PartyOperator
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Capacity is about the same on a 9-car and 2x5-car. 580 standard seats on both, 72 first-class on the 2x5 and 70 on the 1x9.
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Do GWR 800/802s decouple in service and should sets be extended to 9 cars?
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greatvoyager
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Thanks for clarifying.
greatvoyager
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I think there are pros and cons to both formations.
Really? Says someone who just four days ago wrote
Says someone who has no problem at all with 9-car trains carrying air through Cornwall for much of the day, but sees this as some sort of crime anywhere else on the GWR network, no matter what the circumstances, such as more people by far living in the town and cities in South Wales than in Cornwall.
In 1979, BR went from portion working of loco-hauled trains west of Plymouth, after over a century of this being the way things were done, to using unsplittable HSTs, so that was the way things worked while there was no alternative. In previous threads I have pointed out that at that time the change to HSTs happened, there was discussion in the railway press about the wisdom/viability of running all those Mk3 coaches through Cornwall all the time. Why do you think that was?
PartyOperator
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Having said they’re the same, a 9 car train really has a bit more capacity than 2x5 since there’s more scope for people to use the seats efficiently, one more vestibule area between carriages for standing, and fewer staff per passenger.
Peak services could probably fill a 1x10 from Bristol if such a thing existed.
greatvoyager
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Is fewer staff per passenger a good thing?
PartyOperator
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Yes and no (see the rest of the thread) but it does mean slightly more space for passengers. More staff on duty also means more off-duty to transport around so they’re where they need to be. I’m sure this is pretty minor in terms of seats used but it’s not zero. Maybe the extra two first class seats on a 2x5 is enough to make up for that small difference.
father_jack
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The 0702 M-F ex Bristol Parkway to Paddington is 2x5. I note it's only reserved in coaches A-E presumably in case only a 5 car drops. So that set will be nearly completely reserved. But if it's the set nearest the stairs everyone will pile on. And potentially end up standing all the way to London because it's non stop after Bristol Parkway. Oh and did I forget to mention you can't walk through to the rather empty other portion.....
greatvoyager
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Can the idea of only 1 half of the train being reserved not be extended, so those wishing to get a seat can reserve and those travelling ad hoc can find a place in the unreserved half?
Bletchleyite
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Another way would be to mark reserved and unreserved coaches (rather than individual seats) and have TVMs able to issue reservations, so most people travelling on-spec could obtain them on arrival at the station and avoid the scrum?
CptCharlee
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I'd say theres more hope of some 5 cars becoming 7 cars rather than 9 for GWR!
The 5 car workings is a headache. Yesterday we attached to another 5 car at Bristol Temple Meads and it took ages. The service was delayed by roughly 20 mins.
The 5 car workings is a headache. Yesterday we attached to another 5 car at Bristol Temple Meads and it took ages. The service was delayed by roughly 20 mins.
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I said 800s specifically, 802s are used on the longest services which are the only ones people have said so far split.
800s are used on the shorter ones to say Oxford, which don't split.
I thought they were meant to be able to quickly decouple and r couple, it was one of the selling points as the DfT always planned for splitting.
Shambolic? Just because there was a coupling issue? I know it’s not uncommon and something Hitachi are (or should be) looking at.
But sometimes Turbos and 387s have coupling issues too, sometimes it’s the infrastructure, others it the units, yes at times it’s a problem at the user interface, are they shambolic too?
As far as I'm aware the turbos and 387s don't couple or uncouple while in service, the 800/802s do. Shambolic is a little far for a 20 minute delay though
it was mentioned elsewhere, maybe even up thread that currently the process isn’t as quick as it was originally specc’d for! Again it’s something that Hitachi are (or should be) looking at.
It took a while for some to get used to coupling the 387s when introduced but over time these attachments have become much slicker as experience grew.
It's a high speed train though, should it really need to split and recouple quickly during service?
They most certainly do! There’s quite a bit of it!
Didn't think they did while in service as they are mainly focused in the Thames valley for 387s and the services which turbos are coupled together for don't seem to split part way through.
duffield
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For 2x5 sets leaving Paddington, is the set nearest the buffers *always* relatively overcrowded, when overcrowding is an issue? Or have people worked this out by now and go to the far set straight away?
VT 390
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I don't think that is just an issue on the 2x5 sets as I have been on quite a few 9 carriage sets where the front carriages have plenty of seats available and all the seats can be full in the rear carriages.
Population has nothing to do with it Jimm. I have no problem with splitting and coupling 5 car units at Plymouth on services especially at this time of year but now there are no 9 car at all and yet the gold plated Great Malvern and Cotswolds regularly get this despite carrying fresh air until Oxford. I understand this was part of the deal for extra Penzance to Plymouths but I sometimes wonder what the Daft were thinking.
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Turbo wise, mostly ECS splitting/joining in Reading Station for moves to/from the TCD, there is at least a couple that attach in Paddington for a late night service but yes none as such halfway through a service certainly not as much as they used to I.e when they used to split/join at Oxford for the Cotswolds services. I can’t speak for the Turbos in the West as that’s not my patch and I haven’t looked at the diagrams.
