dmu fan
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With the new gwr timetable starting in December and Cheltenham to Paddington going to hourly direct services, will these services be 5 or 9 carriage trains?
I believe that they will be 5 carriages off-peak with peak services being 9 or possibly 10.With the new gwr timetable starting in December and Cheltenham to Paddington going to hourly direct services, will these services be 5 or 9 carriage trains?
With the new gwr timetable starting in December and Cheltenham to Paddington going to hourly direct services, will these services be 5 or 9 carriage trains?
With the new gwr timetable starting in December and Cheltenham to Paddington going to hourly direct services, will these services be 5 or 9 carriage trains?
Is anyone actually surprised that they are running five coach trains instead of 10
Yes but on the wofe route 9 or 10 is needed all day on padd to Plymouth, however with all pairs of 5s from December some 5 car formations are inevitable. This isn't acceptable in my view , it wouldn't be tolerated on London to Scotland services. We are seeing 5 vice 10 now, it will only get worse come December when the daily unit requirement goes up significantly. It's a great big balls up waiting to happen.....Of course not - if the 5 cars were meant to be run as permanent 10 cars they would have been built that way.
As has been explained before the economics of running 9-cars on hourly Cotswold trains don't stack up - so it's hourly 5 cars instead and a better service.
How is 5-cars every hour on Cheltenham services not better than a 9-car one hour and travelling on a Bristol train and changing at Swindon for a 2-car train the next?
Why do the train operators have to cart fresh air around at off-peak times just to satisfy a desire from some passengers to have long trains on all services?
A 5-car 800 has considerably more seats than a 4-car 220 if you are worried about overcrowding being like it is on some (not all) CrossCountry services.
some 5 car formations are inevitable
it wouldn't be tolerated on London to Scotland services
If so, maybe the mistake is the agreement with Hitachi to supply 10 cars not specifying a sufficiently penal charge in the case of them only supplying a 5 car.
Try telling Hitachi that. 802s seem a bit more fussy than voyagers when it comes to faults and failures
There are a few 5+5 trains on the Euston - Birmingham - Scotland route. If Bombardier can turn out enough Voyagers for these services, why shouldn't Hitachi be able to consistently supply 5+5 for West of England services?
0550 Glasgow Central to Euston is a 5-car 221 which couples to another at Wolverhampton.
Because unfortunately for whatever reason 802s seem less reliable than voyager stock and the chance of 5 vice 10 is much higher.If so, maybe the mistake is the agreement with Hitachi to supply 10 cars not specifying a sufficiently penal charge in the case of them only supplying a 5 car.
There are a few 5+5 trains on the Euston - Birmingham - Scotland route. If Bombardier can turn out enough Voyagers for these services, why shouldn't Hitachi be able to consistently supply 5+5 for West of England services?
0550 Glasgow Central to Euston is a 5-car 221 which couples to another at Wolverhampton.
Yes but on the wofe route 9 or 10 is needed all day on padd to Plymouth, however with all pairs of 5s from December some 5 car formations are inevitable. This isn't acceptable in my view , it wouldn't be tolerated on London to Scotland services. We are seeing 5 vice 10 now, it will only get worse come December when the daily unit requirement goes up significantly. It's a great big balls up waiting to happen.....
True but at present there are a fair number of 9 cars on wofe route all of which will take off from December being replaced by pairs of 5s and so the chances of a short form will increase. Meanwhile, 9 car sets will be running round half empty during the daytime to places like bristol with it's 4tph.The daily unit requirements from December for HSS remains exactly the same at 80 units required for service.
True but at present there are a fair number of 9 cars on wofe route all of which will take off from December being replaced by pairs of 5s and so the chances of a short form will increase. Meanwhile, 9 car sets will be running round half empty during the daytime to places like bristol with it's 4tph.
That just isn’t true. The 4tph to Bristol isn’t even starting in December. It’s probably not going to be starting until May. And the vast majority of ‘superfast’ trains are scheduled to have five coaches.
