Chiltern wanting to get hold of new stock

[swt_passenger]

If I remember correctly the 165s and 166s are slightly bigger than other units loading guage wise. When they leave the Paddington services it is being suggested on other threads that they will be hard to fit in elsewhere...

They won't be 'hard to fit in' elsewhere at all IMHO. The suggestions on other threads are perpetuating the myth that they are significantly larger, which is really not the case. As you may already be aware, (as part of the Reading blockade pre-requisites a few years ago), they were cleared from Redhill to Selhurst, and from Guildford to Basingstoke via Woking, without any known infrastructure changes being made.

There are specific plans to use them on FGW services centred on Bristol, including Portsmouth to Cardiff, these were repeated in the CP5 enhancements draft that came out in December, that include use on the following routes:

West of England Diesel Multiple Unit capability works

Network Rail has assumed that the cascaded Class 165 and 166 units will operate over the
following parts of the Western, Wales and Wessex Routes:
Core routes:
o Cardiff - Bristol - Exeter – Penzance (including Weston-super-Mare)
o Bristol to Portsmouth
o Westbury to Weymouth
o Bristol to Worcester (including Gloucester)
o Bristol to Severn Beach
o Swindon to Gloucester
o Swindon to Westbury
Diversionary routes
o Bristol to Parkway via Avonmouth
o Castle Cary to Exeter
o Castle Cary to Exeter via Yeovil
o Romsey to Fareham via Eastleigh

 

[Eagle]

If I remember correctly the 165s and 166s are slightly bigger than other units loading guage wise. When they leave the Paddington services it is being suggested on other threads that they will be hard to fit in elsewhere. As Chiltern also use the same units does it not make sense to replace all of chilterns 168s and 172s with 165s and/or 166s ?. Unsure regarding suitability for longer distance services maybe ?.

Mark3 coaches for services to Birmingham or beyond Banbury mind you.

Wouldn't be popular replacing 168s with 165s. Plus Turbos are only capable of 90 mph, whereas the current Chiltern timetable is built around 100 mph mainline services.

And there aren't anywhere near enough Mk3s to take over all services beyond Banbury (currently 2tph to Birmingham and 1tp2h to Stratford).

 

[tbtc]

If I remember correctly the 165s and 166s are slightly bigger than other units loading guage wise. When they leave the Paddington services it is being suggested on other threads that they will be hard to fit in elsewhere. As Chiltern also use the same units does it not make sense to replace all of chilterns 168s and 172s with 165s and/or 166s ?

I've wondered in the past whether 166s would be more suited to Chiltern than on the kind of "local" services in the Bristol area/ Devon/ Cornwall that people generally suggest the Turbos move to (which seem suited to a 165 but not necessarily a 166).

There are certainly a number of services elsewhere that a four coach 168 would be suited to (e.g. where three coach 170s struggle to cope, like some Birmingham - Leicester/ Nottingham services).

 

[swt_passenger]

I've wondered in the past whether 166s would be more suited to Chiltern than on the kind of "local" services in the Bristol area/ Devon/ Cornwall that people generally suggest the Turbos move to (which seem suited to a 165 but not necessarily a 166).

It isn't 'people suggesting' the Turbos move, it is stated in the DfT's HLOS illustrated options for CP5, as well as in NR's plans.

Your description makes it sound as though it is just an idea...

 

[talltim]

Was there not a tender issued for the provision of locos some months ago?

Steam locos?

 

[tbtc]

It isn't 'people suggesting' the Turbos move, it is stated in the DfT's HLOS illustrated options for CP5, as well as in NR's plans.

Your description makes it sound as though it is just an idea...

Apologies - it gets hard to remember what is mentioned in various documents as hard fact and what is just froth/ speculation.

But, if we accept that a 166 isn't much of an improvement from the three coach 158s on the Portsmouth services, there's not a lot of FGW services in the West Country/ beyond that I think a 166 would suit.

Whereas, doubled up 166s on some of Chiltern's longer distance services seems a better match.

 

[Eagle]

Whereas, doubled up 166s on some of Chiltern's longer distance services seems a better match.

Except, as I've just said, they're only 90 mph and the current Chiltern timetable is timed to 100 mph.

