Virgins' 221s are five carriage sets already though, so 7500hp for a pair of them is correct. Adding a panto car to them would make them six car sets, making doubled up formations very difficult to accomodate. Virgin could not make use of 220s if a swap is what you are thinking of proposing, as they do not have the ability to tilt.
The timings on the North Wales Coast are hardly taxing for 125mph capable Voyagers to begin with, or for that matter even 100mph capable stock. I doubt that there would be any impact on station to station timings along the North Wales Coast if using loco hauled Pendos rather than Voyagers based on the present schedule. As Erniescooper also outlines, I highly doubt that the performance of a state of the art, 3750hp Eurolight hauling a six carriage 390 would be "drastically inferior" to that of a Voyager.
That's very much what I think as well: It would make more sense IMO for the new franchise holder to order sufficient new 11-car Pendolinos so that all of the services that are presently Pendolino operated; all the routes raidating from Euston except the North Wales Coast; could be formed of 11-car units. The 21 remaining 9-car 390s that will be left when the lengthening project is complete would then replace Virgins' twenty 221s on Birmingham - Scotland, and on Euston - Chester - Holyhead.
Adding a couple of driving cars might increase the complexity of the order and hence the cost though, as the production line as it is presently intended would only be set up to manufacture and fit out one type of vehicle. There's a range of components unique to driving vehicles that would have to be sourced if you were to build a couple more driving cars (Headlights, couplers, drivers' console for starters) which would be less viable to do so in such small number.
The Holyhead Pendo drag is a bit slower along the coast on station to station times, isn't it?
Not dramatically slower though, and a Vossloh Eurolight on a shorter 390 formation would be quicker off the mark than a 57. The substantial power to weight ratio of a Voyager is superfluous along the North Wales Coast anyway, something lower would be adequate.There wouldn't be anything particularly complex about it if the locos were fitted with a more efficient form of auto-coupler and could work in push-pull formation with the 390s. There's TOCs that perform similar joining and splitting operations regularly every day, but with pairs of units instead.
It might be possible to add other carriage types onto the order, but I didn't think that it is still possible to obtain 750hp engines conforming to the most recent emissions regulations to fit under new build stock. And there would also be a need to order in additional compressors if additional intermediate vehicles were going to be ordered to reform 221144.
Do you have any details on how you would intend to reform the 221s to create some 10-car sets? Without thinking about it in detail, it sounds complicated. Do you plan on removing two MS vehicles from each 5-car set (and one from the 4-car sets), to give 3 powered cars plus two pantograph cars per 5-car set? Thinking aloud, this would give them the same amount of power as a 185, but with an additional two unpowered carriages to lug around.
How would that work out? The dedicated maintenance facility for the Voyagers is at Barton-under-Needwood, and introducing just five trains to Great Western would create a pitifully small micro-fleet: At least the 180s are maintained at Old Oak Common, who have built up a substantial knowledge base of working on the beasts.
No, I meant two transformer cars for the longer sets, not for all sets.... sorry.
Oh, fair enough: So yeah, 10 x 10-car 221s. I suppose it would make more sense to retain four powered vehicles in each 5-car set (and as you allude to, also keep them standard with the Class 220 eVoyagers), but I did quite like the idea of having 21 x 9-car Super Voyagers. Still, a pretty good idea though.
Exactly - What would be wrong with giving Crosscountry some additional capacity, allowing them to expand the peripheral parts of the network back out again and lengthen more services. For the sake of only 5 trains, and given that there are only 10 x 10-car sets to start with in this proposal, it seems to make sense to keep them with Crosscountry.
It would indeed. 14 x 10-car 222s (Again, in this scenario, how have you arrived at these fleet sizes? Ive had some difficulty converting 6 x 7-car 222s, 17 x 5-car units and 4 x 4-car units into 14 x 10-car 222s and 13 x 5-car 222s, even assuming that two pantograph cars have been added to the 10-car sets) would probably do very well (Again, assuming 10-car formations are not a problem with platform lengths see below) to replace the Great Western HSTs that remain on the West of England services. And 13 x 5-car sets could also no doubt find use somewhere within the FGW franchise too, where I would rather see them than as a small stand alone fleet with TPE: be it on Cardiff Portsmouth or on some services currently proposed for Bi-mode IEP units.
Come to think of it, I would probably err towards the creation of 20 x 8-car sets for Crosscountry in this scenario, rather than 10 x 10-car sets. It gives a larger number of lengthened sets (Still offering at a reasonable estimate about 52 first class seats and 360 standard class, with the MRSB fitted with first class seating and converted into an MRFB Shop end adjacent to first class), and Im dubious about some platforms on the Crosscountry route, particularly in the South West, being able to accommodate 10-car formations (8-car HSTs are a squeeze in some places I think in that neck of the woods, with at least part of the power cars beyond the platform face).