Class 345 speculative allocation

[samuelmorris]

Granted, the extension to Reading has upended some of the proposed timetabling, which wasn't final anyway, but doing some basic maths on the crossrail prelim timetable, I'm struggling to identify why they'd need 65 train sets.
Working this out from an over-simplified perspective of round trip times, I came up with rough figures like this:

Off-peak
Shenfield-Heathrow: 2tph, c. 180 min round trip -> 6 units
Shenfield-Reading: 1tph, c. 240 min round trip -> 4 units
Shenfield-Paddington: 3tph, c. 120 min round trip -> 6 units
Abbey Wood-Heathrow: 2tph, c. 120 min round trip -> 4 units
Abbey Wood-Reading: 1tph, c. 180 min round trip -> 3 units
Abbey Wood-Paddington: 3tph, c. 75 min round trip -> 4 units
Total: 27 units

Peak
Liverpool Street-Gidea Park: 6tph, c. 80 min round trip -> 8 units
Shenfield-Maidenhead: 1tph, c. 210 min round trip -> 3 1/2 units
Shenfield-West Drayton: 1tph, c. 150 min round trip -> 2 1/2 units
Shenfield-Paddington: 4tph, c. 120 min round trip -> 8 units
Abbey Wood-Maidenhead: 1tph, c. 150 min round trip -> 2 1/2 units
Abbey Wood-West Drayton: 1tph, c. 105 min round trip -> 1 3/4 units
Abbey Wood-Paddington: 4tph, c. 75 min round trip -> 5 units
Total: 31 units (ish)

Which gives me a total of 58.
Just realised after I posted this that I was missing 2tph Paddington on each side.

Does this seem reasonable based on a fleet of 65? Not sure exactly what the in-service ratio normally is.

 

[anthony263]

Well there is all that talk of crossrail taking some of the local services to Tring with a new link from Crossrail @ Old Oak Common to the west coast mainline.

 

[samuelmorris]

Interesting point, but I didn't think that was very far down the development stage? There is of course the option to increase the fleet size to 83, but I assumed that had something to do with increasing the core frequency to 32tph. I wouldn't expect that would have anything to do with a link to the WCML?

 

[edwin_m]

Typically the number of units will be about 10% more than the number of diagrams, to cover for maintenance and repairs. If being paid by availability it may even be worth the builder adding another train or two rather than taking the hit on penalty payments. So 65 units for 58 diagrams sounds about right.

As well as the committed units the contract includes options for more (as mentioned by a post that has just appeared while I was typing this!). These are contractual clauses that allow the customer to purchase more of the same design at a predictable price without having to go through the Euro-procurement process again and possibly ending up with a different supplier. A handful of these should be called off following the Reading announcement, but the figure probably allows extension to Ebbsfleet and perhaps even take over some of the Euston suburbans. I don't think increasing either the frequency or the train length on the central section is covered by existing options, because these are seen as long-term ideas that would happen when the trains and associated infrastructure systems are life-expired.

 

[samuelmorris]

This might be a bit tangential to this thread, but does the announcement of the Reading extension remove any FGW diagrams, or do they remain entirely supplementary, save the disconnection of the Greenford branch from Paddington?

 

[mister-sparky]

TOC's always have spare units. They never have all units working, they have spares.

 

[swt_passenger]

This might be a bit tangential to this thread, but does the announcement of the Reading extension remove any FGW diagrams, or do they remain entirely supplementary, save the disconnection of the Greenford branch from Paddington?

The GW Reading - Paddington services will reduce to just 2 tph with Crossrail. That has not changed, it was already planned.

There was also going to be a GW 2 tph Reading - Slough service as well. That service has now been binnned, and reduces GW requirements (maybe by 2 units?).

(Above service pattern does not include the single additional through train from Henley and Bourne End/Marlow.)

 

[Class 170101]

The fleet availability appears to be about 89 to 90% so this seems entirely feasible.

 

[BantamMenace]

Someone will know better than me but wasnt the original tender for 60 units in service so it is then for the manufacturer to put their bo****ks on the line and provide as few as they deem possible to ensure 60 are always serviceable.

e.g. if they thought they were making an extremely reliable product they'd supply 61 and there would only ever be 1 undergoing maintenance. If their product was made on the cheap and unreliable they'd supply 120 and half the fleet would be available, half would be maintained.

