Least appropriate use of Pacers?

[Wolfie]

NO IT DOESN'T AND STOP THESE MALICIOUS COMMENTS.

Even if it was for uneconomic services, the North should have an equal spend per head to the Southeast and London. Services in the South must be heavily subsidised if 9x more is spent per head than in Yorkshire.

To be equally dogmatic and ridiculous and ignore all the inconvenient facts that don't agree with my rant...

GET LOST, THOSE OF US IN LONDON AND THE SOUTH EAST SUBSIDISE THE NORTH TOO MUCH ALREADY. CLOSE THE WHOLE ECONOMIC BASKET CASE THAT IS NORTHERN RAIL DOWN.

Back in the real world, look at total Government spend, business caost analyses, population density ect rather than chosing one metric (even that skewed as it includes private sector spend also) which happens to support your hobby horse.

 

[muz379]

That's why I said 3+tph.

Not that the Blackpool North service is a lot of use if you're off to Manchester, as a lot of people from that end of the Calder Valley are.

a fair few people will also travel from hebden bridge onto halifax , bradford and leeds . and the York service is a lot of use to them as it is the quickest service between them 3

 

[northwichcat]

CLOSE THE WHOLE ECONOMIC BASKET CASE THAT IS NORTHERN RAIL DOWN.

The biggest economic basket case on the rail network is the Southeastern HS1 services but DfT don't seem keen on reducing the subsidy for that.

 

[JamesRowden]

The biggest economic basket case on the rail network is the Southeastern HS1 services but DfT don't seem keen on reducing the subsidy for that.

I found this document published by Southeastern which shows that the franchise was planned to be paying a premium rather than recieving a subsidy in the financial year of 2013/2014. One might speculate that the DfT overestimated the revenue that would be produced by the SE HS1 services. Therefore the subsidy that you are refering to was not intentional.

 

[Clip]

The biggest economic basket case on the rail network is the Southeastern HS1 services but DfT don't seem keen on reducing the subsidy for that.

Have you got figures for that as it always seems really well used when I use it - and I do a lot.

I read that better transport myth buster thing and there was lots about west Yorkshire and greater manchester but very very little once again for the North East. Go figure.

AND WOULD YOU ALL STOP THESE MALICIOUS COMMENTS

 

[northwichcat]

Have you got figures for that as it always seems really well used when I use it - and I do a lot.

The only official figures I have are that Southeastern are supposed to get a subsidy of £20.5m per annum from DfT based on the terms the franchise was let on. However, they are getting £76.4m in revenue support on top of that, which makes the subsidy per passenger mile for Southeastern 20 times higher than for Southern (12.4p per passenger mile compared to 0.6p per passenger mile.) Industry experts have commented on that being due to how much HS1 costs compared to the amount of revenue taken.

I don't know the overall cost of operating 395s but the track access costs for a trailer vehicle of a 395 are more than double what the track access costs for the trailer vehicle of a 465 are. Presumably the 395s cost a lot more in leasing costs as well.

Well used doesn't necessarily mean profitable. TPE have the highest seat occupancy rate of any TOC yet they are a subsided franchise - presumably partly because of PTE fares and partly because of the high costs of operating 185s.

 

[HSTEd]

Whether subsidy is in capital investment or operational payments, the Southeast is nine times more per head than Yorkshire. Non of my critics have given a rational reason for the difference.

You have no figures that show this.

You only have figures for 'investment'.

Come back when you have total subsidy figures.

 

[tbtc]

Given that we have around 150 Pacers, the best places to run them seem (to me) to be:

• Short distance routes where most of the journeys are going to be under half an hour in duration (Valley Lines, Manchester – Marple/ Wigan)
• Middle distance routes where the slow service is generally only going to be used for short journeys since it’ll be (almost) overtaken en route (Liverpool – Manchester Oxford Road, Hope Valley, Leeds – Brighouse – Manchester)
• Marginal routes (Parliamentary/ infrequent service) where running the cheapest stock is a price worth paying (Leeds – Morecambe, Sheffield – Pontefract - York, Sheffield – Brigg – Cleethorpes)
• Routes where a ~sixty metre doubled up Pacer provides more capacity than a ~forty six metre single 156 (Manchester Airport – Southport being the oft quoted example), and the trade off between “capacity” and “comfort” favours the Pacer

...and those are the kind of routes where Pacers do currently operate, which suggests that we are generally using them pretty sensibly. Obviously, if we’d known thirty years ago that passenger numbers would rise every year over the subsequent generation then we’d have built something bigger/better (and wouldn’t have chopped most 155s up to make 153s either), but I don’t see the point crying over spilt milk from the 1980s. We’ve got to deal with the reality of where things are today.

Serious question – if you don’t want doubled up 142s on Manchester Airport – Southport then would you accept a reduction in capacity on that route to a single 156? Whilst there will be 156s freed up by electrification over the next few years, there aren’t any spare at the moment, so the Southport services wouldn’t be able to run with doubled up 156s if you took the doubled up 142s away. Which is the least worst option (as things currently stand)?

All of this begs the question “are there any non-Pacer routes where we could run them”? Obviously there are a few individual services elsewhere in the UK where passenger numbers are low enough for a hundred seat DMU to cope/ line speeds are low enough for a 75mph DMU to cope/ durations are brief enough for a short distance DMU to cope.

The trouble is that there aren’t enough in a cluster to warrant putting Pacers there. A handful of Greater Anglian branch lines would only need a handful of units, which wouldn’t give any economies of scale.

Same goes with some of EMT’s Lincolnshire services (since the 153/156s that run those services are shared with services for Matlock/ Mansfield/ Skegness, where a Pacer wouldn’t be so suitable).

LM run a couple of diagrams as single 153s (Coventry – Nuneaton, one diagram on the Marston Vale line – the other Marston Vale service needs to be 150 operated to cope with school traffic), but it wouldn’t be worth setting up a “base” of two or three units.

