The issue with West Wales is that the trains continue to Carmarthen or beyond. Very few terminate at Swansea. Therefore the situation is a little more complex.
Aren't there going to be more services terminating at Swansea from December with TfW planning to withdraw some trips between Carmarthen and Swansea. GWR are now running far more services through to Carmarthen than they did prior to IEP and Grand Union's open-access application, and I thought TfW were cutting their duplicated services?
Can they not fuel the mark 4s in Crewe?
If you’re thinking, fuel them on a short layover mid service, then no.
When they’re on depot overnight then almost certainly already do get fuelled there.
I was thinking refuel overnight in Crewe; certainly NOT during the day in service! I was responding to Topological's suggestion that Holyhead-Cardiff would be a better choice than Manchester-Cardiff (on the basis that they can refuel at Holyhead). I thought 'but surely they refuel at Crewe anyway on the Manchesters', as has now been confirmed by the replies.
At the time this project was put together, there were no other passenger locomotives available. The ex TPE 68s might be an option now, but it would appear the plan is to stick with the 67s - which to be fair after a lot of hard work by TfW and DBC are performing much better than at the start. My suspicion is they'll try and hold out long enough for a bi-mode loco to be designed that's powerful enough on diesel to cope with the Marches. We're not there yet, but as designs progress we're getting closer.
By the time there is a suitable bi-mode locomotive design, the mark 4s will presumably be (sadly) due for replacement anyway. Personally I would look to cascade a good proportion of the 197s away at the same time and replace both them and the mark 4s with some form of new bi-mode, which given the replacement of units at the same time would probably be more-likely to be a bi-mode unit rather than loco and coaches.
Forgive me if this is stupid question, if the mk4s operated with a class 67 each end instead of 1 and 1 driving trailer, would it be possible to use only 1 ends engine until fuel is low then switch to the other ends engine? Doubling their range? Is that a doable thing or? Or would both ends engines have to be running if there is a loco on both ends?
Is there a handbrake in the mark 4 TSO(E) coaches? If not, you might still need the DVT even if you had a loco on each end, just in case the set was left with no loco attached.
A 3 hourly Mk4 service would just effectively make it into a random, pretty pointless offering really. Every other hour works in a way that people know when it runs, adding an extra hours gap just waters it down too much.
The Cardiff to Manchester section is the 'core' of the route and whilst splitting long running is always going to have some losers, the vast majority on the busiest have benefited from the Mk4 introduction and there are lots of 'normal' passengers who actively plan their journeys around them for the much better comfort and capacity. I've seen figures and overall satisfaction from surveys on the Mk4 sets is far far higher than 197 services in every possible area.
Exactly; the mark 4s are a much better product for long-distance travel, so it would be nice if that product could be offered on the full route (which, in this context, in my view is Manchester-Swansea). Admittedly a train every three hours isn't very helpful for planning a trip around, but neither is every two hours really (the latter is more-memorable, since you have the even-hour/odd-hour distinction). Sadly it can't be done, but think what could have been acheived with an
hourly Swansea-Manchester service formed of mark 4 stock.
the through market beyond Cardiff has always been pretty limited.
That surprises me, assuming you are talking about traffic from the Marches and not S.W. Wales traffic. South East Wales is a relatively densely populated area, all the way from Swansea to the Severn Tunnel, although Cardiff is obviously the biggest 'hub'. There's still quite a few people to serve in Bridgend, Port Talbot, Neath and Swansea. Of course the further west you go the more you also have to go north so that, by the time you get to Carmarthen, travelling to Manchester via Cardiff means going in the wrong direction for the best part of an hour, if not more. This will surely push an even greater share of potential passengers to chose to drive, and from a lower base (population of Carmarthen much less than Swansea); so I would certainly expect negligible through traffic between stations west of Swansea/Llanelli and those north of Newport. I would however, if you had a hypothetical train pick-up only from Manchester until Newport and then set down only to Swansea, expect a gradual decline in the number of passengers after Cardiff, Bridgend, Port Talbot, Neath and arriving into Swansea, rather than the steep drop-off that your 'pretty limited' would suggest.
In other words, my gut feeling has always been that Swansea-Manchester is worth trying to provide an offering to compete with car, Carmarthen-Manchester is not (try Bristol instead perhaps - Carmarthen-Cardiff is certainly an important service, or was pre-COVID at least).
What you also need to consider is there is probably a much bigger market for people going Cardiff - West Wales. Those people would then need to change at Swansea if they were heading further West. More annoying for people on a shorter journey from say Cardiff - Carmarthen that are more commuters, and they won't be bothered by being on a comfy quiet Mk4 with First class to Swansea.
As noted above, Carmarthen (and other stations west of Swansea) to Cardiff is indeed an important market (and far more important than through travel between stations west of Swansea and the Marches). However, is that more important than serving a big city (Swansea) with more than just an InterCity to London and local services?
One toilet for a two car with a range of 1600 miles is not really enough. The sewage tank usually fills up before the fuel runs out. I am guessing the 156s dumped on the track way back in the 1980s so it wasn't a problem.
That's a good point about the class 156s; the toilets were much simpler in design and didn't have a waste tank. They were also supplemented by the 158s which, I believe, still dumped on the track but had two toilets (maybe even four in a 3-car unit?). So, if anything, we should be seeing more toilets on new trains when in actual fact only the longest-distance InterCity stock is even meeting the 'best practice' for more-general inter-urban service and 'inter-urban' stock is being built to 'suburban' spec with fewer toilets.
Well the 197’s supposedly have bigger waste and fresh water tanks than the likes of 158’s.
Isn't that more that the 158s have particularly small waste tanks (due to them having to be retro-fitted and it being difficult to find space) rather than 197s having particularly big tanks?
TFW are also installing tanking points at locations such as Shrewsbury and Pwllheli (stabling points but not depots) so that almost every unit can be emptied each night.
I agree, the extra tanking facilities will be a big help. I think Carmarthen is getting them as well.
Good news; should have been done anyway when the 158s etc. had waste tanks installed. I hope Carmarthen does get that facility, it's quite an important stabling point for TfW (am I right in saying that TfW have no crews or units based at Swansea, just catering trolley staff (or not even that))?
