GWR Class 800

[jopsuk]

Who named the Azuma by the way?

VTEC marketing. I'm sure it was thoroughly focus grouped tested in all key markets

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Since my last post, I still haven't had an answer to the question I asked, other than "contracts and money". Why is the difference between the train going at 100 mph and 125 mph on diesel so significant?

Hitachi takes the risk of trains being out of service (for which they are not paid).
So the contract (which includes maintenance) is skewed towards high reliability, and de-rating the engines is a factor in that.
Uprate the engines, and Hitachi will want more money (for a more intensive maintenance regime and earlier engine replacement).

 

[JamesRowden]

Claire Perry claim confidently that gWr won't have to raise ticket prices to pay the leasing cost of these trains?

A rise in ticket prices should reduce the number sold and so might not produce extra income.

 

[The Ham]

I would also be very careful about reading too much into the current GWR lease charges being low. This is because they do (mostly) their own L5 on the HST fleet, which consequently don't appear in the lease cost line.

That goes both ways though, because that is a separate item if lease costs for the 80x's are significantly higher than that of the HST's that doesn't mean that the costs including maintenance are that much higher than the current.

However neither can you assume that it is a like for like comparison and that GWR are paying significantly less than they should. However newer trains tend to be designed to minimise work required to undertake any given maintenance task (chiefly the Desero's vs the City's the newer trains have a maintenance bill of about 2/3's that of the older units) as if you can't reduce the build costs on a design, build & maintenance contract then if you can reduce your maintenance costs then you can still make more money.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

What calculations has your department done to make Claire Perry claim confidently that gWr won't have to raise ticket prices to pay the leasing cost of these trains? Seeing how expensive the leasing costs are you must have done some calculations or made certain assumptions for her to make that claim so confidently.

Have you stopped to think that if the cost of GWR tickets goes up to "pay for the new trains", the most likely reason is the NR cost increase on electrification rather than the lease cost of the trains?
Somebody will have to pay the increased access charges or the increased interest payment on the NR loans.

Even BR charged extra premiums for new/faster trains on the WCML and ECML when they were electrified (which we continue to pay today).

 

[dubscottie]

Even BR charged extra premiums for new/faster trains on the WCML and ECML when they were electrified (which we continue to pay today).

The ECML electrification was paid for by BR itself with no help from government or loans. (Most of the money came from the sale of vast amounts of land for development. Trackbeds and yards that had been derelict since the 60/70's were sold for retail parks and housing)

It was a joke at the time that BR had to ask the government to spend its own money.

In 1989-92 Intercity gave away thousands of 2 for 1 vouchers through Boots just to get bums on seats due to a recession. (Over a million were used all over Intercity by 1992)

The most expensive London - Edinburgh open return fare in 1990 was £108 (equivalent to £197 today). The cheapest supersaver was £53.00 (equivalent to £96 today).

The today's figures are based on 2% inflation.

 

[fowler9]

After all this discussion I still think the most important thing is that the name Azuma is just going to be pronounced "A Zoomer" in most parts of the country. Concorde may as well have been called "Bottle Rocket". Surely this is the most important aspect!

Can I just add I am just joking, I have nothing against the Japanese connection and think it a nice idea. Just like the car the Nova in South America though, the name just sounds rubbish.

Apologies and to be honest what you call it isn't that important, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

P.S. I think Airbus had the right idea when they called the A380 the A380.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I suppose people are perfectly used to the idea of premium cars being named simply with a letter and some numbers. And they sell well enough.

 

[southern442]

I like the name but I don't like the livery. It looks too much like an advertisement to me.

 

[WatcherZero]

Its been confirmed as not the final livery, just some promotional vinyls.

 

[fgwrich]

There's a few IEP related items in this months Informed Sources from Rodger Ford.

Trains

GWR’s 16 mile long IEP ‘test track’, between Reading and Didcot has top priority. It should have been energised in September last year Energisation and is now scheduled for September this year.