Marshlink has been suggested a few times, but again is a pretty small operation (where it makes sense for Southern to have the same type of DMU on the Brighton – Ashford services as on the Uckfield – London services).

Chiltern could have two Pacers in lieu of their two “Bubble Cars”, but what would that solve? And what do you do with the redundant 121s? They are running on virtually the only line suitable for them as it is – they’ll only move off it when they are scrapped.

I’ve suggested in the past that units with big windows suitable to appreciate the scenery may be suitable for a line with a 75mph top speed (instead of wasting a 90mph unit with smaller windows), but nobody has taken my “Pacers for the Far North Line” idea seriously...

...so it may be better to keep most Pacers with the one TOC (a handful in Devon and some soon-to-be-replaced ones in South Wales aside).

There’s also the issue that, if you were to move Pacers to operate marginal services currently run by 153s elsewhere in the UK then would you be able to cope with reducing the current “unsuitable” Pacer services to a shorter 153? Moan all you want about Pacers (and some will...), but if you put a Northern Pacer on an East Anglian branch in lieu of a 153 then which Northern route sees it’s hundred seat Pacer replaced by a seventysomething seat 153?

Being born and brought up in the Southwest I don't regard it as the mean and nasty South. Yes I mean London and Southeast when I say South

So you are happy to be ignorant/wrong when it comes to geography? Fair enough...

Cabinet members do not use public transport, they have a ministerial car. That is the problem

...in which case it wouldn’t matter if Pacers ran in London either then (or if the House of Commons moved Oop North)? Can’t have it both ways

West Cumberland journeys are not "normal"!! Tell that to inhabitants of Workington and Whitehaven

You’ve not bothered to read what I said, have you?

I said that the example of someone doing the full Lancaster to Carlisle journey via the Cumbrian Coast was not “normal” (given that there are much faster significantly more frequent services via Penrith, anyone doing the “end to end” journey on a Pacer via Whitehaven is a statistical insignificance (and probably a trainspotter doing it because they enjoy the slower scenic route)

Obviously someone travelling from Workington/ Whitehaven has no other (rail) alternative, so has to rely on whichever 75mph DMU that Northern choose to run that day (and has a much shorter journey, where a Pacer may be more appropriate), but my comment was about the idea that “Lancaster to Carlisle” was inappropriate on a Pacer.

Whilst I would like that to happen, I don't think electrification will be that fast.
The problem though is that the DfT won't commit to any plan to see the pacers replaced at all. This is the same issue as with everyone wanting electrification now-there is no(public) long term plan, everywhere might eventually be electrified or the plug could be pulled within a few years.
So for all we know; Pacers could be gone around 2020, a few years later, or refurbished or unrefurbished Pacers could still be running round in 2030.
So the Northern Councils and other groups are perfectly entitled to question the continued use of the pacers, as for all they know left unquestioned they could still be running peak Calder Valley services in 20 years time. The Northern ITT might clear some things up...or not.

We don’t know CP6 electrification plans, but then we won’t until a couple of years before the start of that control period – nothing unusual about these circumstances.

In our wonderful privatised railway, there’s never any long term planning for anything (electrification only came on to the agenda five years ago at the fag end of the last Labour government, and was a lot more modest than the current CP5 plans).

If we do the CP5 electrification there ought to be enough wiring to replace all 142s (assuming that we don’t keep them for strengthening services/ introducing new services). 143s/144s will take a little longer to get rid of, but they’ll all be gone in a decade. There are so many “low hanging fruit” to electrify in CP6, where extensions to CP5 electrification (like Sheffield to Doncaster) will make inroads into the fleet of 75mph DMUs.

there is no service that one could look at in the UK today and call this type of vehicle adequate, or even acceptable in a pinch

There are plenty of services where a 75mph DMU with a hundred seats can cope with demand/ timings/ terrain (see above). Contrary to received wisdom on this Forum, not every service in the UK is overcrowded.

The investment money for Yorkshire/Humberside and the Northeast goes on maintaining hugely uneconomic services.
You can have the investment funding but it will come at the cost of drastically reduced operational subsidies.

True – something that people keep forgetting/missing.

A quid of investment or a quid of subsidy? If your services need subsidy then you can’t be surprised if the money isn’t always available for investment too.

I don't suppose there is any chance of this topic actually getting back ON topic and staying there?

If past performance is any guide on this Forum, then no (sadly).

I’ve tried to defend Pacer use on a number of the lines that they currently used, but people don’t seem to want a sensible debate about the best routes. I’ve given my thoughts at the top of this thread though (not sure if anyone wants a proper discussion though).

From a purely subjective point of view, the least appropriate use of Pacers would be on any route where the largest flow of passengers from one particular station to another particular station exceeds a journey time of about 45 minutes. Whilst I have done some horrendously long journeys on Pacers in my time, they were end to end journeys on services like Blackpool to Huddersfield or Lancaster to Leeds where I was (probably) the only person to make the whole journey and I only did it because I wanted to as an enthusiast.

That said I would rather have any train than no train.

I’d agree – and in the main, they are restricted to shorter services (in terms of average passenger journey).

Even where they run longer trips, the average journey isn’t that long (e.g. you’d be daft/unlucky if you had to use one all the way from Sheffield to Manchester).

Unacceptable journeys for me are Sheffield Lincoln and Carlisle Newcastle, mainly because they are the main link between major cities with no alternative non rail bus fast service so they will carry a lot of end to end passengers.

Those are hard examples to justify, I agree. Hopefully they'll be amongst the first to move to Sprinter operation when electrification starts to pay off.

The problem with the Lincoln example is that the “south Rotherham” stations (Kiveton etc) must have a direct service to Meadowhall, which means interworking the Lincoln service with the Scunthorpe/ Adwick ones, which creates a monster of a diagram.

Pacers would be okay on Sheffield – Adwick/ Scunthorpe (faster trains available from Sheffield/ Meadowhall to Doncaster/ Scunthorpe with 158/170/185/220/221s), but extending these services through to Lincoln is an awkward compromise.

