Ex-LNER Mk4 sets for Grand Central (Blackpool - Euston)

[Energy]

Isn't most of this route 110 for non-tilt stock anyway?

Yep, they are allowing 125mph in some sections but it requires a fast accelerating train (such as the AT300s and 397s).

 

[DBS92042]

Does anyone know if the working below is to move the set currently at Wembley for storage?

Realtime Trains - 590D 1332 Wembley Inter City Depot to Widnes Transport Tech

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Apologies if that working is nothing to do with the Grand Central Mk4 set

 

[Whistler40145]

Isn't most of this route 110 for non-tilt stock anyway?

Non EPS max speed is 110

 

[mervyn72]

Just how much quicker is a class 90 to 110mph than a class 91?

 

[CW2]

Can't quote you any figures, but the 90 is definitely quicker off the mark. The 91 is geared for 140 mph maximum speed, although limited to 125 mph. This higher gearing does have an impact at lower speeds. That's why on the ECML the 90s settled down to working KX - Leeds semi-fast services, which required plenty of stops and rather less high-speed running. They did work through KX - Edinburgh for a while, but instances of overspeeding causing problems with the 90s traction motors resulted in the speed limits being enforced.

 

[50039]

Does anyone know if the working below is to move the set currently at Wembley for storage?

Realtime Trains - 590D 1332 Wembley Inter City Depot to Widnes Transport Tech

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Apologies if that working is nothing to do with the Grand Central Mk4 set

Just seen a photo On Twitter of Grand Central livery 90 on a LE move from Crewe to Wembley.... so I guess you might be right??

 

[DBS92042]

Just seen a photo On Twitter of Grand Central livery 90 on a LE move from Crewe to Wembley.... so I guess you might be right??

Will this be the first time a GC liveried 90 has worked with the Mk4 stock?

 

[Ladder23]

Hi is there a list,

if there is I’m wondering if all have received the livery yet too? Any help appreciated.

 

[DBS92042]

90026 & 90029 are the only two painted in GC livery at the moment, with 90020 currently being repainted at Toton

 

[Ladder23]

90026 & 90029 are the only two painted in GC livery at the moment, with 90020 currently being repainted at Toton

Thanks where are they being painted?

 

[DBS92042]

Thanks where are they being painted?

Toton is where they're being repainted. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the other 90s due for GC livery are 90021 and 90039

 

[Ladder23]

Toton is where they're being repainted. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the other 90s due for GC livery are 90021 and 90039

I heard the same!

 

[HST43257]

90020, 021, 026, 029 and 039 are the GC Class 90s (I’m pretty sure)

 

[swt_passenger]

90020, 021, 026, 029 and 039 are the GC Class 90s (I’m pretty sure)

Yes, that's what was posted a couple of months back (post #33 refers).

 

[Jamesrob637]

I initially thought that GC's livery was too American and had no place in "lil ol' England"

Now I like it and it'll be grand to get to ride one of these nearer me.

 

[Ladder23]

I initially thought that GC's livery was too American and had no place in "lil ol' England"

Now I like it and it'll be grand to get to ride one of these nearer me.

I agree, it really stands out from the generic looking livery’s, looking forward to seeing them working on the wcml!

 

[Doomotron]

Photos have been posted on Twitter of the first Mk4 sets in Grand Central livery. Unsure of the source.

Euan Steuart @EDs Trains #TMRGUK on Twitter

“**NOT MY PHOTOS** But look at that @GC_Rail @BlackpoolSimon @nodrogvlogs coming to A WCML near you soon!!”

twitter.com

Off topic slightly but photos of 90001 in InterCity Swallow have also been posted.

It's annoying that the orange is slightly different to the orange on the Class 180s.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

It's annoying that the orange is slightly different to the orange on the Class 180s.

its not the same as the logo and yes it is annoying.

 

[DBS92042]

Does anyone know if the working below is to move the set currently at Wembley for storage?

