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GWR's West of England Stock and 769s

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Clarence Yard

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I wouldn't argue with this fact but when 20 x 150/2s are needed for the Devon and Cornwall branch services from December and GWR has just 20 there isn't much fat! The two 150/0's save the day to some extent and retention of the 143s (or some of them at least) would certainly provide further backup. Perhaps going slightly off topic, my understanding is the 150/0s and the three Angel owned 150/2s have to leave GWR sometime in the future. This would certainly cause issues and if it were to happen anytime soon could mean that the 143s will be around even longer.....

It's not 20 diagrams for the 20 cl.150/2 sets! It should be 16 winter and 17 summer. As mentioned elsewhere, the DfT has decided that the 3 x 150/2 Angel sets stay with GWR and the 2 x 150/0 Angel sets will go to Northern on 01/04/20. If the 769 don't come good by 01/04/20, then GWR will have a problem, which may be solved if the 3 TPH on the North Downs gets put back again, freeing up 2 Turbo units.

I did get told a while back when doing work experience at EXD that the 3 First Group asset 143s were possibly be going to be kept as reserves from December but I was then told on WNXX and Twitter that wouldn’t be the case but with the ongoing delays to the 769s and deliveries of the Castle sets this may now be the case, I also wonder if the Porterbrook sets will now be included in any derogations if it’s allowed by the DfT? Only time will tell.

That was wibble that you heard at Exeter - someone has been floating their ideas. The proposal now is that all 8 cl.143 sets could be retained for a limited period only.
 
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Energy

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I looked on the GWR Wikipedia and it says they have 19 but in the class 150 page it says they have 20.
 

Energy

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Name change of thread! Check post number one for more details.
 

TJDevon

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Do we know which services will be 158 operated from December? The Tarka line will require 3 x 3 car and sets will also be needed for the Brighton services (3 car?). Where else?
 

TJDevon

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It's not 20 diagrams for the 20 cl.150/2 sets!
Indeed and I didn't say 20 diagrams. As I see it for the winter timetable, 1 unit will be need for St Ives, Newquay, Looe and Gunnislake branches, 2 for the Falmouth and 7 pairs to work the Paignton-Exmouth services. That's the full 20! The two 150/s will be there to save the day until April. Beyond that as I see things it is any spare 158s or retained 143s to the rescue.

If anyone has any crumbs of comfort to offer I would be pleased to know of them.
 

Clarence Yard

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From December, it should be only 5 pairs and the 2 x 3 cars for the Paignton-Exmouth. Availability should be 16/20 x 2 cars and 2/2 x 3 cars.

When the cl.150/0 go, it is hoped to put 2 x 3 car Turbos in diagram instead.

The original 769 deployment plan also had those pairs being replaced by 3 car Turbos with 10 x 2 car 150/2 and 2 x 3 car 150/0 potentially going to Northern as a result, to help with their situation. The late delivery of the 769 fleet put paid to that idea. The DfT are now evaluating the GWR DA3 proposals which, if accepted, would see those 150/2 sets being retained as part of an overall service enhancement package.
 

PHILIPE

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Do we know which services will be 158 operated from December? The Tarka line will require 3 x 3 car and sets will also be needed for the Brighton services (3 car?). Where else?

6 x 3 Cars requiring 3 for Tarkas, 2 for Brighton and 1 to work it's way back from Gloucester to Exeter via Cardiff to Tauntons. I think the 2 Cars will be between Exeter and Penzance and some Bristol area work.
 

TJDevon

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I have read elsewhere that not
all t
he Castle Class sets will be available by December. If this is the case will it impact on the DMU allocations? Or, hopefully, the shortages will be covered by the use of 'slammers' (unmodified HST stock).

I am very grateful for the responses above by Clarence Yard and Philipe, much appreciated.
 

Clarence Yard

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I have already replied to this up thread and the answer is the 143 sets will fill the gap, causing a cascade of 150 units.

Slammers have to finish at the end of December - the ORR are not in favour of any more extensions when there is sliding door stock available to cover. They have to go.

The Brighton’s may yet be Turbo in December. Only a few locations to do clearance work on now and it is all booked to be done by the end of October.
 