It was just one out of hundreds of possible examples of a journey you can make where you can get a Pacer all the way. The fact that these journeys are rarer is not irrelevant

When you need to reach for an extreme example to try to make a point, you have a weak argument.

A very inaccurate statement. I was comparing stations such as Malton and Seamar to stations on Marshlink. Which stations do TPE miss out between York and Scarborough? I thought they stopped at all stations on that rural stretch of line, which seems to be well patronised.

The ones that have closed. Stations on York-Scar comparable to the minor ones on Marshlink are all long gone. Only Malton and Seamer remain. Malton is a reasonable sized town and is where you change to get to Flamingoland. Seamer is the change station for the Yorks coast, Bridlington Filey etc. Neither of them are 'shacks'.
They could be compared perhaps to Rye, but not to places like Appledore or Winchelsea.

I agree with D6975 – the quiet Yorkshire stations were closed many years ago – York to Scarborough is a fairly long way with only two intermediate stations.

The problem is you'd need to reorganise the diagrams to keep pacers off the Bradford services

This is a problem.

As I’ve mentioned to 47802 above, there are some services that get tied together for various reasons (operational convenience, minimising terminating trains at a busy station, history, trying to save a unit by tacking different services together).

The best-quoted version of this was the old “Grand Tour” (Manchester – Halifax - Leeds -Selby – Leeds – Halifax – Huddersfield – Wakefield – Huddersfield – Halifax – Leeds – Halifax – Manchester). That meant that sometimes a three coach 158 was trundling between Huddersfield and Wakefield whilst a two coach Pacer was trying to cope with a fast path to Manchester – but then to “untie” such services comes at a cost (e.g. Huddersfield to Wakefield is just too long to get one unit to run an hourly service on – splitting the routes up meant using more stock (which sometimes means replacing doubled up services with single unit services, so that the replaced DMU can be “spare” elsewhere). No easy solutions.

. Rail investment in the Southeast is £2700 per head compared to £305 per head in Yorkshire and Humberside and only £5 per head in the Northeast. Total inequality. Why so much more per head in London and Southeast. Timescale is irrelevant. These are DfT figures now

Explain to me then why London and Southeast rail investment is £2700 per head and in Yorkshire only £305 per head over a similar timescale. What has population density and fare levels got to do with it if it is per head expenditure?

Well if I am, so are dozens of Northern MPs. MPs in the Northeast are spitting blood over it.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Whether subsidy is in capital investment or operational payments, the Southeast is nine times more per head than Yorkshire. Non of my critics have given a rational reason for the difference.

NO IT DOESN'T AND STOP THESE MALICIOUS COMMENTS.

Even if it was for uneconomic services, the North should have an equal spend per head to the Southeast and London. Services in the South must be heavily subsidised if 9x more is spent per head than in Yorkshire.

1. Calm down (take the caps lock off, stop spitting blood...)
2. You’re still just shouting a number without providing any context. Random figures are meaningless

What timescale are we talking about? Roughly a decade ago there was a lot of money spent around Leeds with the “Leeds First” project (roughly the same time that money was being spent in Manchester the “WCML Upgrade” and the TW Metro extension to Sunderland), whilst London wasn’t seeing many new lines since the Jubilee extension in 1999.

In a few years time, we’ll see a lot of money around Leeds as the lines to Selby/ York/ Huddersfield are electrified (plus around five miles of electrification in South Yorkshire, from Sheffield towards Dronfield).

At the moment, however, that money isn’t being spent in Leeds (or Wearside), whilst two major projects (the long delayed Thameslink 2000 and Crossrail) are full steam ahead in London. This means that quoting the 2013 figure gives a fairly misleading impression. Spending over a decade would be a reasonable timescale to assess large projects. A twelve month snapshot is worthless.

Then, you’ve got to consider subsidy per passenger mile. Obviously if average people in London travel much more by rail in an average year than average people in Newcastle then you’d expect the spending in London to be higher per head of population – they use rail more, so rely on it a lot more (no London equivalent of the M602/M621/A167(M – no congestion charge in Manchester/ Leeds/ Newcastle), so significantly more commuting by rail in the Capital).

You don’t understand why population density matters, when it comes to investment in mass transportation? Seriously?

And then the rather large issue of subsidy (whether in terms of PTE subsidised fares, or a heavily loss making franchise)... if you are only looking at the “investment” then you are ignoring the huge sums spent on subsidised fares and propping the franchise up. See HSTEd ‘s comment above.

Also, worth pointing out that a large amount of money in London is either from private business (who are paying around a third of the cost of Crossrail) or from the Congestion Charge. Is it unfair that people/businesses in London want to contribute more to transport investment?

Investment per head will be higher in London due to the unique congestion problems associated with so many people living in the same place, but should this be by the magnitude we see between London and the North East for example ? This disparity seems a bit big, particularly given the North East will also have unique transport problems associated with people being more spread out.

You’ve made a good case for investment in the North East, but also for why that investment shouldn’t necessarily be mass transportation like railways (which obviously need population to be relatively dense) and more in favour of something suitable for rural areas where people are spread between hundreds of villages.

However, since we don’t have any context for deltic08’s figures, we have no way of knowing whether they relate to *all* transport investment, or just to rail investment. Given the sparse populations in Northumberland/ rural County Durham, the case for railways being the solution is hard to always justify.

For example, if you want a “new” line in the North East then the only two viable options appear to be Washington/Leamside or Ashington/Blyth. All other areas of population have stations nearby.

In the Greater London area, however, there are more options than you could shake a stick at.

Government spend, business cost analyses, population density ect rather than choosing one metric (even that skewed as it includes private sector spend also) which happens to support your hobby horse.

Agreed

The biggest economic basket case on the rail network is the Southeastern HS1 services but DfT don't seem keen on reducing the subsidy for that.

HS1 seems to have had a lot of the CTRL costs passed on to it (presumably to justify the “cheapness” of the fast link to the continent.

