Greater Anglia Rolling Stock Updates

F Great Eastern · 3 Nov 2019

Grumbler said:
Sorry, but why shouldn't new trains work straight out of the box?

This is typical blame culture stuff you are engaging in and is symptomatic of someone who has clearly never delivered projects or managed them successfully. Your lack of experience is obvious.

In an ideal world things should work straight out of the box, but any proper project plan from someone who knows what they're doing just doesn't work off that belief and hope for the best because that is the sign of a poor project manager who is more interested in blaming the other people than working on solutions, s

A good project plan that is adequately created and managed anticipates the potential problems, risk factors and possible delays that could happen and how to deal with them should they happen, based on experience of similar products that have been undertook by you and others in the past and if there are problems you all work together on a solution in an open environment.

A poor project manager doesn't anticipate risks, doesn't factor what could go wrong and doesn't take into account delays or what has happened with similar projects in the past because it takes everyones word at face value so therefore you don't need to worry about things that go wrong as nothing will if everyone keeps to their word and if it does go wrong it's not your fault anyway.

A good project plan is solution focused, a bad one is blame focused and blame solves nothing.

RailUK Forums

Shunter_69 · 3 Nov 2019

F Great Eastern said:
Anyone experienced in these matters would know that whatever the manufacturer says, will not be achieved in almost all cases just look at the last few rounds of rolling stock over many franchises and therefore GA should have been working off the assumption there would be a delay, but hoping that there wouldn't be.

Any good project plan involves getting a date from when the suppliers that should be the commissioning date and then adding a buffer on to when you plan to have them commissioned rather than having them both the same. Both me and you know that new stock is being delayed often, how come Abellio didn't? There was an even greater need for Abellio to realise that, because one product was from a company who never produced rolling stock for the UK and another an unproven product from a manufacturer who is well known to have bedding in issues with their products, so these problems were even more likely than in any other case.

Hindsight doesn't come into it, around about the time of the bid people were saying that this was an accident waiting to happen and was far too optimistic and I would be very surprised if some of the operational staff were not of the same opinion. The trouble was that of the senior management team, there was very little in the way of operational experience of these kind of projects, it was full of bid managers and finance people, with such a lack of experience overall, a experienced engineering director was essential, instead in the new franchise they removed a very experienced one and replaced them with someone with no railway experience at the time when an experienced engineering director was needed more than ever.

When these trains were ordered the delivery issues weren’t as widespread as they are now.

Who’d have thought that the 345’s still wouldn’t be fully delivered and working effectively by this point?

F Great Eastern · 3 Nov 2019

Shunter_69 said:
Who’d have thought that the 345’s still wouldn’t be fully delivered and working effectively by this point?

Any new brand product is going to take a while to bed in, which increases the risk level. It's not like someone's doing a follow on order of class 350s which was proven 10 years earlier, they've ordered a full fleet replacement based on one manufacturer new to UK and another who we all know has issues with new products when they launch them, Bombardier are well known for it as C2C users will tell you about the first batch of Electrostars.

The difference with Greater Anglia as samuelmorris pointed up thread, is that normally when you bring new stock in you're not aiming to replace the whole fleet at once or you're not losing huge numbers of the fleet to potential non PRM compliance or transfering to other operators, so it makes the GA far more high risk and you add to that what I've said in the proceeding paragraph.

It was obvious what was going to happen and people in the industry at the time were of that belief, not though hindsight, just the benefit of experience. All I see in the Greater Anglia bid is a lack of proper management and identification of risks and planned actions to mitigate them. Whether that's out of desperation and needing to be optimistic to win a bid or poor project management through lack of experience is open to debate.

Meerkat · 3 Nov 2019

It’s easy to say “should have planned for delivery problems” but how much overlap are you going to plan and pay for, a month, six months, a year?
For GA you are basically proposing that they risk having to pay leases on two complete fleets for a long period, and build the space to store them.
Getting honest delivery dates is near impossible - marketing will underestimate them because otherwise you don’t win any orders, engineering will be inherently risk-averse and allow themselves the maximum slack they can get away with (and then use that slack).

F Great Eastern · 3 Nov 2019

Meerkat said:
For GA you are basically proposing that they risk having to pay leases on two complete fleets for a long period, and build the space to store them.

It was a hopelessly optimistic bid from Abellio. There's been far too much reliance by Abellio that has been placed on everything going exactly to plan which is a big mistake when their plan also has more risks involved than any other franchise I've seen. If ever a sensible approach to risk management was required, it was for this particular franchise. The next 6 months or so will be make or break for Abellio's UK rail operation.

