Should Class 800 be ordered for the Cross Country franchise?

[The Ham]

A fleet of 7-car class 802s would surely be a good idea for the North East – South West services. Using 5 powered vehicles would give an improved power to weight ratio over existing AT-300 formations. Based on current XC fleet usage, that’d require around 20 daily diagrams resulting in a fleet size of around 23 units based on existing AT-300 utilisation figures, which isn’t dissimilar to the size of existing individual commercial class 802 orders.


They could utilise (subject to agreement) established IEP maintenance facilities located strategically along (or close to) the line of route at Edinburgh Craigentinny, Doncaster and Stoke Gifford, and I believe that work is also already being undertaken to allow Plymouth Laira and Penzance Long Rock depots to accommodate GWRs’ class 802 units at the South West end of the route.


That’d be sufficient additional units brought into the franchise to displace Crosscountry’s HSTs (Although Porterbrook might not be impressed to see such short term utilisation of their power door fitted sets, whenever they finally see the light of day), and to permit all the 4-car Voyager units to operate in pairs as 8-car sets on all Manchester – Exeter and the majority of Manchester – Bournemouth diagrams (Or whichever busiest services require them).

Before we go too far down the line of insisting that XC get all 7 coach 80x's there a few things to bear in mind.


Firstly, a 7 coach unit would be stuck being a 7 coach unit, there's no scope to run it paired up with another unit.


More importantly not all 5 coach units are created equal, and certainly not in terms of capacity:

- 220/221 (4 coaches) 200 seats

- 221 (5 coaches) 250 seats

- 802 (GWR) 326

- 802 (TPE) 342


Given the above a GWR 802 has just over 80% of the capacity of a pair of 220's, whilst configure it like a TPE unit and it gets to basically (although a little over) 85% of the capacity.


Even comparing a pair of 5 coach 221's with a GWR 800 gets you to 65% of the capacity (or a 30% increase in capacity on a like for like basis).


As such I would suggest that XC would better, if going for 80x's, with getting something like:

- 10 X 9 coach units (to replace their HST's with a few extra for those services which are already mostly doubled up units)
- 65 X 5 coach units (which is 7 more units than they currently have to allow more units to be run doubled up through the core)

If you counted the core as Reading/Exeter to the South and Manchester/York to the North then that would mean that you'll have a good choice of alternative TOC's services beyond there to mean that shorter units weren't an issue.

With some extra units it could possibly allow service splitting to serve more places. For insance:
- doing a split/join at Basingstoke to serve Salisbury and Bournemouth
- doing a split/join at Exeter to serve Plymouth and Torbay
- doing a split at Crewe to serve Manchester and Liverpool
- doing a split a Sheffield to allow a service to run to Hull
- doing a split at Winchester to serve Southampton and Portsmouth

I'm sure there's others that could happen and there could be issues with those that I have suggested, however it gives you an idea of what may be possible.

Finally HS2 needs to be thought about which will significant alter the demand for some XC services. For instance Birmingham Manchester will be significantly quicker by HS2 and so there could be less demand for those services. If you are mostly running 5/10 coach trains then you can just redeploy units to other services so that they are all 5 coach trains if that's what's needed. Otherwise with 7 coach units you could find that they are under used with little scope to change their usage (at least not without reforming them into 5/9 coach units anyway)

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Before we go too far down the line of insisting that XC get all 7 coach 80x's there a few things to bear in mind.

Firstly, a 7 coach unit would be stuck being a 7 coach unit, there's no scope to run it paired up with another unit.

A 7 coach IET would have, based pro-rata on the GWR 800/3s, 56 x 1st class and 488 x standard class seats. They would also be 175m long compared to 184m long for a doubled up Voyager of 8 cars which would seat 52 x 1st and 348 x standard.

