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Class 701 'Aventra' trains for South Western Railway

samuelmorris

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5 car 710 has 269 seats - almost exactly the same number of seats, as a 458/5 (270) and a 707 (271). 10 car 710 has 546 seats
That’s nothing like 20% less than the 455+455+456 combination, which DfT reckon is 591 (238+238+115). More like 8% less - exaggeration doesn’t help the discussion. But as we know, not all the 455/456 services actually operate at full 10 car length, there just aren’t enough 456s (24) for that. You need to factor the 8 car services into a comparison.
As you note apparently people asked for toilets, that alone would take up most of the difference.
I'm a bit puzzled by the difference in capacity - 707s are quoted as 275 seats on wikipedia and 533 standing. 701/5s may have a similar number of seats at 269, but are only quoted as 330 standing. That's a huge difference considering the layout is supposed to be basically identical apart from the toilets. I can't see a couple of toilets taking up 203 standing spaces.
 
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swt_passenger

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I'm a bit puzzled by the difference in capacity - 707s are quoted as 275 seats on wikipedia and 533 standing. 701/5s may have a similar number of seats at 269, but are only quoted as 330 standing. That's a huge difference considering the layout is supposed to be basically identical apart from the toilets. I can't see a couple of toilets taking up 203 standing spaces.
The DfT’s standing capacity figure for a 707 in the franchise agreement is a more reasonable 320. I expect you’ve just found a problem with wiki...
 

samuelmorris

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Quite possibly but I'm sure I recall 12-car 700s being rated for around 1800 people, which I can believe. A 5-car iteration therefore should have a total capacity around the 750 mark. 320+275 is quite a long way short of that.
 

swt_passenger

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Quite possibly but I'm sure I recall 12-car 700s being rated for around 1800 people, which I can believe. A 5-car iteration therefore should have a total capacity around the 750 mark. 320+275 is quite a long way short of that.
The other possibility is that there are figures for both ‘normal’ standing and ‘crush load’, and not everyone is quoting the same figures?

Another possible explanation, Is that the current 707 figure accounts for DfT revising the 707 standing capacity downwards. The franchise ITT covered this, changing the standing capacity from 0.25 to 0.35 sq m per person. Put the other way a decrease from 4 to less than 3 per sq m. That would gives you another 128 standees if I’ve done the maths right...
 
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samuelmorris

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That would explain it. I see no sign of a reduction in seating capacity here, especially since 8-car peak services are likely to become 10 rather than 5. There will, however, be a reduction in seating quality that may not go down quite so well!
 

Antman

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Wikipedia may be out of date then - it said 272 (built with 316) for a 455 and 152 for a 456 That is 698 seats for a ten car train. I know they stripped loads out when the 455s went with the garish blue/pinky/purple interiors.

Wiki says 556 for a 10 car 701, or 538 for 2X5 car. That's a difference of 140... (allowing for some taken out of older units on refurb) hence I rounded down to 20%..... Hence, as ever, seating capacity will be down (SWT did this in the last franchise if I remember rightly, their bid said loads more seats, then said, ah, typo, we meant capacity, so they ripped seats out on refurbs... and customers just had to suck it up).

standing room isn't acceptable on longer journeys (by that I mean 10-15 minutes plus). Whatever the railways think - we will put up with in exceptional cases, because life happenz, but not every day, not for what is charged for tickets.....

these are so so intensively used an seating looks inadequate - ironically I am, as I write this, watching a 345 Cross Rail unit go past, the lack of seats is noticeable, it looks like a 1980's ) gauge model with no interior...

For what we pay, we expect to be able to sit. We expect a toilet. We expect AC that works in summer. We expect reliability. From the trains and infrastructure. We expect trains to actually run to the timetable (or publish an honest timetable). Oh, and not being gouged on insane car parking prices would help.
 

samuelmorris

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Class 455s on SWR are pretty much all 2+2 though now, are they not? Those original figures will have been for 2+3 seating hence the reduction. I don't think 152 seats for a 456 is accurate on that basis, I think that might be the number as it was in the Southern days.
 

43096

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Class 455s on SWR are pretty much all 2+2 though now, are they not? Those original figures will have been for 2+3 seating hence the reduction. I don't think 152 seats for a 456 is accurate on that basis, I think that might be the number as it was in the Southern days.
SWT converted all their 455s and 456s with new seats and 2+2 seat layout.
 

Antman

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Wikpedia says 152 for a 456, I suppose that isn't possible given it has two driving trailers. The error seems to be there. In any event, it's no increase in seating capacity, despite the song and dance about 25% longer trains.

