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Rolling stock whose capacity has been superseded by increased demand over time.

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Dr Hoo

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Similar theories allowed the planners to decide that a remodelled Preston station would only need to cater in the future for 80% of the traffic it was carrying at the time.

In a wonderful self fulfilling prophecy, the remodelled station only carried 80% of the previous traffic!
Is there any relevant truth in this claim? To what era does it refer? Was it in relation to types of operation such as locomotive changes or parcels traffic that are no longer relevant? I thought that passenger numbers at Preston had risen dramatically over the past 20 years on the back of service increases. More recently many trains have been increased in length, e.g. 11 car Pendolinos against 9 car and 4 car EMUs against 2 car DMUs. Further changes to rolling stock are still under way and the platform lengths (apart from the little-used south end bays) seem to have plenty of ‘stretch’, e.g. for 8 car EMU formations.
 
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150's.
They might (or might not!?) have acceptable in the 1980's ?
But now they're seriously out dated even refurbishing them is like polishing a turd
I was one one today, rattling away between Shrewsbury and Gobowen. Glad I wasn't staying on it all the way to Holyhead.

But I also remember experiencing the 150s as a revelation on the West Midlands suburban routes in the mid 80s. Finally something to replace those underpowered 1st gen DMUs, struggling to get up Old Hill bank, complete with draughts, windows running with condensation and passenger saloons filled with exhaust fumes.
 

furnessvale

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Is there any relevant truth in this claim? To what era does it refer? Was it in relation to types of operation such as locomotive changes or parcels traffic that are no longer relevant? I thought that passenger numbers at Preston had risen dramatically over the past 20 years on the back of service increases. More recently many trains have been increased in length, e.g. 11 car Pendolinos against 9 car and 4 car EMUs against 2 car DMUs. Further changes to rolling stock are still under way and the platform lengths (apart from the little-used south end bays) seem to have plenty of ‘stretch’, e.g. for 8 car EMU formations.
Preston station was remodelled in the 1970s, quite a different era when railways were regarded as a dying method of transport.

By the way, what is a "relevant" truth? At the time I was a management grade civil engineer with BR. Although I did not work on that project I had friends who did who told me what instructions they had from on high.
 

Dr Hoo

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Thanks, furnessvale. So it related to making Preston fit for the Weaver Junction to Glasgow electrification.
Although I worked on the London Midland Region at the time I never recall hearing that Preston had become a bottleneck. Historical levels of traffic to Blackpool, Southport, etc. had obviously haemorrhaged away in the previous decade.
 

hexagon789

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I was one one today, rattling away between Shrewsbury and Gobowen. Glad I wasn't staying on it all the way to Holyhead.

But I also remember experiencing the 150s as a revelation on the West Midlands suburban routes in the mid 80s. Finally something to replace those underpowered 1st gen DMUs, struggling to get up Old Hill bank, complete with draughts, windows running with condensation and passenger saloons filled with exhaust fumes.

Though I'm not sure those 150s were just the thing for replacing some of the twice as long LHCS on some fairly lengthy runs at that.
 

tbtc

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re the earlier points about the eight coach 390s (which were about half Standard and half First Class), whilst they seem pretty inadequate in hindsight, it's worth remembering that these were 125mph trains replacing 110mph trains on increased frequencies (e.g. Birmingham was half hourly, Manchester was hourly under BR, Glasgow was bi-hourly), sot he overall number of carriages did increase.

The difference is that it was possible to increase the length at a later date, unlike the 185s or Voyagers (which were never extended)

That, and in many cases replacing three 20m vehicles (or even 17m) with a brake van by two 23m vehicles would have little or no loss in seat numbers.

Things like Sprinterisation and Operation Princess always seem to catch the railway by suprise. Turns out that making a service more frequent doesn't just spread out your existing passengers, but gains you more because it's more convenient. If the Voyagers had been 8 cars and 5 cars rather than 5 cars and 4 cars - or the 185s built as 4-car sets (and more of them) I think they'd be viewed very differently.

