Greater Anglia Rolling Stock Updates

[Class465fan]

I'm keen to know if the seat layout in the GA Aventras ends up being as god-awful as it seemed in the mock-ups seen here.

I presume there's a while to wait yet before we see one with a kitted-out interior, but that long row of flip-down seats in a narrow vestibule, 3+2 seating and poor window alignment makes it look like an appalling lack of awareness of passenger comfort and the practicalities of alighting and disembarking has been evident in whatever boardroom designed them. But to reduce the number of seats crammed in would amount to sacrilege, so you just know it will be pretty close to the final design.

If other TOCs follow suit, "Aventra-isation" could be the new "Voyager-isation".

Well, at least the seats aren't ironing board seats eh? But they could do with not cramming in as many seats as possible and add more windows to the windowless seats.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Well for those branch lines out of Essex the jury is very much out on what Abellio are going to do with these considering that there is rumoured to be a CUT in capacity after these new trains are going to be put in service with the news that the majority of these services will be five car suburban units because apparently they will not be able to take the 10 cars.

The problem with moving to a 5 and 10 car railway is that 4 car trains switch to 5 with a large increase in capacity and 12 cars to 10 cars at the stated capacities will also increase capacity there is question marks as to what is going to happen to the diagrams that are presently worked by 8 car trains who look like they may get the raw deal.

For example, what about the stations that cannot take a 10 car train so now they will have no choice but to have a 5 car train in place of their previous 8 car. The seating arrangement will be approx the same numbers wise but we're going to be looking at a substantial reduction in standing capacity that will far outstrip the number of extra seats so unless they get the timetable right to spread the load there will be an issue.

I don't expect luxury on the Essex commuter runs but I do expect something that has enough leg-room to be able to sit without my legs touching the seat in front and not being able to move them.

 

[LAX54]

and of course the current timetable cannot be run to as platform sharing that is currently undertaken will no longer be possible, Ipswich P1 as an example, now they can have three services in there at the same time

 

[samuelmorris]

Well for those branch lines out of Essex the jury is very much out on what Abellio are going to do with these considering that there is rumoured to be a CUT in capacity after these new trains are going to be put in service with the news that the majority of these services will be five car suburban units because apparently they will not be able to take the 10 cars.

The problem with moving to a 5 and 10 car railway is that 4 car trains switch to 5 with a large increase in capacity and 12 cars to 10 cars at the stated capacities will also increase capacity there is question marks as to what is going to happen to the diagrams that are presently worked by 8 car trains who look like they may get the raw deal.

For example, what about the stations that cannot take a 10 car train so now they will have no choice but to have a 5 car train in place of their previous 8 car. The seating arrangement will be approx the same numbers wise but we're going to be looking at a substantial reduction in standing capacity that will far outstrip the number of extra seats so unless they get the timetable right to spread the load there will be an issue.

I don't expect luxury on the Essex commuter runs but I do expect something that has enough leg-room to be able to sit without my legs touching the seat in front and not being able to move them.

I'm also curious to see how they deal with this - my expectation/hope is a mixture of SDO and peak splitting. Braintree can only take 8-car length for now but they currently just deselect the rear unit. Since they can't lock out several vehicles in a through-gangwayed unit I assume off-peak Braintree will be 5, and peak time may be split such that the front 5 terminate there, the rear 5 perhaps at Witham or Colchester.

 

[F Great Eastern]

I'm also curious to see how they deal with this - my expectation/hope is a mixture of SDO and peak splitting. Braintree can only take 8-car length for now but they currently just deselect the rear unit. Since they can't lock out several vehicles in a through-gangwayed unit I assume off-peak Braintree will be 5, and peak time may be split such that the front 5 terminate there, the rear 5 perhaps at Witham or Colchester.

That is what I hope will happen, but all indications I have seen so far point towards running units as five cars, hence the staff I overheard having a conversation about this very issue on Saturday, I really hope it was wrong however because that will be a disaster in the peaks and even on some off-peak trains. If the train I was on Saturday morning was a new five car EMU instead of the 8 car 360, we'd have been leaving people behind.by Witham at the latest and possibly even Colchester.

But stopping patterns might be able to help it, was very noticeable that a lot of the passengers who got on the 09:05 from Clacton at Colchester were going to Stratford having transferred off the 09:09 from Ipswich which then ran non stop to Liverpool Street and from my observation the Intercity was not much over half full.