There’s a chart in the column showing the build-up to the 50 IEP daily diagrams in the IEP contract, which leaves something in hand ahead of the 2018 timetable. The first five car bi-mode diagrams become available in June 2017.

Because of the delays to energisation DfT has taken the decision in principle to issue a variation order to Agility Trains West, the train service provider, to deliver GWR’s 21 Class 801 electric multiple units as bi-modes.

Cost
As of now, £2.8 billion, is still the official Anticipated Final Cost (AFC). This is at current prices. While the Treasury is biting the bullet on GWEP, significant cost reduction is essential if electrification schemes are to survive ordeal by Benefit: Cost Analysis in future. GWEP know this and a lot of work is being done on value engineering and improving installation efficiency.

Last week, there were two Virgin events, the catch-up dinner for the railway press mentioned last month plus the launch for the Virgin East Coast IEP fleet at Kings’ Cross. The Virgin livery certainly enhances the IEP’s lines. I was amused by the ‘credits panel’ on the side of the nose which included ‘DfT’.

The big topic at both the dinner and the livery launch was what Virgin can do about the ‘outer-suburban’ interiors which I saw in the GWR IEP at North Pole Depot. Defensive Virgin managers jump in to claim that, unlike GWR, they at least have argued a buffet bar out of DfT.

But they know we are talking about rock hard seats packed into 26m long drab tubes. Coincidentally, also at the Cross was Virgin’s first refurbished IC225 set. And while I think the leather trimmed seats in First Class are a bit ‘boy racer’ compared with GWR’s gentlemanly ‘Jaguar’, getting passengers to see IEP as an upgrade within the constraints imposed by DfT won’t be easy.

It's the last few paragraphs that certainly got my attention...

 

[Philip Phlopp]

Dear Roger, ah, where to begin.

While the Treasury is biting the bullet on GWEP, significant cost reduction is essential if electrification schemes are to survive ordeal by Benefit: Cost Analysis in future. GWEP know this and a lot of work is being done on value engineering and improving installation efficiency.

Yes and no, no and no. It's all about preparation, it's about what happens before electrification begins. 7P applies here more than anything else that we do - Perfect Planning and Preparation Prevents **** Poor Performance.

There's no doubt at all properly installing electrification without breaking signalling systems, hitting power cables or being hit with communities denouncing OLE as the fifth horseman of the apocalypse is important.

There are projects in Scotland which are running beautifully to time and on budget, there are the North West projects which are a little over budget and were delayed by Balfour, and then there's GWep, which had got out of control, but it's looking much more firmly nailed down now.

It's clear re-signalling or detailed signal cable mapping is needed, that more accurate and detailed geotechnical data is needed for piling and that a better High Output train is needed, but that's all things we now know because of experience on the GWML.

Benefit:Cost Analysis is a laugh too - there's a lot of projects out there where the BCR has been low and schemes have been progressed, similarly, sensible BCR ratios have been blown out of the water by the "built it and they will come" model. Borders Rail, Ebbw Vale, Airdrie to Bathgate, Vale of Glamorgan and we're just waiting to see how successful electric services in the North West are, what sort of boost they're providing to passenger numbers.

The benefits of electrification are significant, and the benefits are greater than we initially realised, even if the cost remains higher than we would like, the benefits are much greater than we initially conceded. We must never allow the Department for Transport to push for sub-standard electrification, of low quality structures and equipment, of paired back power supplies and no additional speed or capacity electric trains can make use of.

There's around 1100 single track kilometres planned for electrification in CP6, CP7 and CP8 (announced in the latest Rolling Stock Group publication). Every department within Network Rail will have the best part of 5 years to prepare for electrification of those 1100stk.

 

[Nym]

I'd like to think that the places they will be sitting stationary for any length of time will have semi-decent security measures to keep the ne're-do-wells at bay.

It wouldn't take longer than a station stop to remove them if you knew how...

 

[TheKnightWho]

There's around 1100 single track kilometres planned for electrification in CP6, CP7 and CP8 (announced in the latest Rolling Stock Group publication).

Where can this be found?

