GWR Class 800

[irish_rail]

Jimm continues to moan that those of us in the southwest feel entitled to proper length trains . It is not a fair comparison comparing penzance to London with a cotswold journey or even a Cheltenham. Yes 5 cars might be fine on these routes off peak but on very long distance services like penzance ,5 cars of uncomfortable train is a real let down , and at least on a 9 or 10 car it gives the long distance passenger a chance to stretch out and at least attempt to get comfortable in the abysmal seating. With 5 car sets the chances are u will lose personal space and the journey becomes even more uncomfortable on the woeful seating.
If Swansea is to get 9 or 10 car trains all day which run virtually empty from Cardiff to Swansea i see no reason why Cornwall on GWRs longest route shouldn't expect the same.

 

[MatthewRead]

I thought the 802's did have different seats aren't they more firm than the 800's plus they have the GWR upholstery.

 

[irish_rail]

If they had a different interior the DfT would not have approved the 802 sets for GWR.

They were totally obsessed about the interiors on the 802 sets being exactly the same as what they had specified for the 800 sets.

Such a shame the seating and 5 car composition of sets is woefully inadequate for proper long distance services. I wonder how long before changes are made.......

 

[fgwrich]

You got the nail on the head...
Those crying out for a 'proper buffet' and more tables clearly don't travel with GWR that often...
There isn't the capacity of the need for these, trains to Bristol/Cardiff are too busy, and there isn't a need for such short journeys.

Out of interest, when was the last time you had to commute on such a train? I do. And I often find myself speaking to the catering staff on these trains. One of their biggest received complaints, by the travelling public not "Misty eyed HST enthusiasts" is where is the buffet car? Even VTEC managed to arm wrestle the DfT into the compromise of the small onboard shop. The HST buffet cars were well used on peaktime services out of Padd on the majority of services I used last year, now we are restricted to the frankly p*ss poor offerings crammed into the trolleys. And even then the layout for the staff is poor, with the trolley stowage area at the end of one car, with the stores at the far end of another coach.

What should have happened, and if First had bothered to look into it's own history on the GW Franchise, was to arm wrestle the DfT into a small shop / trolley buffet area for the 800s aka as per the Mini Buffets, and a slightly larger effort for it's own longer distance units. Sadly we are now stuck with the poor comprise of a trolley for the majority of the services - unless, by some miracle, GWR decides to bring back something on the lines of the well used and once popular Travelling Chef. But given onboard catering that takings are down - who'd have thought that, I doubt it!

Blame First group for that.
IMO the 802s should have had a different interior, to take into account the longer journey times.
Basically the 80x is a jack of all trades train, and because of that it is a compromise.

The jack of all trades, and the master of little - It's a train that aims for a lot and still, in my opinion and others, misses fairly highly. Of course the next biggest compromise GWR will have is the use of the 800s on the Bedwyns - an area which is not First Class ticketed.

Jimm continues to moan that those of us in the southwest feel entitled to proper length trains . It is not a fair comparison comparing penzance to London with a cotswold journey or even a Cheltenham. Yes 5 cars might be fine on these routes off peak but on very long distance services like penzance ,5 cars of uncomfortable train is a real let down , and at least on a 9 or 10 car it gives the long distance passenger a chance to stretch out and at least attempt to get comfortable in the abysmal seating. With 5 car sets the chances are u will lose personal space and the journey becomes even more uncomfortable on the woeful seating.
If Swansea is to get 9 or 10 car trains all day which run virtually empty from Cardiff to Swansea i see no reason why Cornwall on GWRs longest route shouldn't expect the same.

I fully agree with you. Having seen the result of last Saturday nights issue, 5 cars on the last Plymouth is not acceptable and will not be a ideal vision for the future.

 

[Geoff DC]

Big Gains for Flybe Newquay/Gatwick I predict

 

[43096]

If they had a different interior the DfT would not have approved the 802 sets for GWR.

They were totally obsessed about the interiors on the 802 sets being exactly the same as what they had specified for the 800 sets.

Always someone else's fault in the railway industry, isn't it? No-one ever takes responsibility.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Well that is how the DfT works. If you want their business, you can argue and there was quite a bit of that on the interior of these units and if FG had a free hand, it would have been very different but at the end of the day, you have to abide by their choices.

They really shouldn’t be determining interiors of stock, either directly or indirectly.