If that does go to a single five car unit rather than 2x360s as it is now, with the inter-city train going non stop to Liverpool Street, people are going to be left behind on a regular basis as the Suburban EMU cannot take it, whilst the Intercity train runs around with plenty of free capacity which to me does not make sense at all and is a bad use of resources.

Of course, the best solution of all is to keep a number of four car units and run them on the lines that cannot take 10 car trains to give some operational flexibility and provide the best service possible on those lines but that is certainly off the table and lengthening platforms is as well so I remain skeptical on how they are going to achieve this without a loss of capacity.

I hope they do end up splitting and going down the SDO route.

 

[chubs]

I think the comfort of IC70 seats depends largely on how big you are. And people have got rather bigger since the 1970s.

DoneNorwich to Liverpool Street and back a few times and not felt uncomfortable!

I'm quite small and although the legroom is fine my back often ends up hurting and the seats are far too soft. I've been using them on the line since they were introduced and whilst they are an improvement on the MK2 ones we had before they're far from great.

 

[Pugwash]

I'm quite small and although the legroom is fine my back often ends up hurting and the seats are far too soft. I've been using them on the line since they were introduced and whilst they are an improvement on the MK2 ones we had before they're far from great.

That is what I hope will happen, but all indications I have seen so far point towards running units as five cars, hence the staff I overheard having a conversation about this very issue on Saturday, I really hope it was wrong however because that will be a disaster in the peaks and even on some off-peak trains. If the train I was on Saturday morning was a new five car EMU instead of the 8 car 360, we'd have been leaving people behind.by Witham at the latest and possibly even Colchester.

But stopping patterns might be able to help it, was very noticeable that a lot of the passengers who got on the 09:05 from Clacton at Colchester were going to Stratford having transferred off the 09:09 from Ipswich which then ran non stop to Liverpool Street and from my observation the Intercity was not much over half full.

If that does go to a single five car unit rather than 2x360s as it is now, with the inter-city train going non stop to Liverpool Street, people are going to be left behind on a regular basis as the Suburban EMU cannot take it, whilst the Intercity train runs around with plenty of free capacity which to me does not make sense at all and is a bad use of resources.

Of course, the best solution of all is to keep a number of four car units and run them on the lines that cannot take 10 car trains to give some operational flexibility, but that is certainly off the table and lengthening platforms is as well.

Realistically all of the EMU's should have been 10 car and platforms lengthened where necessary.

 

[F Great Eastern]

GA have confirmed to me that all the Bombardier seats will have seat back tables and I asked them about cycle spaces in First Class and they said that bicycle spaces will be provided that will suit all customers where practical and the new trains will deliver a substantial upgrade for all users and an increase in seating capacity with plug sockets and Wifi.

Also questioned them about what will happen to trains that are currently 8 carriages that will not be able to take 10 carriages and they simply told me that all trains would have increased seating capacity and the benefits of sitting versus standing, when I mentioned the trains like this weekend they said that the majority of the vast passengers across the franchise would have a more comfortable journey.

I asked them about seat pitch and they told me that all new trains will offer higher levels of comfort than the previous one and more seats will be provided meaning a more comfortable journey for all, pressed further they turned it into a debate versus having to stand versus having a seat, they still refuse to be drawn on seat pitch on any trains.

Essentially all PR spin and no answers once more giving robotic answers of the like Theresa May would be proud of sadly.

 

[samuelmorris]

That is what I hope will happen, but all indications I have seen so far point towards running units as five cars, hence the staff I overheard having a conversation about this very issue on Saturday, I really hope it was wrong however because that will be a disaster in the peaks and even on some off-peak trains. If the train I was on Saturday morning was a new five car EMU instead of the 8 car 360, we'd have been leaving people behind.by Witham at the latest and possibly even Colchester.

But stopping patterns might be able to help it, was very noticeable that a lot of the passengers who got on at Colchester were going to Stratford, a lot of which were transfers off the Intercity service that ran a few minutes earlier that was pretty empty which indicates the load balancing isn't right.

Non-stopping the IC services at Stratford may become less necessary with stock that uses powered doors rather than the lengthy dispatch procedure at the moment. It's not that often I see them go through the station particularly fast when not booked to stop there. With the popularity of Stratford as an interchange as well as a destination I'd be a little surprised to see the fast services still omit it, but then again with 3tph rather than just 2 it may not be quite so necessary.

The PR spin answers sound all too familiar, no actual answers to anything! Nonetheless I think we've had sufficient material come out now to get a pretty good idea of what the new stock will be like, just not how it is to be deployed - that may well change depending on what the fleet is looking like by the time the timetable recast is due.

