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ScotRail HST Introduction - Updates & Discussion

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Thunderer

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I'm glad that 43002 will be saved, at least - very great pity that it won't be in working order. How good would it be to have 43002/003 as preserved set 253001, (in original, or near original condition) running about as a 125mph heritage/charter train! You never know, maybe the 125group may get their hands on 43002 one day (they've done a cracking job with the surviving prototype PC, 41001)...

Totally agree that I'd rather have an HST over an IET - have seen a couple of IETs up in Inverness & what I saw of the interiors looked deeply unimpressive. That's assuming they can even make it up the hills.....

As one of my colleages said to me: we are getting to drive a REAL train, not a glorified bus! It's a real privelege to actually get to drive them (& a historic PC in 43003, no less!). As the recent Channel 5 documentary on HSTs put it: they still set the standard by which all modern trains are judged against. That sums them up pretty well.
Indeed the HST = a real train. The IET is an awful experience for the travelling passenger on GWR. No buffet, just some pathetic trolley that sometimes comes around if your lucky, then its offerings are scant. The seats are as hard as a park bench and First Class seats are not much better. The "nice" combination of grey and fake wood makes standard class like a sterile, mobile office, not like a passenger train. In the hot weather you can enjoy frequent whiffs of sewage from the retention tanks and if you are very unlucky, your train will be just one five car instead of two five cars or a 9 car (a nice sardine squashing journey). I can guarentee you that most Scotrail passengers travelling from Inverness or Aberdeen/Dundee to Edinburgh will spurn the LNER IET's in favour of the Scotrail HST service as when it comes to the passenger comfort and experience, the HST will win every time. Good luck driving 43003...you are one lucky person to have that experience.
 
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Thunderer

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Which explains the old HST stop boards at Queens Street Station.
Yes indeed. I remember having 43064 "City of York" + 43080 in April 1988 as an early morning stopper from Edinburgh - Glasgow Queen St. It then worked one of the 2 daily, early morning HST services to Kings X via Falkirk and Edinburgh. Also in 1988 on Summer Saturdays there was a Glasgow Queen St to Newquay WR XC HST and a return working ( both via Edinburgh/York/Birmigham/Bristol ). The HST's were quite common in the 1980's at Glasgow Queen Street.
 

route101

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Yes indeed. I remember having 43064 "City of York" + 43080 in April 1988 as an early morning stopper from Edinburgh - Glasgow Queen St. It then worked one of the 2 daily, early morning HST services to Kings X via Falkirk and Edinburgh. Also in 1988 on Summer Saturdays there was a Glasgow Queen St to Newquay WR XC HST and a return working ( both via Edinburgh/York/Birmigham/Bristol ). The HST's were quite common in the 1980's at Glasgow Queen Street.

There was a service to Scarborough too , not sure if it was HST operated.
 

nat67

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Yes indeed. I remember having 43064 "City of York" + 43080 in April 1988 as an early morning stopper from Edinburgh - Glasgow Queen St. It then worked one of the 2 daily, early morning HST services to Kings X via Falkirk and Edinburgh. Also in 1988 on Summer Saturdays there was a Glasgow Queen St to Newquay WR XC HST and a return working ( both via Edinburgh/York/Birmigham/Bristol ). The HST's were quite common in the 1980's at Glasgow Queen Street.
I guess an extra from an Edinburgh to the west of England service.
 

Highlandspring

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The red and white markers were there until 2013/14 at the least - can’t remember if they lasted right up until the 2016 works.
 

hexagon789

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I can guarentee you that most Scotrail passengers travelling from Inverness or Aberdeen/Dundee to Edinburgh will spurn the LNER IET's in favour of the Scotrail HST service as when it comes to the passenger comfort and experience, the HST will win every time.

Hopefully not to the point that they become very overcrowded! I can see ScotRail needing if not an all 2+5 fleet perhaps a good number of 2+6 sets.

