Wouldn't it be great if Cross-Country took some of the redundant HST's?

[Thunderer]

Wouldn't it be great if Cross-Country took some of the redundant HST's to work key Glasgow/Aberdeen/Edinburgh-Plymouth/Penzance services, freeing up Voyagers to "Double Up" on other busy services between Manchester-Bournemouth/Bristol and Newcastle and Southampton? Very unlikely I know, but it would make perfect sense to ease what is sometimes chronic overcrowding on the core of the XC network.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would be short term help, but what they really need is a fleet replacement with 7x23m bi-modes, the new Bombardier product looks ideal.

 

[bnm]

A short term solution that just delays introducing new stock. 40 year old trains on primary long distance services isn't the answer.

Newly built modern bi-mode trains are what's needed.

 

[Bayum]

Or at least add an extra passenger car.

 

[SideshowBob]

A short term solution that just delays introducing new stock. 40 year old trains on primary long distance services isn't the answer.

Newly built modern bi-mode trains are what's needed.

Short-term or not, I'm willing to bet that the majority of Intercity XC passengers would much prefer an HST to a Voyager any day of the week. In the near future, being stuck on a Voyager knowing that there are HSTs sitting around doing nothing just adds insult to injury! HSTs are proven between Aberdeen and Penzance, there would be no gaugeing issues...from the layperson's point of view, it's got "no-brainer" written all over it!

Are there currently any serious plans for new Intercity stock for XC, either in the pipeline or in progress (i.e. commissioned/designed/ordered and construction commenced)?

Bearing in mind that the above is usually a lengthy process, any short-term use of off-lease HSTs on XC could well be medium to long-term, no?

 

[bnm]

There are no confirmed plans for new/cascaded stock on CrossCountry.

The public consultation questionnaire for the next franchise barely mentioned new/cascaded stock as an option. Far more emphasis was put on tweaking the network and service patterns to better match the rolling stock availability to passenger demand.

Bidders for the next franchise (from December 2019) will of course be able to say what their rolling stock plan is when the submit their bid. The Invitation to Tender from the Department for Transport is unlikely to make specific requirements for new/cascaded stock. It will probably just ask bidders how they propose to run the tendered services with current/future assets. It is up to the bidders to decide if new/cascaded stock will be part of their bid.

The trend in recent bids has been for new stock orders. There's a healthy European market for new rolling stock (Alstom, Bombardier, CAF, Hitachi Europe, Siemens, Stadler), offering modern products at competitive prices, with cheaper running costs, better reliability and excellent safety.

The continued use of HSTs for frontline express and long distance services is short-termism that just delays progress. They are getting very expensive to maintain, parts are becoming scarcer and the reliability is dropping.

HSTs have a continued use on regional services, as is happening in the GWR area and in Scotland. That's a fitting retirement for the better examples in the fleet. Lower speed and less intensive use ameliorates the problems of age.

 

[njamescouk]

majority of Intercity XC passengers would much prefer an HST to a Voyager any day of the week

this passenger would.

 

[Indigo Soup]

Short-term or not, I'm willing to bet that the majority of Intercity XC passengers would much prefer an HST to a Voyager any day of the week.

In general, passengers will prefer a train where they can get a seat to one where they can't. There's every chance that they'd prefer an 8-car (4x2) Pacer to a Voyager - at least the first time it showed up - on a heavily loaded service.

 

[AM9]

With increasing pressures on paths, would HSTs be able to accelerate fast enough not to hog more space than their service justified?

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, yes it would be great. Arguments about "delaying progress" are quite meaningless as the choice is not between cascaded trains and new trains, but but between cascaded trains and no new trains, and cascaded trains are much better than no new trains.

 

[Harpers Tate]

Get a seat and (certainly in my case - and I guess in a proportion of others; those who don't spend the entire trip with their face buried in a phone/tablet/laptop/e-reader/etc) a half decent view out of the windows. They may be 40 years old but the passenger experience in a HST is probably better than in almost anything newer. Newer, especially in the context of our Railway, does not necessarily mean better (from an internal ambience point of view).

