Any changes that could be made to reduce costs of 222s?
Can you take off a power pack or two, or would that cost too much and cause problems such as losing rheostatic braking?
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Potential stock for future Nottingham to Liverpool services?
- Thread starter MML
- Start date
- Status
Can you take off a power pack or two, or would that cost too much and cause problems such as losing rheostatic braking?
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
TheBigD
Established Member
- Joined
- 19 Nov 2008
- Messages
- 1,995
As 2+3 car an increase in capacity of around 40 seats but as 2+2 cars a decrease in capacity of around 40 seats, depending on the interior layout.
As an example, if your 170s had the XC interior, a 2+2 car would be 18 first and 226 std, a 2+3 car would be 18 first and 306 std, compared to the 284 seat capacity of the current 4 car 158 operation.
170 operation would be far better for dwell times on platforms 13/14 at Piccadilly though.
Last edited:
Failed Unit
Established Member
Possible but not as good as multiple 158s because of lack of corridor connections. They did it in central trains days.
Liverpool South Parkway (5 car), Widnes (4), Warrington Central (5 car, 6 if you're allowed to use the extensions), Chinley (4 car), Dore (4 car), Dronfield (4 car), Langley Mill (4 car) and Ilkeston (4 car) are the core route short platforms, not including once a day additional stops like the Hope Valley stations. I think Hunts Cross and Irlam cease to be calls in December anyway.
If you fit the 158s with selective door opening as per the 159s it would cease to be a problem once the passengers got used to where they needed to be.
Bevan Price
Established Member
- Joined
- 22 Apr 2010
- Messages
- 7,397
2 car 170s (standard class only) have 15-20 fewer seats than 2 car 158s.
XC Class 170s lose another 10 or so standard class seats because they waste space by providing 1st class seats.
Whistler40145
Established Member
Would any 175s be of use once TfW receive the 197s?
It has been indicated that the 158s are staying so 175s aren't needed.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...liverpool-services.226718/page-3#post-5538036
Whistler40145
Established Member
Personally I think the 156s are outdated and don't give a good ride
That is a matter of opinion. I assume you mean 158s. 156s aren't relevant as they aren't being retained by EMR.
Whistler40145
Established Member
My eyes are blurry, so I meant 158s,the best units through the Hope Valley are 185s
Purple Orange
On Moderation
How far in to the future are we talking here? Post HS2 significant numbers making the journey from the north west will have a much faster journey by changing at Birmingham Curzon Street or Birmingham Interchange with a higher frequency of services than 1 tph taking over 3 hours from Manchester to Nottingham, let alone from Liverpool.
On that basis, the main flows from the north west would be to Sheffield and while a service might continue to Nottingham, I’d anticipate rolling stock equivalent to a 185 in 6-car formation (possibly bi-mode), performing as a semi-fast. However I would expect people to be encouraged to make the change and do the journey in about 90 minutes with a change, rather than 180-200 minutes direct.
On that basis, the main flows from the north west would be to Sheffield and while a service might continue to Nottingham, I’d anticipate rolling stock equivalent to a 185 in 6-car formation (possibly bi-mode), performing as a semi-fast. However I would expect people to be encouraged to make the change and do the journey in about 90 minutes with a change, rather than 180-200 minutes direct.
quantinghome
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Jun 2013
- Messages
- 2,265
True, and why would you even run Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield-Nottingham if the end points are better served by HS2? Split the service and run more frequent Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield-Hull/Grimsby and Leeds-Sheffield-Nottingham services.
Killingworth
Established Member
We probaly have another 10 years to get through before that plays out, but it may be a good point.
They are bulky, low density and the vast majority of the route has a speed limit below 100mph. Even with upgrades you suggest they would be better on Cross Country routes.
Bevan Price
Established Member
- Joined
- 22 Apr 2010
- Messages
- 7,397
Manchester to Nottingham takes under 2 hours, not 3 hours. Even Liverpool to Nottingham is only about 2hours 40 minutes.
You also ignore that many passengers prefer a through train, rather than having to change.
And we are yet to discover what kind of fare increases will be necessary to pay for HS2 construction & operations.
Those fare increases will apply to all services, not just those on HS2. If the only railway between Liverpool and Nottingham was HS2, the economies of scale from concentrating the operation on a high density route would probably be cheaper than the traditional one.
Purple Orange
On Moderation
Yes it’s not 3 hours, I read along a service that involves a change. Still, many passengers might prefer a direct train, but many more don’t want to waste time travelling when they don’t need to. The journey time saving will still be too good on HS2 for most people to waste time on the direct train. It is a common theme on a rail forum full of people interested in the railway, that it is easy to forget that most people don’t share the same interest. The train is just a means of getting people to their destination and if an hour in your day can be saved, it will be taken.
