Would standardised rolling stock make any sense these days?

[BRX]

I'm imagining something like a continuation of the BR MkI, MkII, MkIII... sequence.

It would have to morph into something more multiple-unit based but a similar principle: every, say, 5 or 10 years there is a step up to the next version, but within each, things like the basic bodyshell, and anything relating to interoperability would remain constant. There could be variants for different purposes but within reason all would be able to operate with each other. Once the basic type had clearance for certain routes, etc, then all its variants would. There would be common parts. Each type would be well tested before introduction into service, meaning that any testing relating to new introductions would only need to concern itself with where they differed from the basic type.

There would be questions about who would produce the design and specification. But once that existed, there could still be competition between suppliers to produce it.

I know that the IET was a kind-of attempt at this, and didn't turn out all that well, but maybe the key is that it's a core design that should be specified and rigid, and then decisions about exactly what facilities are built in to variants can be made by train operators.

Would something like this be at all feasible in the modern world? Or would you, in reality, end up with so many sub-variants of everything that it would be just as much a mess of incompatibility as we have today? Would it realistically help to avoid the kinds of problems we seem to see as a result of multiple new designs being introduced in parallel, each bringing up their own problems and resulting in delayed introduction, extended periods of teething-problems, and so on?

I realise that you'd probably only see the benefits over quite a long time span. There would be a long period until everything we have in operation at present had been superseded.

 

[jopsuk]

It's an interesting idea. Not likely to work (and one of the ideas of the open market is supposed to be competition between rolling stock manufacturers) but certainly interesting.

Even with the BR "marks" there's variance. A small number of Mark 1 carriages were shorter and when it came to MUs based on the Mark 3 most were built shorter and wider.

But yes, with a single size of body shell and a couple of door configurations, there could also be a reworking of infrastructure.

 

[BRX]

I don't know if there are examples of other countries/networks who have tried similar.

 

[route:oxford]

Surely the starting point would be to standardise the network first?

Make everything G10, standardised platform height in readiness for level access, straighten curved platforms

Prepare the straightened platforms ready for platform doors.

Introduce the new stock

Introduce platform doors.

 

[Terry Tait]

I can remember when everything running between Ramsgate and Poole was compatible, different divisions of the Southern Region sometimes borrowed units from each other and it worked well because maintenance staff and drivers all knew what to do with it.
Nowadays with 465, 466 not working with 455 and 375, 377 not working with 450 and then add 442, 444 and 313 what a big mess.

 

[coppercapped]

The mechanical parts are not the issue.

When BR built rolling stock trains had practically no electrical equipment apart from the coach lighting - although some later stock was equipped with air conditioning. Multiple units essentially had a wire for each function.

What has happened since then is the explosion of sensors and electronics to control both power and brakes and to monitor the trains' performance. The perceived problems arise in getting all this to play together reliably - this 'fly-by-wire' as the aeronautical industry calls it is, in the railway industry, a developing technology. Power electronics are now reliable and well understood - they've come a long way since the first circuit boards in the Class 50s! Current issues arise in the maturity of, for example, Train Management Systems and, it would seem, the way they have been specified and coded to work in the rough and tumble of everyday operations. Passenger Information Systems and seat reservation electronics have not yet reached the level of performance one would like. But it will come.

The next big step is the incorporation of the signalling system into trains - ETCS, I'm looking at you! Until now the only part of the signalling system on a train were the AWS/TPWS sensors[1]. Now mission critical electronics will be part of the train. Such things are not simple - the numbers of variables is large and working through all the test cases and issues thrown up by service experience will take time.

[1] Apart from the Chiltern and Western ATP trials.

 

[BRX]

The mechanical parts are not the issue.

Is it not more the case that the mechanical parts are not the only issue?

Certainly any kind of standardisation now would ideally include all the electronic stuff.

But mechanical incompatibility is also an issue is it not - with multiple different types of coupling, to start with.

 

[notlob.divad]

Is it not more the case that the mechanical parts are not the only issue?

Certainly any kind of standardisation now would ideally include all the electronic stuff.

But mechanical incompatibility is also an issue is it not - with multiple different types of coupling, to start with.

It's even more basic than that. I am fed up of reading that x unit isn't cleared for y line. Because it is too fat / long / has the wheels too far apart / has the wheels too close together/ has a step / doesn't have a step. When the UK cannot even define standardised external dimensions that fit within a standardised loading gauge, there is little point discussing any further standardisation.

 

[JonathanH]

It's even more basic than that. I am fed up of reading that x unit isn't cleared for y line. Because it is too fat / long / has the wheels too far apart / has the wheels too close together/ has a step / doesn't have a step. When the UK cannot even define standardised external dimensions that fit within a standardised loading gauge, there is little point discussing any further standardisation.