That's the problem when you replace approx 1,000 legacy carriages with 1,000 new carriages in a short space of time and yet again comes back to an over-ambitious bid. There's a reason that nobody else has ever attempted to introduce an entirely new set of trains in a full fleet replacement - there's just so much risk involved. It was simply a matter of predicting what would go wrong first, not if something would go wrong.

Getting honest delivery dates is near impossible - marketing will underestimate them because otherwise you don’t win any orders, engineering will be inherently risk-averse and allow themselves the maximum slack they can get away with (and then use that slack).

I agree that operations will always be more risk averse and the bid managers will always be more risk inclined to win a bid, but in a good senior management team, you make sure that you have a balance of both so neither side gets to carried away in the same way if you have a senior manager who has many strengths and a few areas for development, you ensure you have someone alongside him who is strong in those areas to compensate.

The problem with GA is that the there wasn't much of a balance, you had a lot of bidding people, whom it seems had their word taken as gospel and an ops side who were barely listened to whereas meeting in the middle may have been more sensible.

ashkeba · 3 Nov 2019

RailWonderer said:
Because it was only an unrealistic bid that was going to win. NXEA neglected the route for so long, and suffered chronic underinvestment. GA needed a long term franchise to finish what they started with renovations and seat covers being replaced, but now it’s clear this is only the beginning and they haven’t even started.

That still sounds like a huge error on DfT's award team to me. I don't see why NX actions matter because all bidders this time had to start with the same legacy.

DfT seem so happy with progress that they have given Abellio EMR too.

F Great Eastern · 3 Nov 2019

ashkeba said:
That still sounds like a huge error on DfT's award team to me. I don't see why NX actions matter because all bidders this time had to start with the same legacy.

DfT seem so happy with progress that they have given Abellio EMR too.

The EMR bid has issues as well with the use of the 180s, among other things that I can't imagine was the idea of anyone with operational experience and probably was the result of a bid manager who thought the numbers fit but didn't take into account the operational performance of such trains.

To give you an idea of where we are in Greater Anglia, the original PR suggested that Greater Anglia will introduce 1,043 carriages between January 2019 and September 2020. So far, we've seen them deliver 40 carriages into service in 10 months with over 1,000 still to go in the next 10 months.

In other words, they've used approx 50% of the time to implement less than 4% of the stock and they now need to introduce on average 100 carriages a month to meet their original timeframe.

HamworthyGoods · 3 Nov 2019

samuelmorris said:
Permanently specifying services as 8 coaches rather than 9?

No difference to what NSE did on the West of England in the early ‘90s when the 159s were due and then were late, the hauled sets reduced from 9 to 8 by taking out the TSOTs then 8 became 7 etc...

Not saying it’s right just it’s not uncommon when new stock is late and old stock has to hang on in there

F Great Eastern · 3 Nov 2019

HamworthyGoods said:
No difference to what NSE did on the West of England in the early ‘90s when the 159s were due and then were late, the hauled sets reduced from 9 to 8 by taking out the TSOTs then 8 became 7 etc...

The problem is with GA is though that many services have been short formed for weeks and months, it's not a recent thing., it's been going on for the last year to some degree or other.

Lately there's been a lot of talk here, on twitter and in other places about high numbers of short forms showing up on JourneyCheck (up to 60 at once) and with GA being very PR focused, that creates a negative impression that they probably wanted to stop.

GA could come out saying that they've had to reduce the formations of trains because of late running stock, but they won't because that would create negative PR so they prefer not to draw attention to it, instead in the coming days and weeks you'll probably see spin like 'the number of short forms have been reduced' or 'an increased number of trains are now operating with their booked number of carriages' etc to save face.

Bikeman78 · 3 Nov 2019

Meerkat said:
It’s easy to say “should have planned for delivery problems” but how much overlap are you going to plan and pay for, a month, six months, a year?
For GA you are basically proposing that they risk having to pay leases on two complete fleets for a long period, and build the space to store them.
Getting honest delivery dates is near impossible - marketing will underestimate them because otherwise you don’t win any orders, engineering will be inherently risk-averse and allow themselves the maximum slack they can get away with (and then use that slack).

This does highlight a problem with the concept of leasing trains. How long a lease do you sign up for? Too long and you have lots of trains that have been replaced but you're still paying for. Too short and you might not have enough trains to run the service. It's less of a problem if you're existing fleet is going for scrap, e.g. the 313s, because you can fairly easily sign up for a new lease.