Energy

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I renamed this thread to also talk about new stock as the 150s are getting old and GWR could probably do with some more as cascaded stock is becoming increasingly hard to get. I wonder if this is coincidental but GWR now have a fleet of fewer types which could help with maintanence, this may just be a coincidence though.
If they get new trains my guess is that they will get Stadler Flirts as they can be bimodes, used on longer services and the level floor access makes it better for disabled people, making it easier especially at the rural stations. It also means that GWR can have a fleet of fewer types because of how flexible the Flirts can be. If we exclude the 769s because it seems to me they are getting more and more unlikely to get delivered with the delays and GWRs next franchise starting next year, then GWR would have a fleet of just 800/802s, 387s, Flirts and Sleeper making maintenance cheaper due to less different types, especially if the next sleeper stock is just modified 802s or Flirts. Or if they use carriages using similar components to the Flirts.
They could always use CAF but how similar are the civitys to the mk5s?
 
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irish_rail

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Too be fair the refurbished 150s are pretty pleasant internally and probably more comfortable than IETs. They are old but still pretty robust and I reckon they are good for another few years yet.
 

Energy

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Too be fair the refurbished 150s are pretty pleasant internally and probably more comfortable than IETs. They are old but still pretty robust and I reckon they are good for another few years yet.
Replacing rolling stock makes the DfT happy and give you the franchise. Other than being the cheapest for the DfT.
New rolling stock also makes the RMT happy.
 

JonathanH

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If they get new trains my guess is that they will get Stadler Flirts as they can be bimodes, used on longer services and the level floor access makes it better for disabled people, making it easier especially at the rural stations.

Surely that depends on lease costs. The rural routes are hardly the most remunerative on the network - would they (with whatever subsidy is on offer) pay well enough for an expensive train - not much point having bi-modes west of Newbury / Chippenham / Bristol Parkway for the foreseeable future and East of Redbridge requires tri-modes if the trains are going to use OHLE from Patchway.
 

Energy

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Surely that depends on lease costs. The rural routes are hardly the most remunerative on the network - would they (with whatever subsidy is on offer) pay well enough for an expensive train - not much point having bi-modes west of Newbury / Chippenham / Bristol Parkway for the foreseeable future and East of Redbridge requires tri-modes if the trains are going to use OHLE from Patchway.
I wonder how much the Stadlers, CAF Civitys and the current stock cost to lease...
 
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I have already replied to this up thread and the answer is the 143 sets will fill the gap, causing a cascade of 150 units.

Slammers have to finish at the end of December - the ORR are not in favour of any more extensions when there is sliding door stock available to cover. They have to go.

The Brighton’s may yet be Turbo in December. Only a few locations to do clearance work on now and it is all booked to be done by the end of October.
So are you suggesting that 143s will be retained for a few months next year and 150s will cover for the missing castle sets? I'm struggling to grasp what's going on here.
 

Clarence Yard

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It will be a shuffle round of sets involving, 143, 150, 158 and Turbos. The 143 would free up 150 sets to start the revised coverage of the various West diagrams. Likely as not, the missing GTi diagrams would be covered by 158 or Turbo sets, depending on how far west they have to work.
 
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Now I think understand the situation a bit better. Doesn't help either with the 769s still missing otherwise GWR would have a crisis on their hands. Thanks for clarifying.
 

tiptoptaff

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What's the make up in the Bristol area going to look like in December as a result? Much change from now?
 

fgwrich

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It sort of covers West of England as they do operate through there, but as the GW 800/802 thread seems to have disappeared or locked, I'll put this one here.

From Devon Live. Nice use of a Northern Pacer there!

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devo...cKXjD1Gqni-FX78UHajq05ktOPde2j4Fom_6h8JnrfXmk

Crowded trains leaving Devon with half the number of carriages needed
It means there have been a whopping 12,000 fewer seats for journeys to and from London

By Howard Lloyd & Molly Dowric 05:00, 10 OCT 2019

0_JS170420800.jpg

Trains and buses are often overcrowded (Image: Tony Dewhurst)
Dozens of trains to London have left stations in Devon with HALF the number of carriages advertised in recent weeks.

An incredible 36 trains from the region were made up of 'short-formed IET sets' last month - ie shorter versions of the trains advertised - affecting journeys from Paignton, Plymouth, Penzance and Taunton.
It has led to a total shortfall of 12,000 seats to and from London according to Taunton Trains, a website that shares news and information on historic and modern trains.
As opposed to the 10 coaches needed, several trains to London left the region with just five.

GWR has now confirmed this has happened on a number of occasions.

According to Taunton Trains: "Database records for September show that GWR operated 37 five-car sets instead of the booked 10 car IETs (Intercity Express Trains).

"The shortfall means over 12,000 fewer seats have been provided to and from London between the 1st and 30th September 2019."

Taunton Trains added: "Some worrying examples of overcrowding on short formed sets have been noted by Taunton Trains.