Manchester-Birmingham Curzon Street or Interchange on HS2 will take 40-45 mins. Then on to
Nottingham will take 25 mins, with 2 tph on each leg. It would take a monumental screw up with connections for the direct service to get you there faster.
There may not be fare increases, yes HS2 will cost a lot to build, however in the last decade there's been £30bn of investment in enhancements to NR infrastructure.
However even if that wasn't the case, the cost of running HS2 services will be cheaper.
Take for example the number of coaches required to run a mix of 9 and 11 coach 390's at 3tph taking 5 hours to undertake the round trip between London and Manchester that's between 135 (all 9 coaches) and 165 (all 11 coaches) coaches. How many more do we need to run HS2 services with 16 coaches?
Actually broadly the same, as the round trip journey time reduces to 3 hours. It works out at 142 coaches. However the capacity had significantly increased. Rather than the total of seats from a 9 coach and an 11 coach train coming in at 1,048 seats a single HS2 service is expected to have 1,100 seats.
However that's only part of the benefit of the faster journeys, now currently (assuming a driver and guard stay with the same train all shift) over 8 hours you could run London, Manchester, London, Manchester then stop. With HS2 there'd be enough shift to do London, Manchester, London, Manchester, London, Manchester. As such to run the same frequency of service you'd need fewer staff.
(Clearly such a pattern would never work as you'd be ending shifts away from where you start, however it's useful to illustrate the extra that the same staff could do).
Now whilst energy costs will increase, they tend to be a fairly small cost, with things like lease costs and staff costs being fairly significant costs, all of which could be reduced.
If the costs per seat are lower then the income per seat can be reduced. For example if costs stayed the same (lower staff costs, lower least costs, higher energy costs, higher track access charges, etc.) and we only double the seating capacity then it would be possible (if the percentage of seats occupied remained the same) then the average ticket price could halve.
Now obviously HS2 aren't going to cut all their tickets by 50%, however what it shows is for the lower priced tickets to stay the same whilst reducing by a bit more than 50% the highest priced tickets. As such £40 tickets probably wouldn't reduce in costs, however a £220 ticket may reduce to (say) £100 (assuming that you can double the number of people who pay each of those prices).
However that's working on the assumption that low cost things (like track access charges and energy use) increase by enough to offset the larger savings from the higher cost things (like staff costs and lease costs).
If there's areas where costs are likely to increase it'll be good to know, as currently the balance appears to be that reduced ticket prices should be viable site to the extra capacity and the resided costs on two of the large costs (leasing and staff costs).
Doesn't help Liverpool much, though, if there's no Lime Street to Curzon Street service, nor direct services to Interchange; as the various prospective service patterns we've seen over the years have tended to indicate.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The walk from New St to Curzon St is about the same as that from Lime St to Central, which people do all the time despite there being a train service. It does need tidying up unlike the latter (it feels quite rough at night) but I'm sure that will be dealt with in due course.
If you can take power packs off then the current design speed is only relevant in wasted space at the cab ends (but is it usable for bike spaces etc?)
Its not an ideal situation, but if the 222s were available cheap, and fuel costs could be reduced, and the 158s could be better used elsewhere then its a possible interim solution until greener options are possible.
The business case will never be better than for routes which they are suited to. Cross Country services would top that list. Any operator needing 100mph+ diesel trains would be a more suitable home than EMR regional.
How many operators need 100mph+ diesel trains, bearing in mind the Avanti West Coast ones will be available too?
Plenty of homes for 158s elsewhere
None, other than the existing fleets.
TheBigD
Established Member
- Joined
- 19 Nov 2008
- Messages
- 1,995
Possibly Grand Central if they want to replace the 180s with something more reliable.
RailWonderer
Established Member
Those TfW 158s should go to Northern to displace 150s and 156s and let the outgoing 175s operate Nottingham Liverpool for EMR to use. They will most likely use 170s and 158s though.
Why? 158s aren't the ideal class to replace 150 work.
Cross Country. They were very overloaded pre pandemic and by the time the Meridians are freed up the demand on Cross Country should have more or less returned. Their intercity services should be double Voyagers or Double Meridians.
They will have to come up with a business case that stacks up to use any additional trains. Revenue and costs rather than overcrowding will dictate whether they use additional rolling stock. It is conceivable that CrossCountry don't get any other stock than whatever they need to eliminate the HSTs.
Grumpy Git
On Moderation
Exactly this as they don't run in the "important" part of the country. "Levelling-Up" and "Northern Powerhouse" are nothing but semantics. The only people who have benefitted are the PR companies paid to dish-up the bullcarp..
- Status