GWR IET’s Lots of 5 Car Sets PAD > South Wales

[Envoy]

I see that many services on the London to south Wales route are running today (Monday 11 Dec 2023) as only 5 coaches when normally 9 for 10 would be expected. This will lead to overcrowding.

RTT also shows that one service will be 14 coaches:> https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L65563/2023-12-11/detailed#allox_id=1

 

[JonathanH]

RTT also shows that one service will be 14 coaches:> https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L65563/2023-12-11/detailed#allox_id=1

Likely to be a swap at Swansea.

 

[aar0]

This has been increasing recently, I assume there’s more needing work than usual? I don’t think the poor Covid timetable returned either so there’s fewer services than previously, leaving those that tension very busy.

 

[33017]

This has been increasing recently, I assume there’s more needing work than usual? I don’t think the poor Covid timetable returned either so there’s fewer services than previously, leaving those that tension very busy.

More likely they’re needed to cover for the no longer necessary HST’s. Every Cardiff to Taunton and beyond is an IET including a 9 car set on one diagram. Far better there than carrying fresh air around out of Padd.

Note, there may be some sarcasm in this post.

 

[mrc.Welford]

This is why the government should seize all the trains from the Roscos and rent the stock themselves. Making it mandatory for the TOCs to run a minimum number of coaches.
The lack of coaches is due to greed from the Roscos and TOCs. More cars rents equals less profit for tocs so they will rent the minimum and the rosocs know this so charge the maximum for less. Its an absolute mess and the tax payer is getting shafted all ways and Sunday.

Rant over

 

[MasterPhillips]

There was a previous thread regarding the issue of GWR short forms but I believe it has been locked.

Unfortunatley 5 car short forms are becoming common place. And that’s on top of the services to Swansea that are booked as 5 cars.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

I see that many services on the London to south Wales route are running today (Monday 11 Dec 2023) as only 5 coaches when normally 9 for 10 would be expected. This will lead to overcrowding.

Today? It's been happening for months, continuously. You should see Platform 2 at Cardiff Central. It becomes absolutely rammed because GWR services are frequently cancelled and the next two are 5 carriages long. It's awful.

 

[800001]

I see that many services on the London to south Wales route are running today (Monday 11 Dec 2023) as only 5 coaches when normally 9 for 10 would be expected. This will lead to overcrowding.

RTT also shows that one service will be 14 coaches:> https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L65563/2023-12-11/detailed#allox_id=1

Won’t be a 14 car, a set will have been swapped at some point and data is taking time to update in systems. Will be a 5 or a 9

 

[43096]

This is why the government should seize all the trains from the Roscos and rent the stock themselves. Making it mandatory for the TOCs to run a minimum number of coaches.
The lack of coaches is due to greed from the Roscos and TOCs. More cars rents equals less profit for tocs so they will rent the minimum and the rosocs know this so charge the maximum for less. Its an absolute mess and the tax payer is getting shafted all ways and Sunday.

Rant over

How does Government ownership solve the problem? Does it magically make the trains work?

Just a reminder that a lot of the GWR shortforms are on IET stock that were procured by the Government in the most expensive way possible.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

The number of single 5 car sets on South Wales services has been so appalling lately that I do wonder if it'd be better for GWR to cut their losses and run an hourly service so that it would be more robust. At the moment, it seems every other service is cancelled or short-formed. At least an hourly service has more chance of running and with 9 or 10 cars. I'd suggest temporarily axing 1tp2h Carmarthen extensions too, but it just so happens the alternative for Carmarthen is the somehow even more shambolic TfW, and their heaving 2 carriage West Wales trains are leaving commuters behind as it is.

If they hadn't have let off three 387s I'd wonder if it was worth the effort of arranging a few STP alterations/swaps to allow more Cardiff terminating services to be self-contained and stick on a few 12-387s in place of IETs.

 

[WelshBluebird]

This is why the government should seize all the trains from the Roscos and rent the stock themselves.

Not exactly sure how that will help when it is the government themselves mandating the ToC's reduce their rolling stock allocations.

Today? It's been happening for months, continuously. You should see Platform 2 at Cardiff Central. It becomes absolutely rammed because GWR services are frequently cancelled and the next two are 5 carriages long. It's awful.

Saturday evening was atrocious with numerous GWR services either cancelled totally, starting late at Newport instead of Cardiff or running very late. Not helped by the Millwall fans trying to get back from the football at Cardiff who I am sure were not happy when they were told over the PA that for those who couldn't fit onto the already busy 5 carriage IET for London at 17.55 (originally due at 17.18) that the next London bound train wasn't until 19.18.

The number of single 5 car sets on South Wales services has been so appalling lately that I do wonder if it'd be better for GWR to cut their losses and run an hourly service so that it would be more robust.

I mean at the moment the weekend frequency is already hourly and they are still only managing 5 cars at least some of the services then!

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Not exactly sure how that will help when it is the government themselves mandating the ToC's reduce their rolling stock allocations.