Scotrail's 170s are another screamingly obvious case of being overtaken by demand. It's telling that the HSTs are giving back similar seating capacity (though more frequently) to when the lines were worked by loco-hauled rakes of 7 or 8 20m coaches.

Good point re the shorter carriages and "brakes" on older stock (something that is often missed when people compare MK1 rakes with modern trains).

ScotRail 170s were a step forward at the time - doubling the frequency of Edinburgh - Falkirk High - Glasgow - replacing 150s in Fife - but at least ScotRail have been able to increase supply to keep up with the demand.

So the 170s replaced nothing effectively. Thank you for the run down on the services, it's quite difficult to find timetables for that period really.

It's an interesting example of a line that has gone from a poor frequency (every forty five minutes from London to Leicester) with patchy stops at intermediate stations to a line bursting at the seams now. For all that people suggest we kept the GC open (as a parallel line from London to Leicester), there was hardly sufficient demand to keep one line from London to Leicester open in the 1980s yet alone spread that demand over two lines.

But National Express turned around a quiet line - whilst people give a lot of credit to Chiltern for the transformation of the Marylebone line, I don't think that NatEx get sufficient credit for what they did on the MML.

Before National Express took on the ECML franchise, their stock was pretty high, they "rescued" C2C/ WAGN/ Valley Lines/ Wales & West, they invested in ScotRail/ Midland Mainline, they did a reasonable job of the messy Central Trains franchise. But, like a football manager who will always be remembered for taking on that one job too big for him, their reputation now will always be defined by the NXEC days. The Graham Taylor of the railways.

Away from the NR/BR network, the 1983 Tube stock were a massive error. Specced at a time of declining passenger use with single leaf doors to save money, those doors made them a complete liability once passenger numbers recovered and started growing strongly, and contributed to them being scrapped after a tiny life, with all gone by 1998.

Interesting example - I hadn't thought of that

Similar theories allowed the planners to decide that a remodelled Preston station would only need to cater in the future for 80% of the traffic it was carrying at the time.

In a wonderful self fulfilling prophecy, the remodelled station only carried 80% of the previous traffic!

Ha!

It's a tricky one, I accept - at the moment there's argument about whether the increases in passenger numbers have plateaued - there's a fairly shaky commuter demand with fewer season tickets, the Friday commuter market seems pretty badly hit, the industrial action on some franchises hasn't helped... but at the same time some people still take the If You Build It They Will Come approach to new fleets of trains - sometimes whilst suggesting that we don't need HS2 because we'll all be working from home and doing everything digitally in a few years time.

If I were remodelling a station in anticipation of being electrified (say, Oxford/ Leicester/ Bristol Temple Meads) would I be "future proofing" it so that it could cope with 50% more trains than now (given that such a remodelling might lock the infrastructure in place for the next forty/fifty years)? Same number of trains as now? Or partly fund the remodelling by removing some underused platforms?

Will people look back at these threads in a decade and wonder why on earth we were replacing 3x23m 185s with 5x26m 802s when it was obvious in hindsight that passenger numbers would go down rather than up? Or castigate us for only having five coaches in the 802s?

So, for those reasons, it's hard to criticise BR/ TOCs for the decisions they took decades ago. It is, however, regrettable when things are built with no "Plan B" (e.g. stock that can't easily be lengthened - or in the case of trains like 319s, shortened!).
 

hexagon789

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re the earlier points about the eight coach 390s (which were about half Standard and half First Class), whilst they seem pretty inadequate in hindsight, it's worth remembering that these were 125mph trains replacing 110mph trains on increased frequencies (e.g. Birmingham was half hourly, Manchester was hourly under BR, Glasgow was bi-hourly), sot he overall number of carriages did increase.

Very true, but not at first. The full timetable I believe didn't come into effect until 2009. Plus, the new trains helped to draw more passengers and it's a classic case of an improved service created more demand but being unable to cope with that increased demand. Virgin sorted that to an extent with the 11-car 390s.

