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

[jimm]

Somehow I doubt passengers who have to put up with the conditions really care.
The fact is we were told that we didn't have to worry about the possibility of 5 coach units ending up on peak time services. And it turns out that wasn't true at all.

As The Ham has already noted, we weren't told that - the point about nine-car or 2x5 operating on all peak arrivals into Paddington in the morning and departures in late afternoon and early evening related to the overall shape of things once the full IET fleet and new timetable are in operation.

That statement was made by GWR managers amid claims here and elsewhere that there would be regular long-term timetabled operation of five-car sets on services at those times of the day.

It was not a pledge that the new trains would all run flawlessly from day one - and the DfT's instance on one pair of IETs in (now one nine-car in) and one HST out is well-documented. Do you think GWR would not prefer to keep a couple of extra HSTs on the books for the time being if they could, to give a margin for teething troubles with IETs?

And short-forming in peaks has been going on for a very long time when things go wrong with GWR trains - it was just that passengers on Bristol and South Wales services tended not to realise there was an issue, because HSTs would get taken off services to the likes of Oxford and the Cotswold Line to cover for a faulty set. A 180 or Turbo was sent to Oxford etc instead, with passengers on those services having to put up with the resulting 'conditions'.

 

[43096]

It was not a pledge that the new trains would all run flawlessly from day one - and the DfT's instance on one pair of IETs in (now one nine-car in) and one HST out is well-documented. Do you think GWR would not prefer to keep a couple of extra HSTs on the books for the time being if they could, to give a margin for teething troubles with IETs?

But there was a margin in the plan of around 3 months. It’s just that Hitachi delivered late from the start and is getting later with deliveries.

The two HST sets due to go off-lease in June have not done so - they are deferred to August and September. So GWR currently have 3 HSTs they shouldn’t under the original plan (off-leasing was one set behind from earlier in the year).

 

[JamesT]

Rather than extending 5 cars to 9 cars, could you just buy more 9-car 802s? Or would that leave 'too many' 5 car units around which are being paid for even if they're doing nothing?

 

[jayah]

You keep throwing other things into the mix, but this is nothing to do with Operation Princess (which is best part of twenty years ago now).

This is your obsession with GWR having seven coach trains, when you are unable to show sufficient diagrams where that would be an appropriate size of train. Diagrams, mind, not a few shoulder-peak services.

And your seven coach units would obviously lose the flexibility of the five coach trains to double enough to provide equivalent capacity to a nine coach train, there's no scope of doubling up a seven coach train.

If your grumble is that Reading isn't getting enough non-stop services to Paddington then fine, we all like to obsess about our particular corners of the network, but how would running shorter trains help that?

If you don't think that there are paths for non-stop express peak services to work then, again, how will having trains incapable of running in nine/ten coach formation help that?

Once we've got sufficient trains in service and sufficient staff trained on them all then nine/ten coaches will be the norm on all busy services east of Reading. Easy for people to complain during this transitional period, where trains are being introduced and staff taken away from frontline duties to be trained on them.

To be blunt, it looks like you've decided on the answer that you want ("we need seven coach trains") and are now trying to come up with reasons to justify that answer.

The only way to increase seats per path is to maximise seats per train. A 10 car train with the same seats as a 9 car train doesn't deliver this. Personally I doubt given current PPM and performance that there is room for even more services, stopping or not, but their existence only further diminishes the chances of fixing Reading by running more fast trains which is not something I would advocate until maximum seats per path has been achieved and capacity is exhausted.

5 car trains are a very inflexible way of creating 9 cars worth of seats as they need to run double crewed all day or pair up at exactly the right time and platform part way through. A delay on one inbound service means 5 will go out on a peak train.

This also sounds like it is compounded by some of the network being unable to take 10 car trains. So when a train is delayed it is even more difficult to swap everything around to keep the trains moving.

7 car trains are not for high peak trains. Granted it is not as easy to operate as having one fleet, but at £2.5m per vehicle you are looking at over £100m of extra cost. And if they did get onto the wrong diagram the results are nowhere near as bad as with 5.

 

[jayah]

Rather than extending 5 cars to 9 cars, could you just buy more 9-car 802s? Or would that leave 'too many' 5 car units around which are being paid for even if they're doing nothing?

Ideally they would have bought then as 9 or 1x10.
Failing that redeploy them where 5 makes sense. In practical terms I doubt conversion would ever be feasible by abolishing cabs and reconfiguring, but you are stuck with double crewing to provide any catering as long as they run paired, which will be a lot with about half the GWR vehicles in 5 car sets.

 

[jayah]

As well as the point raised by @The Ham I would also note that I'm not sure it is a "fact" that we were told not to worry about 5-car units in the peak. My recollection is that we were told that there wouldn't be diagrammed 5-car trains in the peak but during disruption or general service perturbation we could end up with a 5-car units appearing rather than cancelling an entire service. Considering the well publicised issues regarding delays to the crew training programme and the initial unreliability of introducing any brand new fleet it's hardly surprising that there are issues like this.