Unless all that engineering work and blockades in 2010-11 for journey time improvements between Birmingham and London was for nothing.

 

[The Ham]

In their current climate the only stock Chiltern could afford is more Mk3 coaching stock/DVT, the loco's are all hired in. Some DVT's and Coaches where given to Chiltern to use when WSMR were kicked out and as far as I am aware all the Mk3/DVT's are owned by DB, whether Chiltern have to pay lease costs for these is another question but I wouldn't be surprised if they had to pay leasing costs. Class 172's cost £1m per coach where Mk3 coaching stock cost hell of a lot less even after being refurbed and converted to run with 67's. The track access is also a lot less for Mk3 vice 172.

The problem is although the Mark 3's have fairly low track access charges, if you add a Class 67 to the front of a rake of mark 3's (with no DVT) then if there are 4 mark 3's then 5 coach class 180 is cheaper. Which is a lot give they are the most expensive DMU in terms of track access charges.

If you were to use the 222's instead (which still aren't overly cheap) then you could run a 7 coach set for less money that a 6 coach mark 3 rake with no DVT.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I had forgotten about the Stratford service - but not really enough demand for LHCS+67 ?.

I had the feeling that there were plenty of Mark3 coaches languishing hence the fact/rumor that chiltern are looking for 14ish locos..

Could the 168s get different couplings to suit 170s or is it more involved than that ?.

Makes sense to keep all the 165 & 166 fleets together but is lack of 100mph capability a problem South of Banbury (i.e. assuming Mark3 coaches do all the longer legged stuff).

 

[Cherry_Picker]

The problem is although the Mark 3's have fairly low track access charges, if you add a Class 67 to the front of a rake of mark 3's (with no DVT) then if there are 4 mark 3's then 5 coach class 180 is cheaper. Which is a lot give they are the most expensive DMU in terms of track access charges.

If you were to use the 222's instead (which still aren't overly cheap) then you could run a 7 coach set for less money that a 6 coach mark 3 rake with no DVT.

I'd be very surprised if 67s had a long term future at Chiltern. The lease is up in December as far as I'm aware and I think sourcing new locomotives more suited for 100mph work is something of a priority. I'm guessing here, but IEP will free up a load of mark 3 coaches too, won't it?

On the 168 and 170 compatibility, they use the same physical coupler it's just incompatible electronically (because 168s were wired to be compatible with NSE stock and 170s weren't, NSE in turn was wired to be incompatible with the rest of BR to stop their units being cascaded if the stories I have heard are true). It should be a fairly simple mod to make the trains compatible and rebrand any 170s which do come in as 168s. There have been whispers of talks with Scotrail to take some 170s from them which in theory have been freed up by electrification. Whether a deal can be made or not isn't really for me to say, mostly because I haven't got a clue!

 

[D6975]

I had forgotten about the Stratford service - but not really enough demand for LHCS+67 ?.

I had the feeling that there were plenty of Mark3 coaches languishing hence the fact/rumor that chiltern are looking for 14ish locos..

Could the 168s get different couplings to suit 170s or is it more involved than that ?.

Makes sense to keep all the 165 & 166 fleets together but is lack of 100mph capability a problem South of Banbury (i.e. assuming Mark3 coaches do all the longer legged stuff).

There aren't that many Mk3s lying around. Anglia has the lions share (about 2/3 of the surviving 12xxx series for example) and quite a few have been converted to HST stock. The fact that numerous catering and firsts have been converted to TSOs is an indication of how much they are in demand.
Many people forget that the WCML wasn't all Mk3 s, they had a lot of 2Es and 2Fs as well.

According to an admittedly out of date list of Mk 3 TSOs that I have, there were 22 in store. 14 Porterbrook owned, of which 5 were tagged for possible HST conversion, 5 DRS and 3 DBR.

 

[Surreyman]

They won't be 'hard to fit in' elsewhere at all IMHO. The suggestions on other threads are perpetuating the myth that they are significantly larger, which is really not the case. As you may already be aware, (as part of the Reading blockade pre-requisites a few years ago), they were cleared from Redhill to Selhurst, and from Guildford to Basingstoke via Woking, without any known infrastructure changes being made.

