Should there be a follow on order for GWR to extend their 80x's?

[The Ham]

That's not what I said i was asked about travelling on an IET to the west country but I can easily get 1V44 from New Street its still a booked HST at the moment.

I know what you said, I was saying that you can't be sure that a HST will always be an option, as XC could change their rolling stock as part of the next franchise.

 

[nat67]

otherwise in that case travel via either Worcester or plane, then GWR GTI set.

 

[The Ham]

By way of comparison it would seem from Wikipedia (so if anyone has a more authoritative source I'd be welcome to hear it!!) that there were only 848 Mk3 carriages built. So we've already got more IET vehicles on the books than the venerable Mk3 and there may yet be more to be ordered and delivered!

I believe if you add in the Mark 4's as well you still end up with the 80x's outnumbering the two fleets combined.

 

[FGW_DID]

It's funny how some people (who were so prolific on IET threads a few years ago) now seem to be quiet... weren't trollies going to struggle to get along the humped carriages, and the Guard would need to hand out ear-muffs because of the incessant din?

I concur, in fact as I type this I’m in the vestibule of 800028 and the trolley has just breezed past me, no struggle, no block & tackle and there was no problem hearing the cheery greeting from the Customer Host!

 

[43096]

Yes that's very true. I think sometimes people forget that quite how large the IET fleet is looking at being. Between the units in service, being built/delivered/commissioned and on order there are a total of 182 sets comprising a total of 1,222 vehicles. That's a very large fleet of trains. Plus there may be more in the future with East Midlands Railway and the future Inter City Cross Country franchise as well as any extras that may or may not be required on the GW franchise.

By way of comparison it would seem from Wikipedia (so if anyone has a more authoritative source I'd be welcome to hear it!!) that there were only 848 Mk3 carriages built. So we've already got more IET vehicles on the books than the venerable Mk3 and there may yet be more to be ordered and delivered!

Only 848 Mark 3s built? In total? Utter nonsense.

Totals were (as built):
- 10 x prototype
- 294 x LHCS day coaches
- 723 x HST coaches
- 208 x sleepers
- 52 x DVTs
- 4 x Royal Train
- 120 x Class 442

So even excluding the sleepers, Royal Train, 442s and DVTs, over 1,000 Mark 3s were built.

That doesn't include the 134 vehicles built for Ireland, either, nor the 20m "suburban" shell version of the Mark 3 (which is another 2,149 cars).

 

[swt_passenger]

Don't we really need more time to say whether GWR need more 80Xs? They've barely started getting the 9 coach 800s into service so there are presumably many services that aren't running with their final allocation of stock yet. I think you'd be more looking at December 2019 when Crossrail has started running to Reading and the 387, 769, and 80X deployments are complete to say there's insufficient stock and more needs ordering. The production line will still be running for the 802s so there doesn't appear to be a risk of not being able to order more from that POV. Indeed any order would have to wait until the existing orders were completed, no?

I do think that to some extent people aren't comparing the eventual full fleet numbers. I wonder where we'd be now if DfT had contracted for Hitachi to build all the 9 car trains before starting on the 5s...

 

[43096]

I wonder where we'd be now if DfT had contracted for Hitachi to build all the 9 car trains before starting on the 5s...

In an utter, utter mess, as the 9-cars were intended to be electric-only 801s when ordered. With them being later built it has given MTU the chance to build the extra diesel power packs needed.

 

[route:oxford]

The simple answer is... Yes, there should.

There isn't a single unit, built since the 1980s, where within 5 years or so there wasn't a market for a further dozen or so.

So, a canny investor would probably have a dozen 9 car sets for spot hire.

 

[jimm]

16.22 GWR service from Paddington to Great Malvern today

IET unit operating it was nine-car set 800305 with 640+ seats, in place of the booked five-car set with 325 seats.

Passenger count conducted after I joined the service at Reading, walking the full length of the set. First class was at the front end of the train.

Coach A - 28 passengers
Coach B - 53
Coach C - 50
Coach F - 46
Coach G - 30
Coach H - 28
Coach J - 33
Coaches K and L - first class, 18

Total 286 passengers.

Some of the excess seats did come in handy at Oxford, as the 15.52 HST to Moreton-in-Marsh had been terminated there to avoid conflict with a service coming from Worcester on the single-line section to Charlbury.