However, we only know this because the figures for SE are split between the two parts of the franchise – I’d love to know which bits of Northern are better than 40p/mile and which are worse!

I’d guess that the ex-FNW area has a better/lower “subsidy per passenger mile” figure than the ex-ATN area (since the latter has more infrequent oddball services), but would be interesting to see.

 

[6Gman]

Is there anywhere that they could be a better option than the current Train?
The Cambrian Coast in Winter(prior to the new Signalling) between Mach and Pwllhelli especially the School Train's that stop at every station springs to mind or the 08:15 Mach to Aber.

The Crewe - Chester shuttle was bearable when it used to be a Pacer in the past.

But would prefer to keep the 150s ...

 

[northwichcat]

When you need to reach for an extreme example to try to make a point, you have a weak argument.

Not really an extreme example, both Edale and Southport stations have a large number of visitors arriving from outside the immediate local area.

Looking at some Network Rail analysis it seems just over 50% of journeys made to/from Edale are not from stations originating on the Hope Valley line. Southport station gets 1/2 the number of passengers that Bradford (both stations combined) gets, yet Southport is 18% of the size of Bradford and a lot more affluent, which suggests a lot of visitors from outside the local area.

Having now looked at that analysis I think the people claiming Calder Vale should be Pacer free have a poor argument. 2% of people using Bradford stations are travelling to/from Manchester, with the most common journey on Calder Vale services being Halifax-Leeds, which certainly isn't too long for a Pacer! (60% of people using Halifax station travel to/from Leeds.)

 

[Starmill]

They were cheap to build, they are cheap (ish now) to maintain, they offer a cheap route for the ROSCO to make a fortune and they help to keep fares down in the north.

Which is of course why they haven't gone u- oh, wait.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Having lived in the north east for almost all of my life I am well aware of the problems there and I used to be very similar in approach to you before I moved south and experienced the difference. The reason why investment in the railway infrastructure is higher in the South East is obvious to anyone prepared to look. Your view, that investment should be the same level for every person in the country is frankly naïve. To offer any justification will simply lead to rejection as you are unwilling to consider any approach other than equal for all.

Explain specifically what in your opinion the naivety is here? It sounds like a sound and equitable model of government spending to me.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

GET LOST, THOSE OF US IN LONDON AND THE SOUTH EAST SUBSIDISE THE NORTH TOO MUCH ALREADY. CLOSE THE WHOLE ECONOMIC BASKET CASE THAT IS NORTHERN RAIL DOWN.

What are your proposals for the organisation that will take over from Northern Rail after the closure that you make reference to has occurred?

 

[Starmill]

Not really an extreme example, both Edale and Southport stations have a large number of visitors arriving from outside the immediate local area.

Why not look at all of the people who travel from Grindleford - Manchester (inclusive) to stations on the Southport line? Plus all of the other potentially pacerified stations in suburban Manchester to places on the Southport line, and so on? The problem is that clustering these together increases the likelihood of making a longer journey by pacer significantly.

 

[backontrack]

Possibly FGW's attempt at Paignton to Paddington on a 142 (Stopped at Swindon because Control didn't want a 75mph unit clogging the fasts during the am peak!)

Wait, what?

Emphasis mine.

 

[starrymarkb]

Wait, what?

Emphasis mine.

See post 85

 

[Rhydgaled]

I can't see Pacers being withdrawn in northern England in this decade - I think that keeping some into the early 2020s (when sufficient "local" routes will be electrified) is the least bad option, but appreciate that I am very much in a minority on this Forum.

I agree that some Pacers need to be kept. They should be restricted as much as possible to short-distance, lightly used, services though. I've not had much experience of Northern units, but ATW's Pacers (and 150s) are unsuitable for anything much over an hour. Thus, they are just about ok on the ValleyLines, but not many other places on the franchise.

I think one of the issues with Pacers is due to their usage on so many different lines you can finish up making a longish journey with a change on the fastest available services (e.g. Edale-Southport) and finish up making each leg on a Pacer.

Indeed, travelling an hour on one Pacer and having to change onto another Pacer for another hour's travelling is almost as bad as being stuck on a Pacer for two hours. For example, a 150/Pacer isn't too bad for a Swansea-Carmarthen or maybe Pembroke Dock - Whitland stopper (provided the unit has enough seats for the number of passengers using the service), but Swansea to Pembroke Dock is far too far.

Is there anywhere that they could be a better option than the current Train?
The Cambrian Coast in Winter(prior to the new Signalling) between Mach and Pwllhelli especially the School Train's that stop at every station springs to mind or the 08:15 Mach to Aber.

Cambrian Coast would be too long a duration, but the frequent stops and low linespeed do seem to be a bit of a waste of a 158. When you consider that the coast portion joins up with the Aberystwyth train and runs through to Birmingham though, the use of a 158 starts to look alot more sensible. As for the 08:15 Machynlleth to Aberystwyth, would the capacity of a pacer be enough? Plus it wouldn't have any other work to do the rest of the day.

to replace ever pacer would cost over £1Bn which the country doesn't have at the moment.

I think I agree with that. But if the country doesn't have £1bn, how come the Welsh Government think they can find nearly £1bn to trash several SSSIs, an SAC and our greenhouse gas reduction targets with a new motorway, while cutting already stretched local authority budgets even further?

My answer (as mentioned before on these kind of threads) is that we'll see at least a hundred 75mph DMUs replaced by EMUs in CP5, and that a similar amount of electrification in CP6 on "secondary" routes (since the remaining "main lines" are being wired in CP5) will allow us to withdraw all 1980s DMUs...

...which means that we'll have enough "modern" DMUs to run all unelectrified services in 2024 (that may be an entirely post-privatisation DMU fleet, that may also require Turbos)...

By going with an entirely post-privatisation fleet (or that plus Turbos), you almost entirely ommit a sector which is likely to be one of the last to be fully wired up. Regional express. Is 27 175s really going to be enough to cover it all? We would need to keep 158s and 159s as well in my opinion, and is electrification going to proceed fast enough to allow enough of those to be cascaded about to provide increased capacity on regional express routes?

