Avanti West Coast New Stock - Hitachi chosen

Bald Rick · 7 Dec 2019

a_c_skinner said:
It is a racing certainty. The tilting trains have meant this didn't need to be grasped until now. It was probably the right solution all along, but 140mph needed tilt and that had been specified before the downgrade. It wouldn't surprise me completely to see only two speed categories. Mind you upthread a member said what a good ride you got with tilt on the northern WCML and they are absolutely right.

It was definitely tilting trains proposed for a 125mph speed profile under the ‘PUG1’ proposals, the principles of which were agreed in June 1996. I have a copy somewhere. It was only when Virgin rocked up with ‘PUG2’ 6 months later did 140mph come to the party, but the principle of tilt preceded it.

RailUK Forums

rdlover777 · 7 Dec 2019

i couldn't help myself so i went and drew up some concept art of the side profile for the new trains.

RealTrains07 · 7 Dec 2019

rdlover777 said:
i couldn't help myself so i went and drew up some concept art of the side profile for the new trains.
View attachment 71286
View attachment 71287

Got the LNR style between the coaches too interestingly enough

rdlover777 · 7 Dec 2019

RealTrains07 said:
Got the LNR style between the coaches too interestingly enough

thats just because i recoloured my 801 sprites

66Yorks · 7 Dec 2019

More Hitachi's. Wish I had shares in the company.

GrimShady · 7 Dec 2019

class26 said:
I have literally just arrived home from a journey between Peterborough and Heckington (BRM Rail show)
It was an 800 between Peterborough and Grantham and then a 153 (due to the Lincoln Christmas market taking most spare capacity )
Now i am willing to swear the seats on the 163 felt more comfortable than those on the 800 which I think is shocking for a Wpremium" train."

The Northern 155 and 153 have much better seats.

rdlover777 · 7 Dec 2019

isn't the 800/801 seat issue due to DfT specification?

RealTrains07 · 7 Dec 2019

rdlover777 said:
isn't the 800/801 seat issue due to DfT specification?

Yes unfortunately the DfT still dont listen about the seats being uncomfortable for hundreds of passengers

GrimShady · 7 Dec 2019

rdlover777 said:
i couldn't help myself so i went and drew up some concept art of the side profile for the new trains.
View attachment 71286
View attachment 71287

Nice work rdlover, they look quite good tbh. Much better that HT's rubbish livery.

Chester1 · 8 Dec 2019

SansHache said:
Don't forget that tilt is not just about operation at 125mph (or 140mph). It also allows trains to run up to 30% faster through lower speed restrictions where curvature and cant (elevation of one rail with respect to the other) are the limiting factors. Indeed these improvements at lower speeds often yield greater benefits than some of the high speed tilting. The greatest benefits occur where the tilt capability avoids any speed reduction at all and allows much a smoother line speed profile. A non-tilt service usually takes up two Class 390 paths on the southern section of the WCML.
I expect that the new non-tilt services will be grouped in flights with 2 or 3 services closely following each other.
Once the Voyagers are removed from the northern WCML there should be an opportunity to accelerate the service as all trains will all be worked by Class 390s. At present the timetable is limited to the performance of the Voyager trains. Whether there is any appetite to do this is another question, particularly as the HS2 trains will not be able to meet these timings when they are introduced.

I thought the lower limit of tilting on the WCML was very high, something like 90mph? The Voyagers degree of tilt is lower than that of the Pendolino too. It would make sense to path 1 Liverpool service close to the Chester / North Wales service but the second Liverpool service will need to be roughly half an hour after for commercial reasons.

Avanti will have 56 units with a total of 574 coaches of tilting stock vs 23 units and 135 coaches that will not tilt. Hopefully a decent timetable can be put together for the next few years. It does seem to be a stopgap measure to provide sufficient capacity until either HS2 phase 1 opens or the Pendolino fleet reaches the point that it needs replacing by a new tilting fleet. If its the latter Hitachi units would be easy to cascade.

TRAX · 8 Dec 2019

TT-ONR-NRN said:
I know it’s pretty obvious especially with it being Hitachi and First, and with the picture, but has it been confirmed they’re to be AT300s yet? No chance of a new design I’m guessing.

Yes what they’ve ordered are AT300s.

Mountain Man · 8 Dec 2019

Railperf said:
Actually, the 800's acceleration is not much quicker than a Class 390 Pendolino, to make any significant time difference I recently sampled an LNER Class 800 running northbound out of Carlisle. Whilst the Class 800 was initially able to open up a small time advantage over my last recorded Class 390 run, the lack of tilt meant it was several minutes behind the 390 by the time we were passing Thankerton and slowing down for the Junction to Edinburgh at Carstairs.
Unless some significant infrastructure changes to allow higher speeds take place - there will potentially be slower journeys using this new stock. Seems a step backwards not to order more tilting trains. That applies to TPE CAF Class 397's too.

They aren't replacing Pendolinos. They are replacing Voyagers.

devonexpress · 8 Dec 2019

What happened to the 11 carriage Pendos virgin had?

transmanche · 8 Dec 2019

devonexpress said:
What happened to the 11 carriage Pendos virgin had?

Nothing. They're still there, doing their thing. Just painted white now.

devonexpress · 8 Dec 2019

transmanche said:
Nothing. They're still there, doing their thing. Just painted white now.