Yes indeed. I remember having 43064 "City of York" + 43080 in April 1988 as an early morning stopper from Edinburgh - Glasgow Queen St. It then worked one of the 2 daily, early morning HST services to Kings X via Falkirk and Edinburgh. Also in 1988 on Summer Saturdays there was a Glasgow Queen St to Newquay WR XC HST and a return working ( both via Edinburgh/York/Birmigham/Bristol ). The HST's were quite common in the 1980's at Glasgow Queen Street.

I think it was the electrification of the ECML through to Glasgow via Carstairs that ended these services. Can find them in the Winter 1989/1990 but they are gone by 1991/92.

The HST speed boards were also removed from the Edinburgh and Glasgow line by 1992.
 

nat67

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Has anyone seen on the 'slam door ' sets the health & safety Big Danger sticker's. I noticed this yesterday on the GWR HST's, obviously these have been put in due to the Bath Christmas market
drunken death with either vegetation or a tunnel what ever the rumour is.
 

najaB

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The red and white markers were there until 2013/14 at the least - can’t remember if they lasted right up until the 2016 works.
Thanks for confirming - I was 99% sure that I had seen them in person, but the lack of any evidence was making me doubt myself! :D
 

najaB

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Hopefully not to the point that they become very overcrowded! I can see ScotRail needing if not an all 2+5 fleet perhaps a good number of 2+6 sets.
At the moment, the plan is to have mainly 2+5s with a small number of 2+4s and two 2+6s.
 

hexagon789

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At the moment, the plan is to have mainly 2+5s with a small number of 2+4s and two 2+6s.

I know, but I feel personally that making all the 2+4 sets into 2+5 and making more 2+6 sets would be better in the long term. Plenty of trailers going spare.
 

Highlandspring

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Has anyone seen on the 'slam door ' sets the health & safety Big Danger sticker's. I noticed this yesterday on the GWR HST's, obviously these have been put in due to the Bath Christmas market
drunken death with either vegetation or a tunnel what ever the rumour is.
It was a tree branch.
 

Highlandspring

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Cheers, someone yesterday said a tunnel. I was told NR didn't clear the vegetation, but I guess as the birds and bees would be nesting they are not allowed to clear trees and stuff.
The tree (to which the branch was attached) came from outside the railway boundary. But we're well off topic now.
 

43096

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Have you seen the new Danger stickers on the drop lights?
They are not solely a reaction to the incident between Bath and Bristol - review of signage was a recommendation from the RAIB report into the Balham Class 442 incident. Previously there was a yellow "warning" sign about not leaning out, it is now a red "prohibited" notice, and is larger and in some cases above the window and on the top of the window and the bottom sill of the window, too. I would expect there to be further revisions after the RAIB report into the latest incident is published.

Have ScotRail amended the signage on their slam door sets?
 

InvHst

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Think their are more worrying things to look at..... Today's hst service to Inverness has been totally wiped out all scheduled hsts are 170s with also the random 158 out again and the 1739 out of Edinburgh already cancelled due to no train crew and just when we thought we had an improvement.......
 

swaldman

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Hopefully not to the point that they become very overcrowded! I can see ScotRail needing if not an all 2+5 fleet perhaps a good number of 2+6 sets.

AIUI (from asking on here a while back), the refurbed 2+4 sets will only have about as many standard class seats as a 170 (14 more, perhaps?). So yes, they're gonna be overcrowded, unless you're in First.

I think the rationale for having the 2+4 sets was that that is all that will fit into Queen St until works are completed there... hopefully once that is done they can all have at least 5 coaches.