47421 · 4 Nov 2019

Tweet @jc4southsuffolk 2pm 4 Nov 19

I have just spoken to @greateranglia and they have assured me that, 'barring the unforeseen', two carriage services will return on the Sudbury line tomorrow. I will be receiving a formal written response later and will update again after the election for Speaker has concluded.

http://twitter.com/jc4southsuffolk/status/1191357177388261381

HamworthyGoods · 4 Nov 2019

F Great Eastern said:
The problem is with GA is though that many services have been short formed for weeks and months, it's not a recent thing., it's been going on for the last year to some degree or other.

Lately there's been a lot of talk here, on twitter and in other places about high numbers of short forms showing up on JourneyCheck (up to 60 at once) and with GA being very PR focused, that creates a negative impression that they probably wanted to stop.

GA could come out saying that they've had to reduce the formations of trains because of late running stock, but they won't because that would create negative PR so they prefer not to draw attention to it, instead in the coming days and weeks you'll probably see spin like 'the number of short forms have been reduced' or 'an increased number of trains are now operating with their booked number of carriages' etc to save face.

With NSE it started happening IIRC during 1991 for a 2 year period or so until the 159s arrived in summer 1993. That was even with taking on ex Intercity mk2d coaches including the one FK that made it into NSE colours, the only aircon hauled coach to do so except for the mk3 ex HST TRUK which was done as prototype for the 442s but never used in traffic.

Not saying it’s right, just pointing out it’s not unusual.

F Great Eastern · 4 Nov 2019

47421 said:
Tweet @jc4southsuffolk 2pm 4 Nov 19

I have just spoken to @greateranglia and they have assured me that, 'barring the unforeseen', two carriage services will return on the Sudbury line tomorrow. I will be receiving a formal written response later and will update again after the election for Speaker has concluded.

http://twitter.com/jc4southsuffolk/status/1191357177388261381

Anybody would think there might be an election coming up.....

Wivenswold · 4 Nov 2019

Let's put some positive spin on it from an enthusiast point of view (I'm a commuter too before anyone starts on me).

If rolling stock introductions went to plan many of the unusual workings that we've loved simply wouldn't have happened. 365s in Scotland, Wherry line hauled set clinging on for so long, loco hauled services on the WCML until the 2000s, I'm sure there are many more in the areas of the country I'm less familiar with.

So, yes, glorious managerial mess-ups, software gremlins, design faults, exploding motors and the rest. But at heart would the railways be as interesting if it all went to plan? I think not personally.

47421 · 4 Nov 2019

F Great Eastern said:
It was a hopelessly optimistic bid from Abellio. There's been far too much reliance by Abellio that has been placed on everything going exactly to plan which is a big mistake when their plan also has more risks involved than any other franchise I've seen. If ever a sensible approach to risk management was required, it was for this particular franchise. The next 6 months or so will be make or break for Abellio's UK rail operation.

Correct. The delays to the new fleets are very disappointing. But it is not just that, GA signed up to a Franchise Agreement promising loads of other things that have not been delivered:

Schedule 6.2 para 76.6 by 1 May 2018 introduce anytime flex carnet and off peak flex carnet
- never happened probably never will
Schedule 6.2 para 105 by 1 Sept 2018 extend platforms at Hertford East, Wickford, Manningtree, Kings Lynn, Elsenham, Ware, St Margarets and Enfield Lock Stations
- never happended. Re Hertford East planning consent refused Feb 19, not been reapplied for. Others, no news, but consensus is that GA will retain UFN some 4 car EMUs for Harwich shuttle, Wickford bay and Hertford East service
Schedule 6.2 para 9.1 by 31 Oct 2018 automatic SDO on 27x317 and beacons at 96 platforms
- never happened and no prospect of any 12 car 317 services
Dec 18 TSR 2TPH Meridian Water to Stratford
- delivered Sept 2019, with 8 car platforms only so not clear if 10car 720s will be able to work this service
Schedule 6.2 para 4 by 31 Dec 2018 ontrain wifi on entire existing fleet
- didnt happen by Dec 18, but now fitted on most EMUs at least
Schedule 6.2 para 81 by 30 Jan 2019 use best endeavours to introduce post-pay account based ticketing London to Southend V, Norwich or Cambridge
- never happened probably never will

