Northern Class 195: Construction/Introduction Updates

supervc-10 · 18 Jul 2019

The 158s are great, but slow, narrow, end doors are not necessarily suited to all of Northern's routes. Although the 156 isn't much better in that regard! AC would certainly be an improvement though.

Still, waving my magic funding wand, functional bimodes to stop polluting the already filthy air of central Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool etc would be very nice.

The major problem Northern have with having 'southeast like train lengths' is short platforms.

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InOban · 18 Jul 2019

The key to reducing Northern's huge subsidy is to invest in longer platforms to permit trains of at least 6 coaches. I'm certain that the unmet demand would fill them.

geoffk · 18 Jul 2019

Bletchleyite said:
This is totally the wrong reason for Northern to have new trains funded (and is a curious obsession of this forum). They are not there to compete; they are there to provide a quality service on their routes. Funding them to abstract revenue from VTWC does nothing but create a silly money go round.

I've thought this for some time. The main competitor of Northern is the car, not other TOCs.

Bertie the bus · 18 Jul 2019

InOban said:
The key to reducing Northern's huge subsidy is to invest in longer platforms to permit trains of at least 6 coaches. I'm certain that the unmet demand would fill them.

It wouldn’t. There almost certainly is unmet demand during the peaks into major cities but there isn’t at other times. The main issue with rail travel in the north is how ridiculously slow it is. Lengthening trains wouldn’t make the journey more attractive.

InOban · 18 Jul 2019

Of course speeds also need to increase. Frequency, speed and capacity between the major northern cities should match that between Glasgow and Edinburgh. That level of demand didn't happen overnight.

hwl · 18 Jul 2019

Bertie the bus said:
It wouldn’t. There almost certainly is unmet demand during the peaks into major cities but there isn’t at other times. The main issue with rail travel in the north is how ridiculously slow it is. Lengthening trains wouldn’t make the journey more attractive.

Northern's peak is also some what narrower that the Southeast TOCs hence you won't get 4 peak flow direction peak services from a unit per day in many areas on Northern which can have big difference on making the economic stack up.

Journey time reduction would have a bit of an impact but that really needs the removal of end door stock and electrification.

Xenophon PCDGS · 18 Jul 2019

hwl said:
Journey time reduction would have a bit of an impact but that really needs the removal of end door stock and electrification.

We all know that "The Grayling" does not agree with electrification "up north in the Northern franchise", but is there any hope that his eventual replacement will have a Damascene moment and look kindly on electrification in that franchise area more favourably?

samuelmorris · 18 Jul 2019

Bertie the bus said:
It wouldn’t. There almost certainly is unmet demand during the peaks into major cities but there isn’t at other times. The main issue with rail travel in the north is how ridiculously slow it is. Lengthening trains wouldn’t make the journey more attractive.

Part of that slowness, however, is frequency. If you have to use more than one train, hourly services really slow things down, far more than you can ever mitigate with better accelerating stock with quicker dwell times. The complexity of the network up north means I'm not sure where you'd start with this but if rail is ever to take a serious chunk out of road usage, the way diagrams and timetabling work would need to be somehow reworked to give the majority of locations at least 2tph. 1tph or less will never alleviate take shorter journeys away from the roads.

Bertie the bus · 18 Jul 2019

hwl said:
Journey time reduction would have a bit of an impact but that really needs the removal of end door stock and electrification.

It has nothing to do with end door stock and very little to do with electrification. It is almost entirely due to most sevices being all stations stoppers. There isn't the infrastructure or demand to try and introduce semi-fasts in amongst the all stations services on most lines. Even where there are semi-fasts, e.g Blackpool - York, for most journeys on that route it is quicker to drive.

hwl · 18 Jul 2019

Bertie the bus said:
It has nothing to do with end door stock and very little to do with electrification. It is almost entirely due to most sevices being all stations stoppers. There isn't the infrastructure or demand to try and introduce semi-fasts in amongst the all stations services on most lines. Even where there are semi-fasts, e.g Blackpool - York, for most journeys on that route it is quicker to drive.

Reducing time per stop through lower dwell times and better acceleration so both do have a lot to do with improving performance...

Bertie the bus · 18 Jul 2019

No they don't. It's messing about at the edges.

Mordac · 18 Jul 2019

Bertie the bus said:
It wouldn’t. There almost certainly is unmet demand during the peaks into major cities but there isn’t at other times. The main issue with rail travel in the north is how ridiculously slow it is. Lengthening trains wouldn’t make the journey more attractive.

Funny, one keeps hearing posters here claiming that journey time doesn't matter and travellers don't care about arriving twenty minutes later if they have [insert poster's hobbyhorse here].

Bletchleyite · 18 Jul 2019

Mordac said:
Funny, one keeps hearing posters here claiming that journey time doesn't matter and travellers don't care about arriving twenty minutes later if they have [insert poster's hobbyhorse here].