There are specific plans to use them on FGW services centred on Bristol, including Portsmouth to Cardiff, these were repeated in the CP5 enhancements draft that came out in December, that include use on the following routes:

That would seem to be nearly every GW DMU route out of Philips Marsh and which is north of Exeter (Exeter included as the the southernmost terminating point).
Thats roughly the 24 150s based at PM + on paper some of the 158s.
I wonder if GW will be able to cascade the 143s as well?

 

[158722]

There aren't that many Mk3s lying around. Anglia has the lions share (about 2/3 of the surviving 12xxx series for example) and quite a few have been converted to HST stock. The fact that numerous catering and firsts have been converted to TSOs is an indication of how much they are in demand.
Many people forget that the WCML wasn't all Mk3 s, they had a lot of 2Es and 2Fs as well.

According to an admittedly out of date list of Mk 3 TSOs that I have, there were 22 in store. 14 Porterbrook owned, of which 5 were tagged for possible HST conversion, 5 DRS and 3 DBR.

DBR own the following in store at Long Marston;
RFM; 10201/202/215/222/226/233/235/237/242//250/257
FO; 11005/013/027/033/044/079/089/097
SO; 12058/104/158
plus 12 DVTs
plus RFM 10205 (Battlefield Railway), 10246 (Cardiff) & FO 11028 (Wabtec, Doncaster, of which the latter two may be for parts only.

From that lot, two 6-coach (5 SO/FO, RFM plus DVT) sets could easily be made up from stored FO and SO vehicles, whilst converting the existing 8 slam door blue & grey commuter set vehicles (11019/031, 12017/043/054/094/119/124) permits a third additional set to be created. A fourth set could be created if 2 or 3 of the RFMs were converted to SOs, as per the similar work done on FGW ex-buffet cars into TSOs in the 425xx series. Thus the current fleet of 20 SOs in the 126xx series formed up into 4 sets could be doubled to 40 to create 8 sets, plus a few spares. There are plenty RFM and DVTs available.

So the current 4 plug sets and 1 commuter set could become a uniform fleet of 8 sets, of which 7 would probably be diagrammed on Marylebone-Birmingham services, displacing a couple of 168s for use on other services, cascading 165s, etc.

 

[Chester025]

I'd be very surprised if 67s had a long term future at Chiltern. The lease is up in December as far as I'm aware and I think sourcing new locomotives more suited for 100mph work is something of a priority. I'm guessing here, but IEP will free up a load of mark 3 coaches too, won't it?

What makes 67s unsuitable for the job?

 

[swt_passenger]

... I'm guessing here, but IEP will free up a load of mark 3 coaches too, won't it?

I don't think the timing is right. Chiltern really need their extra stock sorted (for the additional Silver trains) by the time the Bicester-Oxford line re-opens, and the 168s get re-jigged diagrams for Marylebone to Oxford.

Does that fit in with any IEP in service dates?

 

[Rich McLean]

That would seem to be nearly every GW DMU route out of Philips Marsh and which is north of Exeter (Exeter included as the the southernmost terminating point).
Thats roughly the 24 150s based at PM + on paper some of the 158s.
I wonder if GW will be able to cascade the 143s as well?

From what I have heard, the plan is to have the 166 on the longer routes and the 165s on the shorter routes centered around Bristol. 158s as a result would move down south to operate Cornish mainline services together with 150s on the braches. This will enable 143s and 153s to go off lease together with some 150s cascaded to Northern

150s and 158s allocated to Exeter TMD, while the Turbos would be allocated on the Marsh.

This in effect would make it easier for Traction training purposes, so Plymouth and Cornish drivers in effect will only sign two classes 150/158 (and HST for HSS), Exeter signing 150/158/165/166 (HSS also HST & IEP), and Bristol signing 158/165/166 (and IEP for HSS). I can't see Turbo's heading down to Penzance on a regular basis

Stock moves for 150s would also be made easier by moving 158s onto Bristol/Taunton/Exeter/Plymouth - Penzance, enabling 150s to be tagged onto 158s to get them to and from Exeter on early morning and evening turns for set swaps, without having to worry about the compatibilty issues with Turbos

However, DafT might turn round and send them elsewhere

 

[Eagle]

I don't think the timing is right. Chiltern really need their extra stock sorted (for the additional Silver trains) by the time the Bicester-Oxford line re-opens, and the 168s get re-jigged diagrams for Marylebone to Oxford.