 

[dubscottie]

And what is CP 6 etc. I don't employ people that say Q1 etc, so explain it.

 

[jopsuk]

Benefit:Cost Analysis is a laugh too - there's a lot of projects out there where the BCR has been low and schemes have been progressed, similarly, sensible BCR ratios have been blown out of the water by the "built it and they will come" model. Borders Rail, Ebbw Vale, Airdrie to Bathgate, Vale of Glamorgan and we're just waiting to see how successful electric services in the North West are, what sort of boost they're providing to passenger numbers.

Increasingly convinced that BCR is a tool used by Civil Servants and Council Officers to sink projects they don't like or make politically unpopular projects impossible to not support. Fudge the assessment and away we go!

 

[Nippy]

And what is CP 6 etc. I don't employ people that say Q1 etc, so explain it.

Since you asked so nicely.

Network Rails delivery plans are broken into 5 year chunks (known as Control Periods). We are in CP5 at the moment which runs from April 2014-2019, CP6 runs from April 2019-2024 etc.

I'm a mere signalman so I expect someone like PHILIP PHLOPP can explain to far better than I!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Since you asked so nicely.
Network Rails delivery plans are broken into 5 year chunks (known as Control Periods). We are in CP5 at the moment which runs from April 2014-2019, CP6 runs from April 2019-2024 etc.
I'm a mere signalman so I expect someone like PHILIP PHLOPP can explain to far better than I!

Q1/2/3/4 are the quarters of the year, although you can never be 100% sure whether it's calendar year or financial year (starting in April) they are talking about.
The entire commercial, financial and project management world works by these things, and reporting against them affects things like share price movements.
BCR is a tool to gate things in and out of being done, but don't belittle the political impact.
Somebody has to justify the billions spent on rail (as opposed to other things like hospitals, schools and Trident).

 

[Philip Phlopp]

Where can this be found?

http://www.raildeliverygroup.com/what-we-do/publications.html and hit "Long term passenger rolling stock strategy for the rail industry (4th edition)" for the PDF (it might download rather than open, which is why I won't link directly to it).

Section E, Paragraph 44 onwards. It's referring primarily to the updated Electrification RUS, and four schemes and two options which have been planned for delivery in future Control Periods. DfT and Treasury still need to agree on funding, and some other options may be agreed with 'other funders' which will increase the single track kilometres (stk) further.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Since you asked so nicely.

Network Rails delivery plans are broken into 5 year chunks (known as Control Periods). We are in CP5 at the moment which runs from April 2014-2019, CP6 runs from April 2019-2024 etc.

I'm a mere signalman so I expect someone like PHILIP PHLOPP can explain to far better than I!

There's nothing else to explain really, it's as good an explanation as I could provide.

To pre-empt the next questions though:

It's a pretty arbitrary length of time over which to plan mainly improvements, I've heard it said it was to try and take long term planning away from short term Westminster election cycles, to stop local MPs promising station re-openings and better services, that sort of thing.

Five years is reasonable for most major projects, other projects can be split with Key Outputs at various points within the five year control period, if it's a much bigger, longer project, like ThamesLink, Crossrail, GWep etc.

Routine maintenance is relatively balanced throughout each period, though there's always projects like the Severn Tunnel permanent way works which aim to eliminate maintenance on sections of track which have become disorganised and out of sequence.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Then there's the Bowe (or was it Shaw) report which recommends taking long-term projects like electrification out of the Control Period cycle completely, and funded like Crossrail.
Meanwhile, we are very dependent on the next CP6 cycle continuing the funding for these schemes. That is due to kick off mid-2017 with the HLOS.
We just have to hope government finances don't implode before then.
Andrew Adonis's National Infrastructure Commission will also have a role to play - he is a big supporter, having authorised GW and NW electrification when in office.

PS No sooner had I written this, than DfT and NR issued a Memorandum of Understanding on the delivery of enhancements: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...45/mou-dft-network-rail-rail-enhancements.pdf
It doesn't discuss specific projects, but it does post a clear way ahead for things like electrification to be outside the CP process, and driven by a Business Case.