All we want is

trains on time (NR being mostly to blame here from what we can tell)
honest timetabling (at the moment SWR isn't as bad as Southern, but it's a work of relative fiction on some routes)
a seat (with what we pay, it is something we expect other than for the shortest journeys)
a toilet
AC in summer and a heater in winter
fair car parking charges (and motorcycle parking that is actually convenient and not boxed in by cars would help...)

that means, for most of it, better signalling and reliability and more trains, not longer trains - because we can't do that unless we start deciding which doors don't open at certain stations (even big ones like CLJ struggle already). All we're getting, at best, is the same seating, plus more standing The trains aren't quicker (They're slower than 10-15 years ago). And people wonder why people would rather do anything except get the train....
 

samuelmorris

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Wikpedia says 152 for a 456, I suppose that isn't possible given it has two driving trailers. The error seems to be there. In any event, it's no increase in seating capacity, despite the song and dance about 25% longer trains.
It's an increase in seating capacity on 10-car 701 vs. 8-car pair of 455s, is the point. I don't think anybody clued up about railways is expecting miracles from the trains that are the same length as the ones they replaced.

Since there isn't really room on the network for more trains, longer trains is the best they can offer you in order to try and the resolve a 'we expect a seat' argument.
 

43096

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Wikpedia says 152 for a 456, I suppose that isn't possible given it has two driving trailers. The error seems to be there. In any event, it's no increase in seating capacity, despite the song and dance about 25% longer trains.

All we want is

trains on time (NR being mostly to blame here from what we can tell)
honest timetabling (at the moment SWR isn't as bad as Southern, but it's a work of relative fiction on some routes)
a seat (with what we pay, it is something we expect other than for the shortest journeys)
a toilet
AC in summer and a heater in winter
fair car parking charges (and motorcycle parking that is actually convenient and not boxed in by cars would help...)

that means, for most of it, better signalling and reliability and more trains, not longer trains - because we can't do that unless we start deciding which doors don't open at certain stations (even big ones like CLJ struggle already). All we're getting, at best, is the same seating, plus more standing The trains aren't quicker (They're slower than 10-15 years ago). And people wonder why people would rather do anything except get the train....
I would add, a control function that is capable of recovering the service, rather than giving the impression of being staffed by rejects from the Muppets.

As it is at the moment you just know that (say) a fatality at Surbiton at 1030 will lead to a prediction of delays until 1300, which becomes 1500 (and spreads to the Windsor Lines)... which then becomes 1700... then 2000... then end of service.
 

Antman

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but much of the peak capacity, at least on the New Guildford line I know well, is already 2X455 + 456 - so ten cars. Elsewhere it may be an improvement, but for a lot of passengers, it won't be. We can't even get the existing 12 car trains into our busiest station platforms consistently anyway.....

on the fatalities and delays out of their control, I have huge sympathy with both the families, drivers and railway staff - where I struggle is that the system often seems to be reset to suit the railway (witness recent almost entire network shutdowns for issues nearly 100 miles away...). We all accept that there are times that it really isn't anyone's fault, and it's always horrific when someone is pushed to the point they want to end their life; the fact remains that the vast majority of the delays are not caused by that.
 

moley

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DfT count flip down seats if they are not in a wheelchair space. If its just the perch point (i.e. the back/seat doesn't make a L shape), this isn't a seat.
 

Bletchleyite

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these are so so intensively used an seating looks inadequate - ironically I am, as I write this, watching a 345 Cross Rail unit go past, the lack of seats is noticeable, it looks like a 1980's ) gauge model with no interior...

They have basically the same kind of layout as the S-stock does - some facing bays with generous spacing for long-distance journeys, and some longitudinal and standing room for the short "metro" journeys. I'm not sure that the Metropolitan Line really differs that much from the SWR innersuburbans other than the historical accident of who happens to operate it.

OK, Merseyrail hasn't chosen that layout for the FLIRTs, but it does surprise me that they didn't.
 

AlexNL

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Is there any information about how the build is progressing? Given Bombardier's difficulties with the Crossrail 345 and LOTrain 710 fleets, which are both now more than 18 months late, and rumours about the Greater Anglia Cl720 fleet being late, I wouldn't be surprised if the SWR delivery dates are also going to slip.
 

samuelmorris

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They have basically the same kind of layout as the S-stock does - some facing bays with generous spacing for long-distance journeys, and some longitudinal and standing room for the short "metro" journeys. I'm not sure that the Metropolitan Line really differs that much from the SWR innersuburbans other than the historical accident of who happens to operate it.

OK, Merseyrail hasn't chosen that layout for the FLIRTs, but it does surprise me that they didn't.
Slight point of order here, the spacing would only be generous if luggage racks were fitted. Since 345s don't have these, travelling with even a small bag renders you with fairly minimal space between you and the person opposite. Presumably 701s will have racks to alleviate this?

