Another Yoker is needed somewhere, entry and exit in both directions. Mossend / Eurocentral is a great idea.
Platforms 4&5 are in use of for just that, And I'd have thought there's plenty of space between the lines of from platform 2/3 and 6/9 just north of the station where you could keep stuff, and relatively far from housing, but that's not particularly useful anyway given the distance all of that is from the suburban Glasgow stuff, so you'd just be storing Alloa/Dunblane stock there, which lets face it isn't a lot of stock, maybe 10 carriages or so which is not a big dent in space elsewhere.There was meant to be stabling at Stirling, but the neighbourhood housing objected about the increased traffic late at night and in the early morning.
In the long term, doesn't it make more sense to have more units from one manufacturer. The 385's are proving very reliable, the issues have been overcome and from a maintenance and training point of view it would be more efficient.I’m a real fan of the Class 385s, I think Hitachi have did a good job with these units. I do find them to be very similar to the Class 380s although I do like Siemens. I like the design of the Class 707s and 717s. I don’t imagine, given the problems, they will go back to Hitachi. Most modern EMU’s come with their problems. Let’s not forget the delays to service with the 334s (delay of the 303 withdrawal), 380s (major unit shortage as 334s could not cascade to operate on A-B) and 385s (Class 365s had to be brought from down south and 380s had to be brought from Ayrshire/Inverclyde causing major shortages and withdrawal of 314s) - it’s almost inevitable these days.
Whatever they go with I hope they consider suitability to routes such as Cathcart/Newton/Neilston and perhaps East Kilbride (if/when it’s electrified).
In the long term, doesn't it make more sense to have more units from one manufacturer. The 385's are proving very reliable, the issues have been overcome and from a maintenance and training point of view it would be more efficient.
The Desiro City is fairly well established now - hundreds of them running around.But Siemens no longer make the emu on which the 380 is based. So new Siemens emus would be an entirely novel technology.
The dream would be the 318/320 fleet being replaced by fixed 5 car desiro city units with wide gangways and more standing room. They would be ideal for the south side, north Clyde and argyle line and for peak gourocks too.
Why would you replace units that these days mostly run around in 2x 3 car formation (6 cars) with fixed formation 5 car units?
I suspect the OP I suggesting five 24m coaches rather than six 20m ones and assumes there are no clearance problems for that idea.
Correct.I suspect the OP is suggesting five 24m coaches rather than six 20m ones and assumes there are no clearance problems for that idea.
Why Siemens?The dream would be the 318/320 fleet being replaced by fixed 5 car desiro city units with wide gangways and more standing room. They would be ideal for the south side, north Clyde and argyle line and for peak gourocks too.
Why not? Could be anyone - just there’s a whole bunch of 707s coming off lease - could be a good opportunity.Why Siemens?
23/24m vehicles
Why not? Could be anyone - just there’s a whole bunch of 707s coming off lease - could be a good opportunity.
Why not? Could be anyone - just there’s a whole bunch of 707s coming off lease - could be a good opportunity.
Correct.
Fixed formations - no attaching or detaching, 23/24m vehicles, more standing capacity on board.
318/320s have a lot of dead space inside them.
Fixed 5 car formations would also avoid the need for expansive platform extensions.
Fixed formation units at 6x 20m coaches would also avoid the need for platform extensions. I very much doubt that we'll ever see extended platforms on the North Clyde/Argyle lines as the cost of doing so would be beyond astronomical, especially in stations like Central Low Level etc.
It all makes sense, standardise carriage length and ensure that different trains can be used with each other for flexibility. Definitely a case for a different layout in places, the AT100 or AT200 with a urban setup. Standardisation helping with driver training and maintenance. The 385 is proving very reliable, take advantage of it by extending the fleet.Scotrail need some to move towards a standard train length of 8 x 23m in all new infrastructure investments.
SDO can be used in some places but there should be a rolling programme of platform extensions to achieve 190m platforms as standard across the Central Belt commuter and I7C networks.
Won’t necessarily be cheap but in the long term will be better value than trying to run more frequent, shorter trains.