I wonder if Avanti will take one coach off them and add it to the 9 ccar sets, making a standardised 10 car pendo fleet.

LNW-GW Joint · 8 Dec 2019

No, you can't do that, the mix of components won't work.
It's 9 or 11 for good.

devonexpress · 8 Dec 2019

LNW-GW Joint said:
No, you can't do that, the mix of components won't work.
It's 9 or 11 for good.

Why won't it? Sounds like rubbish to me.

greatvoyager · 8 Dec 2019

devonexpress said:
Why won't it? Sounds like rubbish to me.

Also, which coach would they remove? The 2 extra coaches in 390s are both different, as one is a motor and the other is a trailer, so it's not as if you can just one, as that would mean some would have a motor coach and some a trailer coach.

WatcherZero · 8 Dec 2019

The two extra cars are a motor and a trailer, you cant even them out to 10 without reducing performance.

LNW-GW Joint · 8 Dec 2019

devonexpress said:
Why won't it? Sounds like rubbish to me.

The electrical equipment (traction motors etc) is distributed throughout the train, and only certain combinations work together.
If you want to extend a 9-car you have to go to 11 to get a working combination.
That's why the upgrade was specified that way, and the DfT would only allow 31 sets to be extended.
There is no prospect of another upgrade.

sprinterguy · 8 Dec 2019

devonexpress said:
Why won't it? Sounds like rubbish to me.

The 11-car sets require a third transformer, located on the additional trailer vehicle, to cope with the increased electrical loading from the additional motor vehicle. You can't just add an extra motor vehicle to a 9 car set without the transformer trailer car, and just adding the transformer trailer to a set would have a negative effect on performance as noted above.

Plus there are 35 11-car and 21 9-car sets, so even if you could reform them what you would actually end up is a mixed fleet of 10 and 11 car units.

transmanche · 8 Dec 2019

devonexpress said:
I wonder if Avanti will take one coach off them and add it to the 9 ccar sets, making a standardised 10 car pendo fleet.

First of all there are 56 trains altogether: 35 11-car and 21 9-car. So even if you were able to take one car from each 11-car set, you would have 45 10-car sets and 14 11-car sets. So you'd never have a standardised 10-car fleet.

Secondly, the 11-car sets have one extra motor car and one extra trailer car compared to a 9-car set. Which one do you remove from the 11-car sets? If you remove the trailer you'll end up with is a fleet of 14 11-car sets with 7 motor cars, 21 10-car sets with 7 motor cars and 21 10-car sets with 6 motor cars. (And that's even ignoring the issue around the extra transformer needed for the extra power car.)

So far from creating a standardised fleet, you'd end up with three variants - all of which have different performance characteristics.

Energy · 8 Dec 2019

The most likely thing to happen is the 9 cars getting extended to 11, this would be expensive though as it is a small order of carriages. Would be affordable if the new emus were pendolinos though...

greatvoyager · 8 Dec 2019

Energy said:
The most likely thing to happen is the 9 cars getting extended to 11, this would be expensive though as it is a small order of carriages. Would be affordable if the new emus were pendolinos though...

There was talk at the time of extending the remaining 21 pendolinos, but I think it was deemed to be not financially viable.

Mikey C · 8 Dec 2019

To me the Birmingham services seem less busy than the other ones, as the frequency is so good and there are LNWR and Chiltern alternatives as well. I assume this route gets many of the 9 car trains?

greatvoyager · 8 Dec 2019

transmanche said:
First of all there are 56 trains altogether: 35 11-car and 21 9-car. So even if you were able to take one car from each 11-car set, you would have 45 10-car sets and 14 11-car sets. So you'd never have a standardised 10-car fleet.

Secondly, the 11-car sets have one extra motor car and one extra trailer car compared to a 9-car set. Which one do you remove from the 11-car sets? If you remove the trailer you'll end up with is a fleet of 14 11-car sets with 7 motor cars, 21 10-car sets with 7 motor cars and 21 10-car sets with 6 motor cars. (And that's even ignoring the issue around the extra transformer needed for the extra power car.)

So far from creating a standardised fleet, you'd end up with three variants - all of which have different performance characteristics.

That would definitely be more complicated.

Snow1964 · 8 Dec 2019

Energy said:
The most likely thing to happen is the 9 cars getting extended to 11, this would be expensive though as it is a small order of carriages. Would be affordable if the new emus were pendolinos though...

Too late now as the residual life of the extra cars would be relatively short. So cost per year would be high

Having two lengths helps fit trains to how busy (although its a choice of 2 sizes so a train needing just 6or 7 cars, or really needing 12 cars is never perfect). I assume the new units will be principally used for workings partly off the wires, North Wales etc.

greatvoyager · 8 Dec 2019

Mikey C said:
To me the Birmingham services seem less busy than the other ones, as the frequency is so good and there are LNWR and Chiltern alternatives as well. I assume this route gets many of the 9 car trains?

I've seen 11 car units, but not sure what the normal length is on the route.

yorkie · 8 Dec 2019

greatvoyager said:
I've seen 11 car units, but not sure what the normal length is on the route.

A mixture of 11 and 9 car Pendolinos and 5 car Voyagers

greatvoyager · 8 Dec 2019

yorkie said:
A mixture of 11 and 9 car Pendolinos and 5 car Voyagers

Thank you for confirming.

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