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Was the InterCity Express Programme (IEP) a success or not?

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coppercapped

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In the UK there was never any single definition of 'InterCity'.

'Inter-City' started out as BR's catchy, media-friendly, phrase meaning 'express train' and it in turn had evolved from the 'Inter City' named train running between Birmingham Snow Hill and Paddington. The advertising for the newly electrified West Coast main line in the mid-1960s was "City to City: Heart to Heart" and it was a small step from that to 'Inter-City'.

When BR was re-organised into business sectors 'InterCity' became the name of the sector operating the long distance, high speed passenger services. As the Government of the day said it would not subsidise BR's commercial activities - and the long distance train services were classified as 'commercial' BR lopped off all those bits of the 'InterCity' operation that were not profitable.

So the only correct definition of 'InterCity' in the later BR period covers those long distance, high speed services that were profitable according to the accounting standards of the time.

It had nothing to do with average speeds, length of station stops or whether or not refreshments were offered or type of rolling stock.
 
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PG

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So, I've offered some actual data and research on the subject (albeit dismissed as a fix by the usual culprits).

Other than your opinion, perhaps you'd like to offer some similar counter-evidence - declining passenger numbers from October 2017 perhaps?
Agreed, the forms I had previously handed to me while travelling on, funny enough Great Western, were very very leading in it's questioning.
I'm not able to offer counter-evidence, though I reckon were a question to be asked for passengers to compare the last car seat (principle mode of competition) they used with the last train seat they used then the answers might be more realistic.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
 

Thunderer

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"Modern Railways" is an enthusiast's rag that delivers content that they calculate the people who buy it want to read. It is not an academic peer reviewed journal.
An ITV Documenary? *Giggles* ITV haven't made a decent documentary since regional idents were dropped at the start of each programme.

I suspect that mile for mile, the APT was the most expensive train every built in the UK, probably followed closely by the Royal Trains, then Eurotunnel rescue diesel units.

So essentially, your entire argument rests on you don't like the seats and someimes having a mucky window. But seeing as you don't seem to care if standard class passengers have a mucky window - 80% of the train - then that doesn't seem to matter.

I detest the IC70 units with a passion - they are simply dangerous with low backs and plastics that shatter into deadly sharp fragments. I like a nice firm high backed seat.
Do your research into the IEP project and how it is run (Agility Trains) and you will then see all the procurement and contractual costings for yourself. The facts are out there for everyone to read. It has been THE MOST EXPENSIVE train in the world to procure and run via Agility. That is mainly down to the DFT. I have the original .pdf DFT concept document from 2012 for the IEP..its around 84 pages long and thats just for the train specification and operating specification! There are other documents out there in the public domain to view.
 

Thunderer

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"Modern Railways" is an enthusiast's rag that delivers content that they calculate the people who buy it want to read. It is not an academic peer reviewed journal.
An ITV Documenary? *Giggles* ITV haven't made a decent documentary since regional idents were dropped at the start of each programme.

I suspect that mile for mile, the APT was the most expensive train every built in the UK, probably followed closely by the Royal Trains, then Eurotunnel rescue diesel units.

So essentially, your entire argument rests on you don't like the seats and someimes having a mucky window. But seeing as you don't seem to care if standard class passengers have a mucky window - 80% of the train - then that doesn't seem to matter.

I detest the IC70 units with a passion - they are simply dangerous with low backs and plastics that shatter into deadly sharp fragments. I like a nice firm high backed seat.
You have assumed here that I always travel 1st class which is not the case. I have many times travelled standard class on GWR IET's and the windows there are often dirty as well. This is mainly down to the fact that the windows are not flush to the body of the train. My point here is if someone e.g. Business people (which is the staple of 1st Class passengers paying premium prices) procure a 1st class ticket at a hefty price, then they should expect a premium service for the money. Have you made regular journeys on the GWR IEP? Do you have factual documentation to back up your slating of the documentary? All passengers are not getting value for money on the IET as windows are often dirty and the seats in both classes are really not suitable for longer journeys, plus the trolley service is sparse and often inadequate. I have chatted to many GWR 1st class hosts on these trains and they have noticed a drop in regular business people in South Wales now using 1st class, probably for the reasons I have mentioned, its poor value for a premium price. The ITV documentary produced documented facts for its programme and those facts are also well known within the railway industry. My personal opinion is based on the travelling experience on the IET, not as a railway fan, but as a passenger.
 

class26

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HSTs are mid-life?

Agree on the wait but no XC order has even been made and it will probably be left too late, as usual recently.

