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Class 745 Stadler FLIRTs

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Railperf

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According to Rail Magazine correspondent Richard Clinnick - 4 to 8 weeks for 745's to enter passenger service.
 
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TT-ONR-NRN

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Hey

The Greater Anglia Flirts thread is getting very long now and is very much 755 based, so just like the 195/331s were split I wondered if a separate thread would be ideal for the 745s. These are, after all, a very different teapot of fish - despite their similarities to the 755s they are much longer, electric, will run on different routes and of course have not entered service yet! I’m sure I’m not the only one to try and search for news on the new 745s in the existing thread only to read opinions on the new 755s or updates as to which ones are out.

So I thought maybe I’d start a new thread specifically for the 745s, perhaps moderators would be happy to modify the existing thread title to say 755s?

:)

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According to Rail Magazine correspondent Richard Clinnick - 4 to 8 weeks for 745's to enter passenger service.
 

Wivenswold

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According to Rail Magazine correspondent Richard Clinnick - 4 to 8 weeks for 745's to enter passenger service.
Ooooof. So October or early November before the first 745 is in service and only another 8 weeks to get the rest of the fleet in to replace 9 of the IC fleet (obviously The Aventras be ready to take up the other 2 diagrams).

I'm no project manager but.......
 

Alfie1014

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Ooooof. So October or early November before the first 745 is in service and only another 8 weeks to get the rest of the fleet in to replace 9 of the IC fleet (obviously The Aventras be ready to take up the other 2 diagrams).

I'm no project manager but.......

Yep RC also said no 720s in service this year. So loads on non-compliant 321s and a few 317s still in service into next year.
 

samuelmorris

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Subbing to this thread now that they've been split. As per my post in the general GA thread, I'd expect based on Clinnick's comments (which I'm sure are derived from a suitable source) that maybe one or two sets will be on the Norwich runs by Christmas, but no major change until early next year.
 

hexagon789

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According to Rail Magazine correspondent Richard Clinnick - 4 to 8 weeks for 745's to enter passenger service.

Any idea when they were intended to be in service by?

With so many different fleets behind schedule, it's difficult to keep up with dates.
 

samuelmorris

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Any idea when they were intended to be in service by?

With so many different fleets behind schedule, it's difficult to keep up with dates.
May, so they're about 7 months behind at present. The 755s were due to start in April, so were only about 4 months late. The 720s were due in February so are running about 12 months late so far.
 

hexagon789

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May, so they're about 7 months behind at present. The 755s were due to start in April, so were only about 4 months late. The 720s were due in February so are running about 12 months late so far.

Thank you, it's certainly all over the place then!
 

samuelmorris

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Thank you, it's certainly all over the place then!
No reason to make things unnecessarily more difficult by bringing them all in at the same time - there are countless Stadler units in storage at Mid-Norfolk while the requisite training etc. is carried out to displace all the DMUs and the LHCS. Not many of the Stansted units have turned up yet, and none of the 720s have. The latter will be a lot longer away before they enter service (but then given the delays to Bombardier's other fleets. no big surprise)
 

hexagon789

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No reason to make things unnecessarily more difficult by bringing them all in at the same time - there are countless Stadler units in storage at Mid-Norfolk while the requisite training etc. is carried out to displace all the DMUs and the LHCS. Not many of the Stansted units have turned up yet, and none of the 720s have. The latter will be a lot longer away before they enter service (but then given the delays to Bombardier's other fleets. no big surprise)

From what I've read, only a handful of units are in service? 755s on Cambridge services.
 
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Just a quick heads up, the Norwich in 90 runs I think are first for the 745 use, or 2x755 as originally planned.

Why? All crewed by the right links at Norwich in regards to both drivers and Senior Conductors, self contained diagrams for the units too.
 

MrPIC

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I'd have thought its extremely unlikely to be the stanex units, what with Norwich being the centre of the new trains world just now with a lot of training etc having been done already.
 

trebor79

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Indeed. And the Mk3 sets are clearly struggling, with lots of short forms and substitution with 321s every day. So I'd imagine there's a more pressing need to get some of the intercity sets into service first.
 

F Great Eastern

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Indeed. And the Mk3 sets are clearly struggling, with lots of short forms and substitution with 321s every day. So I'd imagine there's a more pressing need to get some of the intercity sets into service first.

Most guards don't even know what carriage is which these days because one end of the interior of a carriage says one thing, one end of the interior of the carriage says another thing, whereas outside the carriage each end says different things.

There's one set going around with F on one door, D on the other, B at one end inside and C at the other end inside leading to a guard making a honest announcement that the coach at the front is the quiet coach, so to keep walking through till you can't get any further and a lot of passengers trying to find the buffet and looking very confused.

There's also one rake with about 4 coach Cs, another rake that has First and Standard in a strange random mix order, yesterday I saw a reverse formation as well and quite a few sets missing bufetts altogether.