Ordering new DMUs to replace Pacers and 150s makes no sense since there are plenty of things like Turbostars and 165/166 type units to cascade to replace them. The 158s and 159s though are irreplaceable with anything we have at the moment. In future, regional express services are likely to run on routes which are part-electrified (sometimes mostly electrified). For example:

• Manchester - Llandudno (wired Manchester - Chester?)
• Cardiff - Portsmouth (wired Cardiff - Bath, 3rd rail Southampton - Portsmouth)
• Waterloo - Exeter (3rd rail towards the London end)
• Swansea/Cardiff - Manchester (wired MAN-Crewe and SWA-CDF)
• Aberystwyth - Birmingham (wired Birmingham - Shrewsbury?)
• Liverpool/Manchester - Norwich (actually, this one might not be under the wires for very long if it is cut back from Liverpool to Manchester)
• Glasgow/Edinburgh - Inverness (under wires to Stirling)

I my opinion, there is a wide wider range of possible part-electrified routes for regional express than INTERCITY and therefore a much stronger case for electro-diesels than INTERCITY. Yet bi-modes for INTERCITY are the future, so why not order some tri-mode (AC, DC, Diesel) regional express units (a design bringing together the best features of 159/442/444/175) for Waterloo-Exeter and perhaps Cardiff-Portsmouth? That would provide a nice cascade of 158s and 159s to help confine the dreaded 150s and Pacers to short distance workings. The problem then becomes how to make the Pacer have enough capacity despite the accessible toilet.

Does the London Underground D-stock, proposed to be converted to diesel, currently have a gangway connection between each car? If not, Modern Railways is suggesting they would be fitted as part of the convertion. If you can do that though, surely you could also take one cab off a number of 2-car Pacers and replace it with a gangwayed inner-end to create 4-car Pacers (some more 3-car ones might be useful too) with one accessible toilet (the 3-car 144s can probably be left as 3-car sets).

The problem with this, whether I am to be considered among one of your 'usual suspects' or not, is that there is no service that one could look at in the UK today and call this type of vehicle adequate, or even acceptable in a pinch. Standards and expectations have moved on to the degree that these trains are beyond obsolete.

I'm not sure about that, certainly if you could merge them into 4-car sets as I suggested above they would become a tad more useful. The problem is finding enough routes in one area, which pepole aren't going to interchange between and end up making long journeys on the things, to justify a depot for them. For example, the Crewe-SHR stopper comes in at under an hour and a Pacer would probably be suitable (providing it has an adequate number of carriages/seats). However, it would be one (possibly two if you put on some extras to allow all the MAN-SWA services to run non-stop between Crewe and Shrewsbury) unit(s) which would have to make a very long ECS run to and from their home depot.

The longest regular route on ATW is Maesteg to Cheltenham but any instances of passengers doing end to end journey would be rare.

I didn't think any Pacers would be booked on Maesteg-Cheltenham, thought it was mostly 150s with the odd 158.

 

[deltic08]

To be equally dogmatic and ridiculous and ignore all the inconvenient facts that don't agree with my rant...

GET LOST, THOSE OF US IN LONDON AND THE SOUTH EAST SUBSIDISE THE NORTH TOO MUCH ALREADY. CLOSE THE WHOLE ECONOMIC BASKET CASE THAT IS NORTHERN RAIL DOWN.

Back in the real world, look at total Government spend, business caost analyses, population density ect rather than chosing one metric (even that skewed as it includes private sector spend also) which happens to support your hobby horse.

WRONG YET AGAIN. The most heavily subsidised TOC is LOROL so pull your neck in. How about closing down that then?

 

[HSTEd]

WRONG YET AGAIN. The most heavily subsidised TOC is LOROL so pull your neck in. How about closing down that then?

I severely doubt LOROL manages to run up subsidies of 51.5p/passenger mile paid by central government.

Average overground journey is roughly 7km apparently, and the system carries roughly 135 million pasengers per year.
That translates as 945 million passenger kilometres - giving a suggested subsidy (at Northern Rates) of ~£487m/yr from Central Government budgets. (the DfT figures also exclude payments from PTEs I believe).

Pretty sure if you exclude London Rail payments (under the same methodology that excludes PTE payments) you will get less than that for the actual figure.

 

[deltic08]

I severely doubt LOROL manages to run up subsidies of 51.5p/passenger mile paid by central government.

Average overground journey is roughly 7km apparently, and the system carries roughly 135 million pasengers per year.
That translates as 945 million passenger kilometres - giving a suggested subsidy (at Northern Rates) of ~£487m/yr from Central Government budgets. (the DfT figures also exclude payments from PTEs I believe).

Pretty sure if you exclude London Rail payments (under the same methodology that excludes PTE payments) you will get less than that for the actual figure.

Evidently not according to October Modern Railways. Also, Campaign for Better Transport claims Northern subsidy is only 5p per mile not 51p. Who can you believe?

 

[JamesRowden]

Also, Campaign for Better Transport claims Northern subsidy is only 5p per mile not 51p. Who can you believe?

The Government shows Northern's subsidy as 51.5p per passenger mile. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rail-subsidy-per-passenger-mile

 

[DarloRich]

Which is of course why they haven't gone u- oh, wait.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

They have gone up slightly. They are still lower than similar journeys in the south. They will have to go up more if you are to bear a fair share of the costs in procure new rolling stock and improving the infrastructure.

Explain specifically what in your opinion the naivety is here? It sounds like a sound and equitable model of government spending to me.

Do i really need to spell it out? You wont like it....

To invest an equal amount of money in the railway network in the north as in the south would lead to vast wastage of resource.

The simple,(perhaps unpalatable for some) truth is that IF you spent the same amount of money throughout the country it would simply be wasted in most places with lots of lovely infrastructure/rolling stock chronically underused and earning no return in anything like an acceptable time

Do you need a 12 car platform (or even train) at Dewsbury or Batley. Do you heck as like. You do in the south east. The scale of commuting alone in the south east dwarfs that of the north.

