly. There's no use being sad that people don't like what you like, and it's certainly not fair to say that because they don't that somehow they're just faceless masses with no sense of fun. I mean, what proportion of commuters regularly use the bar on the train to socialise rather than to just get a bit of a drink on the way home? It's easy to romanticise something in your mind, but I've no doubt that in the 1930s very few people were any more bothered about how they travelled by train than people today, as everything's boring when it's routine.

Hell, people complained when the train itself was invented that it was a sad day for society - I'm sure we'll all survive fine with the SET.

Indeed, people paying through the nose for IEP or commuter travel soon forget or never knew the higher standards of comfort in the 60s and 70s so it will become the 'norm' . People like me who have rediscovered the cheapness, comfort and speed of their car since 377s etc came in will not be using them to complain either so its a win win for everybody. I gave up intercity when the Mk3 in original layout went and gave up using Slovia's withered arm to London after getting too many backaches for the extended two hour plus journeys on 377s.

Brian

 

[GatwickDepress]

Most of my extended family find the 377s provide more comfort than the VEPs and CIGs, curiously including my grandma (rest her soul) who vividly remembered the SR and LB&SCR's carriages!

Comparing modern stock's comfort to a previous generation's expectations isn't helpful at all.

 

[ainsworth74]

It's both, step up from platform and an inclined gangway into seating area.

Like most rolling stock then

 

[Dave1987]

Like most rolling stock then

Indeed but seeing as the industry is under the cosh for getting everything DDA compliant I would have thought this train would have come with level access and possibly a folding ramp to make it easier for staff and less time consuming.

 

[starrymarkb]

Indeed but seeing as the industry is under the cosh for getting everything DDA compliant I would have thought this train would have come with level access and possibly a folding ramp to make it easier for staff and less time consuming.

Problem there is our platforms intrude into the space below floor level so stock has to get narrower. On the continent platforms don't have a lip so it's possible for a train to have a floor level with the platform without losing any width.

 

[cjmillsnun]

Power doors will reduce dwell regardless. It's why a Sprinter can beat HST timings through Cornwall.

It all depends on the doors and how well the dispatch staff and pax deal with doors.

The former SR slammers probably had shorter dwell times than a desiro or 375/377 because the commuters and staff were well rehearsed in making sure doors were closed quickly so the train could get off.

With the power door stock, it would be stop, release doors (and local door), pax open doors, board and alight, close doors, close local doors, rightaway.

With the slammers it was stop, open doors, close doors, quick check by platform staff, and rightaway.

Narrow doors increase dwell times