387’s are mostly attachments / detachments either at Reading or Paddington to form 12 cars for the peaks but running around as 8 and 4 between.
One example is 2N12 07.26 London Paddington - Didcot which is 12 car to Reading then splits, 4 carry on to Didcot as 2N12 the rear 8 returns to Paddington.
It has always been a feature of the Paddington long distance services that they serve a significant intermediate point and then continue quite a distance beyond with lesser demand, to an extent you don't get so much elsewhere (apart from the old Southern). Back before the HST this was done by portion working of many of the services. So Penzance custom had dropped off beyond Plymouth (or had a Torbay portion detached at Newton Abbot), South Wales fell off beyond Cardiff, Cotswold line beyond Oxford, etc. I'll just observe that there was also never an issue with this, you never saw the train leave Paddington with just half the coaches (let alone half of them locked out), and also of course there was never any difficulty in coupling up, even at the sharpest curved platforms.
Some routes had different drop-off points at different times of day, which broadly still reflects current demand. So South Wales might do it at either Cardiff or Swansea, Hereford line at either Oxford or Worcester. All understood and managed. The intermediate drop-offs were also commonly where restaurant service ended and those vehicles were part of the detachment.
The HST actually introduced a problem where this could not happen any more, plus the change in service style where the "outer suburban" demand from Paddington to Reading, Didcot and Swindon was increasingly handled by squeezing the passengers into services going the full distance. Doubled 5-car sets does seem a sensible answer to this, provided that firstly it can be done reliably (as the old WR managed) and secondly the various demand patterns are understood, thus the Cotswold trains normally only need 5 cars beyond Oxford but there are a couple of evening services where the higher demand continues as far as Worcester, and the same for some WofE services. Unfortunately there's far too much nowadays of "one size fits all" for service patterns, and if you are going to knock off half the train at Plymouth that still gets planned for an August Saturday by someone who has probably never even been to Devon.
It always struck me as ludicrous, from several trips to Swansea in recent years, that the HST from Paddington was preceded from Newport each hour, by only a few minutes, by the minimalist 2-car local train which scooped up all the waiting passengers, while I would find myself almost the only occupant of the carriage by Swansea. The Midland line does just the same, the hourly 5 car through Meridian from Sheffield, Derby and Leicester running just ahead of the HST from Nottingham, the first arriving at St Pancras with standing passengers followed by the three-quarters empty HST.
Some routes had different drop-off points at different times of day, which broadly still reflects current demand. So South Wales might do it at either Cardiff or Swansea, Hereford line at either Oxford or Worcester. All understood and managed. The intermediate drop-offs were also commonly where restaurant service ended and those vehicles were part of the detachment.
The HST actually introduced a problem where this could not happen any more, plus the change in service style where the "outer suburban" demand from Paddington to Reading, Didcot and Swindon was increasingly handled by squeezing the passengers into services going the full distance. Doubled 5-car sets does seem a sensible answer to this, provided that firstly it can be done reliably (as the old WR managed) and secondly the various demand patterns are understood, thus the Cotswold trains normally only need 5 cars beyond Oxford but there are a couple of evening services where the higher demand continues as far as Worcester, and the same for some WofE services. Unfortunately there's far too much nowadays of "one size fits all" for service patterns, and if you are going to knock off half the train at Plymouth that still gets planned for an August Saturday by someone who has probably never even been to Devon.
It always struck me as ludicrous, from several trips to Swansea in recent years, that the HST from Paddington was preceded from Newport each hour, by only a few minutes, by the minimalist 2-car local train which scooped up all the waiting passengers, while I would find myself almost the only occupant of the carriage by Swansea. The Midland line does just the same, the hourly 5 car through Meridian from Sheffield, Derby and Leicester running just ahead of the HST from Nottingham, the first arriving at St Pancras with standing passengers followed by the three-quarters empty HST.
Envoy
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Sometimes the National Rail website (& others) make the overcrowding situation worse. For example, if you leave PAD on the 8.48am and wish to go to Carmarthen, the website tells you to change trains at Newport (for a 2 or 3 coach train of Transport for Wales that is going from Manchester to Carmarthen). Anybody with any sense would realise that the best thing to do is to stay on the GWR all the way to Swansea and then switch to the Manchester to Carmarthen service. Of course, Joe Public probably won’t realise this as they are told to change trains at Newport and think they will break some rule and get fined if they don’t follow the instructions they were given.
People are largely like sheep when it comes to platform v train positioning. Hence the zone marking system on platforms. It doesn't matter what you do when you have the "I'll follow the person in front" mentality.
father_jack
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Might be exaggerated but 1C12 1122 Paddington to Bristol TM a 5 car today, wedged leaving Swindon and "up to a 100" left behind at Chippenham. Hourly service only due to Severn Tunnel closed and Bath rugby at home and xmas sales.
Yet you go past North Pole depot and there can be up to a dozen units (including 9 cars) seemingly sitting doing nothing. Surely they cannot all be failures or undergoing maintenance?
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