 

[Class465fan]

GA have confirmed to me that all the Bombardier seats will have seat back tables and I asked them about cycle spaces in First Class and they said that bicycle spaces will be provided that will suit all customers where practical and the new trains will deliver a substantial upgrade for all users and an increase in seating capacity with plug sockets and Wifi.

Also questioned them about what will happen to trains that are currently 8 carriages that will not be able to take 10 carriages and they simply told me that all trains would have increased seating capacity and the benefits of sitting versus standing, when I mentioned the trains like this weekend they said that the majority of the vast passengers across the franchise would have a more comfortable journey.

I asked them about seat pitch and they told me that all new trains will offer higher levels of comfort than the previous one and more seats will be provided meaning a more comfortable journey for all, pressed further they turned it into a debate versus having to stand versus having a seat, they still refuse to be drawn on seat pitch on any trains.

Essentially all PR spin and no answers once more giving robotic answers of the like Theresa May would be proud of sadly.

Sounds like they're waffling a load of nonsense to me. 3+2 seating arrangement (with a lack of leg room) is most certainly not "comfortable"

 

[F Great Eastern]

Non-stopping the IC services at Stratford may become less necessary with stock that uses powered doors rather than the lengthy dispatch procedure at the moment. It's not that often I see them go through the station particularly fast when not booked to stop there. With the popularity of Stratford as an interchange as well as a destination I'd be a little surprised to see the fast services still omit it, but then again with 3tph rather than just 2 it may not be quite so necessary.

Stratford previously wouldn't have been a destination a few years ago but now is thanks to the shopping center and all the development that the Olympics would have brought and at the moment the timetables don't really account for that as much as they need to.

The fundamental problem on Saturday was you've got a non stop service from Colchester to London running probably at about 66% capacity after dropping passengers to a stopping service that then operated beyond design capacity, if that fast train would have stopped at Stratford then both trains would hare probably been about 80-85% full or so I reckon.

In my carriage for instance it was standing the whole length from Witham onwards and even in first class and I was in the back unit, when we left Colchester the front unit was more crowded than the back - was even two people sitting on the bulkhead at the toilet which I've never seen before outside peak but I rarely travel that early at weekends.

The problem is if they still keep this kind of timetable omitting Stratford the situation will get worse with the new trains, if they're replacing the 8 car with a 5 car, the end result is the Intercity FLIRT will have even more capacity and the Bombardier EMU even less, unbalancing it even more.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Sounds like they're waffling a load of nonsense to me. 3+2 seating arrangement (with a lack of leg room) is most certainly not "comfortable"

If you look through the thread you will see I have been trying to get the answers for almost six months with various excuses, non answers and promises to get back to me and spin and PR speak, no progress at all.

 

[iphone76]

I'm also curious to see how they deal with this - my expectation/hope is a mixture of SDO and peak splitting. Braintree can only take 8-car length for now but they currently just deselect the rear unit. Since they can't lock out several vehicles in a through-gangwayed unit I assume off-peak Braintree will be 5, and peak time may be split such that the front 5 terminate there, the rear 5 perhaps at Witham or Colchester.

Although you cannot lock out several vehicles in a through-gangwayed unit, you can program the train not to release certain doors at specific stations.

For example our 345s have an automatic SDO system built into them so once they are extended to 9 cars, some doors are inhibited at stations with short platforms (In our case Maryland). This can also be used on platforms with a curve so passengers are not able to use certain doors within a carriage if the gap would be too big. (I don't think this will be used on our units).

You would expect the same system would be employed on the GA branches such as Braintree and Southminster. In my neck of the woods, I cannot imagine the current 12 car Southminster services going to a 5 car new train and I don't think there is much room in the peak timetable to attach/detach two 5 car units at Wickford.

Out of interest, will the Essex commuter trains be fitted with carpets or the current lino? I'm worried about how quickly they will wear or smell of vomit after a few trips back to Southend on a Thursday/Friday/Saturday night.

 

[F Great Eastern]

You would expect the same system would be employed on the GA branches such as Braintree and Southminster. In my neck of the woods, I cannot imagine the current 12 car Southminster services going to a 5 car new train and I don't think there is much room in the peak timetable to attach/detach two 5 car units at Wickford.

Out of interest, will the Essex commuter trains be fitted with carpets or the current lino? I'm worried about how quickly they will wear or smell of vomit after a few trips back to Southend on a Thursday/Friday/Saturday night.

