Do GWR 800/802s decouple in service and should sets be extended to 9 cars?

[Energy]

The title says it all, do they decouple in service like the WCML voyagers. If not then why did the DfT (or whoever) order 5 car units instead of 9 car?

If I remember correctly 802s decouple at Plymouth but 9 cars still run past Plymouth. Still no point for the 5 car 800s though.

As lots don't decouple during service should some sets be extended to 9 car?

 

[221129]

The title ways it all, do they decouple in service like the WCML voyagers. If not then why did the DfT (or whoever) order 5 car units instead of 9 car?

If I remember correctly 802s decouple at Plymouth but 9 cars still run past Plymouth. Still no point for the 5 car 800s though.

Yes they do.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Yes, they do. But the original timetable that the DfT proposed had many, many more split and joins. That DfT timetable was the one that the cl.800 order was based on.

When GWR/FG got hold of the IEP timetable, the split and joins were reduced to only those that were really needed.

 

[mrcheek]

Is it true that there were some issues with the decoupling process?
Im sure I recall that GWR were stopped from decoupling trains at Temple Meads for some reason or other

 

[swt_passenger]

Is it true that there were some issues with the decoupling process?
Im sure I recall that GWR were stopped from decoupling trains at Temple Meads for some reason or other

The usual problem is difficulty with coupling in severely curved platforms, due to alignment being outside of expected tolerance, but I can’t see any logical reason for difficulties with splitting.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Signal sighting at Bristol has been an issue as has been misalignment on the curved platforms. The coupling process is also longer than the IEP specification dictated, the GWR ATP set up adding time into the basic process. There were also some initial software related issues so some hefty delays were being experienced. So it was decided to limit it to a minimum until everything had been sorted out.

Once it gets practised to perfection, it’s only the odd dodgy piece of track or dud coupler that will defeat you.

 

[ValleyLines142]

Yes. Carmarthen services are 10 car until Swansea then only 5 onwards.

I believe a few Weston-super-Mares run single from Temple Meads too.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Shhh, nothing to see here.

(Nobody mention Cornwall!)

 

[Horizon22]

The usual problem is difficulty with coupling in severely curved platforms, due to alignment being outside of expected tolerance, but I can’t see any logical reason for difficulties with splitting.

Not a situation unique to GWR of course.

 

[Energy]

So as I understand, the DfT made their own timetable and did the order, when FGW/GWR got the timetable and made it work better in the real world it was too late as in typical DfT fashion they didn't bother actually talking to the operator, notice the lack of buffet...

 

[coppercapped]

So as I understand, the DfT made their own timetable and did the order, when FGW/GWR got the timetable and made it work better in the real world it was too late as in typical DfT fashion they didn't bother actually talking to the operator, notice the lack of buffet...

Exactly.

This is an extract of a letter I wrote to my MP in October 2011:

The DfT, even now after a change of Government, is not able to stop micro-managing the railway. It was clear in the presentation made by two senior civil servants to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on 27th June 2011, which I attended, that the DfT has decided that additional non-stop trains are required between London and Bristol. So it would appear that the next franchisee will get issued with
(a) a set of trains for which they have to pay a pre-determined leasing charge and
(b) a timetable to operate - Agility Trains showed a simulation of the train rosters designed to ensure that the trains could be returned to a suitable maintenance depot at the end of the day.
This does not leave much freedom of action for the franchisee to match his business to passenger demand - which was one of the original purposes of privatisation.

PS. One of the two civil servants was Stuart Baker - the 'great cartographer'...

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

If all non-timetablers left the timetable planning work to the actual timetable planners, the national network would operate in a much more effective manner.

 

[Mugby]

The DfT seems to like 5-car trains, they've ordered an entire fleet of them for EMR on the Midland main lines.

EMR have said "These trains will almost always be operated in pairs of 2 x 5 cars"

Havn't we heard those words before!

 

[Energy]

The DfT seems to like 5-car trains, they've ordered an entire fleet of them for EMR on the Midland main lines.

EMR have said "These trains will almost always be operated in pairs of 2 x 5 cars"

Havn't we heard those words before!

'Almost always', if it is almost always then why didn't they order them as 9 cars so they are always operated in long forms.

 

[Agent_Squash]

The DfT seems to like 5-car trains, they've ordered an entire fleet of them for EMR on the Midland main lines.