Realtime Trains - 590D 1332 Wembley Inter City Depot to Widnes Transport Tech

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Apologies if that working is nothing to do with the Grand Central Mk4 set

90037 leading 12211, 12434, 12310, 10318, 11319, 82201 with GC 90026 on the rear (headcode 5Z90)

90037 + 90026 | 5Z90 At Milton Crossing 01/06/20

90037 'Spirit of Dagenham' flies past Milton Crossing with Grand Central set GC01 (still in VTEC colours), ex-LNER DVT 82201 and Grand Central 90026 on the rear. This was the 5Z90 1332 Wembley Inter City Depot to Widnes Transport Tech. Originally booked for the Northampton Loop, it was put onto...

www.flickr.com

 

[43096]

Does anyone know if the working below is to move the set currently at Wembley for storage?

Realtime Trains - 590D 1332 Wembley Inter City Depot to Widnes Transport Tech

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Apologies if that working is nothing to do with the Grand Central Mk4 set

Widnes is doing the overhauls/repaints on the GC sets so presumably this is the next set in.

 

[Railperf]

No, because the 110mph loco is faster accelerating, which is far more useful than the potential to run 15mph faster for some amount of track (which isn't continuous either, meaning that the time saved by the 125mph running is not particularly big as you have to first accelerate to it and then decelerate again to meet the next PSR)

Lets put that into context. A Class 90 with a shorter load will accelerate faster than a Class 90 on load 10, but a Class 390 is no slouch either. So how much faster the short loco hauled set will accelerate to a given speed (in the dry) - may only give it a few seconds advantage to 100/110mph over a 390. And I reckon any driver that has signed both 90's and 390's will tell you the 390's brakes are far more responsive than the loco hauled set. That also applies to starting off - where the loco hauled stock has to wait for the brakes to release. whereas a 390 will not suffer anywhere near such a delay.
And until the 'revised' speed profile has been released, there are many places that loc0-hauled stock will need to brake to a lower speed, whereas the tilting 390's carry on straight through.
Even after some 'straighter' sections of 110mph track are upgraded to 125mph, some of the more severe curves will require non-tilt stock to brake to take those curves at a lower speed - albeit i imagine there may be some marginal improvements in places if the track geometry and cant levels can be adjusted.

As an example - LNER's Class 800's have been running over the EPS sections of the WCML from Carlisle to Corsairs. Now the 800 is a train that actually does accelerate a bit quicker than a 390, but still lost almost five minutes to the tilting 390's due to the higher EPS speeds allowed for 390's - over a distance of 70 miles or so IIRC.

So no - the short Class 90's rate of acceleration will not be that useful at all. In fact i would say that in the all important 60 to 110mph speed range, the 390 is likely to be superior too - which will be important when slowing down from 110mph to lower speed restrictions of 90mph and back again.

 

[samuelmorris]

I'd imagine that the comparative reliability of 90s would also be important? From what I can gather the 91s are rather 'end of life' to put it politely, whereas the 90s seem to be posting some solid reliability figures - better than any long distance EMU currently achieves.

 

[CW2]

In terms of sheer performance, the class 390 beats both the 90 and 91, at any part of the speed range. As a train their performance is very impressive. It's their interior design and tiny windows I dislike.

Both the Pendolino and the class 91 suffer to some extent from having their maximum design speed set at 225 kph / 140 mph, despite there being no suitable railway for them to run on at that speed. If they had been designed for a lower maximum speed of 125 mph the acceleration would have been (even) better.

The class 90 was originally designated as class 87/2, and was designed as a mixed-traffic loco, equally at home on 60 mph wagonload services, 75 mph intermodal trains (singly and in pairs) and 110 mph passenger services, push-pull capable. Once the initial design flaws were ironed out, the 90 proved to be pretty steady-footed even in poor rail conditions, more so than a class 87 for example.

