GWR Class 800

[ChrisHogan]

Looking at today's performances on RTT, the stand-out problem appears to be station overtime with most journeys having at least one extended stop somewhere in the journey. Bath Spa on the down is an example. As reduced station dwells are supposed to make up for reduced performance on diesel power, GWR needs to sort this out quickly. Only the first day admittedly but a lot of work to do to get back to the 60 second station stops with HSTs at intermediate stations (and no CDL) achieved when they were first introduced. Rail Performance Society reporting 115 mph on the level as the maximum speed on diesel power.

 

[jimm]

Did any lights go out or dim whilst the unit was switching between diesel and electric modes?

No. Transition between diesel and electric is barely noticeable. You can just about feel the diesels being switched on or off.

 

[jimm]

Looking at today's performances on RTT, the stand-out problem appears to be station overtime with most journeys having at least one extended stop somewhere in the journey. Bath Spa on the down is an example. As reduced station dwells are supposed to make up for reduced performance on diesel power, GWR needs to sort this out quickly. Only the first day admittedly but a lot of work to do to get back to the 60 second station stops with HSTs at intermediate stations (and no CDL) achieved when they were first introduced. Rail Performance Society reporting 115 mph on the level as the maximum speed on diesel power.

Platforms at Bath are being lengthened, as is platform 2 at Neath, among plenty of others.

IETs are currently only being used in places where SDO on HSTs is not needed. Were they running on routes with short platforms, where plenty of passengers have had years of practice and know the routine of being in the right part of an HST or Class 180 to get off, I suspect dwell times would have been more on the mark.

I don't know how you think there will be 60-second station stops in this day and age with way more people travelling than in 1976 and many of them carting around ever larger and heavier luggage.

 

[AlexNL]

Sadly the march of hand dryers continues. Paper towels are always the best way of drying ones hands no matter whether it's on train or land!

Dyson Airblades are pretty good though! I looked at buying one for in my home... until I saw what they cost.

 

[Taunton]

I understood the overheight seats installed in GW HSTs, beyond requirements, like the safety notices all around, and the multiple safety announcements, were a particular personal thing of Moir Lockhead about safety, and now he has retired this is no longer an issue.

However, given that the GW had three major fatal HST accidents in recent times (Southall, Ladbroke Grove, Upton Nervet), they did have a particularly unlucky patch, which hopefully is not to be repeated.

 

[D1009]

Sadly the march of hand dryers continues. Paper towels are always the best way of drying ones hands no matter whether it's on train or land!

Not that I noticed.

Well if it spells the end of the roller towel, I'll go with it!

 

[HowardGWR]

Dyson Airblades are pretty good though! I looked at buying one for in my home... until I saw what they cost.

My point about soft tissues (rather than paper towels) is that they are very useful in other ways and will be appreciated by pax, especially parents. I once found myself in a coach loo with too little loo paper but the tissue holder came to the rescue!

 

[samuelmorris]

Is that awful Janine voice there?

Found a nice video (thanks to whoever posted it if they're a member on here):

4m45 for the section you want - this forum software seems to disallow youtube videos as URLs so you can't include the start time.

Can't say I recognise this voice? Is it the one they've replaced the disliked voice found on the 387s with?

 

[Oxfordblues]

On reflection, today's fiasco was quite reassuring for those like me who have been led to believe that the Japanese were so thorough and efficient that nothing could possibly go wrong. And, if it did, whoever at Hitachi was responsible for the shambles would, as a matter of honour, commit harakiri. I'd love to know what the reaction has been among the senior cadres in Tokyo.

 

[Clarence Yard]

I think I can have a fair punt at what happened. The unit having been in testing probably had not been thoroughly cleaned inside for some time & had run with AC off so was given a deep clean last night so it looked good for the press and the government minister.

The floors were still a bit wet and it was musty so someone not unreasonably thought 'er Dave lets stick the heat on so it drys out the dampness....'

I was thinking about that too, having suffered that in a Mk2d set. But they usually pee out the condensate over the luggage rack to gangway area, not over the punters! After seeing that, I used to get the coaches aired before we switched the air con on after drying out.