The length of a 10 car Bombardier EMU will be approx the same as a 12 car 321/360 so I would expect any 12 car EMU right now to run as a 10 car without any problem and should have a capacity increase from the extra seats lack of two cabs and vestibules, 3 in a row airline seats and additional seating and perhaps lack of first class.

The issue is going to be where we have 8 car 360/321 units now, if replaced with a 5 car Bombardier (equiv length wise to a 6 car 321/360) which has 16 more seats, but will be able to carry I'd say around 100 less standees, considering that some lines won't be able to take a 10 car Bombardier at all stations.

A 12 car EMU will get a capacity increase with a new 10 car
A 4 car EMU will get a capacity increase with a new 5 car

The problem is the 8 car diagrams since a 5 car new EMU will substantially reduce standing space for what will be only a minor increase in seating and some of them are struggling to cope with standees now at times and I have even took into consideration that there will be more banks of three seats in these trains than the 360s for instance that will further reduce standing space.

 

[iphone76]

The length of a 10 car Bombardier EMU will be approx the same as a 12 car 321/360 so I would expect any 12 car EMU right now to run as a 10 car without any problem and should have a capacity increase from the extra seats lack of two cabs and vestibules, 3 in a row airline seats and additional seating and perhaps lack of first class.

The issue is going to be where we have 8 car 360/321 units now, if replaced with a 5 car Bombardier (equiv length wise to a 6 car 321/360) which has 16 more seats, but will be able to carry I'd say around 100 less standees, considering that some lines won't be able to take a 10 car Bombardier at all stations.

This may be an assumption too far, but working with the 345s I would hope the GA units would use the same SDO system so all stations would be able to take a 10 car Bombardier despite their platform length - such as the system being deployed by the 345s at Maryland station which isn't being extended to take 9 car trains. Surely this technology could even work if two 5 car units were used at a station such a Battlesbridge so all the doors would be released on the leading unit and only the front half would be released on the rear unit. (Or the correct number at the platform if that makes sense).

Perhaps I am hoping for too much with these new trains - and working with the 345s at the moment I probably am!

GA wouldn't deliberately downgrade capacity, would they?

 

[306024]

Lots of panicking and doom and gloom about things that are not worth worrying about yet. Until the unit diagrams are done for the whole timetable it won't become apparent what the formations are.

Considering the whole GA franchise is based around growth and revenue increase, you would like to think whoever did the maths factored in the cost of running longer trains in this new 5/10 car railway to cope with the anticipated growth. Crowding is obviously something they do consider otherwise those Saturday Norwich trains wouldn’t have been altered in December. If an 8 car is full and standing today, you would hope it is more likely to be a 10 car in future than a 5 car, with SDO coming to the rescue where the cost of platform lengthening is prohibitive.

 

[iphone76]

If an 8 car is full and standing today, you would hope it is more likely to be a 10 car in future than an 5, with SDO coming to the rescue where the cost of platform lengthening is prohibitive.

That's what I would imagine as well.

 

[306024]

That's what I would imagine as well.

Typo in my original post you’ve quoted, should have read ....in future than a 5 car......

 

[iphone76]

Typo in my original post you’ve quoted, should have read ....in future than a 5 car......

I've updated the quote.

 

[306024]

Thank you. Makes more sense now.

This whole timetable re-write, with a brand new fleet, is the most ambitious project known in Anglia in recent years. Coupled with a management team who are mostly new to East Anglia, although with relevant experience elsewhere, and it isn’t surprising that all the answers aren’t immediately forthcoming. They are probably still asking the questions themselves.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Lots of panicking and doom and gloom about things that are not worth worrying about yet. Until the unit diagrams are done for the whole timetable it won't become apparent what the formations are.

Unfortunately Abellio have been less than transparent through the whole process and have avoided answering any questions that customers have had for months now and normally when someone avoids answering a direct question there's a reason for that in my experience on the railways and in life in general.

The reason I like to get these things in early is because if you have been involved in some of the consultations in the past and during other TOC's plans that they always argue that nobody brought this up before the trains went in service so how could they act on something that wasn't brought to their attention.

Considering the whole GA franchise is based around growth and revenue increase, you would like to think whoever did the maths factored in the cost of running longer trains in this new 5/10 car railway to cope with the anticipated growth. Crowding is obviously something they do consider otherwise those Saturday Norwich trains wouldn’t have been altered in December. If an 8 car is full and standing today, you would hope it is more likely to be a 10 car in future than a 5 car, with SDO coming to the rescue where the cost of platform lengthening is prohibitive.