Is there any information about how the build is progressing? Given Bombardier's difficulties with the Crossrail 345 and LOTrain 710 fleets, which are both now more than 18 months late, and rumours about the Greater Anglia Cl720 fleet being late, I wouldn't be surprised if the SWR delivery dates are also going to slip.
As far as I know very little has been done with the 701 fleet yet. They were scheduled to be a few months behind the 720s at 'mid-2019' versus I think February. As far as I know the first 720 entry is likely to be November/December time at the absolute earliest, which would put the likely service entry date for 701s to be February-March 2020 time. Depending on how long it actually takes to finish and roll out the 710s though, that could well slip further. It's not unreasonable at this stage to expect there will not be any 701s introduced by the May 2020 timetable change, even if some have been delivered and started testing by that point.

Bear in mind testing throws up increasingly many issues these days, especially with the Aventras it seems, and given the scale of the network they'll be deployed on at SWR, it will be a long time between first unit delivery to Wimbledon and them actually seeing passenger use. We are nowhere near the point where a unit will be delivered to Wimbledon yet. As far as I know, we're still a long way from even a 720 starting preliminary tests before being sent to Ilford.
 

Bletchleyite

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Slight point of order here, the spacing would only be generous if luggage racks were fitted. Since 345s don't have these, travelling with even a small bag renders you with fairly minimal space between you and the person opposite. Presumably 701s will have racks to alleviate this?

I'm surprised the Crossrail units don't have luggage racks due to serving Heathrow, but legroom is not where your bag goes. A small bag goes on your knee, or a large bag in the tip-up seating area.
 

samuelmorris

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I was actually referring to overhead racks. I can totally understand why what is effectively glorified tube stock doesn't have floor level luggage racks.
 

hwl

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Slight point of order here, the spacing would only be generous if luggage racks were fitted. Since 345s don't have these, travelling with even a small bag renders you with fairly minimal space between you and the person opposite. Presumably 701s will have racks to alleviate this?


As far as I know very little has been done with the 701 fleet yet. They were scheduled to be a few months behind the 720s at 'mid-2019' versus I think February. As far as I know the first 720 entry is likely to be November/December time at the absolute earliest, which would put the likely service entry date for 701s to be February-March 2020 time. Depending on how long it actually takes to finish and roll out the 710s though, that could well slip further. It's not unreasonable at this stage to expect there will not be any 701s introduced by the May 2020 timetable change, even if some have been delivered and started testing by that point.

Bear in mind testing throws up increasingly many issues these days, especially with the Aventras it seems, and given the scale of the network they'll be deployed on at SWR, it will be a long time between first unit delivery to Wimbledon and them actually seeing passenger use. We are nowhere near the point where a unit will be delivered to Wimbledon yet. As far as I know, we're still a long way from even a 720 starting preliminary tests before being sent to Ilford.
I'd expect the 701s to follow on form the LO710m units which are also nominally 20m, all of the dual volatge Watford DC/Gonblin 710 were finihsed a while ago and most of the LO West Anglia 710s are complete too so probably not too long now. The Anglia units will follow on from the Crossrail ones (less than 170 cars to go)
 

samuelmorris

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This is true, with two production lines in operation that would make sense. In practice though, I'm not sure. Delays to the 710 programme have been so severe that might change things up a bit. The 701 vehicles may be approximately the same length as 710s, but they are far from the same otherwise, including the aforementioned different front. 720s are also not the same length vehicles as 345s, so it's largely immaterial, other than for having a staggered changeover between one batch and the next.
 

hwl

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This is true, with two production lines in operation that would make sense. In practice though, I'm not sure. Delays to the 710 programme have been so severe that might change things up a bit. The 701 vehicles may be approximately the same length as 710s, but they are far from the same otherwise, including the aforementioned different front. 720s are also not the same length vehicles as 345s, so it's largely immaterial, other than for having a staggered changeover between one batch and the next.
It was covered 6-8months ago in discussion on one of th threads - Everything after the 345 will be 20 or 24m with the 345 line moving to do 24m units for Anglia, West Midlands and C2C
 

Antman

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I suspect a Metropolitan peak train from Amersham or Cheshunt has a lot more space on it at say
I am always a bit confused by this concept. What is your seat/no seat split price, and how did you decide that?
a travel card from Brookwood is 35 quid. It is supposed to take 35 minutes or so the get to Waterloo. It doesn’t. It almost invariably runs 5-10 minutes late. So it takes nearer 45 minutes. I decided it on my perception of value. I expect a seat when I buy a ticket to be the norm. Or I expect rapid fast and reliable. It isn’t. In London it’s travel card pricing so you expect less. Or rather you are more likely to have to stand. From, guildford, brookwood, woking, sometimes even Farnham and Haslemere can see you standing. That isn’t acceptable For the fares wanted. This is not metroland. This is Surrey. The rates charged have risen by a lot. The car parking has gone up significantly more than regulated fares. There are no discounted period returns. I think again the railway forgets that it is there for the human cargo, not for itself. Are we unreasonable in expecting to at least sit down when you make us late almost every day. You’re a purchase that it is a virtual necessity. At least make it a little less intolerable.