 

[FGW_DID]

'Fiasco' & 'shambles' are I think, a bit of a melodramatic overreaction! Now if both IETs had come to a grinding halt within 5m of leaving the platform, then maybe justified. Although Hitachi may be Japanese, I think you may have to look a bit closer to home. You can see Hitachi's reaction as the tweeted apology from the Hitachi Rail Europe MD has been linked to on the previous page (or two) back.

 

[D1009]

Looking at today's performances on RTT, the stand-out problem appears to be station overtime with most journeys having at least one extended stop somewhere in the journey. Bath Spa on the down is an example. As reduced station dwells are supposed to make up for reduced performance on diesel power, GWR needs to sort this out quickly. Only the first day admittedly but a lot of work to do to get back to the 60 second station stops with HSTs at intermediate stations (and no CDL) achieved when they were first introduced. Rail Performance Society reporting 115 mph on the level as the maximum speed on diesel power.

Having been from Bristol Parkway to Swansea and back to Swindon today on 1B28 and 1L76 today, yes station dwell times were the biggest cause of delay apart from what has already been referred to. This was particularly noticeable on 1L76 which is busy from Cardiff. I put it down to the length of the train, unfamiliarality, the number of staff who were there to familiarise themselves with the train and the large number of GWR and Agility Trains "suits" around. I'm sure this will improve over time.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Yes, but they have a little bit of time at stations to take longer while they are running to HST times, because they can make use of the door slamming time.

 

[AlterEgo]

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/gwr-class-800-the-first-service-train.155887/

Video in this thread...on board today’s 0600. Enjoy.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

My moves were the 07.00 Paddington - Bristol and 09.30 return and my impressions were:

1) The first class seats are much better than the hard leather ones in the HSTs. they are still harder than I would like, but I am satisfied with them. I have not yet sampled the standard class so cannot comment on those yet. I did however walk through standard during the turnaround at Bristol to have a look at it.

2) Under electric, it moves like fertiliser off an earth turning implement. On diesel it is pretty much the same up to about 45mph after which the rate seems to drop a bit. On the 07.00, we caught up with 180 103 and had to crawl the last 3 - 4 miles into Reading but still got into the platform in a flat 25 minutes. Had we instead had a clean run in, I suspect the timing would have been closer to 20 minutes. That's very good going.

3) The majority of seats do match the windows in both classes.

4) That lime green band in standard is not obtrusive at all. I'd say it actually looks quite nice.

5) I was in a powered vehicle in both directions; the engine noise when on diesel is not particularly noticeable and there is no noticeable vibration either.

Difficult to really find fault with them - they are a worthy successor to the HST.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Dyson Airblades are pretty good though! I looked at buying one for in my home... until I saw what they cost.

The new more conventional ones (Airblade V) are good. The ones you put your hands inside are hopeless and are really unhygienic as it's too hard to avoid touching it.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Agree about the green band but what???? You think that horrible first class layout beats the Leather HST layout?!!!! Wow!! I’m all for 800s replacing decrepid and overrated old slam door trains, the Standard looks much nicer, but I have to admit the GW HST first class is a work of art!!! Yes they are a worthy successor, they just need leather seats in first class and they’d be better than the ancient old HST for certain!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Having done Penzance to Paddington on the HST leather seats in August... yes, I do think the HST leather ones are much more uncomfortable. I was aching heavily before we even got past St Austell. In contrast, much more comfortable on the 800 today for the two stints of about 1h45 each way.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Personally, I don't like leather seats, they are sweaty and sticky. I think the 1st looks really good to me.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

The leather isn’t sweaty, it depends on which person sits there....

 

[Bletchleyite]

The leather isn’t sweaty, it depends on which person sits there....

It isn't breathable unlike moquette.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

I know, but if they gave the seats time to wear in they would be extremely comfortable!

 

[samuelmorris]

I don't much care for leather seats in vehicles. Maybe fine for a sofa and easier to clean, but too susceptible to temperature changes, can be a bit slippery and I don't find it as comfortable. I was never a fan of them doing it on aircraft, fortunately not being a first class traveller I haven't had to experience it on a train yet. So far I'm pleased with what I've seen on here, with the exception of the defects on one of the pairs brought out today, people generally seem pleasantly surprised. I look forward to travelling on one soon.