"On Sunday 29th September 2019, for example, the 1A85 11:00 Penzance - London Paddington was formed of five coach set No. 802005 which upon departing Plymouth was full and standing was unable to load any more passengers on route.

0_md09-10-2019-TauntonTrainsListSep_resultJPG.jpg

Taunton Trains shared a list of last month's trains which left Plymouth, Penzance, Paignton and Taunton with less coaches than advertised (Image: Taunton Trains)
"On Monday 30th September the 1A72 05:53 Plymouth - London Paddington (a peak commuter service to London) was formed of single IET No. 802001.

"With less than two months until the biggest timetable change in a generation, this worrying pattern of Hitachi/GWR consistently supplying short formed sets (which have less capacity than the HST sets they replace) should be a cause for concern for the approaching increased passenger service due to start in December."

GWR says there can be occasions when the service has to operate a five car train instead of nine or 10 carriages for a variety of reasons, including damage to a train leading it to require maintenance.

They run 32 services a day Monday to Friday between Plymouth and London Paddington, with over 600 in September, and sometimes deliberately operates five-car trains, for example with five cars between Penzance and Plymouth which then join with five more coaches at Plymouth railway station.

A GWR spokesperson said: “We don’t like to operate any train with less carriages than we have planned to, but unfortunately there may be occasions when rather than cancelling the train we have run the service with five carriages.

"Customers who had a seat reservation but were unable to sit are entitled to a refund and we would encourage them to get in touch," they added.

From Sunday, December 15, GWR will be launching a new timetable , including three more services a day between Paddington and the South West, running non-stop between Reading and Taunton, the company says.

"GWR expects journey times to improve by as much as 11 minutes between Paddington and Plymouth," the company says.
 

Doomotron

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If Networkers are moving onto the Brighton services, wouldn't that be a bad thing. They have 3+2 seating and no air conditioning, a huge downgrade on the 158s and even the 150/2s in some ways. Surely they'd be better on short-distance services? Ideally HSTs or 158s would be used as they're a much better fit for Brighton to Bristol trains.
 

Clarence Yard

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If the 165/1 Turbos do the Brighton runs, they will have air cooling and will be a lot better than the non functioning air con in a cl.158.

You won't get HST units to Brighton and, in any case, with them being so expensive to convert and run, it's going to be cl.158 or cl.165/166 from December, hopefully the latter as the cl.158 units are needed on the Penzance - Cardiff corridor.
 

PHILIPE

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If Networkers are moving onto the Brighton services, wouldn't that be a bad thing. They have 3+2 seating and no air conditioning, a huge downgrade on the 158s and even the 150/2s in some ways. Surely they'd be better on short-distance services? Ideally HSTs or 158s would be used as they're a much better fit for Brighton to Bristol trains.

Not much difference between the Brighton and Portsmouth services into which the Turbos have already made great inroads on the way to full replacements for the 158s.
 

Energy

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I believe only a couple turbos have been refurbished into GWR, so hopefully the ones on Brighton lines get upgraded to 158 standards at least
 

PHILIPE

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I believe only a couple turbos have been refurbished into GWR, so hopefully the ones on Brighton lines get upgraded to 158 standards at least

The ones that will go to Brighton will be the same ones that are currently running between Cardiff and Portsmouth
 

pompeyfan

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Train crew and passengers hate them equally as much because of lack of tables and any sort of comfort. I really don’t like them, that said running as 5 cars they really are crowd busters and there’s been a large increase in dwell time performance.
 

Mitchell Hurd

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I know the HST short sets exist but I thought there weren't enough of them? The 156s and 379s were just my guesses of what could happen as those are being retired.

I believe all of GA's 9 Class 156's are going to EMR to allow some 1-coach Class 153 workings to be strengthened to 2 coaches.
 

Mitchell Hurd

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Train crew and passengers hate them equally as much because of lack of tables and any sort of comfort. I really don’t like them, that said running as 5 cars they really are crowd busters and there’s been a large increase in dwell time performance.

Crumbs - we're use to passengers not liking trains but I didn't know the crews hate them! I hope there's not gonna be staff shortages just because crew don't like the 5-car Turbos on the Portsmouth line.
 

pompeyfan

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Crumbs - we're use to passengers not liking trains but I didn't know the crews hate them! I hope there's not gonna be staff shortages just because crew don't like the 5-car Turbos on the Portsmouth line.

crews are far more professional than that thankfully. Don’t think drivers mind them too much as the cabs are bigger, but there’s more operational risk attaches to them with driver release stop shorts a possibility. My comment was mainly aimed at conductors and trolly staff who have to hope between units and try and squeeze through.
 
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