I've no idea of the particulars to be honest - just that for the first time in the UK CAF are taking on the maintenance of the sets they build. Staff are getting TUPEd or going on secondment to CAF depending on the circumstances.
Neither do we need to ride on them to know there are less seats than a 158, less legroom than a 175 and less toilets and table bays than either.
Aren't there only three 158 diagrams in south Wales and three fewer ETCS-fitted 197s on order than there are TfW 158s? Other routes which may see reduced capacity are Holyhead-Cardiff and Milford Haven-Swansea where I'm assuming units will not run in multiple. Admittedly those routes might be ok with reduced capacity.
Even clever people make idiotic decisions from time to time. In the case of the 197s, a very idiotic decision has been made largely as a result of many previous idiotic decisions made by others over many years (the previous idiotic decisions being all the occasions when proposals to electrify Britain's railways were not given the go ahead so now we are left with a high probability of having a large number of diesel-only passenger trains still running past the net-zero carbon deadline).
Correct about the 3 sets in South Wales, but there's also the sets you can free up if you don't need to send ERTMS fitted sets to Holyhead every 2 hours.
To be fair, some people would say condemning an entire fleet and the people who ordered it as idiotic before that fleet has even entered service is pretty idiotic in itself - as are my content attempts at rebuttal when I know they're only falling on deaf ears. Hopefully though I can persuade other people to at least give these trains a chance before outright condemning them.
Indeed. Plus a lot of the issues there seemed like teething issues - hopefully this will have been noticed and they won't be repeated on the 197s. I'm quite excited about them too and I'll be spending a lot more time on them then and of the negative posters here!
Some different fleets to the 197s arrived with some major teething issues. That does not mean that the same fate will befall the 197s, and even if it does it doesn't mean that they can't be fixed in the future.
I'll admit their recent efforts haven't had a great start it's true, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't worry me. But I've also traveled many thousands of miles on CAF built fleets in Ireland and Spain where they've had notably few issues so I don't think they're incapable of building good trains.
You can't help but feel TfW have procured the fleets the wrong way round and that a batch of FLIRTs of similar spec to the Greater Anglia ones would have been a genuine improvement for the 158/175 type services, with the CAF stuff used on more local services in South Wales. Still, at least there's more Mark 4s to come in, which will uplift capacity and quality.
Fair point about the frequency increase along most of the Cardiff-Holyhead route, I overlooked that in my last past. On the Holyhead-Cardiff service itself, we know about the mark 4 sets which have 2.5 coaches of standard class and I wouldn't be surprised if the other services on the route are to be formed of a 3-car first class fitted 197 which is less capacity than a 175/1 due to the first class. But yes we don't know for sure that this is what is planned and yes the new services might take enough pressure off for this not to be a problem.
More carriages in total yes, but some of these are accounted for by the new Liverpool services (frequency enhancement) so there is little left for increasing train lengths other than the annouced 5-cars on Swansea-Manchester. I'm not sure how many seats there are on a TfW 158, but I believe it is in the region of 134 compared to under 120 for a 2-car 197. They probably aren't idiots so wouldn't have ordered so many 2-car units if there weren't planned to run alone in fairly large numbers for part of a journey.
I wasn't condemning the people who ordered them as idiotic - here's the relevant passage again:
I often hear it said that 'time is running out' in relation to climate change. After watching 'Climate Change: Ade on the Frontline' the other day I came to a different conclusion; in some respects time has already run out. That we are building more DMUs is idiotic, even though the people that made the decision are probably not idiots.
TfW have taken Mark 4 TODs to supplement the fleet so they have the capacity to expand them to 3.5 standard class (formed TOE-TO-TOD-SV-POD-DVT).
a) Far less FLIRTs than Civitys.
If they're not rolling in cash, why have gangways at all, and why replace the entire fleet - could have kept 158s and/or 175s if they're that skint.
No step access is useful everywhere - it should be the aim.
Ah, so Civitys are cheap then... Ultimately, you get what you pay for.
Fair point. It will be interesting to see what the range of the diesel+battery versions is.
Again we don't know the full details until we see the final timetable
Bear in mind they're already dealing with 4 different subfleets of units. Ordering so many 2 cars, even if they're planned to work in multiple most of the time gives them a lot more flexibility. Again though, we don't know the full timetable details yet.
Fair enough, I'll change my question then. Was the decision to order 158s, 170s and 175s idiotic?
For what it's worth, the current 4 car formation actually sees 1st class in the middle. It's TOE - SV - POD - TO - DVT at present.
Don't forget the Welsh angle as well - the large order helped justify CAF opening a factory in Newport. It's hard to see that happening without the big order
A: A large uniform fleet with gangways is necessary for the massive timetable improvements planned.
What about a 185?
The 197s have the cab developed for the 196. What I meant was its hard to justify the extra expense of FLIRTs and a new cab for FLIRTs for already heavily subsidised services compared to Civitys.
It should be but its more useful for closer stops, on services with less frequent stops it is easier to make up time lost, and there are normally less services so there is a smaller knock on other services, if any.
They are comparatively. You get what you pay for but its difficult to spend so much on heavily subsidised services when another product is assembled in Wales and cheaper.
Battery will be a slight increase due to conserving the energy lost to breaking, this will be more noticable on stopping services.
To be honest I find Desiros massively overrated, my personal opinion.