 

[route:oxford]

16.22 GWR service from Paddington to Great Malvern today

IET unit operating it was nine-car set 800305 with 640+ seats, in place of the booked five-car set with 325 seats.

Passenger count conducted after I joined the service at Reading, walking the full length of the set. First class was at the front end of the train.

Coach A - 28 passengers
Coach B - 53
Coach C - 50
Coach F - 46
Coach G - 30
Coach H - 28
Coach J - 33
Coaches K and L - first class, 18

Total 286 passengers.

Some of the excess seats did come in handy at Oxford, as the 15.52 HST to Moreton-in-Marsh had been terminated there to avoid conflict with a service coming from Worcester on the single-line section to Charlbury.

So essentially the 9 car set was the right set to use on that service, and for all but 23 minutes of the journey would be well loaded. On the return journey, it would still be running peak services from Oxford and Reading at 18:04 & 18:29.

 

[jimm]

How exactly is a train that does not reach Great Malvern until 19.24 meant to be working the 18.04 from Oxford? That departure is formed by the return working from Moreton-in-Marsh (leaves 17.38) of the preceding 15.52 HST from Paddington.

And do you have a problem with maths?

A five-car set on the 16.22 would have had 40 empty seats between Reading and Oxford - ie 88% seat occupancy, which, to my mind at least, indicates it is well-suited to operation by a 326-seat five-car IET, comfortably handling what was a typical loading for that service and having a margin in hand for the odd extra-busy day/growth in traffic.

In contrast, the nine-car set achieved the less than stunning seat occupancy figure of 45%.

Its capacity would have been far better deployed as a replacement for the jam-packed HST that was working the 16.15 from Paddington to Swansea that runs just ahead of the 16.22.

Had the 16.22 not needed to pick up the 15.52's passengers as well, it would have been just fine handling its regular load out of Oxford and once the service had called at Hanborough, all of eight minutes out of Oxford and where lots of people got off, there were acres of empty seats once again, with yet more after Charlbury.

 

[JN114]

Sat in the office having this very conversation with colleagues.

Extending some 5 cars to 9 - definitely. If there was more portion and short off-peak working planned the quantity of 5 cars is about right. But as has been said in various threads the longer term plans still have 5+5 sets diagrammed to be together all day. 5+5 offers broadly the same capacity as a straight 9. I’d propose lengthening enough 5s to largely eliminate all-day 5+5 diagrams.

9s to 10s I’m less sure of. There are a lot of places 10s are too long for on the Network - they can only use 1 platform at Gloucester (4) to name but one example. It would remain an option longer-term, but for the time being with the additional services planned I really don’t see the capacity being required - especially if the ratios of 9s to 5s is reversed.

I’m tending to agree with @irish_rail that the luggage space is looking to be insufficient for West of England services. While we’re all yet to see the final internal fit out of the 802s I can’t imagine it being miles away from that on the 800s. The “solution” here I would propose is lengthen the 9 coach 802s to 10 cars, and partition the standard class driving vehicle in much the same way the First Class driving vehicle is partitioned for the Kitchen. The dead space created could thus be used as a luggage van, perhaps with a small refreshment servery dividing the luggage area and saloon. Seating throughout the set could be reconfigured with a few more tables and the resulting loss of capacity made up for with the addition of a 4th MeS (Motor Engine Standard) coach; so the sets are thence formed:

DPTSB-MeS-MeS-TpS-MeS-MeS-TS-MeC-MeF-DPTFK

DPTSB - Driving Pantograph Trailer Standard Brake
MeS - Motor Engine Standard
TpS - Trailer Power Standard
TS - Trailer Standard
MeC - Motor Engine Composite
MeF - Motor Engine First
DPTFK - Driving Pantograph Trailer First Kitchen

 

[route:oxford]

How exactly is a train that does not reach Great Malvern until 19.24 meant to be working the 18.04 from Oxford? That departure is formed by the return working from Moreton-in-Marsh (leaves 17.38) of the preceding 15.52 HST from Paddington.

And do you have a problem with maths?

A five-car set on the 16.22 would have had 40 empty seats between Reading and Oxford - ie 88% seat occupancy, which, to my mind at least, indicates it is well-suited to operation by a 326-seat five-car IET, comfortably handling what was a typical loading for that service and having a margin in hand for the odd extra-busy day/growth in traffic.

In contrast, the nine-car set achieved the less than stunning seat occupancy figure of 45%.