Saturday evening was atrocious with numerous GWR services either cancelled totally, starting late at Newport instead of Cardiff or running very late. Not helped by the Millwall fans trying to get back from the football at Cardiff who I am sure were not happy when they were told over the PA that for those who couldn't fit onto the already busy 5 carriage IET for London at 17.55 (originally due at 17.18) that the next London bound train wasn't until 19.18.

What with GWR's mass cancellations and short formations, TfW being the same but just ten times worse on both accounts, and CrossCountry axing Cardiff services at the slightest sign of any timetable irregularities, Cardiff and South Wales are having a really dire time of it at the moment. I have the displeasure of using Cardiff Central almost every day, and often a quarter of departures on the board are cancelled these days.

Something I haven't seen mentioned alongside the cancellations and short-formations, is that almost every GWR Swansea or Carmarthen service seems to arrive 15-40 minutes late, too, or sometimes worse.

 

[Bluejays]

Shameful service provided to South Wales. Seems to be happening way too often.

 

[Horizon22]

Last few days have been particularly bad because the stock was totally misbalanced following Thursday's major incident with the OLE at Paddington, with too many sets in the West Country. Also the action short of a strike that disrupted the weekend. Should have recovered by now though, which must mean more out of service than usual.

 

[Halish Railway]

LNER seems to have far fewer short forms than GWR, baring in mind that the Lincoln and Middlesbrough, as well as a few Leeds/Harrogate services are booked to be five coaches.

Of course LNER’s are supplemented by the 91/Mk4s and don’t have to cover regional services on top of their original remit, but LNER’s spend much less time away from the wires and have their engines on a lower tune, so I’d imagine that their availability would be much better.

 

[Clarence Yard]

This is why the government should seize all the trains from the Roscos and rent the stock themselves. Making it mandatory for the TOCs to run a minimum number of coaches.
The lack of coaches is due to greed from the Roscos and TOCs. More cars rents equals less profit for tocs so they will rent the minimum and the rosocs know this so charge the maximum for less. Its an absolute mess and the tax payer is getting shafted all ways and Sunday.

Rant over

Wrong on so many points.

British law doesn’t allow for Government seizure of assets - they would have to compensate the ROSCOs at (their) book value.

It is irrelevant how many vehicles a TOC leases - it doesn’t affect their profits at all. They only get management fees now - the Government pays for all TOC costs and takes all the TOC revenue. Profits for TOCs died when the franchises were all abolished in 2020.

There have been inquiries into the ROSCO set up and the taxpayer isn’t getting shafted. It’s a completely different model to the Government owned assets model and in the leasing market you pay for financial certainty rather than have to finance lumpy spend. Lease costs are not excessive and if they were to become so, you could easily go to the Competition authorities. In fact the rolling stock market is currently very competitive.

For the 14 DfT TOCs, there is only organisation who makes the decision on rolling stock and that is the DfT. They are under the cosh from the Treasury and it is the DfT who is trying to run as many services as it can with as little rolling stock on lease as it can get away with. The TOC is there just to carry out the DfT’s orders.

 

[josh-j]

I don't think that's wrong -

The government could do exactly what the ROSCOs do, and then the financial benefit would (could - see below) be ours, not theirs.

It's like the housing market (council houses -> private rental) but that's *technically* (but not really entirely!) off topic.

But I do agree - you're right in saying the problem is the government. It's like bringing back BR - in theory it makes a hell of a lot of sense IMO but it also won't help if the government running BR doesn't actually want to have a decent railway.

 

[43096]

I don't think that's wrong -

The government could do exactly what the ROSCOs do, and then the financial benefit would (could - see below) be ours, not theirs.

But the Government then has to find the cash up front to fund the new trains. Which it would not have done to the same level as the ROSCOs have. Much of the growth of the railway over the last 25 years has been ROSCO funded through the acquisition of new trains to provide capacity for that growth.

The anti-ROSCO brigade - who almost without exception do not understand (and do not want to) how it works - would do well to remember that.

 

[josh-j]

But the government doesn't need third parties essentially issuing loans for assets at a premium - the government is the ultimate loan issuer for the whole economy, its how money exists at all!

Anyway I'll leave it there as this is all off topic.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Not really off topic because it plays into how many trains are available to the industry and therefore get deployed.

Even in BR days, you still had to pay interest to the Treasury for finance, nothing was free. And in those days paying the Treasury rate was often more expensive than going directly to the market, which you were not allowed to do. With the assets off the Government books, going the ROSCO route has enabled a huge amount of new rolling stock to be ordered without having to go through all the usual Treasury hoops.

In BR days you still had to fund the overhauls and heavy repairs, which were the real cost in maintaining rolling stock. So smoothing that out is a great boon for both Government and the TOCs when it comes to managing your cash flow. As someone who used to do all this for a living on BR, I am really glad I don’t have the headache of funding the current class 800 and 802 repairs. Even if I thought I could get the money back from Hitachi in the future, it would blow a big hole in my finances in the interim.