Personally I have few doubts that once the crew training is complete, once the fleet is fully introduced and the early teething trouble is over that 5-car units in the peak will be extraordinarily rare. Cold comfort to passengers affected right now but hardly the sort of thing to either condemn an entire fleet or to be used as evidence of a dire need to build more sets or lengthen existing ones.

If they run around for the day coupled, similar to today, then it might become uncommon.

If they try a complex choreography of coupling and uncoupling around both peaks with 5 car running between then like the other fleets where this is a feature I expect it will be quite patchy and there is also plenty of disruption to contend with.

In the former scenario you clearly have 10 coaches doing the work of 9 and 2 onboard crews doing the work of 1.

 

[jimm]

But there was a margin in the plan of around 3 months. It’s just that Hitachi delivered late from the start and is getting later with deliveries.

The two HST sets due to go off-lease in June have not done so - they are deferred to August and September. So GWR currently have 3 HSTs they shouldn’t under the original plan (off-leasing was one set behind from earlier in the year).

I understood there would be a point after all the sets intended for Scotland had gone off lease when there would then be a margin in hand for the remaining 800 and 802 deliveries, so maybe we are now be at or near that stage.

In any case, the Oxford blockade for the next couple of weeks will probably ease the strains on the 800 fleet somewhat, as most of the Cotswold Line IET diagrams will disappear for the duration, with what looks like being just one set in use on shuttle duties between Hereford/Malvern/Worcester and Hanborough on weekdays, working alongside Turbos. This period may well also be the last chance to see/ride on GWR Turbos at Hereford.

 

[The Ham]

Rather than extending 5 cars to 9 cars, could you just buy more 9-car 802s? Or would that leave 'too many' 5 car units around which are being paid for even if they're doing nothing?

It could be possible, however it would require more coaches to produce fewer trains, especially as there's probably a limited number of extra services that you could run with the extra 5 coach units.

For instance if you ordered 10 new 9 coach units that would require 90 coaches (20 of which would be end coaches), whilst with the same number of coaches (technically 2 less at 88) you could lengthen all of the 5 coach 802. This would significantly reduce the number of 5 coach units and therefore reduce the risk of a 5 coach unit being used to substitute for a full length train.

 

[ooo]

Is there really that much of a problem with doubling of catering crew? Surely passengers benefit as they don't have to wait as long for the trolley to arrive

 

[43096]

I understood there would be a point after all the sets intended for Scotland had gone off lease when there would then be a margin in hand for the remaining 800 and 802 deliveries, so maybe we are now be at or near that stage.

No, we’re not. 30 power cars have been off-leased for transfer to ScotRail with another 24 to go before power cars are off-leased with no future user.

Hitachi really need to get a grip: all 36 5-cars should have been delivered by February. There are still 4 sets to come at the moment. Likewise 9-car deliveries are late. All told the delay is around 5 months and getting worse: normally you would expect delays to remain the same or even reduce as a production line gets up to speed.

 

[jayah]

Is there really that much of a problem with doubling of catering crew? Surely passengers benefit as they don't have to wait as long for the trolley to arrive

It is a waste of £m a year as well as paying for 10 carriages and getting the capacity of 9.

 

[The Ham]

The only way to increase seats per path is to maximise seats per train. A 10 car train with the same seats as a 9 car train doesn't deliver this. Personally I doubt given current PPM and performance that there is room for even more services, stopping or not, but their existence only further diminishes the chances of fixing Reading by running more fast trains which is not something I would advocate until maximum seats per path has been achieved and capacity is exhausted.


5 car trains are a very inflexible way of creating 9 cars worth of seats as they need to run double crewed all day or pair up at exactly the right time and platform part way through. A delay on one inbound service means 5 will go out on a peak train.


This also sounds like it is compounded by some of the network being unable to take 10 car trains. So when a train is delayed it is even more difficult to swap everything around to keep the trains moving.


7 car trains are not for high peak trains. Granted it is not as easy to operate as having one fleet, but at £2.5m per vehicle you are looking at over £100m of extra cost. And if they did get onto the wrong diagram the results are nowhere near as bad as with 5.

Yet, many TOC's manage to run fleets of 4/5 coach units and rarely have short formed services (once the fleet is fully delivered).


7 coaches aren't happening as part of three delivery being made now; so either let it go, or explain how it should happen as part of a follow on order.


Add I see it the only way that you would be happy is if there were no 5 coach units. That's a lot of units to lengthen to 7 or 9 coaches, which would probably be too many units. Especially given that would (assuming 12 x 7 coach units) require an extra 208 coaches. This would also mean that there would be 81 X 9 coach units, which would likely be far too many.