The infrastructure in the south is used on a much more intense level than that in the north:

• Where are the busiest stations in the country? Bradford?

• Which station has the most train movements per hour? Stockport?

• Which train companies carry the most passengers per year? Is it Northern?

• Which station sees the most passengers in a year? Is it Wakefield?

No one is suggesting that investment isn't needed just that a more mature, targeted and politically savy approach would offer better results. That the north needs more and better trains isn't an issue - how they are funded AND who funds them is.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

WRONG YET AGAIN. The most heavily subsidised TOC is LOROL so pull your neck in. How about closing down that then?

How about providing some evidence? Insert link to study here:


(edit - lets try, say, the ORR or the Office of National statistics)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

WRONG YET AGAIN. The most heavily subsidised TOC is LOROL so pull your neck in. How about closing down that then?

evidence..................

 

[PHILIPE]

A pacer has a booked diagram daily between Maesteg and Cheltenham. There are 2 cycles required between Cardiff and Cheltenham on a Sunday and both are booked Pacers.

 

[HSTEd]

Evidently not according to October Modern Railways. Also, Campaign for Better Transport claims Northern subsidy is only 5p per mile not 51p. Who can you believe?

The CfBT are not an authoritive source.

They have been manipulating statistics to their benefit for years.
They tried to weight Northern's costs to benefit it by claiming a Pacer is far cheaper to run on the network than a Pendolino - this is not the case if you do a proper analysis.

 

[deltic08]

They have gone up slightly. They are still lower than similar journeys in the south. They will have to go up more if you are to bear a fair share of the costs in procure new rolling stock and improving the infrastructure.



Do i really need to spell it out? You wont like it....

To invest an equal amount of money in the railway network in the north as in the south would lead to vast wastage of resource.

The simple,(perhaps unpalatable for some) truth is that IF you spent the same amount of money throughout the country it would simply be wasted in most places with lots of lovely infrastructure/rolling stock chronically underused and earning no return in anything like an acceptable time

Do you need a 12 car platform (or even train) at Dewsbury or Batley. Do you heck as like. You do in the south east. The scale of commuting alone in the south east dwarfs that of the north.

The infrastructure in the south is used on a much more intense level than that in the north:

• Where are the busiest stations in the country? Bradford?

• Which station has the most train movements per hour? Stockport?

• Which train companies carry the most passengers per year? Is it Northern?

• Which station sees the most passengers in a year? Is it Wakefield?

No one is suggesting that investment isn't needed just that a more mature, targeted and politically savy approach would offer better results. That the north needs more and better trains isn't an issue - how they are funded AND who funds them is.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


How about providing some evidence? Insert link to study here:


(edit - lets try, say, the ORR or the Office of National statistics)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


evidence..................

How about you providing evidence yourself as you haven't yet to support your comments.

Usage at Leeds is 26.6m annually for a city of only 450,000. That is good compared all other cities except London and Birmingham. This figure could be higher but is choked off due to capacity crunch at Leeds. 17 platforms are not enough and NR want to build another bay platform and two through platforms to accommodate continuing growth. How many £billions was spent increasing capacity on Thameslink? Was it six or seven or eight? £300m was spent just lengthening platforms at Waterloo.

Northern and TPEx are running around with short formations and an overly intense service because platforms are not being lengthened. This is so wasteful in crewing costs and overall operating cost for Northern in particular. London and southeast get both and another £3billion for yet another extension of the Tube in south London. £3billion would electrify the whole of Yorkshire or the Northeast, build new stock and still have change left over.

I would say more stock is idle in London between the peaks as there is no difference in the North between 2x2-car Pacers in the peaks and 2x2-car Pacers for the rest of the day.

I can't find figures for respective TOCs but Northern operates over 500 stations, more than any other.

 

[DarloRich]

You simply don’t, won’t or can’t get it!

What figures do you want? Mine are based on:

a) Where the busiest stations are. Hint. Leeds is 11th, Manchester 15th, Liverpool central 28th and Lime Street 29th out of 30. The others (except the Glasgow and Edinburgh stations) are in the SE

b) Of the 10 busiest lines in the country ALL are in the south east.

c) The subsidy figures (linked above) suggest Northern get much more than anyone else. Yours are based on a skewed/biased projection from a political pressure group.

d) The most passenger carrying TOCs are located in or serve the SE.

e) The population of the respective areas is massively different

f) The employment possibilities of the are areas vastly skewed in favour of the south and they are, sadly, only going to get worse

g) The number of people using the train to get to work in the south is substantially more than in the north as is the number of people in employment.

h) The intensity with which the infrastructure is worked in the SE is greater than in the north, even for passengers before you consider the freight use.

These are all publically available statistics. Why not start here http://orr.gov.uk/statistics or here http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html

I have shown you mine. Let see yours.

 

[tbtc]

Hmm, the OP seems to have poked the hornets nest and then not contributed further...

The Crewe - Chester shuttle was bearable when it used to be a Pacer in the past.

But would prefer to keep the 150s ...

That's a good example of a service that a Pacer could run (and did, in FNW days) - but since there are no Pacers in the northern part of the Wales & Borders franchise, the Crewe - Chester shuttle gets "upgraded" to Sprinters (see also the Bidston line?)

Not really an extreme example, both Edale and Southport stations have a large number of visitors arriving from outside the immediate local area.

Nobody is disputing that Southport and Edale attract tourists.

But using "Edale to Southport" as an example of how far a passenger may have to travel on a Pacer remains an extreme example, given how few people are going to make such a journey.

There are lots of places in the UK where you could make a long journey that involves different trips on stock more suitable to short distance services -the point is that few people do such trips (I'd probably find a 378 inappropriate if I were travelling from Richmond to Stratford, but I think that the 378 is an appropriate type of EMU to use on that route because over 99% of passengers who use a train that starts in Richmond and terminates in Stratford aren't using it from one end to the other.