 

[Mintona]

It would be nice if we could wait until all the trains are in service and the new timetable implemented and bedded in before judging too much. Of course it won’t happen. But I’m very confident that the trains will be long enough when they need to be, once they are all here and actually running.

Complaints about 5 carriage trains to the west country seems premature when it’ll probably be a very rare occurrence that it actually happens.

 

[Rob F]

It would be nice if we could wait until all the trains are in service and the new timetable implemented and bedded in before judging too much. Of course it won’t happen. But I’m very confident that the trains will be long enough when they need to be, once they are all here and actually running.

Complaints about 5 carriage trains to the west country seems premature when it’ll probably be a very rare occurrence that it actually happens.

You’ve got to admire an optimist!

 

[irish_rail]

It would be nice if we could wait until all the trains are in service and the new timetable implemented and bedded in before judging too much. Of course it won’t happen. But I’m very confident that the trains will be long enough when they need to be, once they are all here and actually running.

Complaints about 5 carriage trains to the west country seems premature when it’ll probably be a very rare occurrence that it actually happens.

Yes but what the west Country needs is 9 car sets , not all these unreliable pairings. Today for example 1C04 left london 40 late as one half of the pairing was causing trouble / unavailable.
I absolutely dread the day we begin coupling and uncoupling 5 car sets in Plymouth station on route to penzance. This WILL increase journey times and create an overall worse experience for customers. I can't see the "Plymouth shuffle" from rear 5 to front 5 going down well with passengers. My own observations this week from so called normals are complaints about the seats and lack of buffet . Passengers headed for the South West are a different breed and (rightly) expect a higher degree of overall journey experience.

 

[JN114]

Yes but what the west Country needs is 9 car sets , not all these unreliable pairings. Today for example 1C04 left london 40 late as one half of the pairing was causing trouble / unavailable.
I absolutely dread the day we begin coupling and uncoupling 5 car sets in Plymouth station on route to penzance. This WILL increase journey times and create an overall worse experience for customers. I can't see the "Plymouth shuffle" from rear 5 to front 5 going down well with passengers. My own observations this week from so called normals are complaints about the seats and lack of buffet . Passengers headed for the South West are a different breed and (rightly) expect a higher degree of overall journey experience.

I’m sure as soon as more than 1 9 car 802 has been delivered they’ll quickly find themselves onto the West of England services they were built for....

 

[fgwrich]

Complaints about 5 carriage trains to the west country seems premature when it’ll probably be a very rare occurrence that it actually happens.

But, the exact same thing was promised for the current crop of 800s and low how often that has been happening. Many a peak service has found itself being formed of 5 instead of 10 cars. Yes, for some of the former turbo routes this is better, but not for IC routes such as Bristol / Cardiff and Swansea.

And yes, while most of the West Country services are supposed to run as 10 car, it’s not the first occurrence where we’ve seen a 10 car set run with only 5 in use this week. This is the problem with trying to show-horn passengers from longer trains to shorter, more frequent trains. As operation Princess infamously taught us, it doesn’t work as easy as you think it should. As for the splitting and joining, the Dft continuously sights the Southern as a perfect and prime example. The key point there is that the Southern have been doing this for years, and their have nearly always units have through corridor connections for passengers and staff alike. They are not the Western or Eastern regions, where one guard or TM will operate one full fixed length train in service (aka issues surrounding the crewing and operating of the 2x5 car). What happens in the future, when you’ve got 2x5 to Penzance and say, your missing that second staff member or there’s a technical fault with one of the units, or non availability of the second unit. Do you run it as a full and wedged 5 car to Plymouth, do you run it all the way to Penzance?

I wholeheartedly agree that more 9 car sets should have been ordered, but First Group seems more concerned about pleasing the Dft than listening to it’s own staff and customers at the moment.

 

[Mintona]

Yes but what the west Country needs is 9 car sets , not all these unreliable pairings. Today for example 1C04 left london 40 late as one half of the pairing was causing trouble / unavailable.
I absolutely dread the day we begin coupling and uncoupling 5 car sets in Plymouth station on route to penzance. This WILL increase journey times and create an overall worse experience for customers. I can't see the "Plymouth shuffle" from rear 5 to front 5 going down well with passengers. My own observations this week from so called normals are complaints about the seats and lack of buffet . Passengers headed for the South West are a different breed and (rightly) expect a higher degree of overall journey experience.