Monday wasn’t good for formations on GWR because of the displacement after the events of the last few days but there are normally more 5 car workings on the GWML than hitherto because of the need to replace HST sets with IET sets but, in normal circumstances, there shouldn’t be too many on the South Wales route.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Monday wasn’t good for formations on GWR because of the displacement after the events of the last few days but there are normally more 5 car workings on the GWML than hitherto because of the need to replace HST sets with IET sets but, in normal circumstances, there shouldn’t be too many on the South Wales route.

There are though. A staggering amount over the past few months have been 5s.

 

[josh-j]

Even in BR days, you still had to pay interest to the Treasury for finance, nothing was free. And in those days paying the Treasury rate was often more expensive than going directly to the market, which you were not allowed to do. With the assets off the Government books, going the ROSCO route has enabled a huge amount of new rolling stock to be ordered without having to go through all the usual Treasury hoops.

That's genuinely interesting. My question would be - why? Very odd. It's like a money merry go round, they could just provide funding, the "need" to charge interest to BR at all (let alone a bad rate) can only be pure politics. Even accepting the premise that national debt is inherently a bad thing (which I'm not sure is really true), buying trains is a tiny blip on public finances and I reckon without all the silly treasury interest and whatever would have ended up saving money over a few decades.

I suppose what it comes down to is why the whole actual government could be unable to front a few billion (not even all at once remember, just as and when needed) for trains. Worth noting the government had no issue spending significantly more than that to rescue banks in 2008 (not saying that was good or bad, just a reflection on what is actually possible). The government controls how much money exists; they spend it into being. Spreading the cost via slight inflation over the decades doesn't seem too different to spreading it via ROSCOs?

 

[Clarence Yard]

Government operates in a financial world where its debt means something real, as does the methods of financing it. It isn’t just a matter of printing and handing out cash. Without going deeply into Economics on a railway forum, it isn’t a matter of politics, it’s how the Treasury had to get a return on capital.

The ROSCO system allows for all this lumpy capital spend to appear off the Governments books and so it falls to revenue in the Governments cost line. People often compare the revenue cost on BR and compare it to the increased revenue cost from a ROSCO and make a judgement, ignoring the capital funding elements as well as all the overhaul funding activity.

Getting back to GWR, the South Wales route suffers the same problem as the South West route - there are no spare units held at the country ends so the maximum out in the morning is what goes there the previous day. If there is disruption the previous night and/or the availability is off, you have no chance of making your booked formations. If the units are available in London (and that is a big if these days) GWR control are adept at boosting the formations during the day.

 

[Kernow_Celtic]

The South Wales route does seem to be disproportionately affected compared with the Bristol and Penzance routes (although these routes most certainly do get daily short forms too). I genuinely cannot see a solution to this short of ordering additional sets or carriages which seems unlikely. The only other option is to rob Peter to pay Paul and make the Penzance or Bristol route first choice for short forms which would be equally undesirable. GwR are stuck between a rock and a hard place unless Dft allow some serious money to be spent.

.

 

[Mag_seven]

I saw a 9 car on a mid morning Paddington - Cheltenham service today which are normally the preserve of 5 cars.

 

[Horizon22]

The South Wales route does seem to be disproportionately affected compared with the Bristol and Penzance routes (although these routes most certainly do get daily short forms too). I genuinely cannot see a solution to this short of ordering additional sets or carriages which seems unlikely. The only other option is to rob Peter to pay Paul and make the Penzance or Bristol route first choice for short forms which would be equally undesirable. GwR are stuck between a rock and a hard place unless Dft allow some serious money to be spent.

.

I'd say if you HAD to pick you'd short-form in this general order

1. S. Cotswold trains to Cheltenham
2. N. Cots trains to Oxford/Worcester
3. Bristol
4. S. Wales
5. W. Country

The West Country ones get very political and also with the long running times, the opportunities to swap them out are difficult. Obviously diagrams don't always allow for strenghtening/swapping at Paddington but it does regularly occur.

 

[Jamesrob637]

This has been increasing recently, I assume there’s more needing work than usual? I don’t think the poor Covid timetable returned either so there’s fewer services than previously, leaving those that tension very busy.

GWR have been back to a normal timetable since 2022, possibly even enhanced over 2019. I saw lots of 5-car sets a couple of weeks ago near Reading.

 

[Benjwri]

Getting back to GWR, the South Wales route suffers the same problem as the South West route - there are no spare units held at the country ends so the maximum out in the morning is what goes there the previous day. If there is disruption the previous night and/or the availability is off, you have no chance of making your booked formations. If the units are available in London (and that is a big if these days) GWR control are adept at boosting the formations during the day.

Is the South Wales route not better off? There is limited scope to hit it at least has Stoke Gifford in its route, which does hold stock, and which sometimes allows for unit swaps when there is a failure etc, whereas in the South West it would be binned?

 

[-Colly405-]

GWR have been back to a normal timetable since 2022, possibly even enhanced over 2019. I saw lots of 5-car sets a couple of weeks ago near Reading.

Don't forget though that 2019 had the SuperFasts as well on the Bristol and S Wales runs...

 

[Jamesrob637]

Don't forget though that 2019 had the SuperFasts as well on the Bristol and S Wales runs...

Of which how many have returned?