GWR Class 800

Aictos · 9 May 2019

Why should Reading commuters be taking up seats that other travellers travelling much farther ought to be using on IC services?

They ought to be using 12 car EMU services that are semi fast to the likes of Bedwyn.

RailUK Forums

The Ham · 9 May 2019

irish_rail said:
Just a quick update on coupling and uncoupling operations at Plymouth (admittedly anecdotal and not conclusive).
Today 9 minute delay on the Golden Hind at Plymouth due to coupling issues. Yesterday, same "prestigous" train cancelled altogether at Plymouth due to inability of two trains to couple. Saturday at least 3 different couplings/ uncouplings at Plymouth experienced delays of at least 10 minutes due to further problems.....
So I will await the usual apologists to tell me that this is all fine and dandy and why should passengers in the west get 9 car trains which will run less than full in Cornwall. However if things carry on the way they are i can see the airlines and coaches taking a lot of business away from the railway on this route.
As a colleague pointed out to me, surely it would make far more sense to operate pairs of 5 car trains on routes to say Cardiff and bristol running all day as 10 car trains giving the core great western routes high capacity trains whilst using the 9 cars on the " intercity " route to the far west.....

There should be no reason why splitting joining trains shouldn't work, SWT and SWR have been doing it for years.

Now the problem comes when there's not the knowledge within your staff pool of how to fix the common problems in that they just have to work through the options available to them, which slows things down.

Likewise, if the maintenance isn't being done to the couplers then there's scope for there to be more faults.

Just because it's not currently working doesn't mean that the solution is to no longer try and run splitting/joining of units. Having said that that doesn't mean that we did just keep going with something if it is clearly not getting better.

Just out of curiosity, over the timeframe which there's been the incidents listed how many successful split/joins were undertaken?

It easy to report when thing go wrong, is harder to notice when it goes right. It is why there's a lot of talk of people not wanting to fly after a plane crash yet that ignores the thousands of fights which have been perfectly safe since the last crash.

The Ham · 9 May 2019

irish_rail said:
Yes, but the amount of extra drivers now being recruited for Plymouth just to shuttle 5 car sets to and from laira to couple and uncouple, each costing 60k a year , not to mention all the additional customer hosts etc to cover both 5 car sets between Plymouth and London on approx 30k a year each I'm not convinced if the economics stack up and would imagine 9 cars running less than full would be far more cost effective than the farce that awaits us in December when every service to Cornwall will split / join.....

Let's say that I've the choice of two fleets:

20*9 coach trains with 40 drivers and 40 customer hosts.

5*9 coach trains and 25*5 coach trains with 50 drivers and 50 customer hosts.

Let's apply costs of £110,000 per coach, £60,000 per driver and £30,000 per customer host.

The first option costs £23.4 million the second option costs £23.2 million. As such although the number of drivers and customer hosts had increased by 20% whilst the number of full length diagrams had dropped by 12.5% it still works out cheaper to have the mixed length fleet.

TractiveEffort · 9 May 2019

irish_rail said:
Just a quick update on coupling and uncoupling operations at Plymouth (admittedly anecdotal and not conclusive).
Today 9 minute delay on the Golden Hind at Plymouth due to coupling issues. Yesterday, same "prestigous" train cancelled altogether at Plymouth due to inability of two trains to couple. Saturday at least 3 different couplings/ uncouplings at Plymouth experienced delays of at least 10 minutes due to further problems.....
So I will await the usual apologists to tell me that this is all fine and dandy and why should passengers in the west get 9 car trains which will run less than full in Cornwall. However if things carry on the way they are i can see the airlines and coaches taking a lot of business away from the railway on this route.
As a colleague pointed out to me, surely it would make far more sense to operate pairs of 5 car trains on routes to say Cardiff and bristol running all day as 10 car trains giving the core great western routes high capacity trains whilst using the 9 cars on the " intercity " route to the far west.....