I’m fairly sure the majority of the 5 coach 802s were ordered for Bedwyn and Cotswold duties, to replace 180s and Turbos. Whilst there will be the odd occasion of pairs working to the south west, I imagine by far and away the majority of south west trains will be the 9 carriage versions. It’s difficult at the moment as only 1 has actually been built and accepted into traffic. Once the other 13 are here, that’s the time to judge.

In addition, I’ve never seen anything official about splitting and joining at Plymouth. Plenty of talk of it on this forum, but honestly nothing official that I can recall. It may happen on the odd service but I don’t think it’s going to be the regular catastrophic event that certain posters think it will be. I think trains for Penzance will be almost all formed of 9 carriage sets, with the odd 10 car making it down there too, particularly in the busy summer months.

 

[Mintona]

But, the exact same thing was promised for the current crop of 800s and low how often that has been happening. Many a peak service has found itself being formed of 5 instead of 10 cars. Yes, for some of the former turbo routes this is better, but not for IC routes such as Bristol / Cardiff and Swansea.

I did say once all the fleet has been delivered. Even with the Class 800 fleet there are still 2 five carriage trains and around half of the nine carriage trains not yet in service. During this transition phase it is difficult because there isn’t yet the resilience in the fleet to cover any short notice problems. As more and more trains become available this should be less of a problem.

I’ve noticed that in recent weeks the number of trains running 5 vice 10 seems to have dramatically reduced. Pretty much since 800003 and 800004 became available and meant Hitachi had two spare sets available each day, rather than trying to get 32 out of 32 into daily service.

 

[Master29]

I thought the Daft had nothing to do with the 802`s. That can`t be used as an argument. If most of the 5 car are meant for the Cotswold routes then why were 22 ordered for the West of England in the first instance?

 

[JN114]

12x 9 car 802s should - on paper - be sufficient to run Paddington to Penzance hourly within the current first and last trains to/from Penzance (infact on a very basic timetable I sketched up you even get an earlier Paddington to Penzance departure at 0600); plus various start and end of day fill in duties to/from Plymouth to better utilise the sets. If you can get it down to 30 minute turnarounds at each end you can already get it down to 11 sets.

In practice I suspect there will be one or two 5+5s diagrammed on West of England fast services, whether or not they make it over the bridge 5+5 is another question; but as our learned Paddington colleague as already said the current operation of neither the 800s or 802s is really representative of the final deployment. Almost all HSS division routes see a doubling of frequencies under the new timetable proposals, certainly in the off peak. If that’s achieved by a 5-802 semi-fast to Plymouth being chased down by a 9-802 Fast Penzance you’ve still effectively doubled capacity between Paddington and Plymouth.

 

[CMRail]

We only get nine cars up in Gloucester, no ones complaning!

 

[irish_rail]

THere maybe nothing official but the 9 car 802s were ordered for the Oxfords, the Exeter semi fasts and for strengthening the odd swansea/bristol
The plan is very much for pairs of 5s on almost all services between padd and Plymouth, not 9 cars at all which will barely see use west of Exeter. Maybe Clarence yard can back me up on this one??

 

[Clarence Yard]

The 9 car 802 sets were ordered for a variety of duties, not just for the SW. The DfT made a mess of their order as it proved to be inadequate for the passenger flows so, in their GWML scheme, some 5 car workings had to become 9 or 10. This added more 9 GWML car sets to the original SW build. Then came the electrification debacle on the Oxfords and the wish to put 5 cars on the Bedwyns so an extra 7 x 9 car units were ordered to enable that shuffle round of stock.

Regarding the Cornish half hourly service, the base (not high summer) timetable has 5 cars west of Plymouth and 10 cars east of Plymouth on the Penzance services. You can go load 9 or 10 on the high loaders into Cornwall as the summer progresses. 9 cars stabling at Long Rock en-masse is an issue because of the length of the depot sidings (a key road behind these actually makes load 8 IET the ideal length!) so some ingenuity is needed to make sure the right formations are there in summer to cope with the loads. The Cornish half hourly service should make a big change in pass loads in Cornwall on the London trains.

Medium to Long Term lengthening of sets? We shall see but, as ever, it will be what the DfT wants to "buy" in any DA/Franchise discussions - 800 series vehicles are not cheap!