NO, the Voyagers , which constitute the majority of longer distance XC services
 

route:oxford

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Do your research into the IEP project and how it is run (Agility Trains) and you will then see all the procurement and contractual costings for yourself. The facts are out there for everyone to read. It has been THE MOST EXPENSIVE train in the world to procure and run via Agility. That is mainly down to the DFT. I have the original .pdf DFT concept document from 2012 for the IEP..its around 84 pages long and thats just for the train specification and operating specification! There are other documents out there in the public domain to view.

Well, that's just silly.

*Nowhere else* in the world are trains procured or run via Agility. It's exclusively a British Rosco and they only lease 80X series trains.

When people choose to use capitals to repeat content, instead of delivering some clear numerical evidence, it just makes me more suspicious that the claims are false.

So let's look at real numbers.

In today's money, the APTs worked out at £60M each.

Fourteen 21 metre coaches, of which two were power cars. So that's approximately same as Two x 5-car 80X series of 26 metre units. Passengers couldn't go between the front and back sets of the APT either.

As far as I can work out, a 10 Car 80X series works out at £40M - so the APT cost 50% more.

But it's worse. The APTs were so unreliable, it seemed to be policy to run a relief train behind them for when they broke down.

So as far as I can see, the APT was significantly more expensive to procure and operate than the 80X series.
 
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InOban

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Surely the APTs were prototype trains, not series production
Compare like with like.
 

Ianno87

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Do your research into the IEP project and how it is run (Agility Trains) and you will then see all the procurement and contractual costings for yourself. The facts are out there for everyone to read. It has been THE MOST EXPENSIVE train in the world to procure and run via Agility. That is mainly down to the DFT. I have the original .pdf DFT concept document from 2012 for the IEP..its around 84 pages long and thats just for the train specification and operating specification! There are other documents out there in the public domain to view.

Does that claim still follow when you consider the number of follow-on orders for Class 80x variants beyond the original 800/801 GWML/ECML fleet. I.e.

Cornwall 802s
TPE 802s
Hull Trains
EMR
Etc...

I.e..for any new product you'd expect development costs to be sunk into production of the first series units?
 

LNW-GW Joint

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Agree on the wait but no XC order has even been made and it will probably be left too late, as usual recently.

The XC fleet was completely replaced c2000 by class 22x (on what was planned to be a 15-year franchise).
At that time the HST fleet still had life left and the then operators (on 7-year franchises) were not invited to replace them.
WC and XC cascaded their HSTs to other operators.

Recently, it has been the HSTs turn to be replaced.
XC will get its turn one day, but maybe will get other operators' cast off 22x first.
 

InOban

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They were Inter-City trains that entered passenger service.
I never said they hadn't entered service, but AFAIK there was no contract for series production.
And I'm old enough to remember the prototype Mk2 set, the XP64 set which ran daily from KX to Edinburgh and back on the Talisman!
 

Bletchleyite

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I think @ashkeba is using the European, probably German, definitions which do come up here from time to time (and I use them myself) which do specify a maximum station stop time. However the UK does not and never has used those definitions. In practice, rather than by the letter, I'd say GWR's 80x, Avanti and LNER would be ICE by German standards (I know the interiors aren't as nice!) and XC (other than XC-lite), EMT and Greater Anglia's FLIRTs would be IC.
 

ashkeba

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So Aberdeen to Penzance or Manchester to Bournemouth is not an intercity service, then what on earth is?

If long distance train services that links cities such as Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Reading, Plymouth, Exeter & Southampton are not intercity services, then I’d say you have a very different view compared to the travelling public. Yes these routes should have 7 car IET units, but Voyagers are certainly intercity standard IMHO.
They could be InterCity (excusing the hot poo smell), but they are operated as inter-region express at best, sat waiting in regional centres far too long. It is often as fast and sometimes cheaper to catch two true InterCity IEP operators to London and out.
 

coppercapped

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They were Inter-City trains that entered passenger service.
Yes, you are quite right, they entered passenger service. But I don't know what you are trying to prove, they were not production trains built in large numbers but were a short series of pre-production trains.
 

coppercapped

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Well, that's just silly.

*Nowhere else* in the world are trains procured or run via Agility. It's exclusively a British Rosco and they only lease 80X series trains.

SNIP
Agility Trains is not a ROSCO and it does not lease trains. It supplies trains to the TOC (GWR or LNER as the case maybe) under a 'Total Train Service Provision' contract drawn up by the DfT and agreed between Agility/Hitachi and the DfT. Under this contract the TOC pays Agility for each completed diagram at a rate agreed between the DfT and Agility (and under some conditions for part of a diagram); the TOC was not involved in the rate setting. Agility is responsible for all mechanical maintenance and for internal cleaning and preparation. All the TOC has to do - theoretically - is to provide the train crew and return the set to the nominated maintenance base at the end of the day.