Looking at some Network Rail analysis it seems just over 50% of journeys made to/from Edale are not from stations originating on the Hope Valley line. Southport station gets 1/2 the number of passengers that Bradford (both stations combined) gets, yet Southport is 18% of the size of Bradford and a lot more affluent, which suggests a lot of visitors from outside the local area

Having now looked at that analysis I think the people claiming Calder Vale should be Pacer free have a poor argument. 2% of people using Bradford stations are travelling to/from Manchester, with the most common journey on Calder Vale services being Halifax-Leeds, which certainly isn't too long for a Pacer! (60% of people using Halifax station travel to/from Leeds.)

Are you making the mistake of taking the figure for Bradford "district" (i.e. including separate towns like Keighley and Ilkley, spread across a large area of West Yorkshire) and comparing it against just the urban population of Southport?

Pacers would be okay for a stand alone Halifax - Bradford - Leeds service on some criteria (in terms of line speed, passenger duration etc), but the problem that this section of the Calder Valley has is the capacity - individual Pacers are too short to cope with passenger numbers. If every service were doubled up (like Southport gets) then Pacers may be more appropriate.

To be equally dogmatic and ridiculous and ignore all the inconvenient facts that don't agree with my rant...

GET LOST, THOSE OF US IN LONDON AND THE SOUTH EAST SUBSIDISE THE NORTH TOO MUCH ALREADY. CLOSE THE WHOLE ECONOMIC BASKET CASE THAT IS NORTHERN RAIL DOWN.

Back in the real world, look at total Government spend, business caost analyses, population density ect rather than chosing one metric (even that skewed as it includes private sector spend also) which happens to support your hobby horse.

WRONG YET AGAIN. The most heavily subsidised TOC is LOROL so pull your neck in. How about closing down that then?

What are your proposals for the organisation that will take over from Northern Rail after the closure that you make reference to has occurred?

I think that you need to re-read what Wolfie is saying...

By going with an entirely post-privatisation fleet (or that plus Turbos), you almost entirely ommit a sector which is likely to be one of the last to be fully wired up. Regional express. Is 27 175s really going to be enough to cover it all? We would need to keep 158s and 159s as well in my opinion, and is electrification going to proceed fast enough to allow enough of those to be cascaded about to provide increased capacity on regional express routes?

Ordering new DMUs to replace Pacers and 150s makes no sense since there are plenty of things like Turbostars and 165/166 type units to cascade to replace them. The 158s and 159s though are irreplaceable with anything we have at the moment. In future, regional express services are likely to run on routes which are part-electrified (sometimes mostly electrified). For example:

• Manchester - Llandudno (wired Manchester - Chester?)
• Cardiff - Portsmouth (wired Cardiff - Bath, 3rd rail Southampton - Portsmouth)
• Waterloo - Exeter (3rd rail towards the London end)
• Swansea/Cardiff - Manchester (wired MAN-Crewe and SWA-CDF)
• Aberystwyth - Birmingham (wired Birmingham - Shrewsbury?)
• Liverpool/Manchester - Norwich (actually, this one might not be under the wires for very long if it is cut back from Liverpool to Manchester)
• Glasgow/Edinburgh - Inverness (under wires to Stirling)

I my opinion, there is a wide wider range of possible part-electrified routes for regional express than INTERCITY and therefore a much stronger case for electro-diesels than INTERCITY. Yet bi-modes for INTERCITY are the future, so why not order some tri-mode (AC, DC, Diesel) regional express units (a design bringing together the best features of 159/442/444/175) for Waterloo-Exeter and perhaps Cardiff-Portsmouth? That would provide a nice cascade of 158s and 159s to help confine the dreaded 150s and Pacers to short distance workings. The problem then becomes how to make the Pacer have enough capacity despite the accessible toilet

It’s an interesting question that you raise, but the 175s certainly aren’t the only 100mph units capable of running such services.

One of the problems with DMU procurement since privatisation is that many “Provincial” TOCs have focussed too much on “flagship” services and too little on “common or garden” ones. A good example of this is Central Trains, who invested in new 170s on their high profile “Central Citylink” services (replacing relatively modern 158s) but didn’t do anything to replace the older 150s on the less glamorous Snow Hill line.

So, I’d argue the opposite – that (instead of bringing in 75mph DMUs with good acceleration to replace Pacers) we’ve focussed too much on DMUs suitable for middle distance services. We have over two hundred and fifty modern 100mph DMUs (168, 170, 171, 172, 175, 185) capable of running middle distance services, but the only two 139s at the bottom end of the food chain.

Frustratingly, CP5 electrification will directly replace more 100mph units (ScotRail 170s from Edinburgh to Glasgow, TPE 185s from Newcastle to Liverpool and from Manchester to Blackpool, LM 170s from Rugeley to Birmingham...) than Pacers.

This means a surfeit of 100mph DMUs, rather than a shortage. So, if there’s a problem it’s the problem of putting fast units with poor acceleration on slow routes where regular stops mean good acceleration is more useful.

Also, there’s a chance that even more “middle distance” routes will be electrified or chopped up in CP6 (e.g. the idea of Liverpool – Sheffield – Hull/Nottingham suggests splitting the current Liverpool – Norwich service in CP5 and electrifying the western side of it in CP6, when lines like Erewash and Hope Valley will be natural “follow ons” from CP5 wiring).

(please don’t tell me that the door configuration of a unit is what makes it suitable to work long distances, rather than the top speed and engines)

Usage at Leeds is 26.6m annually for a city of only 450,000. That is good compared all other cities except London and Birmingham. This figure could be higher but is choked off due to capacity crunch at Leeds. 17 platforms are not enough and NR want to build another bay platform and two through platforms to accommodate continuing growth. How many £billions was spent increasing capacity on Thameslink? Was it six or seven or eight? £300m was spent just lengthening platforms at Waterloo.