The fact that NR have confirmed a rail defect and coupling was barred on the platform until the rail was repaired is not worthy of note, or is it always the fault of the unit?

jimm · 9 May 2019

Ethano92 said:
I'm guessing it's about timing improvements but why can't all trains just call at Reading? correct me if I'm wrong but on HS1 don't all trains call at Stratford Intl and Ebbsfleet Intl, its like a metro service between PAD and Reading that is shared with long distance commuters ran by intercity trains.

I guess there may genuinely not be enough demand but I thought Reading was the largest interchange hub out of London so its certainly attractive to have all Paddington trains call there.

The frequency of calls at Reading by trains on GWR long-distance routes to and from London will remain much the same from December as it is now.

Most of the non-stop trains will be extra services - the new third peak train per hour to/from South Wales and Bristol and the off-peak extras to Bristol, once they start running. No one is going to lose out on opportunities to travel to/from or change trains at Reading, whether they are commuters or anyone else.

reddragon said:
The trend has been to reduce the number of trains not stopping at Reading, many went in December 2017 because of the need to avoid overcrowding. My local station had trains that skipped Reading during the peaks, but they left empty, so everyone had to cram onto a Turbo to get to Reading. I loved them when going to Paddington, an empty coach in the peaks! They now all stop at Reading and are much busier. This was because of severe overcrowding on other services, of which the GWR once had most of the top 10.

The reality is with capacity constraints most or all trains need to stop at Reading. You also need to remember that most real Reading commuters, that is those who commute to / from Reading come from the West, so if trains don't stop, GWR loose out.

The limited number of Thames Valley services - as opposed to long-distance trains - that skipped Reading (largely in order to provide some empty seats at Twyford and Maidenhead to shift the commuters heading into London) disappeared in December 2017 because of the first phase of timetable changes in the Thames Valley resulting from more extensive use of Class 387s and the resulting substantial boost to passenger capacity that they provided.

At the time FGW - it was long before the day of the rebranding as GWR - dominated the list of the top 10 most overcrowded trains, way back in 2010, the trains in question were either worked by short Turbo formations that got swamped at stations between Paddington and Slough, or on the way back, or HSTs that hit Reading at the busiest times of the morning peak when already heavily loaded with Oxford/Cotswold or South Wales route passengers.

As a result of that situation, even the DfT accepted something needed to be done and allowed FGW to take back the five Class 180s and take on the two Class 150/0s to free up some Turbos to ease overcrowding in the Thames Valley, though it was a slow process getting there, with the 180s not turning up until 2012.

If you want to play games with what a 'Reading commuter' is, that's up to you. On this forum, it is generally considered to refer to people who commute between Reading and London Paddington. I commute into Reading but certainly don't regard myself as a 'Reading commuter'.

Thatcham Xing · 9 May 2019

irish_rail said:
However if things carry on the way they are i can see the airlines and coaches taking a lot of business away from the railway on this route.

Funny you should say that as I saw a report yesterday from Newquay Airport that the new Flybe Heathrow service carried 15,000 passengers in the first full month of operation (April), which is an increase despite the overall capacity being slightly reduced compared to the previous Gatwick service.

Capacity with 4 return flights per day on the 78-seat Q400 is 624 per day, which suggests an average load factor of around 80% for the month. I'd suspect that the Airport and Flybe will be pretty happy with that. It's not even Summer yet (although I suspect the Easter hols will have helped).

supervc-10 · 9 May 2019

The advantage that flight has over Gatwick is the connectivity onto other destinations from Heathrow being so much better. This will become significantly stronger once FlyBe is fully integrated into Virgin Atlantic's operations (and therefore Air France, KLM, and Delta's, due to their joint ventures)

Bletchleyite · 9 May 2019

The Ham said:
There should be no reason why splitting joining trains shouldn't work, SWT and SWR have been doing it for years.

LM/LNR too, and Southern, and so on. For the record, my objection to the new LNR timetable is not the portion working, I'm in favour of that generally, it's the complexity of the interworking. This doesn't apply to GWR who are just adding/dropping a unit which just goes back to London on the next train.

irish_rail · 10 May 2019

The Ham said:
There should be no reason why splitting joining trains shouldn't work, SWT and SWR have been doing it for years.