A similar parallel could be drawn I think with Midland Mainline and it's 2-car 170s. New services, which created increased demand which were first dealt with by ordering centre cars to increase 10 of the 17 units to 3-car and then within a few years by ordering the 4-car Meridians (afaik the 9-car were not intended as 170 replacements).
 

Sprinter107

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BR: HST every forty five minutes from London to Leicester (every ninety minutes to Sheffield, same to Nottingham), irregular stops at stations between London and Leicester

MM inherited: HST every half hour to Leicester (hourly to Sheffield, same to Nottingham) , irregular stops at stations between London and Leicester

MM introduced an hourly London - Nottingham service and an hourly London - Derby service (with random extensions to Matlock, Barnsley and Burton) that stopped at all stations between London and Leicester so that the HSTs generally ran non-stop from London to Leicester (so faster journeys for long distance passengers)... these new services were ran by two coach 170s and sat at Leicester for around ten minutes so that they were overtaken by the HST (i.e. the London - Nottingham 170 got to Leicester a few minutes before the London - Sheffield HST and departed a few minutes after it, so that you could do journeys like Bedford - Sheffield or a faster journey from London to Nottingham than having boarded the 170 at St Pancras)

MM introduced three car 170s to replace the two car ones (rather than introduce a third coach to the existing ones?)

MM planned four coach 222s to replace the three coach 170s (which meant no more Matlock services as a weak bridge on the branch wouldn't cope with a heavy 222

MM also ordered some nine coach 222s which were intended for an hourly London - Leeds service (seems a long time ago, an era where a TOC would speculatively order new long trains in the hope of being given paths!). I think the SRA were the ones who didn't permit the Leeds service. Shame.

EMT took over, reformed the 222s into four/five/seven coach formations

EMT gained the poisoned chalice of the Corby branch, got the Hull Trains 170s to provide capacity, amended the timetables so that there weren't the same "slow" services any more - everything operated by 125mph stock (and Corby services taking some of the "local" stops meaning the Derby/ Nottingham services could be sped up), London - Derby service extended to Sheffield (running within about five minutes of the existing service due to poor paths at first and not serving Chesterfield due to capacity problems on the line but things slowly improved)

So it's been a gradual set of improvements, same as Hull Trains (who went from 170s to four coach 222 to five coach 180s and soon 5x26m 802s)
The first 10 Midland Mainline class 170/1 had new centre cars to make them up to 3 car sets. The remaining 170111 - 170117 remained as 2 cars, as they still do today.
 

sheff1

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So, for those reasons, it's hard to criticise BR/ TOCs for the decisions they took decades ago.

On the other hand, it is very easy, and justified, to criticise the TOC who introduced trains on services operating from one end of the country which had overhead luggage racks which could not accommodate the type of luggage likely to be carried by people using such services, whilst also failing to provide anywhere near enough alternative luggage space. Even if passenger numbers had not increased the luggage storage provision would have been inadequate.

Arriva have improved things by getting rid of the pointless 'shop' but the basic design fault remains.
 

matacaster

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One suspects that the 185's limited capacity is putting off some people using TPE services.
By the time the new loco hauled 5-coach trains are actually introduced, I fear they will already be near capacity at peak times and will need one or two additional coaches in a year or two. I hope they have an option in the contract!!
 

hexagon789

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One suspects that the 185's limited capacity is putting off some people using TPE services.
By the time the new loco hauled 5-coach trains are actually introduced, I fear they will already be near capacity at peak times and will need one or two additional coaches in a year or two. I hope they have an option in the contract!!

Can longer Mk5 sets fit though? Certainly six-car may well prove to be necessary but can the infrastructure take it, that always seems to be an issue.
 

matacaster

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Can longer Mk5 sets fit though? Certainly six-car may well prove to be necessary but can the infrastructure take it, that always seems to be an issue.

I don't know, but I am sure someone will help us out! Huddersfield is interesting in that platform 1 was shortened to create platform 2 - not sure how long a train it can take now. Platform 4 looks pretty long though is not used as a through generally. Will NPR lengthen platforms?
I find that on the railways, generally it's a penny pinching one extra coach length on some stations, or doing just enough to get a new class through. The incremental approach comes back to bite them and costs a lot more in the end and more disruption.
 