So in summary, the initial tender was for 60 units in service which would seem fully coherent with your 58 diagrams and 2 on standby.

 

[samuelmorris]

Someone will know better than me but wasnt the original tender for 60 units in service so it is then for the manufacturer to put their bo****ks on the line and provide as few as they deem possible to ensure 60 are always serviceable.

e.g. if they thought they were making an extremely reliable product they'd supply 61 and there would only ever be 1 undergoing maintenance. If their product was made on the cheap and unreliable they'd supply 120 and half the fleet would be available, half would be maintained.

So in summary, the initial tender was for 60 units in service which would seem fully coherent with your 58 diagrams and 2 on standby.

I'm sure I recall an article stating that the order was expanded from 60 to 65 to cover the Liverpool Street - Gidea Park route - but I have that as 8 diagrams...

swt_passenger: Can I clarify the comment about Reading? The stopping pattern of the current passenger services seem identical to what Crossrail have proposed, so are those entirely handing over to Crossrail, or will the Great Western franchise holder still be operating their own Paddington services terminating at Reading?

 

[swt_passenger]

The wording in the DfT's announcement is straightforward enough to me - it says that the GW franchisee will continue to run a planned Reading to Paddington 2 tph service, but not the 2 tph Reading - Slough shuttle.

To clarify, that's not 'run the current service' - but the service as already planned for 2018 when Crossrail is running. The Crossrail website has now been amended to reflect last week's decision in any case, so you can see exactly what the calling patterns will be:

Other operators’ [ie the GW franchisee's] services are assumed to be:

2 trains per hour from Reading calling at Twyford, Maidenhead, Slough and Ealing Broadway to Paddington;
1 through train from Henley on Thames to Paddington; and
1 through train from Bourne End to Paddington

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/route/surface/western-section/

The webpage has a table showing exactly who calls where.

 

[samuelmorris]

The webpage has a table showing exactly who calls where.

But as far as I can tell, not where those services start from or where else that particular service calls, hence the question.

 

[swt_passenger]

But as far as I can tell, not where those services start from or where else that particular service calls, hence the question.

You mean does the 2 tph GW service start at Reading or does it come through from somewhere else such as Oxford? I'd agree it doesn't show it. But Crossrail's own information wouldn't be likely to. We'll have to wait and see I'm afraid.

 

[samuelmorris]

Yeah that's exactly what I was getting at. It seems needless to run a reading service that exactly mimics the one provided by crossrail, other than perhaps at peak times (like with the Gidea Park services from Liverpool Street), but if it's not actually a 'Reading service' and carries onto somewhere else it'd make a lot more sense. Still, I suppose with more than 5 years to go until that part of Crossrail opens and the rest of the Thames Valley electrification plan not exactly finalised, I don't imagine there's much point in them going into too much detail here yet.

On a similar topic, is there already a thread like this for the Thameslink programme? The same caveats apply, but having run the same numbers for their (old) provisional timetable I'm came out well over the number of 700s ordered - the 60x 8-car sets seemed accurate, but I ended up with a figure of almost 80x 12-car sets, rather than the 55 ordered. I won't muddy this thread too much with that, but if there's not a specific thread for that I may start one.

 

[swt_passenger]

Yeah that's exactly what I was getting at. It seems needless to run a reading service that exactly mimics the one provided by crossrail, other than perhaps at peak times (like with the Gidea Park services from Liverpool Street), but if it's not actually a 'Reading service' and carries onto somewhere else it'd make a lot more sense.

There was a very similar discussion within the earlier Crossrail to Reading thread here:

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=98443

My view is the same, basically. If the remaining 'GW' 2tph doesn't run 'across' Reading to/from somewhere else, there is little point at all in leaving it with the 'GW' franchisee.

There are loads of threads about the Thameslink programme, its route options and rolling stock changes. I really wouldn't recommend starting another one now...

 

[samuelmorris]

That's as I expected - I'll have a look around.