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GWR Class 800

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delticdave

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You’ll normally only see them on Diesel power at Didcot; because they switch from electric to Diesel or vv for Steventon bridge east of Didcot when non-stop; or at Didcot when stopping.
Thanks, but I'm confused, Steventon is west of Didcot, not east. The westbound units that stopped at Didcot arrived quite slowly & with their pans down. I know that only certain locations are authorised for raising pantographs at speed, but lowering after the GU's have been started should be possible anywhere?
 
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59CosG95

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Thanks, but I'm confused, Steventon is west of Didcot, not east. The westbound units that stopped at Didcot arrived quite slowly & with their pans down. I know that only certain locations are authorised for raising pantographs at speed, but lowering after the GU's have been started should be possible anywhere?
It might be possible anywhere, but for traincrew knowledge simplification (AFAIK), NR/GWR/Hitachi have said that the changeover points should be fixed in the same locations for raising & lowering (with a few exceptions). For non-stop trains, that makes a world of sense.

I forget why they can't pan down in platforms though.
 

Mintona

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All westbound trains lower the pantograph at Moreton Cutting, approximately 2 miles to the east of Didcot. As things currently stand, you will never see an IET in public service arrive at Didcot Parkway (in either direction) with the pantograph raised*.

*The only exception would be a train terminating from London direction and heading back to London, of which there are a couple each day I believe.
 

delticdave

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All westbound trains lower the pantograph at Moreton Cutting, approximately 2 miles to the east of Didcot. As things currently stand, you will never see an IET in public service arrive at Didcot Parkway (in either direction) with the pantograph raised*.

*The only exception would be a train terminating from London direction and heading back to London, of which there are a couple each day I believe.

One lives & learns......Full marks to the good people of Steventon, dumping pollution on to themselves & their neighbours to the west..
So, what happens with the 387's if / when they run beyond Didcot. ISTR that GWR have stated that 12-car 387's might be required for major events at the Cardiff Stadium + are there any ECS workings beyond Didcot?
 

cactustwirly

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One lives & learns......Full marks to the good people of Steventon, dumping pollution on to themselves & their neighbours to the west..
So, what happens with the 387's if / when they run beyond Didcot. ISTR that GWR have stated that 12-car 387's might be required for major events at the Cardiff Stadium + are there any ECS workings beyond Didcot?

Some 387s stable overnight at Swindon
 

Mintona

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One lives & learns......Full marks to the good people of Steventon, dumping pollution on to themselves & their neighbours to the west..
So, what happens with the 387's if / when they run beyond Didcot. ISTR that GWR have stated that 12-car 387's might be required for major events at the Cardiff Stadium + are there any ECS workings beyond Didcot?

387s already run through to Swindon, with a 60mph restriction through Steventon. I guess it was decided that the drop in speed would be unacceptable to high speed services so it was better to change to diesel for a few miles.
 
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Both at North Pole, being modified to passenger standard. 800002 should be out in early July and 800001 has only just gone in and should be ready sometime around early September.
800001 is at Stoke Gifford and is likely to remain there until the end of next week, it won’t be started for mods/refit until 002 is released.
 

coppercapped

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It would seem that the GWR management is getting nervous about Agility Trains / Hitachi's ability to make 94.6% of the IEP/IET fleet available for traffic in time for the December timetable change. An article in Rail magazine (No. 881 dated 19th June, page 31) has all the hallmarks of an attempt to put public pressure on Hitachi to improve both the reliability and availability of its trains - it includes details of the number of trains limited to 'diesel-only' operation and indications of the major sources of failures in the Class 800 fleet (engines and coolant) and 802 fleet (external doors). On 18th May 18 IETs were operating with a 'diesel only' restriction with 74 trains available for traffic - this meant that ten diagrams had to be short-formed to meet timetabling requirements. The number of Technical Incidents (TINs) for Period 1 are also published - 74 for the Class 800s and 44 for the Class 802; as the miles run are also given it can be seen that miles per TIN (MTIN) are low - about 10,000 in both cases. As a comparison the Class 707s are nudging 100,000.