Since there's no reservations they've probably just thrown all the carriages into a lottery like machine and picked which ever ones are drawn out to make a rake, or at least that is what it feels like at the moment.
 

simple simon

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Are staff training runs reaching the London end of the route?

I'm looking forward to seeing one passing through Stratford - hopefully at a time when I have a camera (or even better; a camcorder) pointing in the correct direction!
 

trebor79

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How many are in the UK now? Am I right in thinking there hasn't been a delivery for a few weeks now?
 

Class 170101

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But is that the /0 or the /1 Clinnick was refering to?

I'd have thought its extremely unlikely to be the stanex units, what with Norwich being the centre of the new trains world just now with a lot of training etc having been done already.

Both the same as far as Traincrew are concerned. Wouldn't be surprised to see either given what is being said up thread about the state of the coaching stock. DDA regulations are looming as well. Around 3 months until 31/12/2019.
 

trebor79

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Need to get their skates on. Every single Norwich service appears to be down to 8 coaches now. Lots of unhealthy sounding air conditioning equipment and/or other underfloor stuff on some of those still running.
One set was substituted this morning for a pair of 321s advertised as having no first class and no working toilets. Lovely!
 

Railperf

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Need to get their skates on. Every single Norwich service appears to be down to 8 coaches now. Lots of unhealthy sounding air conditioning equipment and/or other underfloor stuff on some of those still running.
One set was substituted this morning for a pair of 321s advertised as having no first class and no working toilets. Lovely!
I cannot help thinking that there was a planned slowdown in maintenance / repairs of the mk3's with the 745's due to have been running by now! Wasn't May or July launch of the 745's mentioned originally? Now we might be lucky to see one by December
 

F Great Eastern

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I cannot help thinking that there was a planned slowdown in maintenance / repairs of the mk3's with the 745's due to have been running by now! Wasn't May or July launch of the 745's mentioned originally? Now we might be lucky to see one by December

Everybody knows that maintenance has been let go on the legacy fleets that are leaving, it's obvious and short term fixes are always going to be applied since they won't want to spend too much money on stock they are not going to have for much longer, it's hardly a big revelation.

There was a quote from a GA executive a few months back talking about the challenges of introducing a new fleet whilst keeping an old one going when such trains would be leaving the franchise in the near future, it seemed almost an admission of that.

The current situation with the MK3 sets where the formation seems to be decided by set of balls number 6 and Guinevere drawing carriages out at random each morning at Crown Point is an illustration to that, they're just shoving anything anywhere to get a rake out, and the lack of reservations makes it even easier.

It's not unique to GA though, it's happened on many TOCs over the years, you should have seen the state of the MK3s that came from Virgin to NXEA, Virgin certainly let them go in their final days on the West Coast!
 

samuelmorris

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I cannot help thinking that there was a planned slowdown in maintenance / repairs of the mk3's with the 745's due to have been running by now! Wasn't May or July launch of the 745's mentioned originally? Now we might be lucky to see one by December
Yes I believe the original target was May.
 

trebor79

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I cannot help thinking that there was a planned slowdown in maintenance / repairs of the mk3's with the 745's due to have been running by now! Wasn't May or July launch of the 745's mentioned originally? Now we might be lucky to see one by December

Everybody knows that maintenance has been let go on the legacy fleets that are leaving, it's obvious and short term fixes are always going to be applied since they won't want to spend too much money on stock they are not going to have for much longer, it's hardly a big revelation.

There was a quote from a GA executive a few months back talking about the challenges of introducing a new fleet whilst keeping an old one going when such trains would be leaving the franchise in the near future, it seemed almost an admission of that.

It's not unique to GA though, it's happened on many TOCs over the years, you should have seen the state of the MK3s that came from Virgin to NXEA, Virgin certainly let them go in their final days on the West Coast!

I agree, the same thought struck me this week. It's worse now than it was at the height of the Crown Point rebuild which resulted in maintenance issues and short forms etc. Things seem to have really deteriorated over the past 2 or 3 weeks in particular. Prior to that there were 1 or 2 short formed rakes. Now all of them are short formed.
This morning I took a train to London that had only 1 first class, no buffet and a declassified first class in the middle of the standard class coaches. I didn't get my porridge and the cup of tea from the trolley was stone cold, though cheerfully served. Guard apologised over the tannoy and explained "it was decided to run the train rather than cancel it". I agree it was preferably to cancellation but the service quality is disappearing and just can't be relied upon. I find myself deliberately travelling earlier than I need to in case of cancellation. I'm now contemplating going from Attleborough even though that route is slower, less frequent and (bizarrely) much more expensive. At least it's reliable modern stock.
Trip back this evening was on a packed 321 which had some of the passengers from the cancelled 1632 on board too.
 

Carlgoss

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Is it just another 'dodgy' rumour that the 745's are being delivered by sea (Southampton) rather than the tunnel? I thought they were loco hauled all the way through Europe?
Also that the Stadler guy that 'organised' the delivery of the units without seats has been 'let go'?
 
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