At the very least, there should be some urgent re-thinking about how we can use these perfectly good trains to help with stock shortages across the network. This is most certainly not me getting all dewy-eyed about preserving history; it's about questioning the desperation to scrap things that work, when we are short of new things elsewhere. For example (and with no self-confessed understanding of practicalities) how about HSTs split in two, fitted with DVTs and used to subtitute for DMUs on long distance provincial routes which could, with a bit of thought, be pretty much self contained - such as the S&C. I'm sure residents of other parts of the country could imagine their own similar long distance routes as ideal candidates.

 

[irish_rail]

It would be short term help, but what they really need is a fleet replacement with 7x23m bi-modes, the new Bombardier product looks ideal.

I personally wouldn't say they LOOK ideal I think the artist impression looks abysmal. Doesn't look like an intercity train at all , where is the sloping front for heavens sake? Looks are not everything I know but why oh why in this country can we not design iconic trains we can be proud of? Like the HST etc.

 

[The_Train]

I would certainly prefer to have a seat on a HST than be standing in a vestibule on a Voyager as is the case 75% of the time that I've travelled XC recently.

I don't actually mind the Voyagers and can happily travel long distance on them and be comfortable providing I have a seat to sit in. I think that if the sets had been 5 and 6 cars instead of 4 and 5, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

Well I caught the 14:30 from Bristol Temple Meads to Bristol Parkway on the way back to Didcot Parkway (hour earlier than I wanted to - you can guess why) and I sat in seat F4. You can't stretch your feet any further as there is too much legroom ! A mother with a toddler and a buggy going to Birmingham New Street opposite me didn't like the journey coming up (she caught a Voyager) and both her and I think the HST's are better! Sorry but they are.

I think it's worth remembering the MTU engines in the GWR, XC, LNER and 6 EMT Class 43 power cars altogether were new between 2006-2010. So really it makes the trains very modern

Charter trains are used more than once a year and they're way older than HST's.

At the moment, the Voyager's which I've got on with properly since July 2014 are a train for the operator - the HST is a train for the operators and passengers!

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

Regarding the MTU's - I believe one was new in 2004 (then First Great Western '43').

 

[ainsworth74]

Whilst HSTs to CrossCountry could make sense as an interim step before either new (bi-mode hopefully) or cascaded (222s will probably be available before too long) trains can be delivered in the new franchise we do keep running into the wall that is the January 2020 disability compliance. Unless someone wants to spend a lot of money to make them compliant then you won't actually be able to use any cascaded HSTs beyond that date. Plus even if someone does decide to pay for the modifications it'll take quite a while for them to be done considering the existing backlog at Wabtec in Doncaster (still averaging less than a vehicle per month I believe right now?).

Considering that it I can see why the DfT are keen to tweak the timetable to eek out as much capacity as possible prior to the arrival of cascaded or new rolling stock in the next franchise.

So really it makes the trains very modern

It makes the engines modern (though even then I would imagine the underlying design is probably from the 90s) but not the fabric of the trains themselves.

 

[DarloRich]

Wouldn't it be great if Cross-Country took some of the redundant HST's?

Yes. Close thread.

 

[47802]

Well I caught the 14:30 from Bristol Temple Meads to Bristol Parkway on the way back to Didcot Parkway (hour earlier than I wanted to - you can guess why) and I sat in seat F4. You can't stretch your feet any further as there is too much legroom ! A mother with a toddler and a buggy going to Birmingham New Street opposite me didn't like the journey coming up (she caught a Voyager) and both her and I think the HST's are better! Sorry but they are.

I think it's worth remembering the MTU engines in the GWR, XC, LNER and 6 EMT Class 43 power cars altogether were new between 2006-2010. So really it makes the trains very modern

Charter trains are used more than once a year and they're way older than HST's.

At the moment, the Voyager's which I've got on with properly since July 2014 are a train for the operator - the HST is a train for the operators and passengers!

Charter Trains are not used with anything like the intensity of a High Mileage Daily Service, and while the engines may be relatively new the rest of the train is clapped out, added to which there will be the cost of modifying the doors which isn't cheap so the idea of using them as an short term stop gap is unlikely to be a runner, plus at the rate of current progress on this you could be waiting years.

The XC ought to be looking at some new rolling stock for extra capacity and replace the existing HST's but I guess we will see

This is just yet another idle speculation on XC thread to add to the list that have already been on here, and as per usual it goes over the same old ground again and again.