Which, for those unaware, is summer 2015 for Marylebone to Oxford Parkway, and spring 2016 for Marylebone to Oxford General.

 

[swt_passenger]

Which, for those unaware, is summer 2015 for Marylebone to Oxford Parkway, and spring 2016 for Marylebone to Oxford General.

Thanks, I was just trying to find some reasonably reliable dates!

 

[shaun]

I'd imagine Chiltern will eventually have enough locos and coaches to cover the Marylebone - Moor Street/Kidderminster workings. Can't see the locos being diagrammed on all the Snow Hill workings, given their more frequent stops which doubled up '168's are probably more suited to.

Chiltern do need to sort out getting some more silver sets, they use them in advertising to make themselves look superior to Virgin yet you really need to do your research to catch them.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

What makes 67s unsuitable for the job?

They are not wholly unsuitable, but they are too heavy (route availability of 8) and too thirsty.

 

[Class172]

They are not wholly unsuitable, but they are too heavy (route availability of 8) and too thirsty.

Yes, I assumed the answer would be axle weight (and thus RA) - they have the power nonetheless. Is a 68 a better offering?

HST perhaps...

 

[Cherry_Picker]

I've never driven a 68 so I can't say with any authority. The cab environment looks much nicer than a 67 though.

 

[TDK]

Yes, I assumed the answer would be axle weight (and thus RA) - they have the power nonetheless. Is a 68 a better offering?

HST perhaps...

HST's would be a much better option than 67/Mk3/DVT but there are not any available. WSMR looked at converted class 170's, 185's and HST's prior to opting for the 67/DVT combo, the 170's & 185's were just too expensive and there were just no HST's available at the time.

 

[anthony263]

Yes, I assumed the answer would be axle weight (and thus RA) - they have the power nonetheless. Is a 68 a better offering?

HST perhaps...

Well the Welsh Government have had a suggestion put to them about using some refurbished hst's on the Cardiff - Holyhead route so may not be a bad idea although I highly doubt it would happen.

My bet is on Chiltern using more loco hauled stock especially with the the welsh government looking at how much is spends on Gerald etc there should be a few mark 3's available if the plug is pulled on Gerald

 

[The Ham]

Given all this talk of mark 3's being used on various service (Wales, Chiltern, XC, etc.), once IEP comes along how many of the (about 66) sets will actually be able to retire?

It may well be that a number of them which are needed for the short term are able to still retire by the start of 2020 (thinking of XC if they get new stock as part of their franchise and/or a load of Virgin's 221's once the ICWC franchise is re-let).

 

[CarltonA]

What are the 67s going to be used for when they go off lease from Chiltern?

 

[jopsuk]

Who knows? I'd guess DBS are working on finding them suitable work if they don't get slected in the tender. Of course, despite not being ideal it may be that DBS/the 67s do get the job, resulting in a larger fleet needing the modifications.

 

[43074]

HST's would be a much better option than 67/Mk3/DVT but there are not any available. WSMR looked at converted class 170's, 185's and HST's prior to opting for the 67/DVT combo, the 170's & 185's were just too expensive and there were just no HST's available at the time.

How does the acceleration of a 67/Mk3/DVT set compare to a 2+6 HST?

 

[SkinnyDave]

They could probably make some use of any FGW 165s or 166s that aren't needed elsewhere.

They are coming down to the West Region, our depot are getting trained on them soon..

They are needed over here
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

That would seem to be nearly every GW DMU route out of Philips Marsh and which is north of Exeter (Exeter included as the the southernmost terminating point).
Thats roughly the 24 150s based at PM + on paper some of the 158s.
I wonder if GW will be able to cascade the 143s as well?

143s should be coming back to Severn Beach Line in the near future

 

[Class172]

HST's would be a much better option than 67/Mk3/DVT but there are not any available. WSMR looked at converted class 170's, 185's and HST's prior to opting for the 67/DVT combo, the 170's & 185's were just too expensive and there were just no HST's available at the time.

When are the first IEPs due to displace the HSTs? Surely then that would provide a chance to pick the best ones for use - how straightforward would it be to replace the current slam-door mk3s between the two HST power cars with the upgraded power-door coaches?