Now the problem comes when there's not the knowledge within your staff pool of how to fix the common problems in that they just have to work through the options available to them, which slows things down.

Likewise, if the maintenance isn't being done to the couplers then there's scope for there to be more faults.

Just because it's not currently working doesn't mean that the solution is to no longer try and run splitting/joining of units. Having said that that doesn't mean that we did just keep going with something if it is clearly not getting better.

Just out of curiosity, over the timeframe which there's been the incidents listed how many successful split/joins were undertaken?

It easy to report when thing go wrong, is harder to notice when it goes right. It is why there's a lot of talk of people not wanting to fly after a plane crash yet that ignores the thousands of fights which have been perfectly safe since the last crash.

Currently I think it's just 2 trains a day each way so not exactly many couplings occurring at present which is what makes the delay rate through the roof. And similar problems being experienced on laira coupling and uncoupling are starting to cause delays on depot which have the potential of knock on effect to the timetable services.

Thatcham Xing · 10 May 2019

supervc-10 said:
The advantage that flight has over Gatwick is the connectivity onto other destinations from Heathrow being so much better. This will become significantly stronger once FlyBe is fully integrated into Virgin Atlantic's operations (and therefore Air France, KLM, and Delta's, due to their joint ventures)

You are quite correct of course, but there has also been some disquiet expressed at the loss of connectivity to the very large Easyjet domestic/european network at Gatwick, and to the "beach fleets" (long haul to mostly leisure destinations) that BA and Virgin operate from that airport.

At the end of the day, the new route is about business and global connectivity, and it's possible it could soon become over-subscribed during busy periods based upon this start (which will of course push fares up).

broadgage · 10 May 2019

TractiveEffort said:
The fact that NR have confirmed a rail defect and coupling was barred on the platform until the rail was repaired is not worthy of note, or is it always the fault of the unit?

Obviously the proximate cause was defective infrastructure, not a defective unit.
It could reasonably be argued though that this delay WAS caused by the downgrade from proper inter-city trains to short DMUs.
I don't recall an HST ever being delayed at Plymouth by coupling/uncoupling problems.
And had the aged HSTs been replaced by a more modern inter-city train, rather than by a pair of short multiple units, then such problems would also not have occurred.

Mitchell Hurd · 10 May 2019

Has anyone else noticed that there's been an increasing number of reverse formations ever since GWR introduced these trains? That's the only problem I find.

In my opinion, unless I can be corrected, the 9-coach IET's this mostly happens with, some 10-car sets yes but not all.

If you look at the London - Bristol / South Wales GWR timetable, the 05:19 from Paddington to Swansea (looked at it just now after looking at JourneyChec) runs via Bristol Temple Meads which requires a reversal. From Swansea, it's less likely to reverse. This means at least 1 train runs the wrong way round.

This is why even if the journey is in 1 direction, CrossCountry can't guarantee direction of travel basically.

So now I know why LNER manage running trains the right way round and arrive into Newcastle from the North end (Scotland-bound trains) if reverse formed so the train can be in the correct formation.

To be honest I'm now thinking of clicking 'Don't Mind' when selecting the direction of travel for GWR services. To be honest, they should remove that option anyway. 1000 times easier than getting their trains the right way round!

reddragon · 10 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
To provide some sort of quality of journey for true InterCity passengers by preventing trains being crowded out, just like happens with MKC and Watford Junction.

You could (for another thread) also do it by way of compulsory reservations, but it wouldn't be a good use of seating capacity to do so.

True Inter City? You make me laugh! Trains are to carry passengers and the majority of boarders at Reading have changed trains so don't come from Reading. Yesterday I was a pure bread intercity passenger travelling west, boarding at Reading after a change. Are you saying I must travel via Paddington up on a slow train?

Nobody cares about reservations at Paddington, train crew wait until the train passes Reading and long distance travellers get there early and get a seat!

reddragon · 10 May 2019

Master29 said:
So all these suited types who plough on to the IC services I fantasize ( am actually on) around are coming back from their hols in Wales and the South West perchance? Can`t remember that many brief cases in Newquay or Carmarthen when last at either.