I've created a thread with some general thoughts:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/how-could-northern-rail-be-improved.186422/

to take this "how to improve Northern" discussion out of the 195 thread.

Bertie the bus · 18 Jul 2019

Mordac said:
Funny, one keeps hearing posters here claiming that journey time doesn't matter and travellers don't care about arriving twenty minutes later if they have [insert poster's hobbyhorse here].

It depends on the circumstances. If rail travel is already competitive with road travel then knocking a few minutes off probably won't have much of an effect. If it isn't then it probably will. On many routes in the north rail travel doesn't come close to driving times.

Boysteve · 18 Jul 2019

Back to the 195s, do we know when more diagrams will be turned over to 195s? I think we need 10 diagrams to cover all Manchester Airport - Liverpool/Barrow/Windermere services, or should that be 11 with the peak CLC strengthening?

AMD · 18 Jul 2019

Boysteve said:
Back to the 195s, do we know when more diagrams will be turned over to 195s? I think we need 10 diagrams to cover all Manchester Airport - Liverpool/Barrow/Windermere services, or should that be 11 with the peak CLC strengthening?

The next unit diagram change is w/c 10th August, with further changes due w/c 8th September.

absolutelymilk · 18 Jul 2019

That's a long delay! Will there be many more introduced on those dates?

Boysteve · 18 Jul 2019

AMD said:
The next unit diagram change is w/c 10th August, with further changes due w/c 8th September.

Many thanks!

Bevan Price · 18 Jul 2019

Xenophon PCDGS said:
We all know that "The Grayling" does not agree with electrification "up north in the Northern franchise", but is there any hope that his eventual replacement will have a Damascene moment and look kindly on electrification in that franchise area more favourably?

One can but wish..... but until we have a DfT** that thinks about the long term costs & consequences rather than short term capital costs, we may have a long wait.
** (Or take DfT & Civil Service out of the equation)

MML · 18 Jul 2019

I've just seen a picture of the standard class seating in the latest edition of Rail magazine.
The seats look quite nice and there are tables. But unless I'm mistaken, the seats and tables aren't lined up with the windows !
Honestly what an own goal. For each bay of 4 seats around the table, 2 are adjacent to a window but the other 2 seats are adjacent to a pillar.
Surely it would have been possible to position either single seats with seat back tables or luggage racks near the doors, so the tables are centrally located within each window, so each seating bay has a window to look out.
I know some commuters are now used to looking at their smart phones for the entire duration of the journey, but lets at least give them the opportunity to have some natural light.

Bletchleyite · 18 Jul 2019

MML said:
I've just seen a picture of the standard class seating in the latest edition of Rail magazine.
The seats look quite nice and there are tables. But unless I'm mistaken, the seats and tables aren't lined up with the windows !

Priority seats sometimes serve to muck alignment up a bit, but it does seem odd to have bays the same size as the windows then not bother to line them up at all.

507021 · 19 Jul 2019

I had my first ride on a 195 (195118) today, I was very impressed indeed.

Bletchleyite · 19 Jul 2019

507021 said:
I had my first ride on a 195 (195118) today, I was very impressed indeed.

I'm on one now and I'm not impressed, feels cheap and nasty. I will post more later, but in summary clearly better than a Pacer or 15x but not a patch on a Desiro of any kind. In particular an utter lack of attention to detail on the interior with a number of very stupid design flaws and cheap feeling materials.

Cheap as.....

507021 · 19 Jul 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I'm on one now and I'm not impressed, feels cheap and nasty. I will post more later, but in summary clearly better than a Pacer or 15x but not a patch on a Desiro of any kind. In particular an utter lack of attention to detail on the interior with a number of very stupid design flaws and cheap feeling materials.

Cheap as.....

Okay, so what's wrong with them exactly?

Bletchleyite · 19 Jul 2019

507021 said:
Okay, so what's wrong with them exactly?

I'll post a detailed review later when it's convenient to get the laptop out.

Karl · 19 Jul 2019

I've had a few rides on them and the only downside in my opinion is the seat covering. I miss proper moquette.

86247 · 19 Jul 2019

the ones I've had have been fine yes the brakes are a bit sharp but that will fade all over time

Bovverboy · 19 Jul 2019

86247 said:
the ones I've had have been fine yes the brakes are a bit sharp but that will fade all over time

Very reassuring.

86247 · 19 Jul 2019

I meant as their new brakes 195s are a very good unit interior is good seats are ok a lot better then anything northern have now just need to have a 331 for comparison

Bletchleyite · 19 Jul 2019

86247 said:
I meant as their new brakes 195s are a very good unit interior is good seats are ok a lot better then anything northern have now just need to have a 331 for comparison

331 will be the same without the racket from the engine.

Northern Class 195: Construction/Introduction Updates

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