Why do you think 197s are not suitable for growth? They have gangways and are planned to run as 5-car, which is much more than we ever had with 175s.
Just so long as the toilet (only plural if you're lucky) works, the air-conditioning works, the engines work, you've got one with more than two carriages... I can rant for half an hour without hesitation, deviation or repitition on the subject of the shortcomings of 197s, they are many and varied - everything from the useless catering cupboard to the position of the bins.
I agree about the toilets, but that is just about ordering more toilets and making sure that the longer distance trains are indeed run with the planned units.
More of a reliability issue than anything. Do you want to comment on the aircon issues? At least
I can't remember having a toilet fault with a 153. How many toilets work is more important than how many toilets you have on paper.
A 755 (of any formation) has two toilets. Perhaps someone from Anglia would like to comment upon the reliability of them.
The AC issue is problematic, but is not something I have personally experienced. Hopefully, that is fixable because clearly it is no good having trains that overheat.
That's the thing. You can't short-form a fixed-formation unit. Therefore you have to order a larger fleet to avoid cancellations. 2+2 is the cheap way as you can get away with fewer vehicles on the basis that short-forms don't appear in the cancellation statistics (and if the train is timetabled as 2 coaches in the first place, it doesnt' even go into the short-form stats and no one cares that passengers get left behind), but then the people making the decisions aren't the ones facing the wrath of the passengers who can't physically get on the train (having not been able to board the train before it either, nor the one before that).
Haven't the 197s been around a bit long to still be having teething issues?
Each unit supplied with its own megabog, catering cupboard, two cabs...
Why not more 197s? If you want to simply add capacity on the long distance routes, a fleet of high end coaches (integrated into the rail ticketing system) acting as relief services for the actual services and stopping only at major stations would be cheaper, arguably similar quality and faster to deliver.
Why is it so terrible?
Where would you send the Stadlers to replace 197s? The answer is nowhere unless you start spreading them around the country where the only place they would be of any use where the 4 car capacity would be of any use is Chester - Liverpool and Chester - Crewe and even then its stretching it. The fuel range on the 231's is awful.
Things may have changed since the plans were circulated, but it was certainly the intention that the Chester-Llandudno leg of the Liverpool service would be formed of two coaches, as would the Shrewsbury-Holyhead leg of the Birmingham-Holyhead service.
Even better, you could convert them to luggage or pram storage. 197s have half of the luggage capacity that 175s had, and they couldn't cope with the holiday or airport flows they worked.
So now you want buses rather than just ordering more 197s. Earlier you were going on about modal shift and now you want to use buses instead of the 197, buses that run on the same roads that you want cars to come off of.
Have you seen the sort of luggage that people bring to Rhyl in the summer? IATA carry-on bags are not to be seen. It's 120L suitcases with the odd bin bag thrown in. Plus the prams which appear to have gone the same way cars have gone (out with the sensible compact and in with the SUV) - and when you ask them to fold the things down "you're just a f***ing f****t" (that took months to get to court and she got fined £200).
The theory was that they would run as a pair between Liverpool and Chester, then splitting for Llandudno and Cardiff. The Birminghams would run as a pair between Birmingham and Shrewsbury before splitting with the second set presumably attaching straight to a portion going back to Brum. You can presumably see why we traincrew think that this is idiotic.
Around a 50% increase. Just enough to mop up the passengers currently left on the platform. I'm sure that I don't need to tell you what happened when Virgin XC tried "running short trains at more frequent intervals".
Well, it'd be a better, more scaleable investment to use coaches (in comparison to a few 197s for the price of tens of coaches).
Very true, though on Sunday it unusually wasn't their train service that failed to turn up, but their replacement bus. The passengers for which ended up on a TfW one two hours later which didn't help the situation of the 197 that said TfW bus connected with failing due to no a/c (among an extensive list of other faults).
Would you like to go out and meet some passengers? I'm sure that they'd tell you what they thought of this idea. TfW already uses road coaches for extra capacity on busy days (both timed journeys and as standby cover) because the 197 fleet cannot cope. They're very much a last resort for the public - they'll use them if they're the only things that will get them home.
I wasn't saying that they were the best option if money is available to invest! I don't see the point of more substandard units.
The 197s aren't planned to operate those routes long term though, you'd be displacing 231s which could be converted to electric anyways
Though there are planned to be a lot of 197 going between Cardiff and Swansea, the 197s are going between places beyond Swansea and, in not as large numbers, places beyond Newport that have no wires. Electrification of Cardiff to Swansea struggles really because only GWR have strong benefit.
Sorry, you totally lost me.
I just don't see the point of more 197s if they give up on the Mk4/67 combo. More 175s coming back would make more sense.
Going of this forum and WNXX, GWR is very likely to be getting the 175s. Given the current experience of TfW handing the units back, I suspect Angel would choose GWR over TfW keeping them.
You do understand that TfW crews can no longer work 175s, so that would require training.
Totally agree. To those who say "oh but then the train would be cancelled instead" I say that simply means the trains are not reliable enough. I don't think there are notably more cancellations on Thameslink owing to unit faults compared with the 319s 10 years ago. I shall use my GWR example again. Never had a cancelled HST in 25 years, aside from days where the whole railway had gone into meltdown. My morning runs up to Paddington would all have come off Landore depot where there were few, if any, spare sets. Short formations with the IETs are well into double figures now.
Due to failure, or because the IETs are being used on routes they were not ordered for. I do agree there are too many short forms on Swansea services though.