Weekends are a bit different but again huge numbers from the west change at Reading to catch another train.

How else do those from the West change to get to Gatwick, Heathrow, Basingstoke, Oxford & local stations?
The space is then used for people to do Reading London

Mitchell Hurd · 10 May 2019

reddragon said:
True Inter City? You make me laugh! Trains are to carry passengers and the majority of boarders at Reading have changed trains so don't come from Reading. Yesterday I was a pure bread intercity passenger travelling west, boarding at Reading after a change. Are you saying I must travel via Paddington up on a slow train?

Nobody cares about reservations at Paddington, train crew wait until the train passes Reading and long distance travellers get there early and get a seat!

When tickets have to be put out, that's exactly when train crew should be doing it If the train isn't busy and regardless of the delay. But best to do it when after Reading the next stop is Paddington.

reddragon · 10 May 2019

jimm said:
The frequency of calls at Reading by trains on GWR long-distance routes to and from London will remain much the same from December as it is now.

Most of the non-stop trains will be extra services - the new third peak train per hour to/from South Wales and Bristol and the off-peak extras to Bristol, once they start running. No one is going to lose out on opportunities to travel to/from or change trains at Reading, whether they are commuters or anyone else..

Well put, as usual, Jimm

JN114 · 10 May 2019

While they were being introduced the priority was just getting what sets were available out into traffic with the (few) drivers that signed them. The consequence is that the whole fleet is a mishmash of correct and reverse sets.

Now the whole fleet has been delivered and (almost) all traincrew can drive them the focus can switch back to niceties like making sure all the sets are the correct orientation. There was some quote in one of the internal comms that over 40 turning trips have been made in the past month to make inroads into sorting it.

Mag_seven · 10 May 2019

JN114 said:
While they were being introduced the priority was just getting what sets were available out into traffic with the (few) drivers that signed them. The consequence is that the whole fleet is a mishmash of correct and reverse sets.

Now the whole fleet has been delivered and (almost) all traincrew can drive them the focus can switch back to niceties like making sure all the sets are the correct orientation. There was some quote in one of the internal comms that over 40 turning trips have been made in the past month to make inroads into sorting it.

The facility to reverse at the London end has now gone of course with the closure of the Old Oak Common-Park Royal-Greenford line.

Bletchleyite · 10 May 2019

reddragon said:
True Inter City? You make me laugh! Trains are to carry passengers and the majority of boarders at Reading have changed trains so don't come from Reading. Yesterday I was a pure bread intercity passenger travelling west, boarding at Reading after a change. Are you saying I must travel via Paddington up on a slow train?

I'm more in favour of pick up/set down only, which would allow for your journey west while not crowding out InterCity trains with local passengers.

Bletchleyite · 10 May 2019

JN114 said:
While they were being introduced the priority was just getting what sets were available out into traffic with the (few) drivers that signed them. The consequence is that the whole fleet is a mishmash of correct and reverse sets.

Now the whole fleet has been delivered and (almost) all traincrew can drive them the focus can switch back to niceties like making sure all the sets are the correct orientation. There was some quote in one of the internal comms that over 40 turning trips have been made in the past month to make inroads into sorting it.

Is it not feasible to do the diagrams so they correct themselves, and therefore to have the correct data to tell the PIS and the reservation system about it?

reddragon · 10 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I'm more in favour of pick up/set down only, which would allow for your journey west while not crowding out InterCity trains with local passengers.

Not sure on the definition of 'local' when its 36 miles!

How do you suggest the people complete their journey, considering all trains are full and all paths are taken?

Bletchleyite · 10 May 2019

reddragon said:
Not sure on the definition of 'local' when its 36 miles!

Euston to MKC is 40-odd miles and it applies there.

How do you suggest the people complete their journey, considering all trains are full and all paths are taken?

That is the difficulty, but freeing up of the HEx paths if it becomes non-viable once Crossrail opens (ha!) would be a start.