You would hope that but I have heard from three sources, two GA staff and another person who I know in the industry and all of them say that the plan is for a number of 8 cars to become five cars and the two staff members I saw talking about it at the weekend were certainly concerned.

This would explain why they keep steering any conversation about overall capacity on said Suburban services into a conversation about all services having more seating. I even explicitly asked them if the overall capacity of standees + seated passengers will be less in the future than it is now, and again they would only mention seating increases and the benefits of seating over standing all which indicates a move to a five car train.

Before they've had no problem in saying that 4 car services will become 5 car and have a substantial increase in capacity, and the 12 car services that will become 10 car will have a substantial increase in capacity. But note how it changes from the word capacity to the word seating when they are talking about replacement for the eight cars. The change of wording is a very big clue.

As for the management team, a lot of commercial experience there and financial experience but lacking in engineering and operational experience is the way it has always looked to me,.

 

[samuelmorris]

It's abundantly obvious from their ambiguity that pretty much all 8-car services will become 5s, just looking at the fleet numbers, in terms of total train length, ignoring vehicle count and efficiency gains from fewer intermediate cabs, there won't be that much more in the fleet than before. Increasing the length of numerous services by 50% requires an increase in fleet size that I'm not sure is going to be there.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Indeed, but as long as Abellio can cry they've replaced the whole fleet and get all of the impressive PR that comes with it, who cares if people get left behind because they replaced a train with less capacity than the old one and no longer have the operational capability to do anything about it.

This is where we start to see the faults of moving fully to one type of EMU which has less operational flexibility than what it is replacing as we're essentially going from a choice of 4 or 8 cars on some services to pretty much 5 cars on the majority of them with 10 car workings going to be the exception rather than the norm and even then requiring splitting or SDO which is an added complication.

Far better to just keep the 360s on, refurbish them, rip out the first class to allow extra standard class seating similar to the layout on the Bombardiers, acquire the 5 car units that Heathrow Connect don't need anymore, renew the maintenance deal with Siemens and use these for the services that need more than a 5 car but a 10 car isn't practical or even possible.

The problem is that all the trains that are 4 and 12 cars are going to see big capacity increases and the 8 car services are going to be cut in length by 25%. Their small number of extra seats will negate that somewhat but realistically you're going to be looking at a capacity cut of approx 20% which is not acceptable.

The only way they are going to be able to make this work is if they start to try and transfer some of the load from the EMUs to the FLIRTS such as by stopping more of them at Stratford, that is going to be unpopular with some, but it's not acceptable for an Intercity train which has capacity increased to have plenty of free seats whilst an EMU behind it has it's capacity cut by 20% to the point where people may not be able to board.

 

[colchesterken]

It seems to me we are heading for the same problems Cross Country had
I remember on holiday seeing massive trains at Dawlish at least 10 or 12 coaches.When they cut back the length it caused problems around Birmingham
I think we should build in future increase in numbers by extending platform length to 10 cars and only run 5 cars where loadings indicate that is enough
So 4 car trains will become 5 new ones, and 8 become 10 new

 

[samuelmorris]

Looking at the numbers (I am intertwining the Stadler units from Norwich & Stansted services deliberately as with as few units as they've ordered it's likely to be common that at least one of the diagrams will be running as a 720 all day, even excluding the third Norwich service)
58x Class 317 + 104x Class 321 + 21x Class 360 + 30x Class 379 + 15x LHCS gives us (213x4x20) + (15x9x23) = 20145m total vehicle length.
89x Class 720/5 + 22x Class 720/1 + 20x Class 745 gives us (89x5x24) + (22x10x24) + (20x12x20) = 20760m total vehicle length.
So that's 615m extra vehicle length, or by the current 20m vehicle length, the equivalent to roughly 30 extra vehicles, so 7 1/2 units.

From those extra 7 1/2 units we have to subtract the extra Norwich diagram which would need at least 5 units worth. Since the diagrams can be no smaller than one 5-car 720, which are 50% longer than existing units, that's the equivalent of 7 1/2 units.
As far as I can tell there is nothing left to expand any existing services. Anything that's an 8-car at peak times, can only get smaller. Turning it into a 10-car 720 is the equivalent of turning it into a 12-car formation today, which would require an extra unit they haven't got.
This says nothing about the extra 720s they will need to get the fleet availability requirement figure below 100% for the 745s. In practice, as far as I can tell they can only really operate the same number of services with the same length trains as today, and with a higher unit availability requirement - that of course should be doable given the common fleet, but to push it any higher would be running c2c-like levels of availability requirement, where so much as one failed unit means a short-formation (which remember, is now 5-cars vice 10 as a best case) or cancellation.

