So not all 3-car sets will be fitted with a First Class?
I've now found the source and it's not as clear cut as I'd remembered:
First class accommodation is to be introduced between Manchester and Swansea using 14 of the three-car DMUs; the units will initally operate as standard only.
From Modern Railways: December 2018 issue (page 14). You could read that as 14x 3-car units having first class and the other 12x 3-car units not having first class. Or you could read it as the 14 units for Manchester-Swansea will initially be standard only and the other 12 will be first class fitted from new. I'm inclined to go with the first interpretation myself (ie. 12x 3-car units WILL NOT get first class).
14 units fitted with first class sections seems a little more than I would expect given the very tight rostering planned for the Cambrian. I assume the 21 units with ETCS would have to cover:
- Aberystwyth - Birmingham International (hourly)
- Pwllheli - Birmingham International (every 2hrs)
- Holyhead - Birmingham International (every 2hrs)
I make that 19 diagrams worth. That would give 4-car between Birmingham and Shrewsbury every hour, and as far as Machynlleth in the hours the train runs to Pwllheli. The Cambrian Coast, Machynlleth-Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury-Chester-Holyhead would be stuck with 2-cars at all times. With only 2 ETCS units spare in the fleet, there is zero scope to length Cambrian Coast workings in the summer and any strengthening of the Shrewsbury-Chester-Holyhead section would have to be done by attaching a non-ETCS fitted unit (assuming the software allows that).
With the extremely tight utilisation of the ETCS units established, I find it very unlikely that 14 first class units would be used only on Swansea-Manchester, which I estimate as requiring just 9 diagrams (leaving 5 units spare). The full Manchester-Carmarthen/Milford trips I think add up to 12 diagrams, so I do wonder whether the intension is to leave the 2-car portion at Swansea with the 3-car unit continuing west with first class declassified (or perhaps a 2-car unit heading west in some hours and a 3-car, with first class, in others).
Wider Doors at ⅓ ⅔ positions will have a massive impact on dwell times. It's not just Manchester Piccadilly platform 14 that had issues - I was at Hereford in the middle of the afternoon the other day wishing I had a 150 as I was losing time whilst the modest crowd queued to board through the narrow end doors of my 175.
Sure, they would shave off some dwell time but I don't think that's as important as providing a high-quality environment; only Manchester Piccadilly is actually a problem as that's the only station concerned where occupying the platform for a longer period is an issue.
One other thing - you're assuming that most people are traveling long distances. You'd be wrong: the majority of passengers using these units will be on shorter runs into their nearest city/large town. These units will be perfect for that - but there's no reason that ⅓ ⅔ doors mean they can't still be comfortable for the minority making long journeys as well (as long as the seats are comfortable). You only have to travel on a 350 or 168 to see that.
I don't pretend to know whether there are more long-distance or short-distance passengers on board; I know the services are used for both. The issue in my mind is that the long-distance passengers (and you may well be correct that it is a minority of those on board) have no other choice, other than travelling by road or perhaps air. There are no faster services that most of the long-distance passengers would be aiming for; the routes the Civities will work ARE the fast services in most cases.
I think it's a difficult balance to strike between having a train suited to long-distances but which can also deal with eating up large crowds quickly and frequent stops.
The 170s arguably got the latter part but were never really suited to long-distance workings in my opinion. I agree up to this point. Trains with 1/3, 2/3 doors can never be ideal for long-distance passengers in my opinion.
Nevertheless, I have to say I think TfW are right to order these trains with 1/3-2/3 doors because in the long run that's probably going to be better for the services they will operate.
I think 170s are suited very well to medium-long distance regional expresses, which other than the Mk4-operated services is exactly what the Welsh long-distance services are.
I would argue that even the Holyhead-Cardiff services are medium-long distance regional
express services; if anything Swansea-Manchester is more
INTERCITY than Holyhead-Cardiff. Where I disagree is that 170s are suitable for Regional
Express work. Note the word I have put it bold; express means the service isn't stopping every five minutes (although the 'regional' bit means they could run onto a rural line where they are stopping every five minutes for that part of the journey, but only a handful of pax will board/alight at many of those stops). Thus the extra 30 seconds or so of dwell time (if using end-door stock) at each of the main stations doesn't add up to a huge amount of the overall end-to-end running time. I think those dwell times are a price worth paying for the better passenger environment; clearly BR did too when they replaced the 150s on the likes of TPE with 155s/156s/158s (and similarly TPE are now doing the same with 802s/397s/mk5s replacing some of the 185s).
ScotRail using HSTs works because with the new timetable there are fewer stops and the superior acceleration and power doors means there isn't as much of an issue with slightly longer dwells.
Exactly; there are fewer stops (compared to a suburan service like Maesteg-Cheltenham) and the new trains should have fast doors (similar to a 175) not the slow ones that 158s have.
The Scotrail HST hopefully being less crowded generally should help (especially when 5 car running starts)
Ditto in Wales; I think the answer should be making the trains longer than they are now, so that passengers can spread out between more doors, not making the doors wider.
Have these CAF units been issued a class number yet? Class 197 might make sense...
Personally, while they are planning to downgrade the network to suburban trains I'm calling them class 196s (as they look just like the West Midlands units), but what I want to see (with narrow doors like the 397s) I'm calling 197s... Not heard of an offical class number for them though.