Its capacity would have been far better deployed as a replacement for the jam-packed HST that was working the 16.15 from Paddington to Swansea that runs just ahead of the 16.22.

Had the 16.22 not needed to pick up the 15.52's passengers as well, it would have been just fine handling its regular load out of Oxford and once the service had called at Hanborough, all of eight minutes out of Oxford and where lots of people got off, there were acres of empty seats once again, with yet more after Charlbury.

Ok I picked up the wrong working in the diagram.

No, I don't have a problem with maths.

But in for a penny, in for a pound. Rampant nationalist Highland37 had a massive tantrum and had me banned for a week last week, it's nice weather so might as well do it again.

So here we go.

You're curmudgeonly fud who has no time for anyone's views but their own and clearly has a massive chip on their shoulder about their fellow travellers from Oxford. Not everyone who uses the station is "gown" or lives in £M homes.

(Oh and note to moderators. The banning system doesn't meet GDPR standards - just so you know.)

 

[jimm]

I see no need whatever for the moderators to ban you for that bit of huffing and puffing. Hasn't upset me in the slightest, coming from you.

No idea what anything I said above, or anywhere else, suggests I have a chip on my shoulder about the people using trains around Oxford and I'm well aware of the social make-up of the city of Oxford.

 

[GrimShady]

Will the GWR Pullman dining continue now the HSTs are on the way out?

 

[JN114]

Will the GWR Pullman dining continue now the HSTs are on the way out?

Yes, the Swansea Pullmans are already IET operated.

 

[DenmarkRail]

The first class seating / sector as a whole is just 50x worse than a HST... Just compare the seats, its horrible to see...

 

[Elecman]

Only 848 Mark 3s built? In total? Utter nonsense.

Totals were (as built):
- 10 x prototype
- 294 x LHCS day coaches
- 723 x HST coaches
- 208 x sleepers
- 52 x DVTs
- 4 x Royal Train
- 120 x Class 442

So even excluding the sleepers, Royal Train, 442s and DVTs, over 1,000 Mark 3s were built.

That doesn't include the 134 vehicles built for Ireland, either, nor the 20m "suburban" shell version of the Mark 3 (which is another 2,149 cars).

I thought there were only 2 mk3s in the Royal Train ?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I thought there were only 2 mk3s in the Royal Train ?

9 x Mk3 and 2 x Mk2

 

[The Ham]

9 x Mk3 and 2 x Mk2

As I understand it done of those Mark 3's are from the prototype batch.

Anyway, it's already very closer in numbers to the numbers of Mark 3's and follow on order could push numbers above that.

 

[delticdave]

16.22 GWR service from Paddington to Great Malvern today

IET unit operating it was nine-car set 800305 with 640+ seats, in place of the booked five-car set with 325 seats.

Passenger count conducted after I joined the service at Reading, walking the full length of the set. First class was at the front end of the train.

Coach A - 28 passengers
Coach B - 53
Coach C - 50
Coach F - 46
Coach G - 30
Coach H - 28
Coach J - 33
Coaches K and L - first class, 18

Total 286 passengers.

Some of the excess seats did come in handy at Oxford, as the 15.52 HST to Moreton-in-Marsh had been terminated there to avoid conflict with a service coming from Worcester on the single-line section to Charlbury.

Seems about right to me, no-one would have to sit next to a stranger......

 

[CC 72100]

Seems about right to me, no-one would have to sit next to a stranger......

if people feel that way, I'd humbly suggest that public transport is not for them.

 

[jayah]

16.22 GWR service from Paddington to Great Malvern today

IET unit operating it was nine-car set 800305 with 640+ seats, in place of the booked five-car set with 325 seats.

Passenger count conducted after I joined the service at Reading, walking the full length of the set. First class was at the front end of the train.

Coach A - 28 passengers
Coach B - 53
Coach C - 50
Coach F - 46
Coach G - 30
Coach H - 28
Coach J - 33
Coaches K and L - first class, 18

Total 286 passengers.

Some of the excess seats did come in handy at Oxford, as the 15.52 HST to Moreton-in-Marsh had been terminated there to avoid conflict with a service coming from Worcester on the single-line section to Charlbury.

I think the question there is why is there a 30min frequency north of Oxford at that time of day in the first place? Especially if the timetable is so fragile the 1552 comes back non stop from Moreton in Marsh to Oxford presumably to avoid some single line conflict that makes it vulnerable to either causing delay or getting canned itself.

