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Thameslink/ Class 700 Progress

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Failed Unit

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Will Siemens be feeling any pain from the reliability levels? If so, let's hope that drives improvements.

I think that they have a no train no pay contract so they will. But I have also noticed that if a train fails in the morning (700 of course) the diagram is gone all day. They don’t seem to ever manage to replace it.
 
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infobleep

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I thought the DfT got tired of paying for retrofitting WiFi and tables into the rest of the 700s so stopped some time ago but I may be wrong, if I am wrong I don't know where I got that from
If that is really the case, it seems odd rhag they paid for the 455/56 units on SWR to have WiFi. I think DfT paid for it.
 

Mitchell Hurd

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I'm thinking of travelling from Redhill to Peterborough later in the year. Great Northern I think yesterday said I'm right it was Class 700's - I looked at Wikipedia but double-checked with Great Northern just to be sure.

I'm slightly disappointed it wasn't Class 387's which have tables but am still pleased enough Class 700's run the route.

Why do I get the feeling the 700's probably replaced trains on the Redhill - Peterborough services that had tables?
 

MML

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Why do I get the feeling the 700's probably replaced trains on the Redhill - Peterborough services that had tables?

Prior to the introduction of the 700's, there weren't any Redhill to Peterborough services.
But I understand your point that a relatively long journey end to end, Horsham to Peterborough, isn't particularly suited to ironing board seats and lack of tables. 700/1 units operate this service and those units delivered later in the production run do have flip down seat back tables. It's just a lottery of what unit turns up, since the earlier deliveries do not have tables fitted.
 

APUK002

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Prior to the introduction of the 700's, there weren't any Redhill to Peterborough services.
But I understand your point that a relatively long journey end to end, Horsham to Peterborough, isn't particularly suited to ironing board seats and lack of tables. 700/1 units operate this service and those units delivered later in the production run do have flip down seat back tables. It's just a lottery of what unit turns up, since the earlier deliveries do not have tables fitted.
Yes,true some earlier delivery 1’s retro fitted. Seems to of stopped now
 

Mitchell Hurd

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Yes,true some earlier delivery 1’s retro fitted. Seems to of stopped now
To be honest, as I enjoy the 1972 stock - 1 reason being forward seats being available, I'm sure just over 2 hours in a 700 will be fine :)!

I'll be coming from Oxford. I know it's a significantly long way round (say 3 and a half to 4 hours in total) but that looks quite a good route.

To save a separate thread, does the Redhill to Peterborough services all run partly on Underground lines? I'm guessing they run through the under-ground type stations. I love a ride through stations like that on any train!
 

Mitchell Hurd

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To be honest, as I enjoy the 1972 stock - 1 reason being forward seats being available, I'm sure just over 2 hours in a 700 will be fine :)!

I'll be coming from Oxford. I know it's a significantly long way round (say 3 and a half to 4 hours in total) but that looks quite a good route.

To save a separate thread, does the Redhill to Peterborough services all run partly on Underground lines? I'm guessing they run through the under-ground type stations. I love a ride through stations like that on any train!

1972 stock on the London Underground - sorry it's off topic.
 

AM9

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To be honest, as I enjoy the 1972 stock - 1 reason being forward seats being available, I'm sure just over 2 hours in a 700 will be fine :)!

I'll be coming from Oxford. I know it's a significantly long way round (say 3 and a half to 4 hours in total) but that looks quite a good route.

To save a separate thread, does the Redhill to Peterborough services all run partly on Underground lines? I'm guessing they run through the under-ground type stations. I love a ride through stations like that on any train!
All the Thameslink services comprise class 700s and use the tunnels between Blackfriars and St Pancras to cross central London. There are two stations that are completely underground, ( City Thameslink and St Pancras) and one that is below ground level but open to daylight, (Farringdon). All trains stop at all stations in that section (known here as the 'core').
There are gradients of 1:29 at either end of the lowest parts.
 

bramling

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God help GTR come May then. When they need 92% of the fleet available. Not sure what the figure is for if the full timetable ever gets implemented if they can’t do stuff when the current weekday demand is 101 / 115 units I expect the service to fall off a cliff again in May.

May is supposed to need 106 / 115 but they are also supposed to run trains at the weekends. As many GN users know the 387s and 365s rule the weekends on the few services they run.

There must be a number of 700s sitting idle at weekends at the moment - if my memory serves there's no 12-car GN 700 working at all at weekends currently, and hasn't been since May. Whilst it's true a small handful stable at Hornsey and are thus readily available for maintenance, one presumes most of the rest must simply sit idle at Peterborough and Cambridge, which are only light maintenance locations. I'd call that downtime!
 

Skimble19

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There must be a number of 700s sitting idle at weekends at the moment - if my memory serves there's no 12-car GN 700 working at all at weekends currently, and hasn't been since May. Whilst it's true a small handful stable at Hornsey and are thus readily available for maintenance, one presumes most of the rest must simply sit idle at Peterborough and Cambridge, which are only light maintenance locations. I'd call that downtime!
12 car 700s have ventured out on Sundays on the Peterborough route recently, but not consistently.
 