This would mean that a fleet of 58 seven car IETs could replace the entire Voyager fleet on Cross Country and allow all services to have a substantial capacity increase ( the main issue with XC right now ) ranging from 36% compared to a double Voyager and 272% compared to a single 4 car Voyager while still fitting in all the existing platforms used. The displaced Voyagers could then be used on quieter routes with other operators that are more suited to their capacity but where their performance would be beneficial. In turn, this would displace a number of class 156 and 158 units to boost capacity on other routes.

 

[The Ham]

A 7 coach IET would have, based pro-rata on the GWR 800/3s, 56 x 1st class and 488 x standard class seats. They would also be 175m long compared to 184m long for a doubled up Voyager of 8 cars which would seat 52 x 1st and 348 x standard.

This would mean that a fleet of 58 seven car IETs could replace the entire Voyager fleet on Cross Country and allow all services to have a substantial capacity increase ( the main issue with XC right now ) ranging from 36% compared to a double Voyager and 272% compared to a single 4 car Voyager while still fitting in all the existing platforms used. The displaced Voyagers could then be used on quieter routes with other operators that are more suited to their capacity but where their performance would be beneficial. In turn, this would displace a number of class 156 and 158 units to boost capacity on other routes.

Just out of interest did you realise that the although the headline numbers of units looks like you are ordering significantly less units (58 Vs 75) than in my suggestion the total number of coaches isn't that much less (406 Vs 415).

As such under your proposal you are able to replace all the 22x's but would still be left with the HST's to replace. Under my proposal they get replaced as well.

Also, the 22x's are worked HARD and so there's little slack in their schedules (part of the problem that makes the toilet she'll such an issue in that they can't be emptied enough). With your like for like basis in unit numbers you'll gain a few extra diagrams but not many and so many of the issues will remain. This includes the cited above issue of by still having to serve some outer destinations not being able to do strongly serve the core stations.

However useful 7 coach units appear, a near quadrupoling of capacity would often be fairly wasteful on some of the outer edges of the network (such as south of Basingstoke or West of Exeter/Plymouth) for many services. A 5 coach 80x would still provide nearly 60% more capacity than the current 4 coach Voyagers (which makes up about 2/3's of the Voyager fleet) and 26% more capacity than the 5 coach Voyagers.

As stated above the would be 9 coach units as well (which would provide a doubling of capacity over the 5 coach units) as well as extra units that could allow for more doubled up services. These would have more capacity than the current HST's by about 18% and more than the current doubled up 4 coach Voyagers by about 60% (or about the same as adding a third 4 coach Voyager to the train).

Based on fleet utilisation of 90% there would need to be 6*7 coach units as spares/on maintenance Vs 8*5 coach units doing the same. That's 42 coaches Vs 40 coaches (maybe 45 of you have an extra 5 coach unit so that a pair of five coaches can sub for a 9 coach unit), meaning that there's more coaches in service (by 11, or maybe 6 of that extra unit is on standby, given that the fleet would have 9 extra coaches to start with).

There also appears to be a need to have 2 pantographs and associated transformers on units with 6 coaches or longer. As such that's 116 Vs 85, which although may not make a big difference to the costs it could be enough to fund some of those extra 9 coaches.

All of which means that there's more seats in service at any time and they can be more easily focused to those services where they are needed the most. Which is probably of a bigger concern to XC. Yes it will mean that they will need some extra staff, but those extra costs should be easily offset against the better yeild management across their whole fleet and/or being able to serve a slightly larger network and/or having a more uniform level of service rather than having to truncate the core to serve some of the outer edges still.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Just out of interest did you realise that the although the headline numbers of units looks like you are ordering significantly less units (58 Vs 75) than in my suggestion the total number of coaches isn't that much less (406 Vs 415).

As such under your proposal you are able to replace all the 22x's but would still be left with the HST's to replace.

Yes, I was doing a basic like for like calculation against the current fleet, but leaving the HSTs in place as they are currently having the 2020 modifications carried out. Could easily add a few more IETs and move the present XC HSTs over to EMT, but by the time that could happen the £50 million being spent over there would have already happened wouldn't it?