 

[swt_passenger]

What an amazingly novel and almost revolutionary idea this is. I can’t believe it’s never been thought of, or posted on here before.

 

[Journeyman]

No.

Buy something new.

 

[DarloRich]

No.

Buy something new.

While i agree that wont happen overnight. What is needed is more capacity now. The HST is a known commodity with current staff competency and could be brought into service relatively quickly.

 

[tbtc]

Unless someone wants to spend a lot of money to make them compliant then you won't actually be able to use any cascaded HSTs beyond that date. Plus even if someone does decide to pay for the modifications it'll take quite a while for them to be done considering the existing backlog at Wabtec in Doncaster (still averaging less than a vehicle per month I believe right now?)

You and your pesky facts...

It seems a lot quicker to build 800/801/802s than it does to upgrade old trains to something suitable for the 2020s, however inconvenient that is for some on the Forum.

Wouldn't it be great if Cross-Country took some of the redundant HST's?

Yes. Close thread.

Wouldn't it be great if "accessible" HSTs could run Cross-Country paths based around fast accelerating Voyagers (since the XC network is too complicated and dependent upon other TOCs to simply rip the timetable up to suit poorly accelerating trains)?

Well, yes, I suppose it would be great. But we don't live in that world.

What an amazingly novel and almost revolutionary idea this is. I can’t believe it’s never been thought of, or posted on here before.

Maybe the freed-up Voyagers could run a service to Brighto... (no, can't bring myself to say it)

 

[DarloRich]

Wouldn't it be great if "accessible" HSTs could run Cross-Country paths based around fast accelerating Voyagers (since the XC network is too complicated and dependent upon other TOCs to simply rip the timetable up to suit poorly accelerating trains)?

Well, yes, I suppose it would be great. But we don't live in that world.

We could easily live in a world where more HST could be used on XC. It wont happen sadly which means those of us regular passengers have to stand next to a toilet breathing in anothers pooh fumes for 3 hours. but yeah, fast Voyagers. 14 seats. Great.

I am sick and tired of the wonderful Voyagers.They are not big enough. I am sick of sitting in a doorway (if I am lucky) or standing squashed & roasted next to a 'kin bog. Either XC have to price all the students and rail carders off the train or give us more seats. Or preferably both!

 

[gimmea50anyday]

XC are understood to be interested in Mk5 stock. Possibly as part of a new franchise. The problem there is lack of locos to haul or push them around at the moment but a new build will sort that out just as the Mk5 would be a new build fleet

 

[DarloRich]

XC are understood to be interested in Mk5 stock. Possibly as part of a new franchise. The problem there is lack of locos to haul or push them around at the moment but a new build will sort that out just as the Mk5 would be a new build fleet

That's great. How can we fix the capacity issues in the short/medium term?

 

[swt_passenger]

XC are understood to be interested in Mk5 stock. Possibly as part of a new franchise...

According to who?

 

[Doomotron]

Maybe the freed-up Voyagers could run a service to Brighto... (no, can't bring myself to say it)

Quoi?

 

[HSTEd]

It wouldn't be great for Cross Country shareholders

And they are the only people who's opinion matters

 

[Rail Blues]

It seems a lot quicker to build 800/801/802s than it does to upgrade old trains to something suitable for the 2020s, however inconvenient that is for some on the Forum.

Isn't it just. The never scrap anything ever tendency are seemingly obvious to the fact that the 442s, mk3, 769 upgrades are floundering proving to be slow, expensive or unfit for purpose or a combination of the above.

It is a good job the rheum eyed nostalgists didn't hold sway I. The 19th century or we'd still be having discussions about whether we could retraction Rocket and Locomotion no. 1 and how open four wheel carriages could be used as congestion busters.

 

[DarloRich]

Isn't it just. The never scrap anything ever tendency are seemingly obvious to the fact that the 442s, mk3, 769 upgrades are floundering proving to be slow, expensive or unfit for purpose or a combination of the above.

It is a good job the rheum eyed nostalgists didn't hold sway I. The 19th century or we'd still be having discussions about whether we could retraction Rocket and Locomotion no. 1 and how open four wheel carriages could be used as congestion busters.

I will ask again: How do we fix the short term capacity issues faced on a daily basis on Cross Country trains? Buy new trains is the long term answer. What is the short term one?