 

[Mintona]

12x 9 car 802s should - on paper - be sufficient to run Paddington to Penzance hourly within the current first and last trains to/from Penzance (infact on a very basic timetable I sketched up you even get an earlier Paddington to Penzance departure at 0600); plus various start and end of day fill in duties to/from Plymouth to better utilise the sets. If you can get it down to 30 minute turnarounds at each end you can already get it down to 11 sets.

In practice I suspect there will be one or two 5+5s diagrammed on West of England fast services, whether or not they make it over the bridge 5+5 is another question; but as our learned Paddington colleague as already said the current operation of neither the 800s or 802s is really representative of the final deployment. Almost all HSS division routes see a doubling of frequencies under the new timetable proposals, certainly in the off peak. If that’s achieved by a 5-802 semi-fast to Plymouth being chased down by a 9-802 Fast Penzance you’ve still effectively doubled capacity between Paddington and Plymouth.

If that bit was aimed at me, thanks for the use of ‘learned’ that’s certainly a first! But I’m not a Paddington colleague I’m afraid

 

[AlexNL]

What should have happened, and if First had bothered to look into it's own history on the GW Franchise, was to arm wrestle the DfT into a small shop / trolley buffet area for the 800s aka as per the Mini Buffets, and a slightly larger effort for it's own longer distance units. Sadly we are now stuck with the poor comprise of a trolley for the majority of the services - unless, by some miracle, GWR decides to bring back something on the lines of the well used and once popular Travelling Chef. But given onboard catering that takings are down - who'd have thought that, I doubt it!

Don't forget that the GW franchise has been extended multiple times since 2013. That means FGW/GWR are basically living on borrowed time: as long as they keep the DfT happy, they can keep their franchise for just a bit longer. I'm sure that GWR will have voiced their opinion on the DfT spec, but if the DfT had said "take it or leave it", the outcome would've been a retendering of the entire franchise. I can imagine the possibility of losing the Great Western franchise is a nightmare scenario for FirstGroup.

 

[sharpener]

Sorry if this post is in the wrong place but can some kind person please point me at a good description of the electrical architecture of the 800s e.g. what the various internal distribution voltages are and where all the ancillary plant is located?

TIA

 

[Bletchleyite]

Don't forget that the GW franchise has been extended multiple times since 2013. That means FGW/GWR are basically living on borrowed time: as long as they keep the DfT happy, they can keep their franchise for just a bit longer. I'm sure that GWR will have voiced their opinion on the DfT spec, but if the DfT had said "take it or leave it", the outcome would've been a retendering of the entire franchise. I can imagine the possibility of losing the Great Western franchise is a nightmare scenario for FirstGroup.

Quite - I could see it causing the failure of the company given the state of the rest of it - or at least it ending up being sold off for a quid.

 

[broadgage]

But as others have said a 'proper HST was 1976. That was a very different railway.

By all means compare a 2017 HST to a 2017 IET, as they both serve the same railway (service pattern / customer demand / customer flows) but to use a 1976 HST as a comparison - as much as it pains me to say so as a HST fan - is unfair.

So why do new trains have to be worse than old ones ?
With the nation now twice as wealthy as in the 1970s, as measured by GDP per head, why cant we have better trains no than those of 40 years ago ?
With more people using the trains, surely they should be better ? It is called economy of scale.
A longer train with say 50% more seats should not cost 50% more to operate. 2+12 HST perhaps ? NOT of course an exact copy of a 40+ year old train, but similar in general design.

 

[JN114]

So why do new trains have to be worse than old ones ?
With the nation now twice as wealthy as in the 1970s, as measured by GDP per head, why cant we have better trains no than those of 40 years ago ?
With more people using the trains, surely they should be better ? It is called economy of scale.
A longer train with say 50% more seats should not cost 50% more to operate. 2+12 HST perhaps ? NOT of course an exact copy of a 40+ year old train, but similar in general design.

Principally because I can’t see where you’d fit a 316m 2+12 HST, certainly not into any of the platforms at Paddington.

 

[Kite159]

I’m fairly sure the majority of the 5 coach 802s were ordered for Bedwyn and Cotswold duties, to replace 180s and Turbos. Whilst there will be the odd occasion of pairs working to the south west, I imagine by far and away the majority of south west trains will be the 9 carriage versions. It’s difficult at the moment as only 1 has actually been built and accepted into traffic. Once the other 13 are here, that’s the time to judge.