Can you imagine a setup like that with a fleet consisting of entirely new rolling stock, with the minimal MTIN figures such fleets achieve until they mature? I appreciate there needs to be somewhere to store new stock, but unless I've made a miscalculation in the above, it seems like they could really have done with the new fleet order being a little bit bigger.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I get the feeling they probably needed twice as many IC Stadlers. Indeed, I don't get why they weren't a single pool for both purposes rather than two separate interiors.

I can see them ending up with a microfleet of something else (Desiros maybe), in the manner of the LM 319s.

 

[F Great Eastern]

So based on the figures from Samuel and we've got from GA every train on the network should be getting a capacity increase apart from the 8 car trains which are going to get a 20% capacity cut with absolutely no way of dealing with the inevitable overcrowding when it does happen without very tight diagramming that will mean any disruptions will have a serious effect on service reliability.

The new units are basically going to be the equiv of 6 cars of the old units. The problem is that we're cutting the capacity of the current 8 car units and increasing it on what are currently 4 car units. The trouble with this is from my own usage of the network is the 4 car units do not need a 50% increase in length and the 8 car units cannot afford to lose 25% length of theirs which is going to lead to an issue with oversupply on the previous 4 car diagrams and under-supply on the previous 8 car diagrams.

When you look at it the way Samuel puts it, it's pretty obvious why they're spinning it the way they are and are cramming so many seats in to these trains because come finish time, there's going to be a large number of suburban services reduced in length by 25% and reduced in capacity by 20% or so. Hence why they want to talk about seating rather than overall capacity.

Based on this it's obvious that they're going to have to stop the FLIRTS more in places like Stratford going forward unless they are going to let the FLIRTS run around with plenty of space due to their capacity increases over the MK3s whilst people struggle to board an EMU which has lost 20% of it's capacity.

 

[jopsuk]

do we know if there are options- eg for additional units and/or to extend 5 car units to 10 car?

 

[F Great Eastern]

do we know if there are options- eg for additional units and/or to extend 5 car units to 10 car?

At first glance the FLIRT part of the order works out well, the Stansted Express, Norwich, and rural/local services are all going to see an increase in capacity and that seems well planned and has to be welcomed, subject to the interior being acceptable of course, but on numbers alone, it appears sensible and no major issues.

The order for 89x5 Aventra part of the order is starting to look very ill thought out because it essentially it results in replacing every 4 and 8 car EMU with what is essentially a 6 car EMU, giving extra capacity to services that do not need it and taking it away from services that really do need it whilst reducing operational flexibility and increasing the impact of a short formation happening.

Realistically to overcome this situation they're going to have to keep some of the existing EMU fleet on either as an interim measure until additional rolling stock arrives or for the rest of the franchise unless they do some very clever timetabling which would probably have to involve splitting somewhere or making the FLIRTS stop more.

Problem is if the sums mean that leasing additional rolling stock or keeping existing rolling stock on is not affordable then this franchise might well have many years of miserable overcrowding ahead of those of us who use the suburban EMUs because Abellio got their sums and forecasts wrong.

 

[fat_boy_pete]

The issue is going to be where we have 8 car 360/321 units now, if replaced with a 5 car Bombardier (equiv length wise to a 6 car 321/360) which has 16 more seats, but will be able to carry I'd say around 100 less standees, considering that some lines won't be able to take a 10 car Bombardier at all stations.

A 12 car EMU will get a capacity increase with a new 10 car
A 4 car EMU will get a capacity increase with a new 5 car

The problem is the 8 car diagrams since a 5 car new EMU will substantially reduce standing space for what will be only a minor increase in seating and some of them are struggling to cope with standees now at times and I have even took into consideration that there will be more banks of three seats in these trains than the 360s for instance that will further reduce standing space.

Why do you keep maintaining that 5 car 720 units replacing 8 car 321/360 reduces capacity when they have more seats?
How do get your figure of 100 less standees on a 5 car 730 than an 8 car 321/360, when you have only 4 less vestibules.
How many 8 car diagrams on GA are classed as PIXC? And how many of those are outside the peaks?
GA have already said that every diagram in the peak hours will be 10 Car and not a mixture of 12 and 8 as now.

I'm sorry, I really don't understand you keep maintaining it's a capacity problem running 5 car 720's when for the overwhelming number of services they will have more capacity than the services they replace.