EMR have said "These trains will almost always be operated in pairs of 2 x 5 cars"

Havn't we heard those words before!

The EMR order was by Abellio, not the DfT.

Splitting trains is essential to increase frequency with the limited number of paths south of Bedford.

 

[DDB]

The EMR order was by Abellio, not the DfT.

Splitting trains is essential to increase frequency with the limited number of paths south of Bedford.

I don't think we have seen any evidence that splitting is proposed in the new timetable? I belive the plan is to operate as either 5 cars or 10 cars. People on here have worked out that the timings of the route(s) are that diagrams that form the peak services into StP in the morning can fairly easily be made to also be the peak services out again in the afternoon after doing a complete cycle of the routes.
I belive the reason for 5 cars is to have a completly uniform fleet and 2x5 cars is the maximum (after some redesign work) that will fit.
There was also speculation that 5 cars will be easier to redeploy later in thier life which will effect the price the ROSCO charges to finance new trains.

 

[30907]

Exactly.

This is an extract of a letter I wrote to my MP in October 2011:

PS. One of the two civil servants was Stuart Baker - the 'great cartographer'...

A career railwayman. And the then franchisee thought it was a bad idea? And had a different plan?

 

[Clarence Yard]

When the draft SDG/Great Cartographer timetable was eventually released, another career railwayman at FG HQ went white. It undersold the demand on certain trains (because they had used MOIRA predictions, not actuals) and assumed “the parting of the waves”, as far as other operators trains were concerned. The unit diagrams were over complex and there was a lot of split and joins, an awful lot. It was a timetable that looked more than a tad optimistic.

There was only one ex WR timetable expert that was going to sort all this out and after a conversation with like minded very senior GWR directors, the late Roger Watkins was poached from Go-Ahead and set to work. The December 2019 timetable structure is largely his work, and his legacy.

Part of the work that he and the other career railwayman did was to simplify the unit workings so that they were more robust, whilst still complying with all the constraints of the IEP contract. They also identified that the number of units required to satisfy demand was insufficient and these extra units were ordered as part of the cl.802 order.

 

[Energy]

It is the DfT, almost everything starts overly optimistic...

 

[Pumbaa]

If all non-timetablers left the timetable planning work to the actual timetable planners, the national network would operate in a much more effective manner.

Thoroughly disagree. There are some individuals who could be entrusted, as CY intimates, but they are few and far between. Look at the mess WMT has ended up in.

The ideal result is a joint output of commercial nous, operational know-how and planning expertise. Relying on anything else will doom you to failure from the start.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Thoroughly disagree. There are some individuals who could be entrusted, as CY intimates, but they are few and far between. Look at the mess WMT has ended up in.

The ideal result is a joint output of commercial nous, operational know-how and planning expertise. Relying on anything else will doom you to failure from the start.

Do you have evidence to suggest the WMT mess is the fault of the timetable planners? Note I refer to this term in the sense of TOC planners (timing, stock and crew diagramming) as opposed to the bland ‘path validation’ function that Network Rail seem to think does the same job.
From the outside, joining up all the different service groups looks like a very commercially-driven choice, and an operational nightmare. No timetable planner worth his/her salt would see that to be a good idea, particularly from the crew diagramming perspective surely.

 

[Energy]

Changed title as I want to discuss whether units should be extended as lots of services don't have any decoupling.

(also mods feel free to move this thread to speculative ideas, I can't seem to move it myself)

 

[Clarence Yard]

WW, one particular timetable expert there thought it was a great idea - indeed he had done it before, in Central Trains days, with the same result.

Why the management there let him loose is something that mystifies a lot of the older members of the TOC planning community.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

WW, one particular timetable expert there thought it was a great idea - indeed he had done it before, in Central Trains days, with the same result.

Why the management there let him loose is something that mystifies a lot of the older members of the TOC planning community.

Having had direct experience of the timekeeping disaster that was the Stansted-Liverpool ‘service’ for several years of my life, I can only bang my head on the desk in disbelief...

 

[jayah]

The EMR order was by Abellio, not the DfT.

Splitting trains is essential to increase frequency with the limited number of paths south of Bedford.

Why do we need to further increase frequency?

Is 2tph to Sheffield and 2tph to Nottingham not enough?

 

[swt_passenger]

Why do we need to further increase frequency?