Mag_seven · 10 May 2019

reddragon said:
Well put, as usual, Jimm

So you would agree that as there will be a similar quantum of Class 800s calling at Reading as there is now, you no longer think that the additional services should call at Reading?

reddragon · 10 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Euston to MKC is 40-odd miles and it applies there.

That is the difficulty, but freeing up of the HEx paths if it becomes non-viable once Crossrail opens (ha!) would be a start.

Ahh OK we are getting somewhere!

I am a Thames Valley traveller, not commuter.

At peak times, I use a Thames Valley fast service to London and do not change at Reading, as it is only slightly slower and I get a seat. 12-car 387s are interesting in short platforms! Off peak times, I always change at Reading as the onward journey is very slow (although this should change with Crossrail) and the Inter-City services are lightly loaded at the down end.

Coming back I go for the first fast train and do as 99% of travellers to get to Reading without reading the boards. GWR will have serious issues with non-stoppers because of this! Off peak I get a coach to myself, peak times I jump on last minute & stand. Hell, why would me standing for 20 mins in the vestibule destroy a 1-2 hour journey for someone? I can then catch my local train. I would catch the Thames Valley direct fast, but they are seriously loaded, worse than Inter-Cities, which is why some are 12-cars and you get the walk of shame at Maidenhead getting out of the rear 4-car unit!

Travelling west, I go up to Reading to change as too few trains stop at Didcot. Remove those Reading calls and I would just drive and GWR know that.

All these complaints I read on here about train formations are a bit ridiculous and written by distant train 'experts'. GWR seem to be masters of sizing trains for demand, well learnt a few years back.

So what other 'local' fast journeys would you ban? Crewe - Liverpool?, York-Newcastle? Preston - Lancaster? Come on, trains are to move people and not to create a privileged long traveller class!

reddragon · 10 May 2019

Mag_seven said:
So you would agree that as there will be a similar quantum of Class 800s calling at Reading as there is now, you no longer think that the additional services should call at Reading?

If GWR can route a much faster train non-stop through Reading to give faster much times to the west and gain benefits that outweighs the losses of interchange I wish them luck. As soon as disruption occurs though, that system fails with so many trains reversed at Reading, so then all trains will have to call at Reading.

Thunderer · 10 May 2019

irish_rail said:
Yes, but the amount of extra drivers now being recruited for Plymouth just to shuttle 5 car sets to and from laira to couple and uncouple, each costing 60k a year , not to mention all the additional customer hosts etc to cover both 5 car sets between Plymouth and London on approx 30k a year each I'm not convinced if the economics stack up and would imagine 9 cars running less than full would be far more cost effective than the farce that awaits us in December when every service to Cornwall will split / join.....

Spot on. Running two 5 car trains(coupling and uncoupling) is absolutely stupid on a major GWR Inter-City route. Cue all the people to say "Its not economical running ten cars deep into Cornwall" but as you have quite rightly pointed out, the extra staff overheads plus the "Guess where your coach is?" When a ten car turns up is annoying and not viable, plus add in the delay when the coupling goes wrong. The IEP should have specified ONE fleet of uniformed length 800's (9 or 10 car) for long distance services to Plymouth/Penzance/Swansea/Bristol/Cotswolds etc and a separate fleet of smaller trains for Bedwyn/Oxford - that is common sense. I HATE travelling on a ten car IEP (especially if Im going 1st class) as you never know where first class is going to be, station boards often get it wrong so you end up having to run down the platform, which is dangerous, plus in the trailer First Class the seating is too low to the window and in the composite you have the engine noise and vibration plus the world and his dog walking through first class in the composite coach at every station to get in/out of standard, which hardly promotes "First Class" tranquility and a relaxed environment. I fear these trains will see a lot of customers leave the railways for long distance in favour of flights and coaches, it is already happening in South Wales as a few on-board GWR staff have mentioned regular 1st class business customers are leaving in droves, citing the poor value for money of 1st on these wreched trains. I sincerely hope the open access operator who has applied to operate hourly services between Cardiff and Paddington using a 91 and a rake of Mk 4's gets the go-ahead, as I and Im sure many others will use that service over a GWR 800 any day of the week.