Without this doubling up of services which also happens later in the evening from London, it would be more logical to work around a 7/10 car fleet size for off peak and peak trains, with Oxford services eventually worked by 387s as originally intended.

 

[The Ham]

I think the question there is why is there a 30min frequency north of Oxford at that time of day in the first place? Especially if the timetable is so fragile the 1552 comes back non stop from Moreton in Marsh to Oxford presumably to avoid some single line conflict that makes it vulnerable to either causing delay or getting canned itself.

Without this doubling up of services which also happens later in the evening from London, it would be more logical to work around a 7/10 car fleet size for off peak and peak trains, with Oxford services eventually worked by 387s as originally intended.

Genuine question, what do you think would happen in the following two scenarios:

Option one, 5, 9 and 10 coach units. A 10 coach unit fails there's two spare 5 coach units available, they are run as a pair.

Option two, 7 and 10 coach units. A 10 coach unit fails there's two spare 7 coach units available, they are too long to run as a pair so one unit is sent.

Alternatively how about this.

Option one, there's a 5 coach unit booked to run an off peak service, it fails and so a nine coach unit is spare and is sent. Later, during the peak, when the 9 coach unit was due to be used (however is still in traffic and so is at least 60 minutes from being able to run another service) the original 5 coach unit has been fixed and there's a second 5 coach unit spare, so they are sent out as a pair, with the 9 coach being allocated as a spare an hour later.

Option two. There's a 7 coach unit booked to run an off peak service, it fails so a 10 coach unit is sent out. Same applies as above, other than there's two 7 coach units spare to run the peak service rather than the 10 coach unit.

The problem is that often these sorts of things happen, so you would likely that the sending of 7 coach units out during the peaks would happen a lot.

Yes, at the moment there's a lot of 5 coach units being sent out rather than 5+5, however once the full fleet is in place it should become a lot less likely. If it continues to be a problem then the way to fix it is to change more of the 5 coach units to 9 coaches, not to create a few 7 coach units with the same number of coaches, which then limit when/where you can use them.

If you created a fleet of 10 units with 7 coaches with the same number of coaches you could change 5 units to bring 9 coaches. That would reduce the need to use 5+5 trains, but would still give you the flexibility of subbing a 5+5 for a 9 if there's a need to.

Over an hour on a frequency of 2tph a 5 and a 9 coach unit would have the same capacity as the two services run by 7 coach units. Yes you may need to use ticket prices to encourage a balance of passengers with the 5 and 9 coach units. However that's fairy easy, have all the advanced tickets for the 9 coach unit and none in the other, rather than a mix over the two 7 coach units. However you also have the advantage that the 5 coach unit could gain or lose a second 5 coach unit at Oxford for its run to/from London.

10 coach units for the peaks, with a fleet of 9 and 5 coach units to fill in most services. However a 7 coach unit is unlikely to be as flexible as you think it will be.

As discussed elsewhere 7 coach units couldn't mix the coaches between a 5 coach and a 9 coach unit without either requiring seats to be moved between coaches or resulting in a miss match of first/standard class seats between the two units, or a splitting of first class or standard class (as you would probably want a full coach of first class in each, but only 1 full coach and 2 composite coaches).

 

[jimm]

I think the question there is why is there a 30min frequency north of Oxford at that time of day in the first place? Especially if the timetable is so fragile the 1552 comes back non stop from Moreton in Marsh to Oxford presumably to avoid some single line conflict that makes it vulnerable to either causing delay or getting canned itself.

Without this doubling up of services which also happens later in the evening from London, it would be more logical to work around a 7/10 car fleet size for off peak and peak trains, with Oxford services eventually worked by 387s as originally intended.

So here you are back again, and once again making clear that you have next to no idea of/don't care what happens on parts of GWR outside your favourite Reading-London bubble.

There is a 30-minute frequency out of Oxford at that time of day for the simple reason that people use trains in places other than your bubble to do things like travel between the Cotswolds and London, or travel in and out of Oxford for work, college, school, shopping... and rather a lot of those people are heading home during that part of the afternoon.

The numbers travelling have grown substantially in recent years - hardly surprising given Oxford's road congestion problems - meaning an hourly frequency was no longer delivering the required passenger capacity. So GWR amazingly decided that adding another service to the timetable might be a good idea, to help spread out existing loadings and encourage more people to travel by rail.