Could indeed add to the IET figures to replace the XC HSTs anyway, but later on after they'd got a bit of return on their 2020 modifications. So at the end of a build staggered more slowly than with the GWR and ECML fleet plans, that could work... Thinking about it, the current IET production goes up to 2019 doesn't it? So lets assume a 2020 start for this hypothetical XC order... if it was phased at two units a month, 24 a year, that would mean the XC HSTs, if left till last for replacement, would remain until the end of 2023 - would that be long enough to get a good enough return on their 2020 modifications?

Assuming so, then the 58 would become 64 or 65 - bearing in mind the poor utilisation of the HST fleet, that would gain another diagram or two.

I put a uniform fleet of 7 cars to allow for easier diagramming by having a uniform fleet - would there not be issues with 9 car ones at some platforms anyway? With a uniform fleet, there would be a gain of a diagram or two in any case from the fact of not having to allow for a slack for maintenance in two different fleet specifications - and while the peripheral stations would indeed be getting served by half empty trains, the ease of diagramming and the closer match to capacity requirements on the core part of the XC network make that less of an issue than otherwise.

Of course if additional diagrams were required to increase services - though I would imagine that the boost from having a uniform 7 car fleet would mean this wouldn't be needed - then there is no reason to not add further units to the order anyway.

 

[The Ham]

The level of complexity when having 5/9/10 coach diagrams wouldn't be that tricky.

A 5 coach unit can be replaced by a 5 or 9 coach unit.

Whilst 9 coach units could be replaced by a pair of 5 coach units or the other way around.

If the weren't a pair of 5 coach units spare then you would get a short formed train, however that should be fairly unlikely.

By going to 64 X 7 coach units you increase the number of coaches to 448 (or 455 for 65 units) compared with circa 415 if you had a mix of 5 and 9 coach units. Those extra coaches have to be paid for somehow and unless you're going to flood the edges of the network with cheap tickets there's going to be a lot of empty seats where there's not a lot of demand.

 

[gingertom]

There also appears to be a need to have 2 pantographs and associated transformers on units with 6 coaches or longer.

Both the 5-car and 9-car 80x have 2 pantograph/transformer cars, in the driving vehicles. I'd assume it's for redundancy. The 9-car set does not operate with both pantographs up.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Both the 5-car and 9-car 80x have 2 pantograph/transformer cars, in the driving vehicles. I'd assume it's for redundancy. The 9-car set does not operate with both pantographs up.

Pendolinos have one pantograph up (the rearmost one) but have 3 transformers in an 11 car set, all in use.

 

[gingertom]

Pendolinos have one pantograph up (the rearmost one) but have 3 transformers in an 11 car set, all in use.

is the second transformer in a 9-car IET in use?

 

[toby_farman]

Yes the class 802 would be good but they don't need 750v DC shoe gear seeing the relatively short amount of 3rd Rail electrified track they run on. The Class 802 would definitely be best because they have larger fuel tanks than class 800s... On the WCML they could only run at 110mph but the "tilting" class 221s that already operate don't tilt for crosscountry as they removed the equipment, so that's not a problem. Probably only 5 cars would be necessary for the 802s, as the voyagers and super voyagers are all 4/5 cars and the HSTs are 7 cars. They could couple two 5 car trains to make 10 car trains if they need that much capacity.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Yes the class 802 would be good but they don't need 750v DC shoe gear seeing the relatively short amount of 3rd Rail electrified track they run on. The Class 802 would definitely be best because they have larger fuel tanks than class 800s... On the WCML they could only run at 110mph but the "tilting" class 221s that already operate don't tilt for crosscountry as they removed the equipment, so that's not a problem. Probably only 5 cars would be necessary for the 802s, as the voyagers and super voyagers are all 4/5 cars and the HSTs are 7 cars. They could couple two 5 car trains to make 10 car trains if they need that much capacity.