It's a shame that Grand Central moved away from the idea of employing 91s on the WCML. It would have been interesting to compare their performance with that of the 90s. I hope the 90s they get are given a thorough fettling before entering traffic.

That's always assuming there is still some sort of market for Open Access operations once the lockdown is over. If the "franchised" TOCs are all under Government control, why would anybody want to allow private operators to undermine the publicly-funded operators? Right-wing free-market ideologues, yes, but not very many other people would agree with them methinks?

 

[rebmcr]

Lets put that into context. A Class 90 with a shorter load will accelerate faster than a Class 90 on load 10, but a Class 390 is no slouch either. So how much faster the short loco hauled set will accelerate to a given speed (in the dry) - may only give it a few seconds advantage to 100/110mph over a 390. And I reckon any driver that has signed both 90's and 390's will tell you the 390's brakes are far more responsive than the loco hauled set. That also applies to starting off - where the loco hauled stock has to wait for the brakes to release. whereas a 390 will not suffer anywhere near such a delay.
And until the 'revised' speed profile has been released, there are many places that loc0-hauled stock will need to brake to a lower speed, whereas the tilting 390's carry on straight through.
Even after some 'straighter' sections of 110mph track are upgraded to 125mph, some of the more severe curves will require non-tilt stock to brake to take those curves at a lower speed - albeit i imagine there may be some marginal improvements in places if the track geometry and cant levels can be adjusted.

As an example - LNER's Class 800's have been running over the EPS sections of the WCML from Carlisle to Corsairs. Now the 800 is a train that actually does accelerate a bit quicker than a 390, but still lost almost five minutes to the tilting 390's due to the higher EPS speeds allowed for 390's - over a distance of 70 miles or so IIRC.

So no - the short Class 90's rate of acceleration will not be that useful at all. In fact i would say that in the all important 60 to 110mph speed range, the 390 is likely to be superior too - which will be important when slowing down from 110mph to lower speed restrictions of 90mph and back again.

All well and good, but the discussion is about why GC chose 90s acceleration over 91s top speed. I'm sure they'd love to use 390s but they can't, so EPS performance is completely irrelevant.

 

[rebmcr]

That's always assuming there is still some sort of market for Open Access operations once the lockdown is over. If the "franchised" TOCs are all under Government control, why would anybody want to allow private operators to undermine the publicly-funded operators? Right-wing free-market ideologues, yes, but not very many other people would agree with them methinks?

They'd have to specifically revoke the EU TSI legislation that's automatically copypasted into our own law. I'm not sure how politically palatable that would be.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They'd have to specifically revoke the EU TSI legislation that's automatically copypasted into our own law. I'm not sure how politically palatable that would be.

Very palatable I suspect once we have fully left the EU.

 

[Energy]

I'm sure they'd love to use 390s but they can't

Very true, they tried to order new build ones but they would require modification to be compliant for new builds. I can't remember exactly what was an issue.

 

[Domh245]

All well and good, but the discussion is about why GC chose 90s acceleration over 91s top speed. I'm sure they'd love to use 390s but they can't, so EPS performance is completely irrelevant.

Exactly. A 390 will comfortably beat a 90+mk4 train - that much is obvious just from looking at the installed power and distributed traction. But a 90 will beat a 91 in acceleration terms for the same train, it'd be interesting to see if the railperf archives have any numbers on just how much the margin is!

 

[Bletchleyite]

FWIW, when the "Pretendolino" set (90+Mk3) was still running in a Pendolino diagram on an early-morning Brum-Euston, it used to lose 3 minutes between Brum and MKC every day without fail - it was watch-settingly consistent in this!

I think it was the 0657 MKC-EUS but always "expected 0700".

 

[CW2]

I think that was the 06:20 Rugby - Euston via Northampton, which was the regular Pretendolino turn. It was always punctual ex Rugby. Hard to imagine it losing 3 minutes from Hanslope. I guess it could have lost time on the climb out of Northampton.