Part of that is progress.

23m coaches were an improvement on 20m coaches but there are places where the clearances don't permit their use. Should we have been constrained to 20m coaches forever?

Crossrail 345s extend to 24m which saves a coach relative to running 20m coaches and allows three doors on the side of each coach. Just like Mk3s, you can't run 24m coaches on all routes.

 

[Mikey C]

The Southern Region was very standardised. Which had great benefits I presume for maintenance and reliability, but did lead to a lack of design progression and slam door Mk1 based units like the Class 423 still being made in 1974, using the same traction motors that had first been used 30/40 years earlier!

 

[coppercapped]

Is it not more the case that the mechanical parts are not the only issue?

Certainly any kind of standardisation now would ideally include all the electronic stuff.

But mechanical incompatibility is also an issue is it not - with multiple different types of coupling, to start with.

The main issue with standardisation is that it always solves yesterday's problems. If new requirements come along, or new technologies, then it is often very difficult to shoe-horn these into a set of existing standards.

This cartoon sums up the problem very succinctly...

If you really must standardise the electronic stuff, the best way it to define the interfaces between the various boxes, not the boxes themselves. Developments in electronics are so fast that components can quickly become obsolete - trains have a much longer life. Using standardised interfaces means that the manufacturer can make the internals of the boxes as he wishes and a replacement box twenty years down the line can still have the same 'Form, Fit and Function' even though how it does its magic may be very different.

In any event one has to be very clear /why/ one is standardising the interfaces. It is highly unlikely that the maintenance staff would want to fit a Bombardier box to a Siemens train - in the same way that an Airbus MagicBox(TM) will never be fitted to a Boeing aircraft. What benefit - exactly - will standardised boxes bring? It's not just the box - it's, for want of a better word, the Operating System of the train. These are proprietary and the market isn't big enough for the Linus Torvalds of the railway world to get interested. There are already enough varieties of datalinks suitable for trains, these don't have to be re-invented: CANbus, Ethernet and the like.

By mechanical compatibility I presume you essentially mean the couplers. Practically all modern passenger stock[1] uses the Scharfenberg/Dellner coupler - as I understand it the differences between stock are mainly in the mounting centres and the electrical connections. It might be possible in future stock to standardise coupler centres, but if really low floor stock becomes popular then the mounting centres will probably be wrong. See my first sentence.

As for the control connections through the couplers, currently done via multi-pin connectors, I can see this evolving into a contactless form using Near Field Communications as is used in contactless bank cards. Again - it's the interface which needs to be standardised and I can see this evolving at an international level. No manufacturer would want to, or could afford to, develop country specific solutions.

[1] The traction and buffing forces these can take are designed around passenger stock, so other couplers, mostly now knuckle couplers, are used for freight wagons. The incompatibility issue doesn't arise - I can't see a Class 387 pushing a failed 4,400 tonne stone train out of the way on the Berks & Hants!

 

[irish_rail]

Greater efficiencies, easier to cascade, easier to train staff on , easier for passengers to understand, and would smarten up our higgeldy piggeldy railway.
A good idea in my opinion and in some ways the 80x classes are a step in the right direction in this respect and I would hope they would eventually be ordered for XC , scotrail etc etc

 

[BRX]

The Southern Region was very standardised. Which had great benefits I presume for maintenance and reliability, but did lead to a lack of design progression and slam door Mk1 based units like the Class 423 still being made in 1974, using the same traction motors that had first been used 30/40 years earlier!

Are you sure that it was standardisation which led to a lack of design progression - rather than other things like financial constraints?

 

[BRX]

The main issue with standardisation is that it always solves yesterday's problems. If new requirements come along, or new technologies, then it is often very difficult to shoe-horn these into a set of existing standards.

This cartoon sums up the problem very succinctly...

If you really must standardise the electronic stuff, the best way it to define the interfaces between the various boxes, not the boxes themselves. Developments in electronics are so fast that components can quickly become obsolete - trains have a much longer life. Using standardised interfaces means that the manufacturer can make the internals of the boxes as he wishes and a replacement box twenty years down the line can still have the same 'Form, Fit and Function' even though how it does its magic may be very different.

In any event one has to be very clear /why/ one is standardising the interfaces. It is highly unlikely that the maintenance staff would want to fit a Bombardier box to a Siemens train - in the same way that an Airbus MagicBox(TM) will never be fitted to a Boeing aircraft. What benefit - exactly - will standardised boxes bring? It's not just the box - it's, for want of a better word, the Operating System of the train. These are proprietary and the market isn't big enough for the Linus Torvalds of the railway world to get interested. There are already enough varieties of datalinks suitable for trains, these don't have to be re-invented: CANbus, Ethernet and the like.