I think replace the voyagers with 5-car 802’s which would largely form 10-cars. CrossCountry needs capacity desperately

 

[ExRes]

As has been said many times before, with such a short franchise period left the incumbents are not going to sign up for anything, 22x or 80x or anything else, nothing will be ordered until a new franchise agreement is signed, if that actually ever happens, and the new holder is satisfied that they'll get something out of it, those that have to suffer cross country crush syndrome will have to keep a stiff upper lip for at least another 3+ years

 

[Aictos]

I disagree with Class 800s being ordered for the Cross Country franchise and why I hear people say...

Has anyone actually thought about the Class 222s which may become available when they become displaced by the Class 80Xs on order for East Midlands Railway?

At the moment, they are formed into:

4 x 4 coaches
17 x 5 coaches
6 x 7 coaches

The 4 and 5 coach sets usually form 9 or 10 coach sets in the peaks plus the entire fleet is maintained at Derby Etches Park which is close to Derby which is a XC hub.

With some juggling around of the diagrams, it would mean extra capacity being delivered via using the Class 220s/221s on one set of diagrams and Class 222s on the other set of diagrams with HSTs either being cascaded elsewhere or kept on a set of diagrams.

 

[toby_farman]

I think replace the voyagers with 5-car 802’s which would largely form 10-cars. CrossCountry needs capacity desperately

If they would largely be operated as 10 car services then they should be 9 car 802s.
Although a 7 car set would be good, they may be much more expensive than "off the shelf" 5 car units. Aren't the 4/5 car voyagers and super voyagers providing enough capacity already, though?

 

[NEDdrv]

Desperately needed extra capacity, but all gone quiet. Would think if 800’s are ordered it would need to be the 802 type for the banks. I for one am not holding my breath waiting for some announcement as XC seems to be a low priority for the DFT, plenty talk but no action.

 

[toby_farman]

As has been said many times before, with such a short franchise period left the incumbents are not going to sign up for anything, 22x or 80x or anything else, nothing will be ordered until a new franchise agreement is signed, if that actually ever happens, and the new holder is satisfied that they'll get something out of it, those that have to suffer cross country crush syndrome will have to keep a stiff upper lip for at least another 3+ years

Yes, but i think Hitachi A-Trains are a "standard" type of train and we should expand their use. class 802s for grand central and class 801s for their services to blackpool?

 

[toby_farman]

Desperately needed extra capacity, but all gone quiet. Would think if 800’s are ordered it would need to be the 802 type for the banks. I for one am not holding my breath waiting for some announcement as XC seems to be a low priority for the DFT, plenty talk but no action.

Yes but with XC services running on so much electrified track, it makes economic sense to replace expensive, dirty and noisy diesel trains with higher-capacity "hybrid" trains?

 

[sprinterguy]

I think replace the voyagers with 5-car 802’s which would largely form 10-cars. CrossCountry needs capacity desperately

Only if they can operate with Selective Door Opening within the limitations of the platforms that would need it: Chesterfield, Burton and Leamington on the Up side, for example, all require consideration for anything longer than 9x23 metres.

Most Crosscountry services don't require the capacity of ten cars anyway.

Aren't the 4/5 car voyagers and super voyagers providing enough capacity already, though?

Good grief no, not even close to it.

If Crosscountry were to go for an all new inter-city fleet at some future point I personally would like to see a fleet of, say, 30 x 7-car and 30 x 5-car class 802s, the former covering all Scotland - South West services and selected Manchester diagrams. An all 5-car fleet would probably be more plausible though, more's the pity.

 

[gingertom]

Desperately needed extra capacity, but all gone quiet. Would think if 800’s are ordered it would need to be the 802 type for the banks. I for one am not holding my breath waiting for some announcement as XC seems to be a low priority for the DFT, plenty talk but no action.

I'd like to see the AT300 variant being planned for the Midland Main Line operating on XC routes. 5-car sets, 4x 940BHP engines, what's not to like? (please don't say seats).

 

[toby_farman]

Only if they can operate with Selective Door Opening within the limitations of the platforms that would need it: Chesterfield, Burton and Leamington on the Up side, for example, all require consideration for anything longer than 9x23 metres.

Good grief no, not even close to it.