Randomer

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The basic design fault of the Voyagers is being ordered too short (why were 4 cars 220 even considered rather than a homogeneous 5 car 221 fleet?) and having been designed with 3 classes all with accessible toilets making them horrendously space inefficient.

To compound that by making the overhead luggage bins even smaller than necessary for tilt makes it an even worse choice for cross-country services.

Although how much of my thoughts or the thread in particular is hindsight? I will admit that the decisions made for the class 185 purchase are absolutely puzzling. I can't understand the historical reason for purchasing trains with less capacity at a time of increasing usage when the current ones were already full and standing at peak times.
 

xotGD

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On routes all over the country loco-hauled services that provided plenty of capacity were replaced with Sprinters of various classes that reduced capacity.
 

RLBH

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I can't understand the historical reason for purchasing trains with less capacity at a time of increasing usage when the current ones were already full and standing at peak times.
The dogma at the time was that usage was decreasing. The operators wanted more capacity, and were granted a franchise that gave them significant freedom to attract more passengers (newer franchises have reduced this) but the regulators refused to let them have the trains they thought they could fill.

I can't help wondering if a Conservative government during the early years of rail privatisation might have been more willing to allow operators to take those risks.
 

krus_aragon

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I can't think of many (less than 10) services that a 2-coach train is suitable all the time.
For the sake of easiness, may as well just order 3 coach trains as a minimum these days.
I'd add the proviso that 2-coach trains can be preferable when portion working (with end-gangways) as TfW are aiming for.
Liverpool-Llandudno/Shrewsbury with a pair of 3-coach trains throughout the day would be overkill between Chester and Liverpool. Similarly Cambrian Coast services.

Northern's 195s, however, have no end-gangways nor portion-worked diagrams (to my knowledge).
 

Class 466

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Southeastern 395s. Over The past few years there are consistent crowding issues on these. Now at the stage where you can pretty much expect to stand on most of the 6 cars from Ashford throughout the day. No enough units were ordered at the time because of hesitations about how successful the service would be.
 

Mikey C

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Southeastern 395s. Over The past few years there are consistent crowding issues on these. Now at the stage where you can pretty much expect to stand on most of the 6 cars from Ashford throughout the day. No enough units were ordered at the time because of hesitations about how successful the service would be.

Back in 2012 they were able to take several units out of normal service and use them for the Olympic shuttle! Try doing that now :D
 

hexagon789

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I don't know, but I am sure someone will help us out! Huddersfield is interesting in that platform 1 was shortened to create platform 2 - not sure how long a train it can take now. Platform 4 looks pretty long though is not used as a through generally. Will NPR lengthen platforms?
I find that on the railways, generally it's a penny pinching one extra coach length on some stations, or doing just enough to get a new class through. The incremental approach comes back to bite them and costs a lot more in the end and more disruption.

It does indeed, it would be nice if they actually thought for once about it properly abd planned accordingly.

The first 10 Midland Mainline class 170/1 had new centre cars to make them up to 3 car sets. The remaining 170111 - 170117 remained as 2 cars, as they still do today.

And the four-car 222s that replaced them had less Standard Class seating as built than the 3-car 170s they replaced iirc!
 

alex397

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Southeastern 395s. Over The past few years there are consistent crowding issues on these. Now at the stage where you can pretty much expect to stand on most of the 6 cars from Ashford throughout the day. No enough units were ordered at the time because of hesitations about how successful the service would be.

It will be interesting to see what the long term solution will be for the 395s. With Ashford continuing to grow with thousands of homes being built, as well as 4000 due to be built in Canterbury (which, incidentally, won't affect local transport infrastructure, according to the city council!!!), and huge numbers of developments elsewhere in Kent, the popularity of HS1 will only increase, as i'm sure a large proportion of the people moving into these houses will be working in London (or travelling to London for leisure at the weekends).
If no new trains will be built, I wonder if we will see less 395s travelling over non-High Speed sections, and instead running 12-car shuttles between London and Ashford. Or maybe terminating short at Faversham, Canterbury West, Dover etc. The logistics of that might be easier said than done though, for example it might mean more platform capacity needed at Ashford.
 