Schedule 6.2 para 80 by 30 April 2019 introduce 6m pilot for near field communication smartphone ticketing
- never happened probably never will
May 2019 TSR 2 (Hertford East 2TPH to 3TPH off peak only/Southend Vic 3TPH to 4TPH off peak only/Norwich Cambridge hourly extended to Stansted Airport all day/LivSt Ipswich hourly semifast extended to Norwich all day)
- delivered Nin90 only, all other required timetable improvements not delivered (Norwich Camb extended to Stansted promised for Dec 19, but weekdays not in morning)
May 2020 TSR 3 (major recast with many journey time improvements)
- not going to happen. Dec 20 earliest, but no proposed timetables ever published or consulted on and Network Rail timeline requires bids for major changes to be made 55 weeks in advance so looks like Dec 20 will be missed as well
Schedule 6.2 para 51 complete redevelopment of stations at Brox, Cheshunt, Harlow Town and Southend Vic
- never happened no indication that it ever will
Schedule 6.2 para 10 date unspecified but must mean by 31 Dec 2019 complete PRM mods on 27x317
- they have completed mods on 2 units I think

samuelmorris · 4 Nov 2019

Delays to new fleets are somewhat de rigeur these days, but there's no excuse for not delivering a lot of the above.

Terry Tait · 4 Nov 2019

Why do we need so much rubbish on new trains that can be or go wrong?
Why can't we just have a modern, accessible and comfortable emu but with an improved version of the traction that is under a 321?

samuelmorris · 4 Nov 2019

Terry Tait said:
Why do we need so much rubbish on new trains that can be or go wrong?
Why can't we just have a modern, accessible and comfortable emu but with an improved version of the traction that is under a 321?

What do you mean by modern, if it mustn't have any advanced technology on it that can go wrong? Isn't that a contradiction?

ashkeba · 4 Nov 2019

Terry Tait said:
Why do we need so much rubbish on new trains that can be or go wrong?
Why can't we just have a modern, accessible and comfortable emu but with an improved version of the traction that is under a 321?

Is it because no-one is offering such a thing for sale (Wabtec Brush no longer offer any EMU traction products on their website) so development would need to be commissioned and DfT commissioned the first AT300s with awful interiors so would you trust them doing it?

hwl · 4 Nov 2019

Terry Tait said:
Why do we need so much rubbish on new trains that can be or go wrong?
Why can't we just have a modern, accessible and comfortable emu but with an improved version of the traction that is under a 321?

The new traction equipment is actually more reliable and not the problem and needs less maintenance

samuelmorris · 4 Nov 2019

hwl said:
The new traction equipment is actually more reliable and not the problem and needs less maintenance

^this. Of the things that go wrong on new stock causing them to be less reliable than what came before, the traction package is very rarely it.

hwl · 4 Nov 2019

47421 said:
Correct. The delays to the new fleets are very disappointing. But it is not just that, GA signed up to a Franchise Agreement promising loads of other things that have not been delivered:

Schedule 6.2 para 76.6 by 1 May 2018 introduce anytime flex carnet and off peak flex carnet

never happened probably never will

Schedule 6.2 para 105 by 1 Sept 2018 extend platforms at Hertford East, Wickford, Manningtree, Kings Lynn, Elsenham, Ware, St Margarets and Enfield Lock Stations

never happended. Re Hertford East planning consent refused Feb 19, not been reapplied for. Others, no news, but consensus is that GA will retain UFN some 4 car EMUs for Harwich shuttle, Wickford bay and Hertford East service

Schedule 6.2 para 9.1 by 31 Oct 2018 automatic SDO on 27x317 and beacons at 96 platforms

never happened and no prospect of any 12 car 317 services

Dec 18 TSR 2TPH Meridian Water to Stratford

delivered Sept 2019, with 8 car platforms only so not clear if 10car 720s will be able to work this service

Schedule 6.2 para 4 by 31 Dec 2018 ontrain wifi on entire existing fleet

didnt happen by Dec 18, but now fitted on most EMUs at least

Schedule 6.2 para 81 by 30 Jan 2019 use best endeavours to introduce post-pay account based ticketing London to Southend V, Norwich or Cambridge

never happened probably never will

Schedule 6.2 para 80 by 30 April 2019 introduce 6m pilot for near field communication smartphone ticketing

never happened probably never will

May 2019 TSR 2 (Hertford East 2TPH to 3TPH off peak only/Southend Vic 3TPH to 4TPH off peak only/Norwich Cambridge hourly extended to Stansted Airport all day/LivSt Ipswich hourly semifast extended to Norwich all day)

delivered Nin90 only, all other required timetable improvements not delivered (Norwich Camb extended to Stansted promised for Dec 19, but weekdays not in morning)

May 2020 TSR 3 (major recast with many journey time improvements)

not going to happen. Dec 20 earliest, but no proposed timetables ever published or consulted on and Network Rail timeline requires bids for major changes to be made 55 weeks in advance so looks like Dec 20 will be missed as well

Schedule 6.2 para 51 complete redevelopment of stations at Brox, Cheshunt, Harlow Town and Southend Vic

never happened no indication that it ever will

Schedule 6.2 para 10 date unspecified but must mean by 31 Dec 2019 complete PRM mods on 27x317

they have completed mods on 2 units I think

720 have ASDO so most short platforms aren't an issue.