MML

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I find it very hard to believe the initial decision not to fit seat back flip up tables was to minimise delays in passenger disembarkation and aid egress. Most regular peak hour commuters exit their seats well in advance of the station stop, with many even choosing to relocate through the train to a more suitable exit door.

Makes me think it was more to do with cost cutting and the reason given was just a good excuse.

Wifi (where fitted) always appears to be fairly poor quality. Either dropping out or fairly poor signal. At best, I find it just about bearable for catching up on an email. Not really suitable enough for doing meaningful work on the laptop during the journey. Is this an isolated experience or are others facing the same predicament ?
 

Bald Rick

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124-155 have tables so over half

Of the 8 cars only very few have them

All the trains have proper tables, and are available to all passengers - in the rear coach first class section (declassified). 124-155 have seat back tables for those in the airline seats in standard.
 

Bald Rick

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Makes me think it was more to do with cost cutting and the reason given was just a good excuse.

It’s not cost cutting if it was not in the spec to start with. And AIUI it wasn’t in the spec because the vast majority of trains the 700s were replacing didn’t have seat back tables either.
 

Failed Unit

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I find it very hard to believe the initial decision not to fit seat back flip up tables was to minimise delays in passenger disembarkation and aid egress. Most regular peak hour commuters exit their seats well in advance of the station stop, with many even choosing to relocate through the train to a more suitable exit door.

Makes me think it was more to do with cost cutting and the reason given was just a good excuse.

Wifi (where fitted) always appears to be fairly poor quality. Either dropping out or fairly poor signal. At best, I find it just about bearable for catching up on an email. Not really suitable enough for doing meaningful work on the laptop during the journey. Is this an isolated experience or are others facing the same predicament ?

Yes I agree about wi-fi. Don’t even bother trying to connect to on train WiFi.

The lack of tables is missed on GN. Yes only the 365s had them but still a backwards step in terms of quality. But the biggest unforgivable cost cut was the low specification of the seats.
 

bramling

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It’s not cost cutting if it was not in the spec to start with. And AIUI it wasn’t in the spec because the vast majority of trains the 700s were replacing didn’t have seat back tables either.

Hmm.

365s (which for all practical purposes in the majority of cases is what 700s have replaced on the GN side) - flipdown table at most airline seats, and half table at every bay of four.

321s - half table at every bay of 4 or 6 seats

317s - tray at every bay of 4 or 6 seats

South of the river, Horsham and Brighton were previously served with class 375s if my memory is correct, so have had tables for the last decade and a half.

So really we’re saying that the 319s didn’t have tables (did they have trays under the windows?). I wouldn’t call that “vast majority” but it’s a case of semantics I suppose. One way of another, nice to see there was a desire to *improve* the passenger experience.

Nonetheless, as another poster has intimated, the seat spacing and hardness is the bigger issue, along with the intrusions into legroom caused by the cantilever and ducting. Half tables would have been quite acceptable as on the 365s.
 

Bald Rick

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Hmm.

365s (which for all practical purposes in the majority of cases is what 700s have replaced on the GN side) - flipdown table at most airline seats, and half table at every bay of four.

321s - half table at every bay of 4 or 6 seats

317s - tray at every bay of 4 or 6 seats

South of the river, Horsham and Brighton were previously served with class 375s if my memory is correct, so have had tables for the last decade and a half.

So really we’re saying that the 319s didn’t have tables (did they have trays under the windows?). I wouldn’t call that “vast majority” but it’s a case of semantics I suppose. One way of another, nice to see there was a desire to *improve* the passenger experience.

Nonetheless, as another poster has intimated, the seat spacing and hardness is the bigger issue, along with the intrusions into legroom caused by the cantilever and ducting. Half tables would have been quite acceptable as on the 365s.

Fair points. I’d argue the half tables were next to no use if you weren’t sat at the window seat. Certainly the case in my experience. And of course there weren’t any tables at all at the non bay seats on the 317s and 321s. Brighton was a 319 only service for Thameslink passengers until the 377s came in as a temporary measure.
 

Agent_Squash

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South of the river, Horsham and Brighton were previously served with class 375s if my memory is correct, so have had tables for the last decade and a half.

Southern services between Horsham and Brighton are 377s - which although the /1s and /3s are identical to the original 375 spec are still different... and can't couple electronically!

Still, the 700s are a downgrade on them for sure. Just hope wifi and tables come sooner rather than later!
 

trebor79

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Did Baldock to Finsbury Park and back recently. I thought the 700 was an excellent train.
I couldn't work out why there's no luggage rack in large sections of the coach? And the handwash water sensor in the bog didn't work properly so I ended up with wet soapy hands.
Seats were ok for that length of journey. Can't have been too bad as I sort of nodded off and missed the Baldock stop on the way back!
 