Apparently an 'IET performance improvement plan' has been created. It would seem that this is going to have to work wonders - there are only five months left to the timetable change. Hitachi has now had nearly two years of operation and performance levels are clearly unsatisfactory. What are the chances that it will all be right on the night? To my way of thinking train reliability and availability should be stable for several months before a timetable change to avoid changing too many variables at once.

It gives me no great pleasure to say that I think I am justified in saying that my scepticism about the Class 80X's performance about which I posted earlier and which was based on a data series being published in Modern Railways had rootings in reality. I want the trains to work reliably - I use them!
 

FGW_DID

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On 18th May 18 IETs were operating with a 'diesel only' restriction with 74 trains available for traffic - this meant that ten diagrams had to be short-formed to meet timetabling requirements.

The number of diagrams doesn’t sound quite right. It’s a shame that there is no breakdown of the 74 units available into type i.e 5car/9car
There are only 79 IET diagrams now which with 74 units available gives a shortfall of 5 diagrams uncovered. If that shortfall was borne by the 10 car formations you would only end up with 5 shortforms (5v10).

Sounds to be like there was an imbalance of more 9 car units available than 5 cars so quite a few of those short formations may only have been 9 vice 10.

Unfortunately my email trash folder regularly ‘empties’ so it only has emails from the start of the month.
 

ATW158Xpress

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I witnessed 2 trains going out on diesel departing east of Bristol Parkway towards London Paddington. Are there any units on diesel only restriction or problems with the OLE in the area?
 

SN1 19-5

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The new trains are bad. Everyone I have spoken to is of the same opinion.

I've been for a few days out this year. Saying goodbye to the HST's as only I can.

Jump on a HST to Bristol/Swansea/Stroud/London. I was even on the Last Service HST AND the Bananer.

All trips involved HST haulage, a meal and some beers!

At least the demise of the HST around here will lead to an increase in the bank balance! I won't be hopping onto an iep to spend cash!
 

SN1 19-5

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Hmm. Would you care to enlighten us?

The seats are grim. No buffet on them. Why else would you use them? Unless, you have to use them to get to work. If you do, you have my sympathies! I will not be going for any meal n pub mashups on the iep's!

I had the "joy" of a free ride earlier this month. This was from Plymouth to Reading, and, then back to Swindon. So, I wasn't doing me usual comfy day out jolly. I was just going home. I was glad to get off at Reading.

I went on a couple before Swindon got "electrocuted" I thought that they would have improved them since then. They haven't!
 

samuelmorris

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Hmm. Would you care to enlighten us?

The seats are grim. No buffet on them. Why else would you use them? Unless, you have to use them to get to work. If you do, you have my sympathies! I will not be going for any meal n pub mashups on the iep's!

I had the "joy" of a free ride earlier this month. This was from Plymouth to Reading, and, then back to Swindon. So, I wasn't doing me usual comfy day out jolly. I was just going home. I was glad to get off at Reading.

I went on a couple before Swindon got "electrocuted" I thought that they would have improved them since then. They haven't!
If you don't use the buffet, then that leaves your complaint at just the seats. I feel they're decidedly average, they look and feel a bit cheap in more ways than just the seats, but in electrified areas there's no doubt they meet the improved performance and capacity targets the modern railway needs.
 

SN1 19-5

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If the electricity supply fails, as it did on Saturday, are they still filled with diseasel, just so they can carry on regardless with their journey?
 

Ethano92

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Hmm. Would you care to enlighten us?

Why else would you use them?

Odd wording, not everyone dislikes the train. You'll obviously find the majority of comments online are negative because if your journey was comfy or average, you won't feel the need to comment. The only true way to find out how disliked the trains are would be to walk down the length of a train asking each person their opinion, but then you need to factor in the trains destination and the time of travel i.e you'll never get a definitive answer.

I personally never spend money on trains and I don't 'use' trains just for their buffet, just like many other people.