The cost of a monthly travel card is approaching £450. (Brookwood). How does someone on normal wages (say 35k justify spending the thick end of 20-25% of their net income on a slow, regularly delayed train service. Plus about another 100 a month to park. And accept that they will be standing up for the thick end of two hours a day. Why bother working in London ? (I don’t know why so many actually do do it). Trains are very expensive. For people in the real world who have to an for themselves and have to commute. At the moment all that happens is that they are exploited by ever worse provision of service and quality (or would you disagree with that?). They pay ever more and get less.

Or are you going near third class travel, Ryanair style.... a carriage that costs half as much but is a GUV with push button doors and standing room ..... actually I’d better not suggest that, even tongue in cheek.
 
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samuelmorris

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It's all part of the process - London jobs carry higher salaries and that's one of the main reasons why. Either you live somewhere expensive, or you pay a large sum to commute from somewhere that isn't. It's a fundamental model of how the UK rail industry works - what taxes don't pay for, the fare-paying passenger does. Should people that don't use the railways pay more in tax to subsidise your fare? Also, Brookwood? What does this have to do with 701s?
 

Ethano92

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standing room isn't acceptable on longer journeys (by that I mean 10-15 minutes plus). Whatever the railways think - we will put up with in exceptional cases, because life happenz, but not every day, not for what is charged for tickets.....

With topics like this you need to make it clear you speak for yourself and avoid 'we'. I happily stand the 24 minutes my train takes to Waterloo as a regular journey and happily stand even longer (around 40-45 minutes) on journeys on the tube or rail etc. which you'll notice is 3 times your figure so you can't speak for everyone. Granted I may be more accepting than others but considering some of the services on my route have already called at 10 stops before my station with still another 6 to Waterloo, I greatly appreciate plenty of standing capacity.

Have we also gotten to a point that getting a train from say Waterloo to Wimbledon is a 'longer journey' by your time bracket?

Is there any information about how the build is progressing? Given Bombardier's difficulties with the Crossrail 345 and LOTrain 710 fleets, which are both now more than 18 months late, and rumours about the Greater Anglia Cl720 fleet being late, I wouldn't be surprised if the SWR delivery dates are also going to slip.

Highly doubt it but just last week saw the twitter team still claiming they'd be out on testing by late 2019 and in service early 2020. Perhaps testing will go very smoothly having had 3 other aventuras manufactured.

From, guildford, brookwood, woking, sometimes

Considering this is a thread about the 701s for suburban routes, I'll ignore brookwood for starters. Does this mean your claiming the stoppers starting from guilford or Woking are full by Guilford and Woking ie their departure stations? Also you can't expect longer distance services calling at all stops from Portsmouth or along the west of England line etc to have seats spare by Woking/Guilford. Genuinley when people say 'we need more trains etc' do they believe the mainline between Woking and London is running at like 4tph, because it's a lot more than that;it's practically at capacity unless someone is gonna fund ATO.
 

43096

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Or are you going near third class travel, Ryanair style.... a carriage that costs half as much but is a GUV with push button doors and standing room ..... actually I’d better not suggest that, even tongue in cheek.
Once you've finished, have you worked out yet that Brookwood will still have its current trains - 450s? Not the new 701s. It might well have more of them running at full 12-car length, too.
 

theking

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Isn't the problem with 710's software related?

So the physical building of the trains is not the issue.

Once the software build is sorted then why would their be any delay on getting GA or SWR's out testing once built?
 

Bigfoot

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I would suggest that this magical new front specific to SWR is infact just an early concept rendering of new trains in a Waterloo platform, especially as rendering the more complex front isn't as simple or as pretty for promotional images.
 

whhistle

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I’m sure I read on here it’s something to do with the available platform space at Waterloo.

Er, @Harbon 1 answered that - they need to be a bit shorter due to platform lengths, he says at Waterloo.

This is what I mean.
The difference between that design and the London Overground must be nominal, unless you're redesigning the whole cab as well as the front end. Which then begs the question why isn't it a different class if it's going to be quite different?
Although I suppose between the 172s, there's quite a difference but they're still the same class.
Yet the difference between a 170 and a similar cab designed 172 is probably not that much, yet it's a different class. I guess the differences between a 170 and 171 are nominal, yet they're a different class. Hell, even a 158 and 159 are nominally different aren't they?

Also, there's a high res version here.
 

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