TSR 3 is December 2022 at the earliest due to Crossrail delays

Alfie1014 · 4 Nov 2019

hwl said:
TSR 3 is December 2022 at the earliest due to Crossrail delays

That's less than three years before franchise end, going to bugger the finances up then, costs up and revenue less than expected!

Railperf · 4 Nov 2019

Terry Tait said:
Why do we need so much rubbish on new trains that can be or go wrong?
Why can't we just have a modern, accessible and comfortable emu but with an improved version of the traction that is under a 321?

Erm..we do..The Class 360's ..there are just not enough of them. Or a 25kv version of the Class 707 would be great (spec the interiors as you like). Class 385s are also proving to be a great new commuter train.

47421 · 4 Nov 2019

hwl said:
720 have ASDO so most short platforms aren't an issue.

TSR 3 is December 2022 at the earliest due to Crossrail delays

ASDO means short platforms not an issue where can SDO. The stations listed as needing extensions are all places where SDO doesn’t work eg Enfield Lock n Elsenham n Ware n St Margaret’s where signal position means if SDO train will block crossing Or bay / terminus platforms where signal / points restrict length of train eg Manningtree n Hertford East n Wickford.

It is an odd business, someone clearly identified stations where work needed and made sure FA drafted accordingly. But then GA / Network Rail have done nothing about it.

doris · 4 Nov 2019

Would it be right to assume there will be a total melt down of local services out of Ipswich and Norwich from the December timetable change. With all the 170s (and any others ?) going to Wales by then, the painfully slow ASDO/GPS fix, and equally slow training etc at Ipswich, do GA expect to have it covered?

47421 · 4 Nov 2019

doris said:
Would it be right to assume there will be a total melt down of local services out of Ipswich and Norwich from the December timetable change. With all the 170s (and any others ?) going to Wales by then, the painfully slow ASDO/GPS fix, and equally slow training etc at Ipswich, do GA expect to have it covered?

The MP quoted above has now tweeted letter from GA where they say poor unit availability is basically down to bad luck - a herd of deer gets blamed at one point. Implies they have got plenty of Stadlers available blah blah blah.

But yes in the real world seems likely it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better

eastdyke · 4 Nov 2019

47421 said:
It is an odd business, someone clearly identified stations where work needed and made sure FA drafted accordingly. But then GA / Network Rail have done nothing about it.

If the works are all actually feasible (a big assumption), all need specs, designs, approvals and construction. For which also read manpower, money and time. So far there is no obvious evidence of the first 2 and the latter is rapidly running out

F Great Eastern · 4 Nov 2019

47421 said:
The MP quoted above has now tweeted letter from GA where they say poor unit availability is basically down to bad luck - a herd of deer gets blamed at one point. Implies they have got plenty of Stadlers available blah blah blah.

The letters' here: https://twitter.com/jc4southsuffolk/status/1191416974485721088

This bit is priceless, especially when in the preceding paragraph they say if there was more trains available then they'd lease them. This piece of spin also falls down since it suggests they have a net gain of 7 trains, that being said

So far 4 of our diesel trains have been returned to the leasing company, whereas we now have 11 new trains accepted for use in our fleet, so it is the unfortunate incidents around the network causing the challenges, not the sensibly phased transfer away of the current diesel fleet as they are replaced by new trains.

Honestly I know that Abellio are heavy on the PR, but that letter is the most astonishing thing that I have read yet in this whole ongoing situation. They are being ultra defensive, there's nothing new there, but it's just deflect, blame and defensiveness

As others have said, it seems to be going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The big question is however, is this window dressing to create good PR, or is it a reflection of the views of the project team who believe they are victims of bad luck and nothing else. I really hope it's the former and not the later.

hwl · 5 Nov 2019

Alfie1014 said:
That's less than three years before franchise end, going to bugger the finances up then, costs up and revenue less than expected!

I can see a TSR2.x happening...

Greater Anglia Rolling Stock Updates

Established Member

RailUK Forums

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Member

Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member