This is now very off-topic, sorry.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

Then there's the Bowe (or was it Shaw) report which recommends taking long-term projects like electrification out of the Control Period cycle completely, and funded like Crossrail.
Meanwhile, we are very dependent on the next CP6 cycle continuing the funding for these schemes. That is due to kick off mid-2017 with the HLOS.
We just have to hope government finances don't implode before then.
Andrew Adonis's National Infrastructure Commission will also have a role to play - he is a big supporter, having authorised GW and NW electrification when in office.

From my point of view, I'd like to see a commitment to, realistically, 250 single track miles per year, maybe 200 stm if it's difficult/challenging work, guaranteed through to 2043.

Baseline for the start of CP6 is for 9,862 single track miles to be electrified approximately (though some won't be complete until during CP6). That leaves 9,475 single track miles to electrify.

Scotland aims for 60 single track miles per year, England and Wales should aim for around 200 to 250 single track miles, equivalent to 1,000 to 1,250 single track miles per Control Period. CP5 aimed for 1,850 single track miles, a target we know we've missed, but 1,250 is reasonable and 1,000 is woefully unambitious.

If we planned for 250 single track miles per year, which is realistic and achievable, together with Scotland's 60 single track miles, we could be getting 310 single track miles per year done, and 100% electrification could be just 30 years away. If only we had that level of ambition.

 

[WatcherZero]

Then there's the Bowe (or was it Shaw) report which recommends taking long-term projects like electrification out of the Control Period cycle completely, and funded like Crossrail.
Meanwhile, we are very dependent on the next CP6 cycle continuing the funding for these schemes. That is due to kick off mid-2017 with the HLOS.
We just have to hope government finances don't implode before then.
Andrew Adonis's National Infrastructure Commission will also have a role to play - he is a big supporter, having authorised GW and NW electrification when in office.

PS No sooner had I written this, than DfT and NR issued a Memorandum of Understanding on the delivery of enhancements: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...45/mou-dft-network-rail-rail-enhancements.pdf
It doesn't discuss specific projects, but it does post a clear way ahead for things like electrification to be outside the CP process, and driven by a Business Case.

This is now very off-topic, sorry.

If a project doesn't get done within its intended Control Period there are financial adjustments made to the grant they get in the next control period (either ORR take away money they would have given them for new projects to penalise them for uncompleted work on the justification they've already been paid for it, or they are required to prioritise the unfinished work before new projects).

Of course the whole system falls down in that Network Rail tells them what they need and ORR reply heres 20% less than you need, find efficiency savings.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

Increasingly convinced that BCR is a tool used by Civil Servants and Council Officers to sink projects they don't like or make politically unpopular projects impossible to not support. Fudge the assessment and away we go!

Cost benefit analysis is a nonsense because it rests on too many shaky assumptions.

However, there is a way of measuring benefits after the project has been built, and that is by working out the aggregate land value uplift. When the Jubilee Line extension was built, it was found to be three times the construction cost.

There is a lot of data on land values (hidden in house prices), and journey times from city centres such as Central London. The technique needs to be refined but it could potentially provide useful forecasts on the value of any infrastructure project.

It also points to a means for paying for these projects by clawing back, through the tax system, some of the land value which they generate. There is nothing new in that idea - it was the Metropolitan Railway's financial model.

 

[RobShipway]

Meanwhile, back to the subject of this thread. Can anyone tell me please how far along the testing of the class 800's are at all please?

Is there likely to be testing done on the GWML between London and Oxford before the end of this year?

 

[Philip Phlopp]

Meanwhile, back to the subject of this thread. Can anyone tell me please how far along the testing of the class 800's are at all please?

Is there likely to be testing done on the GWML between London and Oxford before the end of this year?

Yes, plenty planned, but unlikely to be much if anything around Oxford this year. There's a lot of testing which needs energised OLE to proceed, and there's not much of that at the moment, but that will change closer to Christmas.

 

[leomartin125]

Meanwhile, back to the subject of this thread. Can anyone tell me please how far along the testing of the class 800's are at all please?