In addition, I’ve never seen anything official about splitting and joining at Plymouth. Plenty of talk of it on this forum, but honestly nothing official that I can recall. It may happen on the odd service but I don’t think it’s going to be the regular catastrophic event that certain posters think it will be. I think trains for Penzance will be almost all formed of 9 carriage sets, with the odd 10 car making it down there too, particularly in the busy summer months.

Idea for 5+5 services, split at Exeter with the front unit carrying on to Plymouth with the rear unit being a semi-fast to Paignton. Although during the off-season.

 

[Warwick]

The very idea of running 2X5 coach trains to Plymouth, detachng the front set off and running it to Penzance and back, re-attaching it and running back to Paddington is fraught with problems. The process at Plymouth will be desperately slow. This will be compounded be passengers having to get out of the rear set and drag their bags and tackle into the front. What are the catering arrangements? I came up on the 10.00 from Penzance last Tuesday and the catering man told me that on the sooper-dooper trains there are only twelve covers for a meal service. The feeling that I get from talking to passengers west of Plymouth is that will be a sad day when the HSTs with their comfortable seats and smooth ride go - and I agree. It's not hindsight, I said it years ago .the

 

[Geoff DC]

Surely most of the traffic to & from Paignton is the residents going home & back from Birmingham?
So more of a need from XC rather than GWR

 

[jimm]

Blame First group for that.
IMO the 802s should have had a different interior, to take into account the longer journey times.
Basically the 80x is a jack of all trades train, and because of that it is a compromise.

HST interiors have been a compromise in the face of rising passenger traffic since the first time BR started adding more seats.

Jimm continues to moan that those of us in the southwest feel entitled to proper length trains . It is not a fair comparison comparing penzance to London with a cotswold journey or even a Cheltenham. Yes 5 cars might be fine on these routes off peak but on very long distance services like penzance ,5 cars of uncomfortable train is a real let down , and at least on a 9 or 10 car it gives the long distance passenger a chance to stretch out and at least attempt to get comfortable in the abysmal seating. With 5 car sets the chances are u will lose personal space and the journey becomes even more uncomfortable on the woeful seating.
If Swansea is to get 9 or 10 car trains all day which run virtually empty from Cardiff to Swansea i see no reason why Cornwall on GWRs longest route shouldn't expect the same.

And you continue to moan despite Clarence Yard's repeated efforts in this thread, today and on several previous occasions, to explain the proposed deployment of rolling stock on West Country services in future.

If you bothered to read my post last night more carefully, what I said was that the IET fleet has to do a number of jobs for GWR and not all those jobs require a train that can swallow 630 or 640 passengers - and they never will.

But some of the jobs do require a train that can do just that - and out of the 800s and 802 on order for GWR use, 35 will be nine-car, so that amounts to a straight swap of a long single-unit train for a long single-unit train amounting to 66% of the 53 HST rakes that I think GWR had on its books when the fleet was at its largest. The way you and certain other people go on about it, anyone could be forgiven for thinking that only enough nine-cars were being delivered to replace 6% of the HSTs.

I absolutely dread the day we begin coupling and uncoupling 5 car sets in Plymouth station on route to penzance. This WILL increase journey times and create an overall worse experience for customers. I can't see the "Plymouth shuffle" from rear 5 to front 5 going down well with passengers. My own observations this week from so called normals are complaints about the seats and lack of buffet .

And yet for goodness knows how many years, until HSTs turned up on West Country services, railway staff at Plymouth somehow coped with constantly splitting and joining Penzance portions of London services, day in, day out, year round, without the aid of auto-couplers equipped with integral brake pipes and electrical connections. And presumably the odd passenger had to get off a coach in the portion terminating at Plymouth and walk a few yards down the platform to continue their journey.

Passengers headed for the South West are a different breed and (rightly) expect a higher degree of overall journey experience.Passengers headed for the South West are a different breed and (rightly) expect a higher degree of overall journey experience.

Perhaps we should bring back the Super Saloons for this different breed. Though they wouldn't do much for seating capacity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_Super_Saloons

 

[SPADTrap]

Are the GWR 800s suffering from the serious brake application lag on blending as the LNER ones are?