 

[devonexpress]

They've been testing them for an eternity, it's not as if they've been "shoved" on the rails, literally off the boat from Japan.

Today, whoever's fault it was, was a poor show. I'm sure Hitachi are embarrassed as it's their name attached to the trains

Yes but they have only just gone to the industry approved 5,000 miles. What I suggested would have limited damage to GWR/DFT/AGILITY's reputations. And actually its the same with Aircraft, the A380 had thousands of hours testing by Airbus, when British Airways got its first one, they spend hours on the ground training with it, then sending it on short haul flights for 6 weeks to iron out problems before sending it on its first long haul flight! If GWR had done what I had put, drivers would have been more familiar with the train, and the stop at Taplow like today to put the pantograph up would not have happened.

 

[Clarence Yard]

The 0600 from Bristol didn’t stop to put the pan up. The pan didn’t go up and it wasn’t due to any driver error either. It was one of the many reasons those two sets got pulled on arrival but that was the one fault that could have been lived with as there was enough diesel in the sets to complete the diagram.

 

[Olaf]

"Affected" in what way? In the same way as 800s and 802s, in that some of the material used may potentially have come from dubious batches of metal? Are there lots of bullet trains currently parked in sidings with fractured wheels or something?

Falsely certified material made it's way into the wheel-sets of a batch of bullet trains - I've not seen mention of what happened, but the original report indicated that they were deemed unsafe, and were taken out of service.

It's not usually a good idea to let safety authorities in any industry find out about potential problems through the media... especially when you know they are on the brink of signing off your product for use by the public.

This is a developing story - the vendor was not aware of the problem and was still investigating. From news yesterday, it was reported that other vendors may also have problems. Yesterday's count stood at 500+ customer manufactures affected.

 

[PudseyBearHST]

I'm on the 0700 to Bristol and a announcement just made by the Train Manager saying that there is a boulder on the line between Swindon and Chippenham so will no longer call at Chippenham or Bath Spa. ( presumably to be rerouted)

 

[ChrisHogan]

I don't know how you think there will be 60-second station stops in this day and age with way more people travelling than in 1976 and many of them carting around ever larger and heavier luggage.

60-second stops at intermediate station lasted a lot longer than 1976; the allowance at Newport where I worked for a few months in 1987 was still 60-seconds and I think they lasted into the 1990s until the general slowdown of GW HST services.

I'm not sure of the relevance or accuracy of the luggage comment. When I first worked at Paddington (December 1978) we had luggage attendants (who worked from a little office 'under the clock' on platform one) whose sole job was to weigh and excess passengers' luggage. They lasted until the mid-1980s by which time the revenue they brought in didn't pay their wages. This was after PLA (Luggage in Advance) had been abolished in the early 1980s after we got out of C&D Parcels. In any event London to Bristol is predominately a long-distance commuter operation (like London to Birmingham or Waterloo to Bournemouth) and I suspect the number of people with heavy luggage on either the 0700 or 1900 from Paddn yesterday was minimal.

Virgin regularly achieves station stops of less than 75 seconds with its 390s and pairs of 221s on its West Midland services at stations such as Rugby, Coventry and International, and it ought to be possible for GWR to achieve the same on its Bristol and South Wales services with IEPs. Getting to 125 mph a bit quicker (Hayes instead of West Drayton) won't achieve the journey times promised when electrification is completed.

 

[Japan0913]

Today ran a Class800?

Will not be operational until the problem is resolved?

 

[highspeed990]

No, the "Emperor has no clothes" publicity tries to present this sort of thing as beneficial.

Unfortunately if you want to sit in pleasantly comfortable seats nowadays you have to go into Didcot museum and sit in some of their 80-year old Great Western old stock.

I can definitely agree with this and I'm guilty of complaining about it a lot.

As someone who loves HSTs and often criticises new stock, I am tempted to respond to these teething problems with 'oh well that's modern stock for you', but actually apart from that, from what people have been describing, they're not that bad at all. I've changed my mind about them, give them a chance. This was the first service, problems can always arise.