Bald Rick

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Did Baldock to Finsbury Park and back recently. I thought the 700 was an excellent train.
I couldn't work out why there's no luggage rack in large sections of the coach? And the handwash water sensor in the bog didn't work properly so I ended up with wet soapy hands.
Seats were ok for that length of journey. Can't have been too bad as I sort of nodded off and missed the Baldock stop on the way back!

You were almost certainly in one of the two coaches per unit that has a pantograph on top - the interior roof line is lower under the pantograph section (roughly 1/3 of the coach) and thus there are no luggage racks in that section.
 

bramling

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All the trains have proper tables, and are available to all passengers - in the rear coach first class section (declassified). 124-155 have seat back tables for those in the airline seats in standard.

Six tables on a train accessible to standard class passengers isn’t really adequate, as these could all be filled by the first stop especially at peak times.
 

bramling

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Fair points. I’d argue the half tables were next to no use if you weren’t sat at the window seat. Certainly the case in my experience. And of course there weren’t any tables at all at the non bay seats on the 317s and 321s. Brighton was a 319 only service for Thameslink passengers until the 377s came in as a temporary measure.

In most cases the 317s and (especially) 321s were peak hours only on the GN route. Virtually all off-peak Peterborough/KX and Cambridge/KX semi-fast services were diagrammed for 365s. Obviously tough luck if one happened to choose a 317 or 321 service, but these were in the minority.

It’s also worth remembering that WAGN refurbished 24x of their 317/2s in the 1990s and fitted half tables, although to be fair these were too high to be much use. So things have rather gone backwards since the 1990s, not to mention journey times being longer now too in many cases.

Had the 700s been fitted out roughly as in the first class, even if only on the 12-car versions, they would have been quite adequate.
 

James H

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I find the wifi on the 700s (where fitted) works remarkably well - much better than I have experienced on other trains, including the SWR fleet
 

southern442

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I'm stirring up an awfully irritating argument here, but is there any chance WiFi connectivity could be down to type of phone?
Until Christmas I had an iPhone and it got to the point where I didn't even bother trying to connect to the WiFi on Thameslink. Got a Samsung afterwards and I've had no trouble connecting since. Independently of this, I also use a VPN which speeds things up on sites such as youtube by quite a considerable amount.
 

spark001uk

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I'm stirring up an awfully irritating argument here, but is there any chance WiFi connectivity could be down to type of phone?
Until Christmas I had an iPhone and it got to the point where I didn't even bother trying to connect to the WiFi on Thameslink. Got a Samsung afterwards and I've had no trouble connecting since. Independently of this, I also use a VPN which speeds things up on sites such as youtube by quite a considerable amount.
No, WiFi is a standard followed by all devices, it won't make a difference. I did however go on one unit yesterday in which the WiFi was kicking up a config error, but most of the time it seems to work ok. A bit slow but hey it's free.
 

jon0844

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I'm stirring up an awfully irritating argument here, but is there any chance WiFi connectivity could be down to type of phone?
Until Christmas I had an iPhone and it got to the point where I didn't even bother trying to connect to the WiFi on Thameslink. Got a Samsung afterwards and I've had no trouble connecting since. Independently of this, I also use a VPN which speeds things up on sites such as youtube by quite a considerable amount.

It could be down to where you are on the train, and if you're connected via 2.4 or 5GHz. I'm on a 700 right now, just leaving East Croydon. I've gone beyond my unthrottled 50MB allowance and getting this;

8112265621.png
28ms, 1.97Mbps down, 0.86Mbps up

Which is fine IMO.

I'm in the rear first class section and using a Chromebook with 5GHz Wi-Fi.
 

47421

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It’s not cost cutting if it was not in the spec to start with. And AIUI it wasn’t in the spec because the vast majority of trains the 700s were replacing didn’t have seat back tables either.

Flawed rational surely. Test should not be whether they are equivalent or better than 30 year old units they are replacing but whether they match or exceed current benchmarks. Just cus my 10 year old micra hasnt got any cup holders doesnt mean I dont expect to find them in any new car I am looking at today.
 

AM9

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Flawed rational surely. Test should not be whether they are equivalent or better than 30 year old units they are replacing but whether they match or exceed current benchmarks. Just cus my 10 year old micra hasnt got any cup holders doesnt mean I dont expect to find them in any new car I am looking at today.
They are fit for the role that they were specified, i.e. carrying 1700+* passengers safely, rapid ingress/egress, minimum dwell times, self/mutual rescue capability, 100mph with minimum acceleration times etc. Etc..
 

Failed Unit

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They are fit for the role that they were specified, i.e. carrying 1700+* passengers safely, rapid ingress/egress, minimum dwell times, self/mutual rescue capability, 100mph with minimum acceleration times etc. Etc..

That is subject to opinion of course. Glad you never mentioned in comfort. ;).

But still very disappointed with their high failure rates.
 
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