Northern and TPEx are running around with short formations and an overly intense service because platforms are not being lengthened

...compared to the best part of £20m being spent on a new entrance at Leeds (that won't add any extra platforms or allow any trains to be lenghened)?

TBH I think that seventeen platforms would be enough at Leeds if trains were longer. Plus, if you electrify more routes, you improve the interworking (e.g. an incoming Harrogate service currently has to wait at Leeds, taking up platform space, before becoming the next outgoing Harrogate service - if Harrogate were electrified then the incoming Harrogate EMU could form the next outgoing Ilkley EMU, thus less layover required)... the "electric horseshoe would allow London services to only occupy a platform at Leeds for five or ten minutes... little things add up.

The problem that Leeds has is train lengths - the short Pacers and Sprinters at Leeds aren't banging up against platform capacity - I can't think of many platforms where there'd be problems if they became a 4x20m EMU (like a 319).

 

[Rhydgaled]

It’s an interesting question that you raise, but the 175s certainly aren’t the only 100mph units capable of running such services.

...

So, I’d argue the opposite – that (instead of bringing in 75mph DMUs with good acceleration to replace Pacers) we’ve focussed too much on DMUs suitable for middle distance services. We have over two hundred and fifty modern 100mph DMUs (168, 170, 171, 172, 175, 185) capable of running middle distance services, but the only two 139s at the bottom end of the food chain.

...

(please don’t tell me that the door configuration of a unit is what makes it suitable to work long distances, rather than the top speed and engines)

Capable and suitable/appropriate are two different things. Indeed, all the classes you mention are capable of working middle-distance services but the 175 is the only one of those classes which has the door layout to make it appropriate for regional express services. The door configuration of the other units makes them outer-suburban types. Yes, outer-suburban services are middle-distance services, but they arre middle-distance secondary services with more stops. They are not the middle-to-long-distance primary fast services (such as TPE between Leeds/York and Manchester/Liverpool, the Cardiff-Portsmouth service and the Manchester-Swansea part of ATW's MAN-CMN/Milford route).

You've probably already heard this from me, but if my brother (not a rail enthusiast by any means, and somebody who very rarely uses trains) is sent off to Nottingham (we dropped him at Port Talbot) and reports back that 'the doors were in the wrong place', what does that tell you?

 

[deltic08]

You simply don’t, won’t or can’t get it!

What figures do you want? Mine are based on:

a) Where the busiest stations are. Hint. Leeds is 11th, Manchester 15th, Liverpool central 28th and Lime Street 29th out of 30. The others (except the Glasgow and Edinburgh stations) are in the SE

b) Of the 10 busiest lines in the country ALL are in the south east.

c) The subsidy figures (linked above) suggest Northern get much more than anyone else. Yours are based on a skewed/biased projection from a political pressure group.

d) The most passenger carrying TOCs are located in or serve the SE.

e) The population of the respective areas is massively different

f) The employment possibilities of the are areas vastly skewed in favour of the south and they are, sadly, only going to get worse

g) The number of people using the train to get to work in the south is substantially more than in the north as is the number of people in employment.

h) The intensity with which the infrastructure is worked in the SE is greater than in the north, even for passengers before you consider the freight use.

These are all publically available statistics. Why not start here http://orr.gov.uk/statistics or here http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html

I have shown you mine. Let see yours.

No, because you will just say yours is bigger and better. Size is not everything you know. Don't, won't or can't is perceptive of you. Won't is the answer until the North gets a fairer share of the cake.

 

[DarloRich]

No, because you will just say yours is bigger and better. Size is not everything you know. Don't, won't or can't is perceptive of you. Won't is the answer until the North gets a fairer share of the cake.

Fine – but neither are you offering realistic reasons why equal funding would be equitable or how you would avoid simply tipping money away in pointless projects or how you would generate a return on the invested money or how investing that money in the north would be better (or offer better value for money) than investing it in the south.

To me, sensible, targeted investment is the way forward rather than a blanket we must have equality approach. For instance a wider and deeper electrification programme on the back of TP would offer so many travel benefits to the northern region. I mean wiring up Middlesbrough, Hull, Harrogate etc. That brings newer trains, releases trains to other routes, strengthens services, drives the need for platform extension and better stations and so on. It makes Leeds the centre of a wide electric network like Manchester. I would also say investment in the Metro network in the North East with extensions down the Leamside line and beyond St James would help.

However lots of that will go to waste unless there are enough jobs to service the capacity that such schemes can provide. That needs investment too and a more sensible government policy on employment generation in run down areas. Unless the leeching of jobs south stops soon there will be very little quality employment (or wealth) left in the north. There also needs to be an acceptance that in getting better services and infrastructure some more of the cost has to be carried by the passenger.

 

[Greybeard33]

So, I’d argue the opposite – that (instead of bringing in 75mph DMUs with good acceleration to replace Pacers) we’ve focussed too much on DMUs suitable for middle distance services. We have over two hundred and fifty modern 100mph DMUs (168, 170, 171, 172, 175, 185) capable of running middle distance services, but the only two 139s at the bottom end of the food chain.

Frustratingly, CP5 electrification will directly replace more 100mph units (ScotRail 170s from Edinburgh to Glasgow, TPE 185s from Newcastle to Liverpool and from Manchester to Blackpool, LM 170s from Rugeley to Birmingham...) than Pacers.

This means a surfeit of 100mph DMUs, rather than a shortage. So, if there’s a problem it’s the problem of putting fast units with poor acceleration on slow routes where regular stops mean good acceleration is more useful.

Are you sure about the "poor acceleration", relative to Pacers? My perception as a passenger is that a heavily-laden 142 really struggles to move off from a stand, particularly if the rails are at all slippery.

Just because a unit is capable of 100mph it does not have to be used on services that need that capability. I am sure that most Northern commuters would be delighted if an "unsuitable" 17x turned up in place of their regular Pacer! After all, Pacers themselves are hardly suitable/appropriate for many of the services they are currently used on.