Well they're not as we do drive them during the day and i always have a look at loadings on TMS, on the ones we work (1000 off padd ) never loads more than would comfortably fit on a 5 car. Quite how empty those trains will be when 4tph does eventually happen is anyone's guess. I suppose the hope is they will grow additional custom maybe.And the existing services are very busy anyway.
I'm not so sure it'll happen very often on LNER. Unlike the GWR fleet, where only 35 9-car sets have replaced around 50 full-length IC125s, LNER will have almost as many 9-car units as they had IC225s and IC125s put together.Is anyone actually surprised that they are running five coach trains instead of 10? Of course this was always going to happen. Same will happen on East coast too
It depends on how busy the trains are further east. If 5-car to Cheltenham every hour means passengers are having to stand between Reading (or even Swindon) and Paddington then having a 9-car unit on a busier route (eg. London-Bristol) with a local DMU connection to Cheltenham might be better in that nobody ends up having to stand. Note the 'ifs' and 'mights' in there; I don't know what the loadings are like so 5-car every hour off-peak might be fine.How is 5-cars every hour on Cheltenham services not better than a 9-car one hour and travelling on a Bristol train and changing at Swindon for a 2-car train the next?
True but at present there are a fair number of 9 cars on wofe route all of which will take off from December being replaced by pairs of 5s and so the chances of a short form will increase. Meanwhile, 9 car sets will be running round half empty during the daytime to places like bristol with it's 4tph.
Well they're not as we do drive them during the day and i always have a look at loadings on TMS, on the ones we work (1000 off padd ) never loads more than would comfortably fit on a 5 car. Quite how empty those trains will be when 4tph does eventually happen is anyone's guess. I suppose the hope is they will grow additional custom maybe.
Actually I have "kept u updated on how busy IETs are west of Plymouth". We don't work many in that direction but as I if have stated before, one of the few we do drive, 1000 off Penzance is consistently loading high enough by liskeard to justify more than a 5 car set. And actually the 1000 padd to bristol is the type of train I was referring to, ie over capacity during the day which seems allowed on the precious bristol route, but God forbid it happen on any services west of Plymouth. And yes, Paddington is a better place to couple and uncouple 5 car sets than Plymouth frankly, more drivers there, plus the Hitachi mothership depot a few miles away, not to mention royal oak sidings etc to get stock out of the way and in quickly.Are we meant to be shocked and amazed that a mid-morning off-peak service from Paddington to Bristol is not packed to the doors? Who'd have thought that might be the case? Though the set on the 10.00 probably needed all of the nine coaches on its preceding inbound run to Paddington.
Or are you now advocating uncoupling and coupling lots of 2x5 formations in the platforms at Paddington - is this somehow different to coupling and uncoupling IETs at Plymouth, which you keep telling us is a very bad thing?
Funny how, despite your apparently constant monitoring of passenger numbers using the TMS on services that you work, you never seem to have time to inform us of how many people are actually on board IETs west of Plymouth. Why might that be?
In the case of Bristol, I expect GWR are hoping to produce a similar outcome to that recently seen at Oxford, where the Oxford Bus Company (part of Go-Ahead) has recently announced that it is withdrawing the X90 coach link to London at the start of January. It has suffered a 35% drop in passengers since the Chiltern service to Marylebone started running and IETs started to appear on GWR, with the accompanying rise in reliability and punctuality (plus a lot of cheap advances being available), with worsening traffic congestion in London cited as another factor in the decision.
National Express and Megabus combined are running up to 50 coaches a day both ways between London and Bristol, so there is a distinct possibility 4tph, a journey time taking anything up to an hour out of the coach timings, and competitive pricing, will produce a substantial cut in the number of coach services on the route and fill plenty of seats on all those IETs once the full new GWR timetable is implemented there.