The 17.38 from Moreton-in-Marsh runs non-stop to Oxford so that it arrives there just after 18.00, in order to maintain the half-hourly fast frequency between Oxford and London.

The key conflict risk affecting the 15.50 from Paddington to Moreton-in-Marsh is in the outbound direction, as a delay to the 15.51 from Worcester stops the 15.50 getting on the single line from Oxford to Charlbury, the place where the 15.50 then crosses the 15.14 from Hereford. Everybody would love to see more Cotswold Line redoubling, but it won't come cheap, so there will be parts of the day when pathing is tight.

I have no idea what this has to do with train lengths - unless you are saying anyone who wants to travel home from Oxford in late afternoon will just have to hang around until whatever time it is that an hourly train, of whatever length and already busy with passengers from London, turns up.

I understand GWR's intention from next year is actually to extend the period there is a roughly half-hourly frequency out of Oxford up the Cotswold Line in late afternoon and early evening - but what do they know...

 

[PHILIPE]

Is all this kicking off again and is it directly involved with ordering additional IETs ?

 

[jimm]

As jayah appears to believe that all GWR's IETs are not long enough, then it would appear to have something to do with extending IETs as per the thread title.

Removing services from the Cotswold Line timetable at a busy time of day would certainly create a need for the trains that were still running to be longer.

But I don't happen to agree that there is either a pressing need for longer IETs generally, or for fewer peak trains on the Cotswold Line.

 

[jayah]

Genuine question, what do you think would happen in the following two scenarios:

Option one, 5, 9 and 10 coach units. A 10 coach unit fails there's two spare 5 coach units available, they are run as a pair.

Option two, 7 and 10 coach units. A 10 coach unit fails there's two spare 7 coach units available, they are too long to run as a pair so one unit is sent.

Alternatively how about this.

Option one, there's a 5 coach unit booked to run an off peak service, it fails and so a nine coach unit is spare and is sent. Later, during the peak, when the 9 coach unit was due to be used (however is still in traffic and so is at least 60 minutes from being able to run another service) the original 5 coach unit has been fixed and there's a second 5 coach unit spare, so they are sent out as a pair, with the 9 coach being allocated as a spare an hour later.

Option two. There's a 7 coach unit booked to run an off peak service, it fails so a 10 coach unit is sent out. Same applies as above, other than there's two 7 coach units spare to run the peak service rather than the 10 coach unit.

The problem is that often these sorts of things happen, so you would likely that the sending of 7 coach units out during the peaks would happen a lot.

Yes, at the moment there's a lot of 5 coach units being sent out rather than 5+5, however once the full fleet is in place it should become a lot less likely. If it continues to be a problem then the way to fix it is to change more of the 5 coach units to 9 coaches, not to create a few 7 coach units with the same number of coaches, which then limit when/where you can use them.

If you created a fleet of 10 units with 7 coaches with the same number of coaches you could change 5 units to bring 9 coaches. That would reduce the need to use 5+5 trains, but would still give you the flexibility of subbing a 5+5 for a 9 if there's a need to.

Over an hour on a frequency of 2tph a 5 and a 9 coach unit would have the same capacity as the two services run by 7 coach units. Yes you may need to use ticket prices to encourage a balance of passengers with the 5 and 9 coach units. However that's fairy easy, have all the advanced tickets for the 9 coach unit and none in the other, rather than a mix over the two 7 coach units. However you also have the advantage that the 5 coach unit could gain or lose a second 5 coach unit at Oxford for its run to/from London.

10 coach units for the peaks, with a fleet of 9 and 5 coach units to fill in most services. However a 7 coach unit is unlikely to be as flexible as you think it will be.

As discussed elsewhere 7 coach units couldn't mix the coaches between a 5 coach and a 9 coach unit without either requiring seats to be moved between coaches or resulting in a miss match of first/standard class seats between the two units, or a splitting of first class or standard class (as you would probably want a full coach of first class in each, but only 1 full coach and 2 composite coaches).

You must get out of this habit of using 5 car trains as an excuse for having trains fail so that you can avoid cancelling a whole service. Lots of TOCs manage to run at very high levels of reliability without divisible trains. A 7 car IET will just about handle most peak trains with the same number of seats as the existing HST, the 5 car IET will not, and does not today. Looking at the number of short formations across GWR / FGW / Wessex Trains / Thames Trains over any time period you wish to choose in the past 15 years, I have zero confidence that 5 cars on busy peak and busy off peak services instead of 10 will not continue. West Coast must swap their 9/11 Class 390s often, without leaving scores of angry customers on the platform, which is what happens today when 5 run instead of 10.