Re the choice of Scotrail or LNER at present, there are lots of factors. Sure, there has to be a train at about the right time, but I often have an hour's flexibility, and this often gives a choice of carriers. The LNER HSTs are *much* nicer than 170s[1], partly because of the interior but mostly because they are less crowded... and that is presumably also the reason that there is a huge price difference at present. When booking advance tickets between Edinburgh and Aberdeen it's usual for Scotrail to be £34 or £55 and LNER to be £15, and that's a *very* significant contributor to the choice of trains!
I don't see the price difference changing markedly - if 9-car trains from London run all the way through, they're always going to have plenty of empty seats for the last part of their journey, and hence lower prices are sensible - so if I'm still living in Aberdeen by the time any 800s actually appear, I'll probably find myself using them.

[1] And they're also much nicer than the GWR HSTs, because of the GWR seating layout.
 

47271

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Think their are more worrying things to look at..... Today's hst service to Inverness has been totally wiped out all scheduled hsts are 170s with also the random 158 out again and the 1739 out of Edinburgh already cancelled due to no train crew and just when we thought we had an improvement.......
Oh c**p, the 1739's a massive inconvenience to me - again.

What are they playing at now, I thought we'd moved on from this?
 

hexagon789

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AIUI (from asking on here a while back), the refurbed 2+4 sets will only have about as many standard class seats as a 170 (14 more, perhaps?). So

32 First, 206 Standard for a 2+4 HST, against 18 First, 168 Standard for a 170/4; so 38 more Std Class seats or about 22.5% more.

I agree though, I think that will prove inadequate.

I think the rationale for having the 2+4 sets was that that is all that will fit into Queen St until works are completed there... hopefully once that is done they can all have at least 5 coaches.

I think that's right, seeing as an 8-car 385 formation won't fit until the works are done, 7-car being the present maximum.
 

Clansman

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Single 158 replacing our platform 3 dormant HST, on the 14.42 Aberdeen to Queen Street.

Luckily not full and standing, but with one working toilet and the heating seemingly stuck on full blast (which I must admit made for an excellent sleep for most of us passengers to begin with!) it looks like the ScotRail Twitter team is going to have to brace itself from the inevitable raging punters on Twitter, for the northbound working.

Whilst things seemed to have been improving it is been by no means a drastic one!
 
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ainsworth74

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Things this thread is not for:
  • Whether or not a train assembled is the same as a train built;
  • Whether or not this seat is better than that seat;
  • Whether or not an IET is hell on earth or nirvana;
  • Whether or not IET's will last for centuries or months; and
  • Whether or not Scotrail should have procured HSTs or not or something else entirely.
This thread is for discussion of the introduction of HST to Scotrail, updates on the progress of the refurbishment and other related matters.

All of those things listed above in the bullet point list either have threads of their own
(for example the decision of whether or not HSTs were a good idea and the reasons behind it has a thread here) or should be discussed in a new thread where one does not already exist.

This thread is also not for the usual suspects to make the usual points about their feelings on various different matters.

Please ensure that any further contributions to this thread are on topic and in line with the Forum Rules.

Thanks,
ainsworth74
 

Highland37

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I calculate that Wabtec will need to deliver 1.85 sets per week, every week from now until the end of year to enable them to complete the delivery programme by the end of 2019..

Would anyone put a bet on that?
 

samuelmorris

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Surely with 54 power cars, it's 27 sets at the absolute most (probably slightly less with some spare power cars), so more like 0.6 a week, or one every week and a half. Still probably not achievable based on current progress, but a lot more realistic!
 

sprinterguy

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I calculate that Wabtec will need to deliver 1.85 sets per week, every week from now until the end of year to enable them to complete the delivery programme by the end of 2019..

Would anyone put a bet on that?
1 set every 1.85 weeks for Scotrail, surely? It doesn't seem terribly likely, given that Wabtec's performance to date has delivered an average of one vehicle PER MONTH across all customers.
Surely with 54 power cars, it's 27 sets at the absolute most (probably slightly less with some spare power cars), so more like 0.6 a week, or one every week and a half. Still probably not achievable based on current progress, but a lot more realistic!
There's a total of 26 sets being converted for Scotrail: 2 have been delivered, there's 24 left to go.
 
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