Have you seen post #11397, a few posts back?What about 10 car vs 9 car. Must be some performance differences? 9 car more aero, but less average power per car.
All 800s are in service, and all of the 802s have been delivered
Has 800001 & 800002 finally entered service?
Has 800001 & 800002 finally entered service?
Yes. It doesn't answer this question.Have you seen post #11397, a few posts back?
802114 is in the country but hasn’t been offered to GWR for acceptance yet. It should be in the next few days.
800001/2 are not in passenger service yet. Each will require a refit lasting a few weeks and the first is due to undergo the required mods shortly.
802114 is in the country but hasn’t been offered to GWR for acceptance yet. It should be in the next few days.
I agree. I support bringing back the buffet but the RMT is the enemy of the passenger.Indeed. I will not sign that on a point of principle.
Much as I think GWR does need buffets bringing back, I detest the railway unions. The RMT give even less of a stuff about the punters than WorstGroup do, and that is saying something.
I rarely comment on here - but I see the usual seemingly paranoid anti-GW/First commentary as well as an equally strange inability by some (including a GW driver?) to appreciate the raison d'être with 5 versus 9 into Cornwall. Why, I wonder, are so many incapable of understanding the intended strategy which, until it is all in place, may lead to sub-optimal service provision?
I agree. I support bringing back the buffet but the RMT is the enemy of the passenger.
The current timetable seems to be built around 3 minute headways - but in practice it seems impossible for one train to follow another out of Paddington and into Reading 3 minutes later without some kind of signal check - even when train A runs cleanly into its assigned platform. I don't know how long it takes for the block sections to clear in order for the route and signals to be set for the following train, but what i do know, is that the following train always seems to encounter cautionary signals further back towards Twyford causing it to brake earlier and extend its journey time into Reading. Also the fact that Reading starter is always red causes a much more cautionary approach due to ATP and TPWS issues as well as defensive driving rules!
I think it's a balancing act. Too much slack and it gets tedious. On recent trips on the WCML and ECML I've got the impression that the trains are really going for it but only just keep time. Personally I prefer that.Which underlying issue might that be? That GWR is operated by First Group?
If you want to pretend we still live in October 1976, that's up to you, but the world has changed since then and so has the railway and the job it is required to do. And the average passenger wants a robust, reliable timetable that gets them where they want to go at the advertised time.
The new timetable will result in a lot of GWR services with typical end to end journey times close to what prevailed some years ago, but in most cases they will be making rather more stops along the way.
As a passenger (speaking from a few experiences of this) its an awful experience. Even though practically all the 800 and 802 fleet have been delivered now, it is inevitable this will still happen from time to time. I still say they build too many 5 car and not enough 9 car sets for GWR (only 35 x 9 car sets) and at any one time, its pretty nailed on that all 35 won't be available for service (servicing schedules, faults etc). Got to say though as a driver, you got the most comfortable seat in the whole train ha...sitting on the toilet for your journey is more comfortable than those standard seats.Oh dear it seems 1a85 was formed of just 1 x 5 car 802 on good Friday as far as Plymouth. I drove the same service earlier in the week and the passenger count said 450 passengers by liskeard, so must of been extremely cosy on good Friday packed into a 5 car!!! Just another example where the west is stitched up by using none proper length trains....
Too much slaYes. It doesn't answer this question.
Too much slack seems to encourage slack operating practices. Yes, on some routes the net running times are much more tightly timed - which seems to encourage sharper operating procedures all round. Slack timings encourage more eco driving..but rarely does the timetable seem to recover any quicker due to the padding.I think it's a balancing act. Too much slack and it gets tedious. On recent trips on the WCML and ECML I've got the impression that the trains are really going for it but only just keep time. Personally I prefer that.
Hmmm. Was that recently? My experience observing arrivals and departures at Reading are that the TRST button is not pressed until loading/unloading is complete even when the service is running late.The situation at Reading is bizarre indeed. Typically a train will come to a stand in platform 8/9 10/11 and then a member of platform staff almost immediately pushes the Train Ready To Start (TRTS) button. Then the route clears, usually to green. This sometimes happens before the doors have even unlocked so the train is not ready to start at all! I cannot see any advantage of this over having the route clear (assuming no conflicting moves) before the train arrives. If a problem occurs whilst the train is stopped, the driver will still have to ring the signaller to have the road put back to red.
Hmmm. Was that recently? My experience observing arrivals and departures at Reading are that the TRST button is not pressed until loading/unloading is complete even when the service is running late.
I think that all the other sources of resistance that you mention will be insignificant compared to that huge volume of low pressure at the rear of train sucking it backwards. You can provide some real numbers to prove that I'm wrong if you have them.
If I assume a rough example of there being normal air pressure at the front of the train and a vacuum at the back, the pressure difference between the two will be 100kN per square meter. If I guess that the train has 6 square meters cross sectional area we multiply those to get 600kN. If we multiply that by 44 meters per second (about 100mph) we get 26MW. That's significantly more than the output power of the train (120kW per axle), so obviously there is still reasonable air pressure behind the train, but it shows how significant the air pressure behind the train could potentially be.
Stating the very thing that I stated in my post (about my hypothetical example which in no way was supposed to be an accurate model for air resistance, just an example of the significance of air pressure). And still no real numbers in your post to prove the insignificance of the force produced by the low pressure behind the train relative to the sum of the other various resistances along the train.Your assumptions are incorrect -
The staff are probably used to how long it takes Thames Valley Signalling Centre to respond (and for those who have been there some time, the utterly useless Reading Panel that preceded it).But surely the pressing of the button means "train ready to start" and not "train arrived n platform"
Exactly!But surely the pressing of the button means "train ready to start" and not "train arrived n platform"
Isnt the TRTS linked to automatic route setting? Does the signaller have to manually respond 2 a TRTS call?The staff are probably used to how long it takes Thames Valley Signalling Centre to respond (and for those who have been there some time, the utterly useless Reading Panel that preceded it).
Seat totals and it was cheaper to convert the ordinary coaches than convert the buffet cars. It was an option that was looked at.
Swansea can’t deal with electric repairs so if it is isolated on arrival, it will go out on diesel. As the sets are currently operating on HST times, no big deal. But when the new timetable comes in December, it will be so Q paths will have to be put in to swap units out between Stoke Gifford and Maliphant. .
If you haven’t been reading this thread regularly, you may have missed a number of explanations that the timetable change will not be until December. The May possibility was only ever assumed by some posters, but in hindsight there was no evidence for it.I was under the impression that HST`s would be gone by the introduction of this May`s timetable changover and services would then be run on IET timings?
Two or three months ago. Perhaps the policy has changed. I'll make a point of observing what goes on next time I'm there.Hmmm. Was that recently? My experience observing arrivals and departures at Reading are that the TRST button is not pressed until loading/unloading is complete even when the service is running late.
I had finally chance to try the IETs. I went to Totnes and back on Eastern Sunday, both way 2x5 coach class 802s (didn't check the unit numbers, I'm not that geeky yet )
So, let's get the issue of seats out of the way. Personally I didn't find them particularly hard but I had issue with the profile of the seats, found the back "too straight". Overall not as much of disaster as one could think reading hysteric coverage. Plain average, could be better, could be worse.