Of course designing a timetable where a 5car which has picked up at lots of stops, is run just ahead of a 9car with more capacity is a bad starting place for yield management.
Isn't it something along the lines of 2x5-cars are too long for the infrastructure, and there aren't enough 9-car trains to meet demand?
2x5 car is fine for Oxford services but too long for Cotswolds. The Cotswold services are fine 9 car peak and 5 car off peak but can get packed with passengers taking it to Reading.
That, however is unavoidable if you have an hourly service overlaid on top of a half-hourly one (OK, I know the half hourly isn’t quite). Make the intervals at Trowbridge 20 minutes and the half-hourly then becomes 20-40 at somewhere like Keynsham.
You can’t run a 10 car DOO of which the Oxford terminators generally are and the easiest route to borrow a 9 car off is the Oxford, there was a 3 car turbo V 9car IET last week and even a 2 car turbo covered a run down to Reading V 9 car IET.
Although in a rational world, lots of work would be done during the closure for the replacement bridge not after (so need extra closure), at least putting in the span masts, if not putting up the individual wires over each track.
As I understand it, the new buildings on platform 4/5 will include masts ready for electrification. Though as they're still discussing what to do with the main station building, it might be a little premature to think about masts on that side.
387s?! They’re only 8 years old!DfT have updated their pipeline spreadsheet 10th May
Future commercial contracts for DfT and partners
Listing of upcoming Department for Transport (DfT) and associated bodies commercial contracts – known as the commercial pipeline – for which bidders may apply.www.gov.uk
Have extracted data for GWR
Contract Title : Procurement of rolling stock for Thames Valley / North Downs and West (including options)
Short Description : Replacement of all existing DMUs (and possibly EMUs), excluding the IET fleet. Fleet size TBC but current estimates are for 480 vehicles (mixture of DC BEMU, AC BEMU, AC EMU and bi-modes) to be delivered between 2029 and 2031
Commercial Strategy: Re-Procurement (different scope)
Existing Contract End Date 30/06/2028
Existing Contract : Leases for EMUs and DMUs with various ROSCOs
Estimated Procurement Start Date 01/02/2025
Estimated Contract Commencement Date 01/03/2026
Planned Procurement Sourcing Route (level of competition) Negotiated procedure/Competitive tender
Existing Supplier : "Class 150s - Angel Trains & Porterbrook, Class 158s - Porterbrook, Class 165/166s - Angel Trains, Class 387s - Porterbrook"
Note how it says possibly when referring to them?
Plenty of other places 30 387s could be used on the network, as by the start of the 2030s it might be reasonable to be providing slightly more capacity on the routes other 387s operate on.
Tfw might have the 387s if we actually see the North Wales coast wired
That's a big if, and I can't see why the 387s are particularly suitable for that work. If the 387s go anywhere it'll probably be more to Southern or SouthEastern.
ScotRail might want them if they electricity to Wick. It's about as likely....
No - for the North Downs line, I suspect. Areas along that route are 3rd rail electrified and the class 769s were previously planned to run this route.
If only there was the neat and tidy binary divide in passenger numbers beyond Oxford that you imply.
Pity they haven't considered fitting 2rd rail shows and batteries to the 387s and chucked them on the north down line
Good point, Oxford gets a lot of leisure demand so I'd consider the weekends 'peak loadings' throughout the day. By 'off-peak' I mean that a 5 car unit is fine at say 14:00 on a Tuesday.
I presume Foregate Street would need the signals sorting? Otherwise a carriage hanging off the back and SDO wouldn't be too bad.
Yes, its mad that Oxford hasn't been wired. Assuming it isn't then battery is better then separating the service at Didcot.
It's rather confusing terminology, because if part of the order is for regional BEMUs (eg Cardiff-Portsmouth) then would probably be dual voltage as the line from Redbridge to Portsmouth is third rail electrified, whereas other end (Patchway-Cardiff is 25kv)
At this early stage, I wouldn't read too much into the summary of the requirements. It's plausible the summary is heavily simplified and there's several options/variations at play or a subset of a fleet that would need 3rd rail capability with others allowed to be AC BEMUs. Also possible are prepared to accept solutions with higher overall vehicle count as they care about most economically advantageous, which naturally leans towards fewer vehicles but a supplier significantly cheaper with a few more trains might still be cheaper overall.
The IETs that work morning peak trains to London after spending the night at Hereford or Worcester usually go straight to North Pole depot after reaching Paddington.