Not using coupled sets would reduce the amount of services operated, the number of traincrew and the number of people needed to deliver the onboard service, which must be a considerable overhead when you have dozens of long distance trains each day formed by coupled non-gangway sets.

Not sure about exactly what your point is on First / Standard. I reckon a 7 car IET could seat around 440 Standard and 70 First in 1.5 coaches. This is a hypothetical world unfortunately as we have what was ordered, so I am not too concerned about the logistics of actually changing the existing fleet of carriages. Plenty of HST trailers have had their class changed, my biggest issue is the number of redundant kitchens and cabs on the IET fleet which would be far harder to fix.

 

[jayah]

As jayah appears to believe that all GWR's IETs are not long enough, then it would appear to have something to do with extending IETs as per the thread title.

Removing services from the Cotswold Line timetable at a busy time of day would certainly create a need for the trains that were still running to be longer.

But I don't happen to agree that there is either a pressing need for longer IETs generally, or for fewer peak trains on the Cotswold Line.

You seem to be saying you want a half-hourly frequency of 5 car units north of Oxford? I would argue for an hourly frequency of 10 car units, which would actually deliver more capacity. Because many of the IETs do and will stay coupled all day long, and 9 cars work all sorts of very quiet trains, I am arguing that many off peak formations are in fact too long.

 

[jayah]

So here you are back again, and once again making clear that you have next to no idea of/don't care what happens on parts of GWR outside your favourite Reading-London bubble.

There is a 30-minute frequency out of Oxford at that time of day for the simple reason that people use trains in places other than your bubble to do things like travel between the Cotswolds and London, or travel in and out of Oxford for work, college, school, shopping... and rather a lot of those people are heading home during that part of the afternoon.

The numbers travelling have grown substantially in recent years - hardly surprising given Oxford's road congestion problems - meaning an hourly frequency was no longer delivering the required passenger capacity. So GWR amazingly decided that adding another service to the timetable might be a good idea, to help spread out existing loadings and encourage more people to travel by rail.

The 17.38 from Moreton-in-Marsh runs non-stop to Oxford so that it arrives there just after 18.00, in order to maintain the half-hourly fast frequency between Oxford and London.

The key conflict risk affecting the 15.50 from Paddington to Moreton-in-Marsh is in the outbound direction, as a delay to the 15.51 from Worcester stops the 15.50 getting on the single line from Oxford to Charlbury, the place where the 15.50 then crosses the 15.14 from Hereford. Everybody would love to see more Cotswold Line redoubling, but it won't come cheap, so there will be parts of the day when pathing is tight.

I have no idea what this has to do with train lengths - unless you are saying anyone who wants to travel home from Oxford in late afternoon will just have to hang around until whatever time it is that an hourly train, of whatever length and already busy with passengers from London, turns up.

I understand GWR's intention from next year is actually to extend the period there is a roughly half-hourly frequency out of Oxford up the Cotswold Line in late afternoon and early evening - but what do they know...

The 1738 runs non-stop to Oxford because if it did anything useful like stopping at Charlbury it wouldn't maintain the 30 min frequency from Oxford and has already been bent into the timetable as to break the standard pattern of both the fast and slow trains. Recent Trains times shows a cancellation rate of 18/57 for the past 16 weeks which also highlights that any late running causes it to be canned north of Oxford to protect this. The 0710 from Moreton in Marsh is 5/57 and the 0950 is 3/58 - all rather worse than the 99.7% reliability target and 99.2% trigger for Passengers Charter. Sadly yet another case of the railway planning for the infrastructure that it would rather exists, instead of what actually does.

I am not sure how you can say the hourly frequency was not delivering the required capacity without making a point on the length of the trains? A HST is about 450 Standard seats and a 9/10 car IET about 580 and a proper 10 car IET could deliver about 670. An hourly service works with the current infrastructure and could deliver all the required capacity and more. If you had perfect infrastructure, an hourly peak Class 165 between either Oxford and Charlbury or Moreton-in-Marsh would be a much more efficient way of improving the frequency for the Oxford commuting market, with 12 car 387s between Oxford and London.