In a conventional leasing deal the TOC will negotiate rates and conditions with the ROSCO. It will pay for the use of the train whether or not it uses it. The TOC may also undertake maintenance and cleaning or contract all or some of this work to the train's manufacturer.

This is not splitting hairs - the commercial effects can be considerably different between the two approaches.
 
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Purple Orange

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They could be InterCity (excusing the hot poo smell), but they are operated as inter-region express at best, sat waiting in regional centres far too long. It is often as fast and sometimes cheaper to catch two true InterCity IEP operators to London and out.

It seems to me like you are making a distinction between services that doesn’t exist in the minds of the public. Just like ‘skip-stop’ and ‘semi-fast’ are terms that mean nothing to the public. At best there are intercity trains and commuter trains.
 

coppercapped

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Does that claim still follow when you consider the number of follow-on orders for Class 80x variants beyond the original 800/801 GWML/ECML fleet. I.e.

Cornwall 802s
TPE 802s
Hull Trains
EMR
Etc...

I.e..for any new product you'd expect development costs to be sunk into production of the first series units?
The difference is that the initial orders were made under the Intercity Express Programme agreed between Hitachi and the DfT. The trains are issued to the TOCs and operated under a 'Total Train Service Provision' contract. For details see the National Audit Office's report Procuring new trains dated July 2014 which can be found here <https://www.nao.org.uk/report/procuring-new-trains-2/>.
The way the IEP was constructed made it very difficult to identify the manufacturing cost per vehicle although analysis of the NAO's figures made it possible to make an informed estimate of the equivalent leasing costs per vehicle. These costs turned out to be about double that of a Pendolino coach - a vehicle of roughly comparable complexity. Both are capable of 140mph, the Pendolino tilts and many of the trains procured under the IEP deals are bi-mode.

All the subsequent orders were placed by ROSCOs acting for various TOCs under normal commercial conditions, but with the DfT keeping a wary eye on proceedings so as not to be embarrassed.
 

Bletchleyite

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It seems to me like you are making a distinction between services that doesn’t exist in the minds of the public. Just like ‘skip-stop’ and ‘semi-fast’ are terms that mean nothing to the public. At best there are intercity trains and commuter trains.

IRE isn't a category you can map to the UK, because it only exists because the German model requires a distinction for subsidised services over non-subsidised ones. XC could well map to IR though (of course Germany doesn't have that one any more).
 

O8yityityit

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Skipping small stops and an average speed of 60+mph is part of it, but it should also have catering (in normal times), air con and no stops longer than 5 minutes. XC is home of the long stop at Bristol, Peterborough, Derby, Leeds, Newcastle... and is Water Orton or South Wigston really an InterCity stop?
Is that an official definition or your preference?
 

O8yityityit

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Is that an official definition or your preference?
Is Alnmouth or Morpeth an Intercity stop?

If it acts like an Intercity service( I.e it connects two or more cities)
And it looks like an Intercity service
Then the chances are it is an Intercity service.

Also the perpetual moaning about voyages , Pendos, IEP is getting rather stale.
It's really just people hankering for what went before, and specifically loco hauled trains.
Someone said the TOC s seem happy. So if the enthusiasts ( even if they do portray them selves as some kind of business traveller) don't like the trains then as a 'businessman' they should make a business decision and consider other alternatives such as car or plane.

Current circumstances notwithstanding , there is a reason the trains were always pretty full.
 

route:oxford

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Agility Trains is not a ROSCO and it does not lease trains. It supplies trains to the TOC (GWR or LNER as the case maybe) under a 'Total Train Service Provision' contract drawn up by the DfT and agreed between Agility/Hitachi and the DfT. Under this contract the TOC pays Agility for each completed diagram at a rate agreed between the DfT and Agility (and under some conditions for part of a diagram); the TOC was not involved in the rate setting. Agility is responsible for all mechanical maintenance and for internal cleaning and preparation. All the TOC has to do - theoretically - is to provide the train crew and return the set to the nominated maintenance base at the end of the day.

In a conventional leasing deal the TOC will negotiate rates and conditions with the ROSCO. It will pay for the use of the train whether or not it uses it. The TOC may also undertake maintenance and cleaning or contract all or some of this work to the train's manufacturer.

This is not splitting hairs - the commercial effects can be considerably different between the two approaches.

If you use something that you don't own, you can brand it any way you like, but it's a lease.