Clansman

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Look no further than the rolling stock revolution in Glasgow in the late 70s and 80s - Sprinterisation especially! - and on that note, a big shout out to my pals from East Kilbride ;)
 

Mikey C

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It will be interesting to see what the long term solution will be for the 395s. With Ashford continuing to grow with thousands of homes being built, as well as 4000 due to be built in Canterbury (which, incidentally, won't affect local transport infrastructure, according to the city council!!!), and huge numbers of developments elsewhere in Kent, the popularity of HS1 will only increase, as i'm sure a large proportion of the people moving into these houses will be working in London (or travelling to London for leisure at the weekends).
If no new trains will be built, I wonder if we will see less 395s travelling over non-High Speed sections, and instead running 12-car shuttles between London and Ashford. Or maybe terminating short at Faversham, Canterbury West, Dover etc. The logistics of that might be easier said than done though, for example it might mean more platform capacity needed at Ashford.

The North Kent services in particular are poor uses of the 395's speed, as they use relatively little of HS1 (unlike the ones which leave after Ashford) and past Ebbsfleet they trundle along at 75mph along the same track as Networkers!
 

Ken H

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On routes all over the country loco-hauled services that provided plenty of capacity were replaced with Sprinters of various classes that reduced capacity.
take the manchester - harwich through train. 1 a day. that morphed into the Brum - stanstead and Liverpool - norwich services. fa more seats and more choice of when to travel.
 

70014IronDuke

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take the manchester - harwich through train. 1 a day. that morphed into the Brum - stanstead and Liverpool - norwich services. fa more seats and more choice of when to travel.

Sorry, but this is not a fair comparison. Indeed, it is untrue. Yes, there was only one Harwich - Manchester - Liverpool "North Continental" - morphing later into "The European" to Glasgow.

But there had been regular Brum - Norwich and Brum - Cambridge services since at least the early 60s, initially with 1st gen DMUs and later with some loco-hauled. (There must have been steam services too, prior to that, just I wasn't around to see them. These were more exotic and varied, eg a Birmingham NS to Gt YArmouth (I think) via Rugby, Mkt Harboro and Harringworth low level, whatever it was called.)

Of course, the service was nothing like the 1 TPH we have today (plus the 1 TP2H Peterboro - Ipswich), but it consisted of far more than the North Continental.
 

yorksrob

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It will be interesting to see what the long term solution will be for the 395s. With Ashford continuing to grow with thousands of homes being built, as well as 4000 due to be built in Canterbury (which, incidentally, won't affect local transport infrastructure, according to the city council!!!), and huge numbers of developments elsewhere in Kent, the popularity of HS1 will only increase, as i'm sure a large proportion of the people moving into these houses will be working in London (or travelling to London for leisure at the weekends).
If no new trains will be built, I wonder if we will see less 395s travelling over non-High Speed sections, and instead running 12-car shuttles between London and Ashford. Or maybe terminating short at Faversham, Canterbury West, Dover etc. The logistics of that might be easier said than done though, for example it might mean more platform capacity needed at Ashford.

As has been said on other threads, the first action should be re-instatement of express services via Tonbridge to relieve some of the pressure.
 

Ted172

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West Midlands Railway's Turbostars are now too short for services from Birmingham to Hereford and also to Shrewsbury.
 

VT 390

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West Midlands Railway's Turbostars are now too short for services from Birmingham to Hereford and also to Shrewsbury.
Now that there are 2 WMR Shrewsbury services every hour most of the time they do not seem to bad now but on the Hereford the Turbostars are provide nowhere near enough capacity on most services.
 

hexagon789

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Now that there are 2 WMR Shrewsbury services every hour most of the time they do not seem to bad now but on the Hereford the Turbostars are provide nowhere near enough capacity on most services.

Are WMRs 170s all or mostly 2-car?
 
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