Heathrow Express GWR Contract

[moley]

All? You mean the Portsmouth line clowns who couldn’t/wouldn’t understand the explanation given and were stuck in their own selfish little world.

No, the Portsmouth line commuters never complained about the seats themselves, although they complained about the seat spacing. The same seats arranged 2+2 with a spacer between them would have been fine. It was SWT's desire to have 3+2 seating for statistics purposes only that annoyed the Portsmouth line. In reality, few if any people used the middle seat when diagrammed on longer distance peak services and chose to stand instead but this was fine for the SWT stats. SWR as new franchise accepted the view that better to have 2+2 seat fully utilised and a slightly wider aisle so more can stand than seats which cant physically fit a person.

 

[43096]

No, the Portsmouth line commuters never complained about the seats themselves, although they complained about the seat spacing. The same seats arranged 2+2 with a spacer between them would have been fine. It was SWT's desire to have 3+2 seating for statistics purposes only that annoyed the Portsmouth line. In reality, few if any people used the middle seat when diagrammed on longer distance peak services and chose to stand instead but this was fine for the SWT stats. SWR as new franchise accepted the view that better to have 2+2 seat fully utilised and a slightly wider aisle so more can stand than seats which cant physically fit a person.

I think you'll find the seating capacity required by DfT drove the use of trains with that seating configuration.

 

[edwin_m]

No, the Portsmouth line commuters never complained about the seats themselves, although they complained about the seat spacing. The same seats arranged 2+2 with a spacer between them would have been fine. It was SWT's desire to have 3+2 seating for statistics purposes only that annoyed the Portsmouth line. In reality, few if any people used the middle seat when diagrammed on longer distance peak services and chose to stand instead but this was fine for the SWT stats. SWR as new franchise accepted the view that better to have 2+2 seat fully utilised and a slightly wider aisle so more can stand than seats which cant physically fit a person.

Was this actually a decision by bidders or did DfT change the rules for the most recent bidding round to add a requirement or an incentive to offer seats in this configuration for the Portsmouth line? If the bidders were evaluated simply by number of seats, then someone offering a more spacious arrangement than DfT required would risk being penalised in the evaluation or priced out by a competitor who offered what was specified and nothing more.

 

[moley]

Was this actually a decision by bidders or did DfT change the rules for the most recent bidding round to add a requirement or an incentive to offer seats in this configuration for the Portsmouth line? If the bidders were evaluated simply by number of seats, then someone offering a more spacious arrangement than DfT required would risk being penalised in the evaluation or priced out by a competitor who offered what was specified and nothing more.

The previous round asked for seat capacity increase on mainline services. This was the SWT answer which in turn increased capacity on the main line by swapping out 442s for 444s.

DfT did not specifically request that configuration of seats on the Portsmouth line.

This time around, DfT were happy to allow capacity increase through reconfiguration and extra services, now platforms 20-24 are open.

 

[Goldfish62]

The previous round asked for seat capacity increase on mainline services. This was the SWT answer which in turn increased capacity on the main line by swapping out 442s for 444s.

DfT did not specifically request that configuration of seats on the Portsmouth line.

This time around, DfT were happy to allow capacity increase through reconfiguration and extra services, now platforms 20-24 are open.

And Porterbrook were desperate to find a home for the then - stored 458s after the bid to use them on the East London line failed and it was realised that AC conversion was problematic, so offered them to SWT at a cheaper price than retaining the 442s. So it worked out neatly for SWT, if not their passengers.

 

[Brush 4]

All this shows how passengers are disregarded and seen as irrelevant and immaterial. Why do passenger railways exist? Answers looking only at the financial angle are incomplete.

 

[jimm]

All this is irrelevant in the context of this thread and has been discussed previously elsewhere. Can we stick to Heathrow Express/GWR matters please?

 

[yorkie]

Just a reminder this thread is to discuss Heathrow Express / GWR contract.

There is plenty of spare capacity on this forum for new threads; there is no need to cram lots of discussions into one thread.

If anyone wishes to go off on a tangent, or if anyone wishes to reply to someone else who has already done so, please create a new thread in the appropriate section of the forum. Thank you.

Edit: looks like the original topic has run its course, so please do create a new thread if you wish do discuss anything else. Please contact us directly if you wish to request this thread be reopened.