Bletchleyite · 10 May 2019

reddragon said:
So what other 'local' fast journeys would you ban? Crewe - Liverpool?, York-Newcastle? Preston - Lancaster? Come on, trains are to move people and not to create a privileged long traveller class!

Or put differently, most countries provide separate local and long-distance services because the needs of both are different.

Anyway, this is heading OT - I can chuck a new thread in if you want? PM me if you do want to discuss this further and I'll create one.

Bletchleyite · 10 May 2019

Thunderer said:
I fear these trains will see a lot of customers leave the railways for long distance in favour of flights and coaches, it is already happening in South Wales as a few on-board GWR staff have mentioned regular 1st class business customers are leaving in droves, citing the poor value for money of 1st on these wreched trains.

I agree that they will, but it's the appalling seats (in both classes - the 1st seats are barely good Standard class, while the Standard seats are not suitable for a half hour all stations stopper) that are the primary cause of that.

Rip them out and fit Grammer IC3000/E3000, FISA LEAN, or, crikey, even ironing boards, and you'll solve that one. Seriously, I'd rather spend 5 hours on a Class 350/2.

cactustwirly · 10 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Euston to MKC is 40-odd miles and it applies there.

That is the difficulty, but freeing up of the HEx paths if it becomes non-viable once Crossrail opens (ha!) would be a start.

But Milton Keynes isn't Reading....
The intercity trains aren't that crowded, it's only the peak times, when all other services are full anyway

59CosG95 · 10 May 2019

Thunderer said:
Spot on. Running two 5 car trains(coupling and uncoupling) is absolutely stupid on a major GWR Inter-City route. Cue all the people to say "Its not economical running ten cars deep into Cornwall" but as you have quite rightly pointed out, the extra staff overheads plus the "Guess where your coach is?" When a ten car turns up is annoying and not viable, plus add in the delay when the coupling goes wrong. The IEP should have specified ONE fleet of uniformed length 800's (9 or 10 car) for long distance services to Plymouth/Penzance/Swansea/Bristol/Cotswolds etc and a separate fleet of smaller trains for Bedwyn/Oxford - that is common sense. I HATE travelling on a ten car IEP (especially if Im going 1st class) as you never know where first class is going to be, station boards often get it wrong so you end up having to run down the platform, which is dangerous, plus in the trailer First Class the seating is too low to the window and in the composite you have the engine noise and vibration plus the world and his dog walking through first class in the composite coach at every station to get in/out of standard, which hardly promotes "First Class" tranquility and a relaxed environment. I fear these trains will see a lot of customers leave the railways for long distance in favour of flights and coaches, it is already happening in South Wales as a few on-board GWR staff have mentioned regular 1st class business customers are leaving in droves, citing the poor value for money of 1st on these wreched trains. I sincerely hope the open access operator who has applied to operate hourly services between Cardiff and Paddington using a 91 and a rake of Mk 4's gets the go-ahead, as I and Im sure many others will use that service over a GWR 800 any day of the week.

Where to begin?

First off, the route to the West Country from Paddington is indeed a major GWR Inter-City route, but by the time you head west of Plymouth, you're stopping at over half the stations anyway - hardly an "Inter-City" route! (Unless I missed the memo that Saltash, Liskeard, Bodmin Parkway, Lostwithiel, Par, St Austell, Redruth, Camborne and St Erth now all have cathedrals and City Status)

Yes, the First Class environs were poorly thought out with regards seating arrangements, but as @Bletchleyite says, comfort is subjective (although I've yet to go further than London to Reading on an IET).
Yes, the mix of 5 & 9-car units is baffling at times, but blame FGW's legacy of the Adelantes for that, and NR's reluctance to make every single station on the GWR IC network 9-car compatible.

But as I've learned, due to the IET timetable to Cardiff coming into force imminently, the 91s' poor acceleration compared to the 80x units makes a full-length IC225 service nigh-on impossible.

GWR Class 800

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