There's little difference between an Agility lease and the MFD in the corridor at work. All I do is go outside and press print - Ricoh record the number of prints and the toner level and send a new one out when necessary, faults are reported automatically and an engineer arrives within 2 hours, they outsource paper supply to a different co who come round at night and restock.

Bottom line is though.

I've yet to see any evidence whatsoever that the 80X series is more expensive to purchase and operate than the APT was.

Indeed, thinking about it. I suspect the US SLVR was even more expensive to purchase and operate than the APT. $4M (today's money) per car, 50% availability, operators hiding cannabalised units in tunnels away from the press. Promises of low maintenance at procurement, but operators having to have a purchase $12,000,000 (today's money) and recruit 200 maintenance technicians to keep them running.
 

InOban

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But we don't know how much a fleet of APTs would have cost to buy and operate.

And, it would appear, the nearest comparison, the Pendolino, was much cheaper.
 

route:oxford

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But we don't know how much a fleet of APTs would have cost to buy and operate.

And, it would appear, the nearest comparison, the Pendolino, was much cheaper.

Lots of buts... The statements was:-

"It has been confirmed through its complex procurement and running agreement (Agility) to be the most expensive train in the WORLD."

There were no detailed exceptions or exclusions to this statement.

The claim is that Modern Railways examined in detail every single train, everywhere in the world, presumably since the 19th century, and has made this definition.

So they should be able to immediately publish the top 100 or top 1000 procurement agreements.

I intrigued to find out where 70012 comes on that list, must be one of the worlds most expensive bespoke shunters.
 

coppercapped

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If you use something that you don't own, you can brand it any way you like, but it's a lease.

There's little difference between an Agility lease and the MFD in the corridor at work. All I do is go outside and press print - Ricoh record the number of prints and the toner level and send a new one out when necessary, faults are reported automatically and an engineer arrives within 2 hours, they outsource paper supply to a different co who come round at night and restock.

Bottom line is though.

I've yet to see any evidence whatsoever that the 80X series is more expensive to purchase and operate than the APT was.

Indeed, thinking about it. I suspect the US SLVR was even more expensive to purchase and operate than the APT. $4M (today's money) per car, 50% availability, operators hiding cannabalised units in tunnels away from the press. Promises of low maintenance at procurement, but operators having to have a purchase $12,000,000 (today's money) and recruit 200 maintenance technicians to keep them running.
I don't understand your preoccupation with the APT which last turned a wheel 34 years ago. In any event only one four coach experimental Advanced Passenger Train (APT-E) and three prototypes (APT-P), each of which was 14 vehicles long, were built. It never went into production.

A better comparison would be with the Pendolino which did go into production and which considered analysis showed costs about half as much to lease as the Total Train Service Provision payments made to Agility.

The difference between Pendolino and Class 80X is that the TOC leases the Pendolino and GWR and LNER make usage payments to Agility Trains for trains which are issued to them by the Government. It is as if your Ricoh printer was issued to you by the Ministry of Bureaucracy and you had to make payments to Ricoh over which you had no influence or control. And you are not allowed to go to another supplier. Under such circumstances you are not, by any stretch of the imagination, leasing the printer.
 
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route:oxford

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I don't understand your preoccupation with the APT which last turned a wheel 34 years ago. In any event only one four coach experimental train (APT-E) and three prototypes (APT-P), each of which was 14 vehicles long, were built. It never went into production.

This was the statement:-

It has been confirmed through its complex procurement and running agreement (Agility) to be the most expensive train in the WORLD.

I've identified a train that blows that statement out of the water.

There was no statement to say "Every train manufactured worldwide since the 19th century, except the APT"
 

coppercapped

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This was the statement:-



I've identified a train that blows that statement out of the water.

There was no statement to say "Every train manufactured worldwide since the 19th century, except the APT"
A very Clarkson-like statement, then. And you took it seriously? ;)
 

Geoff DC

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At least with the Voyagers on XC, passengers on long distances such as from Penzance can at least split their journeys and avoid the IET for at least 2hrs of their journey.
 

squizzler

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At least with the Voyagers on XC, passengers on long distances such as from Penzance can at least split their journeys and avoid the IET for at least 2hrs of their journey.
I suppose they could do that, but choosing a voyager (and a break in journey) because you don't like an IET defines cutting off your nose to spite your face, doesn't it?
 

Purple Orange

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I suppose they could do that, but choosing a voyager (and a break in journey) because you don't like an IET defines cutting off your nose to spite your face, doesn't it?

If it was me, I’d attempt to do the journey the other way around and get on an IET over a Voyager.
 
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