Is 2tph to Sheffield and 2tph to Nottingham not enough?

The only frequency increase is to the Corby EMU service, Sheffield and Nottingham are still the same frequency as now, although times and calling patterns will change. The long distance services lose some intermediate calls to the Corby service, but effectively the balance of 5 and 10 car services isn’t directly connected to timetable changes. Apologies for drifting off topic in a thread started about GWR though...

 

[jimm]

The title says it all, do they decouple in service like the WCML voyagers. If not then why did the DfT (or whoever) order 5 car units instead of 9 car?

If I remember correctly 802s decouple at Plymouth but 9 cars still run past Plymouth. Still no point for the 5 car 800s though.

As lots don't decouple during service should some sets be extended to 9 car?

'Almost always', if it is almost always then why didn't they order them as 9 cars so they are always operated in long forms.

"Still no point for the five-car 800s"

Do you actually know anything much at all about GWR operations? It doesn't look like it.

If you did, you might realise why there is a point to five-cars 800s in plenty of places, such as enabling the introduction of an all-day hourly service between London and Cheltenham, which would never be viable with something the size of an HST or nine-car IET. And allowing the 4tph off-peak service for Bristol by splitting 2x5 formations that are used to provide the new third train per hour in the peaks on that route, or covering most of the Oxford and Cotswold Line off-peak duties instead of 180s or Turbos and enabling the retention of through trains between London and Bedwyn, or serving places west of Swansea where nine-car trains are not permitted...

Meanwhile, on the East Coast route, people living in Lincoln are quite happy that LNER has got five-car sets that allow them to have a decent through service to and from London.

Even in the fantasy land of magic money forests that the Tories and Labour discovered in recent weeks, the DfT would never allow GWR to have 93 nine-car IETs, or anything like that number.

Even at its greatest extent in recent years the HST fleet was 53 sets (some of which spent much of the time working duties that could have got by very nicely without all those seats), supplemented by five 180s and assorted Turbos for Oxford/Cotswold and Bedwyn duties.

I expect Clarence Yard and GWR colleagues probably have a magic number of nine-car IETs that they would like to have in the fleet, that is somewhere north of the current 35, but whatever that figure is, I'm afraid it probably wouldn't satisfy those with an 'all express trains should be very long all the time' fixation.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

You’d also need considerably more depot space if everything was 9-car.

 

[infobleep]

"Still no point for the five-car 800s"

Do you actually know anything much at all about GWR operations? It doesn't look like it.

If you did, you might realise why there is a point to five-cars 800s in plenty of places, such as enabling the introduction of an all-day hourly service between London and Cheltenham, which would never be viable with something the size of an HST or nine-car IET. And allowing the 4tph off-peak service for Bristol by splitting 2x5 formations that are used to provide the new third train per hour in the peaks on that route, or covering most of the Oxford and Cotswold Line off-peak duties instead of 180s or Turbos and enabling the retention of through trains between London and Bedwyn, or serving places west of Swansea where nine-car trains are not permitted...

Meanwhile, on the East Coast route, people living in Lincoln are quite happy that LNER has got five-car sets that allow them to have a decent through service to and from London.

Even in the fantasy land of magic money forests that the Tories and Labour discovered in recent weeks, the DfT would never allow GWR to have 93 nine-car IETs, or anything like that number.

Even at its greatest extent in recent years the HST fleet was 53 sets (some of which spent much of the time working duties that could have got by very nicely without all those seats), supplemented by five 180s and assorted Turbos for Oxford/Cotswold and Bedwyn duties.

I expect Clarence Yard and GWR colleagues probably have a magic number of nine-car IETs that they would like to have in the fleet, that is somewhere north of the current 35, but whatever that figure is, I'm afraid it probably wouldn't satisfy those with an 'all express trains should be very long all the time' fixation.

I appreciate why they might want 5 cars but in terms of catering it isn't helpful as you can be in one portion of 5 cars with no catering for your journey, when you planned to make use of it.this being because the catering is in the other half. If only one could get between the two.

The simple answer is to ignore the catering and assume you won't see it. Eventually they can then get rid of it as it doesn't get enough use.

 

[Energy]

I agree that some services do still need to be 5 cars, but there are services which never seperate so having 2 units which you can't get into the other without a platform isn't useful.