If Crosscountry were to go for an all new inter-city fleet at some future point I personally would like to see a fleet of, say, 30 x 7-car and 30 x 5-car class 802s, the former covering all Scotland - South West services and selected Manchester diagrams. An all 5-car fleet would probably be more plausible though, more's the pity.

How about a fleet of 5 car and 9 car class 802s (similar to GWR) for XC? Mostly 5 cars but with some 9 cars which would provide large amounts of capacity without needing platform modifications?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes to 80x. I would go for all 7 car with an option to extend to 8. I'd only go for 5s if portion working was planned.

 

[toby_farman]

I'd like to see the AT300 variant being planned for the Midland Main Line operating on XC routes. 5-car sets, 4x 940BHP engines, what's not to like? (please don't say seats).

Less capacity - Class 802s have 26m cars but those only have 24m cars

 

[toby_farman]

We at least need to replace the HSTs. Some were built back in 1976 and are now incredibly inefficient. GWR could do it, LNER could do it, why can't CrossCountry? With so much electrified track on the XC route, why are we running diesel trains?

 

[Darandio]

We at least need to replace the HSTs. Some were built back in 1976 and are now incredibly inefficient. GWR could do it, LNER could do it, why can't CrossCountry?

They will be replaced, just not anytime soon. No new stock will be ordered in the near future due to the current situation with the Cross Country franchise and franchising in general.

With so much electrified track on the XC route, why are we running diesel trains?

When the last round of new stock arrived at CrossCountry, there wasn't any alternative.

 

[toby_farman]

They will be replaced, just not anytime soon. No new stock will be ordered in the near future due to the current situation with the Cross Country franchise and franchising in general.

Yes, privatisation is bad -- but they've put automatic doors on the HSTs so how long will they be going on for??

 

[Monty]

Yes, privatisation is bad -- but they've put automatic doors on the HSTs so how long will they be going on for??

Probably a few years yet, the franchise is ending next year and may see a direct award as a short term measure. Until the government decide how they are going to manage the railways in the future it could be several years before replacement stock is ordered and then you probably have a good 18 months from the time you order any new train to it entering service.

 

[toby_farman]

Probably a few years yet, the franchise is ending next year and may see a direction award as a short term measure. Until the government decide how they are going to manage the railways in the future it could be several years before replacement stock is ordered and then you probably have a good 18 months from the time you order any new train to it entering service.

Well the current franchise ends in Autumn 2020 and new operators often order new trains so any new trains would hopefully enter service end of 2022/mid 2023... Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[toby_farman]

ny new trains would hopefully enter service end of 2022/mid 2023

Probably quite ambitious, that.

 

[Darandio]

Well the current franchise ends in Autumn 2020 and new operators often order new trains so any new trains would hopefully enter service end of 2022/mid 2023... Correct me if I am wrong.

There won't be a new franchise awarded next year. It will either be extended again or control taken like LNER. Franchising is up in the air at the moment.

 

[Monty]

Well the current franchise ends in Autumn 2020 and new operators often order new trains so any new trains would hopefully enter service end of 2022/mid 2023... Correct me if I am wrong.

That's assuming the mess we have for a government can decide on how they are going to move away from franchising as we know it now and appoint a new operator. I still wouldn't rule out yet another direct award. But even if (and that is a mighty big if) that all happens you are still looking at 2022/2023 at the earliest for any new stock that may be ordered.

 

[samuelmorris]

There is no reason to replace the Voyagers yet, and there aren't that many other places they could go where they'd be ideally suited - XC will be the logical operator to receive the surplus 221 trains from the new WCML operator when their new units arrive, so some extra capacity will come from that - if any additional capacity is deemed warranted by the DfT, the remaining solo Voyager diagrams can be doubled up and additional 80x units ordered to fill the gaps. I think that's unlikely to happen before the extra stock comes across, so you'll probably be looking at 2024 earliest before anything other than Voyagers and HSTs work on CrossCountry, if at all.

You also need to stop typing in all bold text...