Is there likely to be testing done on the GWML between London and Oxford before the end of this year?

Yea sure buddy. GWR have their Class 800 testing done at Old Dalby and frequently run overnight testing runs of these between Old Dalby and Doncaster. Virgin will have similar done when Old Dalby is free and has the room to accomodate more testing. Most of the Class 800 testing is done under diesel power at the moment but once this is completed, the electric testing will most certainly commence. As for testing on the GWML, well an update to the electrification plans recently suggests that it may well be quite a while before any Class 800 units are tested on the GWML under electric power, and since diesel testing is already being undertaken at Old Dalby, the amount of Class 800 testing on the GWML looks very minimal for the forseeable future.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

Yea sure buddy. GWR have their Class 800 testing done at Old Dalby and frequently run overnight testing runs of these between Old Dalby and Doncaster. Virgin will have similar done when Old Dalby is free and has the room to accomodate more testing. Most of the Class 800 testing is done under diesel power at the moment but once this is completed, the electric testing will most certainly commence. As for testing on the GWML, well an update to the electrification plans recently suggests that it may well be quite a while before any Class 800 units are tested on the GWML under electric power, and since diesel testing is already being undertaken at Old Dalby, the amount of Class 800 testing on the GWML looks very minimal for the forseeable future.

Eh ?

..

 

[superkev]

Has the Newton aycliffe factory assembled any trains yet?
K

 

[leomartin125]

Has the Newton aycliffe factory assembled any trains yet?
K

As far as I know, none have been manufactured at the facility just yet but some may be in the process of being made, only Hitachi employees would know.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
As reported in the updated Hendy review, IEP (Class 800) testing will commence on the GWML between Tilehurst and Didcot Parkway in September 2016, I have no idea whether this target will be reached or not but I guess we will see.

 

[jimm]

Yea sure buddy. GWR have their Class 800 testing done at Old Dalby and frequently run overnight testing runs of these between Old Dalby and Doncaster. Virgin will have similar done when Old Dalby is free and has the room to accomodate more testing. Most of the Class 800 testing is done under diesel power at the moment but once this is completed, the electric testing will most certainly commence. As for testing on the GWML, well an update to the electrification plans recently suggests that it may well be quite a while before any Class 800 units are tested on the GWML under electric power, and since diesel testing is already being undertaken at Old Dalby, the amount of Class 800 testing on the GWML looks very minimal for the forseeable future.

What are you on about?

The testing programme is being carried out by Hitachi, not the TOCs.

Testing on the East Coast Main Line is being done on both diesel and electric power, and has included electric running with a pair of five-car sets with both pantographs drawing current - and all without Mr Phlopp's favourite catenary falling down...

As has been stated several times before - including in response to previous posts you have made - the Tilehurst-Didcot section of the GWML is on track to be ready for Class 800 testing this September.

As far as I know, none have been manufactured at the facility just yet but some may be in the process of being made, only Hitachi employees would know.

No, Hitachi employees would not be the only people who would know, as anyone reading the local papers also knows, thanks to an article I found with a quick Google search, published last December, containing the following:

Upcoming Hitachi milestones:

February 2016 – Recruitment stepped up with about 20 people joining every week and testing begins on the first two completed carriages.

Summer 2016 – First full train completed at Newton Aycliffe rolls out of the facility for further testing.

Summer 2017 – First train enters service on the Great Western Main Line.

http://www.darlingtonandstocktontim...ture_starts_at_Hitachi_Newton_Aycliffe_plant/

Hope that's clear enough for you. Please don't keep muddying the waters, however well-intentioned some of your posts might be, if you can't get the basics right.

Further to the extracts from Roger Ford's Informed Sources posted by fgwrich in post 2351 on page 157, I gather from another informed source that the expectation is that there will shortly be a DfT announcement that the GW Class 801s will be built as bi-modes - and that initially at least the engine management system will be set to give full engine power all the time, like the Class 802s, to allow extra oomph for the extra time running on diesel power until the wires spread west of Didcot.