Actually I have "kept u updated on how busy IETs are west of Plymouth". We don't work many in that direction but as I if have stated before, one of the few we do drive, 1000 off Penzance is consistently loading high enough by liskeard to justify more than a 5 car set. And actually the 1000 padd to bristol is the type of train I was referring to, ie over capacity during the day which seems allowed on the precious bristol route, but God forbid it happen on any services west of Plymouth. And yes, Paddington is a better place to couple and uncouple 5 car sets than Plymouth frankly, more drivers there, plus the Hitachi mothership depot a few miles away, not to mention royal oak sidings etc to get stock out of the way and in quickly.
The number of passengers may not, perhaps, yield what some members would like with regard to services - for 2017/18 Penzance shows 569000 - my local station, Christchurch, has a humble 519332 - New Milton, ~6 miles up the line, has 623434. The latter benefits from the betwixt and between syndrome. In the holiday season Penzance may well be somewhat busier than the annual figure suggests - but, as Clarence Yard says above, the new December timetable should balance things out for passenger flow. We have, off-peak, two an hour in both directions - Penzance, at least to me, seems to be alright, or better if you chuck in the XC services. Should passenger flow grow (like that bit!) then how easy to stretch the 5-cars to, more likely, 9-car?This argument has been going on over a number of threads and is pointless. It is irrelevant how many people are on the 1000 now because the service changes in December.
I have said this before so here we go again.
Currently the SX departures off Penzance that go at least as far as Plymouth after the 0837 XC and before the 1050 Local are 0900 Paddington, 0925 XC, 1000 Paddington and 1017 Local.
In December it will change to 0850 Local, 0915 Paddington, 0925 XC, 0950 Local and 1015 Paddington.
Spot the difference? One extra train and the Locals depart before the London train, thereby splitting the load off the 1000. That is why the Cornish half hourly could get authorization and why, at this stage, most out of season trains west of Plymouth do not justify more than load 5. Hopefully there will come a time when they do and GWR can get some more cars out of the DfT to go load 8 or 9 on the lot.
I think you should include the XC services in service or seat numbers, because IIRC the DfT’s requirements for mainline frequencies in Cornwall did include the contribution from XC. They are mentioned in that context in the 2015 franchise stakeholder brief.The number of passengers may not, perhaps, yield what some members would like with regard to services - for 2017/18 Penzance shows 569000 - my local station, Christchurch, has a humble 519332 - New Milton, ~6 miles up the line, has 623434. The latter benefits from the betwixt and between syndrome. In the holiday season Penzance may well be somewhat busier than the annual figure suggests - but, as Clarence Yard says above, the new December timetable should balance things out for passenger flow. We have, off-peak, two an hour in both directions - Penzance, at least to me, seems to be alright, or better if you chuck in the XC services. Should passenger flow grow (like that bit!) then how easy to stretch the 5-cars to, more likely, 9-car?
My passenger figures cover 'passengers' - what the DfT requires for frequency is, to me, immaterial - Camborne for 2017/18 has a stunning 255000 pax, Redruth 338000. Both of these are served by XC as well as GWR. PNZ to PLY will be 2 per hour plus the XC - not too bad. I like the south-west! Irish_rail does make sense with regard to certain loadings - it would be good to have the odd 9-car on trains that load well. I would hope that GWR are aware of these - and I would assume they are - just a matter of shifting stock diagrams etc. to make it happen. As you are all aware, not as easy as it may seem.I think you should include the XC services in service or seat numbers, because IIRC the DfT’s requirements for mainline frequencies in Cornwall did include the contribution from XC. They are mentioned in that context in the 2015 franchise stakeholder brief.
My passenger figures cover 'passengers' - what the DfT requires for frequency is, to me, immaterial - Camborne for 2017/18 has a stunning 255000 pax, Redruth 338000. Both of these are served by XC as well as GWR. PNZ to PLY will be 2 per hour plus the XC - not too bad. I like the south-west! Irish_rail does make sense with regard to certain loadings - it would be good to have the odd 9-car on trains that load well. I would hope that GWR are aware of these - and I would assume they are - just a matter of shifting stock diagrams etc. to make it happen. As you are all aware, not as easy as it may seem.