People use the train to travel, it's not so complicated. Not everyone used the buffet on HSTs and not everyone will use the trolley on IETs, to many the only thing wrong with the trains will be their seats, to some the seats won't even matter. My mum particularly likes them actually because she thinks if they're hard they won't retains as much dirt (don't really know if that's logical thinking) and she also feels morally better being on a train actually using the wires above it (albeit with what's becoming a chronic problem to do so).

You only have to flick back through this thread to know although these trains aren't the most liked, there are still mixed opinions and yet you still get people claiming they're bad in every way and nobody likes them at least once a month.
 

irish_rail

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They have grown on me over time as both a driver and passenger, the one thing I still despise is the amount of 5 car sets ordered and the unreliability of the coupling and uncoupling at Plymouth. Buffets would be nice too, but overall feel it could of been worse when I look at the kind of trains being procured (for example) on greater Anglia.
 

samuelmorris

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They have grown on me over time as both a driver and passenger, the one thing I still despise is the amount of 5 car sets ordered and the unreliability of the coupling and uncoupling at Plymouth. Buffets would be nice too, but overall feel it could of been worse when I look at the kind of trains being procured (for example) on greater Anglia.
For the Intercity services? To be quite honest, I'll reserve full judgment until I've ridden one but I'm expecting to like the 745s more than the 800s.
 

Bletchleyite

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If you don't use the buffet, then that leaves your complaint at just the seats. I feel they're decidedly average, they look and feel a bit cheap in more ways than just the seats

Part of that is the rather bleak 1990s bus style interior colour scheme - particularly that manky lime green stripe. The LNER interior looks and feels far more premium despite being exactly the same thing in red.

(OK, there's a buffet as well, but I'm fairly neutral on that, I see both sides of the argument - and it's a very small buffet with a very small range barely better than a trolley anyway).
 

samuelmorris

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That's part of it, but probably better seats, likely better ride quality, definitely better information system, I think they have a lot going for them. I was very dismissive of the 745 idea at first and had been hoping to see 801s on our line but having seen them both and ridden GWR 800/802s, now I think I feel the opposite. Will definitely go hunting for a 745 when they're in service to see how they perform on the London part of the ECML.
 

Bletchleyite

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Maybe I'm a bit shallow but at least IETs look like intercity trains, 745s most definitely don't.

745s are really a bit more like a Class 350/2 - a suburban EMU with an IC style interior. 800s are a "proper" IC design with a much higher top speed.

Nonetheless I think they will be excellent, and I think it's a big shame LNR aren't getting some for the Crewe semifasts.
 

samuelmorris

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745s are really a bit more like a Class 350/2 - a suburban EMU with an IC style interior. 800s are a "proper" IC design with a much higher top speed.

Nonetheless I think they will be excellent, and I think it's a big shame LNR aren't getting some for the Crewe semifasts.
Surely every 350 subclass but the /2 ? They don't have 3+2 seating, and they'll have tables.
 

Master29

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Maybe I'm a bit shallow but at least IETs look like intercity trains, 745s most definitely don't.
I`d have loved to have seen 745`s down to Penzance (albeit in a bi mode capacity;)). Larger windows and a far better looking interior. The 800 `s do look good on the outside though and as Bletchleyite says overall they aren`t a bad train, just poor interiors and no buffet. Also, slightly underpowered. You`re absolutely correct about the 5 car fiasco west of Plymouth.
 

Grumbler

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745s are really a bit more like a Class 350/2 - a suburban EMU with an IC style interior. 800s are a "proper" IC design with a much higher top speed.

Nonetheless I think they will be excellent, and I think it's a big shame LNR aren't getting some for the Crewe semifasts.
According to the Wikipedia article, FLIRTs are capable of 120mph, slightly too slow for UK inter-city routes.
 

43096

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I'm not. The seats are bad, but the trains aren't.
The seats are not bad, they are an absolutely diabolical disgrace and for what is meant to be an IC train that is one of the biggest single factors. The ride quality is equally poor, too.

So, yes, the trains are poor. In fact they are not fit for purpose as they are currently.
 
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