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

[Cardiff123]

If the 5 car units ought to be 9 cars in order to get more people on rail from Penzance to Plymouth, because of climate threat, then the 9 car ones ought to be 18 car from Plymouth onwards and the 2 x 5 car ones from Plymouth ought to be perhaps 20 car! Perhaps the frequency should be upped to every 15 mins.

Are people really thinking about what they are writing here?

Don't be silly, I wasn't saying that. But if you want to take people off motorways for long distance travel, or even short distance motorway travel, then it's obvious you need then to get them onto trains with more than 3.5 standard class carriages.

Why is there an obsession in this country with shortening trains on replacement rather than extending them?
3 car DMUs in the 1980s replaced with 2 car Sprinters and Pacers, in the early 2000s 4 or 5 car Voyagers replacing 8 or 9 car loco hauled services, and in the late 2010s 5 car IETs replacing permanent 8 car HSTs. It always ends up with overcrowding, but the same mistakes are always repeated.
And the "ah but there's increased frequency" argument doesn't stand either, because increased frequency encourages more passengers which the shorter trains don't have the capacity to absorb.

 

[JonathanH]

Why is there an obsession in this country with shortening trains on replacement rather than extending them?

There isn't. Many routes have seen longer trains at their most recent replacement. This thread started as an issue about 9-car trains being better than 10-car trains with two intermediate cabs, not an issue about the trains being too short.

There have been obvious examples where trains have got shorter at replacement. The 1980s 3 for 2 was at a time of decline in the railways. Operation Princess was not enacted as originally envisaged.

However, the IET programme typically is resulting in longer trains with more capacity where it is needed and shorter trains where in normal circumstances it isn't both on the East Coast and GWR.

 

[Energy]

This thread started as an issue about 9-car trains being better than 10-car trains with two intermediate cabs, not an issue about the trains being too short.

Some routes can be a little short, notice the reports of overcrowding on 5 car units beyond Plymouth, although you are still correct.

 

[HowardGWR]

I'll have to include a smiley in future. I thought my post was clearly tongue in cheek but apparently not understood.
Prognosis of trip growth is an applied science based on factors and worked out by official government estimate systems, using economic trend data. The DfT program used to be called TEMPRO but whether it has been replaced by something even more sophisticated, I don't know as I am out of the loop nowadays.
I find it astonishing that folk on here think they know better.

 

[Mikey C]

Don't be silly, I wasn't saying that. But if you want to take people off motorways for long distance travel, or even short distance motorway travel, then it's obvious you need then to get them onto trains with more than 3.5 standard class carriages.

Why is there an obsession in this country with shortening trains on replacement rather than extending them?
3 car DMUs in the 1980s replaced with 2 car Sprinters and Pacers, in the early 2000s 4 or 5 car Voyagers replacing 8 or 9 car loco hauled services, and in the late 2010s 5 car IETs replacing permanent 8 car HSTs. It always ends up with overcrowding, but the same mistakes are always repeated.
And the "ah but there's increased frequency" argument doesn't stand either, because increased frequency encourages more passengers which the shorter trains don't have the capacity to absorb.

"and in the late 2010s 5 car IETs replacing permanent 8 car HSTs"

But that's not true though as generally 8 car HSTs have been replaced either by 9 car IETs or 2 * 5 car IETs

On certain parts of the journey, 5 car IETs may operate, but this is at the quieter part of the journey, like 5 car 444s operating to Weymouth and becoming 10 car from Bournemouth to London.

I'm not saying that the Cornish arrangement is ideal, but if the 5 cars from Cornwall to Plymouth were genuinely rammed, then unless loads of people get off at Plymouth, the 5 additional cars from Plymouth to London would surely end up really rammed...

 

[Energy]

I'm not saying that the Cornish arrangement is ideal, but if the 5 cars from Cornwall to Plymouth were genuinely rammed, then unless loads of people get off at Plymouth, the 5 additional cars from Plymouth to London would surely end up really rammed...

Yeah, I doubt most people would move unit at Plymouth unless it was really rammed.

 

[Devon156]

Yeah, the problem with that is that it makes far too much sense. We can't have that.

It only makes sense in large urban areas, for the majority of Devon and Cornwall the car is the only viable option.

 

[Energy]

It only makes sense in large urban areas, for the majority of Devon and Cornwall the car is the only viable option.

Yep, for example Bigbury-On-Sea gets 1 bus going one way and 1 bus going the other way a week, you miss the bus? Car or wait a week.

 

[HowardGWR]

Yeah, I doubt most people would move unit at Plymouth unless it was really rammed.

One imagines that the conductor / train captain or whatever the current nomenclature is (how about guard) would inform pax before Plymouth about what to do on arrival, if the 5 car is over-full.

 

[coradiafan2000]

It only makes sense in large urban areas, for the majority of Devon and Cornwall the car is the only viable option.

That's true. Perhaps those policies could only be implemented in more urban areas. Hopefully more rural areas can be provided with better infrastructure to support electric and hydrogen powered cars. I'm sure way more people would have electric cars if charging points weren't so sparse, let alone places to fill hydrogen fuel cell cars, of which I think there are only a handful in the UK.

I'm aware this is getting off topic, so I'll leave it there.

 

[Energy]

One imagines that the conductor / train captain or whatever the current nomenclature is (how about guard) would inform pax before Plymouth about what to do on arrival, if the 5 car is over-full.

It would make sense, but some guards aren't great, last time I went on London Midland I didn't know a guard was on the train.

 

[Meerkat]

One easy way govt could very easily get people out of cars and onto trains, trams and buses, for short or long distance journeys, is to annually increase fuel tax, which has been frozen for 10 years, and freeze/reduce rail fares instead, using the extra cash from rising fuel duty to pay for investment in public transport. And stop introducing other gimmicky policies like removing tolls from the Severn Bridge to encourage more car use.

But of course that's not a populist policy and is far too sensible, so won't be adopted by our current government.

Current government?? The fuel tax escalator was introduced by a Tory government and cancelled by a Labour one. It’s electoral poison - don’t blame the politicians, blame the voters.

 

[squizzler]

I put the use of these short trains down to the topology of the GWR network with all the little dead end branches to serve (especially in the Cornish peninsular). It is very poor design. Loops that branch from the mainline, serve some towns and rejoin later, as is more common in eastern parts of the UK, is a much better way of reaching all the smaller settlements that did not justify a mainline detour (and there are quite a few that should have justified a detour but didn't get one on GWR too!).

Stuck with this legacy it either requires either lots of changing between branch and mainline trains or portion working. GWR, you will remember, was the main practitioner of slip coaches.

Perhaps this network topology was forefront in the minds of those who designed the electrification. The specification of the wires is partially a result of the need to accommodate lots of trains made from joined units each with a pantograph running at high speed.

 

[Mikey C]

Yeah, I doubt most people would move unit at Plymouth unless it was really rammed.

Actually what I meant more was that if the 5 car train from Cornwall all arrived completely rammed at Plymouth and few people got off, then effectively Plymouth to London passengers would just have the additional 5 car unit to use, and surely Plymouth to London would need more than 5 cars anyway?