'Stunning' should been filed in the 'irony' section!Why is it 'stunning' that an area with a combined population (including villages a short drive away) that is the best part of 60,000 people sees a decent number of rail passengers at its two stations each year?
There are stations along irish_rail's least favourite route (the Cotswold Line, with its supposed vast over-provision of nine-car IET services), serving far smaller communities, that generate similar numbers of passengers each year.
Many of the passengers using Camborne and Redruth are simply making local journeys, rather than spending their entire lives travelling up and down to London, and will use whatever service is running at the time that suits their particular journey needs best. How trains load now in Cornwall is not a guide to what things will look like in 12 months' time.
GWR are well aware of loadings and variations across the year and allocate rolling stock differently to meet the demands of holiday periods - as has been done in the West Country for a very long time now, all the way back to the original GWR.
They also make what they consider to be appropriate allocations of rolling stock in other - far busier - parts of their network, where they are far more likely to be able to generate substantial year-round extra traffic than in Cornwall, by doing things like taking a big bite out of the coach operators' share of London-Bristol traffic.
I'm not trying to ask a stupid question here but I don't want to occasionally bug GWR in asking the amount of carriages if all is well.
For example, JourneyCheck shows the 12:00 from Oxford to London Paddington formed of 5 coaches instead of 9. That means that's booked for 9 coaches?
Or if a service to / from London, Bristol, South Wales or the South West says 5 instead of 10 on JourneyCheck then that means that's booked for 10?
I know its crazy asking but GWR would say the allocations aren't made until the day.
If I was working on the social media desk at GWR and I knew the allocations, if someone asked me if a particular service is scheduled for 9 coaches and it was, I'd say something like 'yes it is scheduled for coaches but may change on the day.
I'm keen on the 9-car IET's as First Class has more bigger table seats than a 5 and 10-car.
Whilst I'm on the subject of IET allocations, I'm guessing in the December 2019 timetable that all services to and from London Paddington, Oxford and the North Cotswolds (Oxford meaning the fast services) will all be 5 and 9-car IET's?
Assuming yes, it makes life much easier rather than when these were anything from a 2-car Class 165 to an 8-coach HST (including the 5 5-car Class 180's)!
I'm not trying to ask a stupid question here but I don't want to occasionally bug GWR in asking the amount of carriages if all is well.
Whilst I'm on the subject of IET allocations, I'm guessing in the December 2019 timetable that all services to and from London Paddington, Oxford and the North Cotswolds (Oxford meaning the fast services) will all be 5 and 9-car IET's?
You will still see a Turbo on the North Cotswolds, a 2 car is still booked to do the early morning all shacks run due to stations such as Ascott-under-Wychwood, Finstock & Combe.
And, from December, the evening 'all shacks' service is also a Turbo - running as far as Moreton-In-Marsh, before returning to Oxford at 19:10.
And will become probably the first regular service to shunt into the refuge siding south of the A44 London Road bridge at Moreton-in-Marsh to get the Turbo out of the way of the following London to Great Malvern IET and two London-bound services, as it waits for over an hour before its return run to Oxford.
In the past when dmus laid over here, they were able to use the now removed siding next to the former Shipston-on-Stour branch line platform. Picture from 1986 taken by Martin Loader shows the old way of operating.
Yes and it should depart from Platform 1, though the option to shunt it to Platform 2 (via Platform 1) for an on-time departure will also be available should the 18:59 to Hereford be running a little late.
Stabling for a Turbo also used to be available in the short siding on the downside by the signal box that used to lead to the old goods shed, but that siding was also removed as part of the redoubling alterations. The Brunel goods shed was removed much earlier than that, but both it and the siding are shown in this photo: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrmm976.htm