Current shambolic state of IEP
- Very few pure EMUs now, mostly bi-mode.
There haven't been any 'pure' EMUs in the IEP project for ages, even the so-called EMUs have a few tonnes of deadweight diesel in case of OHLE failure. DaFT!
DafT selling it by saying 'you get bi-mode and through services on the East Coast... or no bi-mode and no through services'.
If you ask me, East Coast's the easy one. There are only 4 services each way per day into the non-electrified parts of Scotland, one to Hull (which looks like being electrified as part of TPE anyway), one to Harrogate and one to Lincon. Who in their right mind would order 35 5-car DMUs (no idea what the current numbers are, but that was apparently the plan at one point) for 7 services each way when the haulage requirments beyond the wires could easily be met by the current fleet of class 67s?
Ok so why the delay? One can only assume that DfT have no idea about about overcrowding / outdated Intercity trains or the progress that is being made on Thameslink of electrification projects!
Intercity 125s may be old, but they are a dam sight better than IEP as currently planned. More Intercity DMUs, just
NO!.
Add onto this all the additional gauging clearance that would be needed, at great expense, compared to just using something that is C3 or C4 gauged.
But how much money have NR thrown away already to provide IEP clearance, and how much is left to spend? On WNXX, it was suggested that the total cost of clearing everything DaFT have asked (which does not include Tenby) was in the order of £200m, but that most of that was in CP4. However, the person who said this didn't seem to think the work had been done. If anyone has a varifiable source for the full cost of the guage clearance, please post it as I'd like to use it as amunition to fire against DaFT.
According to Informed Sources in Modern Railways Augest 2011, each diesel engine for IEP would cost £250,000. If I use the old numbers of 35 5-car bi-modes each for GW and EC (no 'EMUs' at all at that point), thats 35 x 2 x 3 = 210 diesel engines. 210 x £250,000 is £52,500,000. That's only £10m short of wiring to Swansea if you simply don't put any diesel engines in IEP. Now if we can cut another £200m off by buying C3 guage stock rather than stock that requires gauge clearance and I've saved £252.5m on IEP. Hence can have Swansea - Cardiff and Swindon - Cheltenham wired (in fact, those two would probably come to less than £150m, leaving at least £100m change). Where my plans fall down is that £100m isn't enough to cover the many hundreds of millions needed to build extra Pendolinos and Voyager pantograph cars to put a fleet of bi-mode Voyagers on the Paddington - Cotswolds and Paddington - Westbury semi-fast services (GW's 5 class 180s would work the extensions of the semi-fast beyond Westbury, and IC125s would remain on all other services to Taunton/Devon/Cornwall).
And for the extra cost of the Diesel IEP one could proberbly electrify the Midland Mainline and HSTs will need life extending anyway...
MML is now not happening, been robbed to pay for TP electrification and Cardiff. Bi-modes instead beckon... :-x
Bi-modes on MML, now that might work. I would be right against it is it means buying bi-modes though, I'd only support it if it was using the existing class 222 units with pantograph cars added. Wire to Corby and Nottingham, order new EMUs for those routes and run the other routes using the bi-mode 222s (8x 8-car bi-mode and 19x 7-car bi-mode 222s, which is two pantograph cars apiece I think).