By mechanical compatibility I presume you essentially mean the couplers. Practically all modern passenger stock[1] uses the Scharfenberg/Dellner coupler - as I understand it the differences between stock are mainly in the mounting centres and the electrical connections. It might be possible in future stock to standardise coupler centres, but if really low floor stock becomes popular then the mounting centres will probably be wrong. See my first sentence.

As for the control connections through the couplers, currently done via multi-pin connectors, I can see this evolving into a contactless form using Near Field Communications as is used in contactless bank cards. Again - it's the interface which needs to be standardised and I can see this evolving at an international level. No manufacturer would want to, or could afford to, develop country specific solutions.

[1] The traction and buffing forces these can take are designed around passenger stock, so other couplers, mostly now knuckle couplers, are used for freight wagons. The incompatibility issue doesn't arise - I can't see a Class 387 pushing a failed 4,400 tonne stone train out of the way on the Berks & Hants!

For sure, I can see it's the interfaces that matter most. If the magic boxes themselves could be standard then it would mean that someone who knows how to fix a problem with the magic box in unit type X can probably fix the problem with the magic box in unit type Y. But I do get it, that the fast movement of electronics and software technology might make this impractical. However, there would seem to be a benefit in allowing unit type X to couple with unit type Y, and the two systems being able to talk to each other. For example, in a 'rescue' type situation, or in the scenario where stock is cascaded between operators.

Mechanical compatibility - yes couplers. Having the same type of coupler is useless if they are at different centres (that this situation has been allowed to develop I find a little baffling). So I would include mounting centres as part of "mechanical compatibility".

 

[BRX]

easier to train staff on ,

Yes - there seem to have been several recent situations where massive issues have arisen from a backlog of training on new units. The Thameslink debacle and now the Scotrail HSTs. A lot of this could surely be avoided by having a limited number of stock types, and making sure that most staff were able to work most of them.

I assume this must have generally been the case when the majority of passenger stock on the network was mkI/II/III coaches?

 

[Tobbes]

This is fundamentally a very sensible idea, but in addition to the problems above, you also need to have much more command and control from the centre. This is fine, but it doesn't mesh very well with the theoretical argument for privatisation. Change that assumption, and the rest can follow - and 800/801/802/80X would be perfectly sensible as Mark VI.

 

[swt_passenger]

Surely the starting point would be to standardise the network first?

Make everything G10...

Did you mean W10, which is a freight gauge and offers no improvement to passenger stock?

 

[route:oxford]

Did you mean W10, which is a freight gauge and offers no improvement to passenger stock?

So what's the passenger equivalent of W10 then?

There must be some correlation between where a big square square container sitting on a wagon can travel and where a passenger train can offer level access?

 

[swt_passenger]

So what's the passenger equivalent of W10 then?

There must be some correlation between where a big square square container sitting on a wagon can travel and where a passenger train can offer level access?

W10 just opens out the upper corners to allow for containers. The total height above the rails allowed is only a few inches higher than a typical loco or passenger coach at the centreline. The question of platform height with respect to carriage doors is unrelated to W10 clearance, there is no passenger equivalent.

 

[DarloRich]

Surely what the OP suggests requires a central controlling brain and a linked train building company. We don't have that...................

 

[coppercapped]

Yes - there seem to have been several recent situations where massive issues have arisen from a backlog of training on new units. The Thameslink debacle and now the Scotrail HSTs. A lot of this could surely be avoided by having a limited number of stock types, and making sure that most staff were able to work most of them.

I assume this must have generally been the case when the majority of passenger stock on the network was mkI/II/III coaches?

Without doing the calculations, I would be surprised if loco hauled rolling stock was in the majority since the days of the Modernisation Plan. All the suburban trains were multiple units of one form or another and used a variety of different couplings (screw, buckeye, Tightlock and BSI) and multiple control connections.
The Thameslink debacle was not due to a variety of rolling stock types - several types were being replaced by one variety, the Class 700. It should now be simpler as only one variety of train is in use. Most of the difficulty was due to the combination of stock training and route learning that took the time, compounded by the rebuilding of sections of the route all in a more compressed timescale than originally planned.

This is exactly the same reason that South West Railway has gone for fleet extinction of several small types of trains (455s, 458, 707s etc.) all to be replaced by a uniform fleet of Bombardier trains. TOC managment has come to the same conclusions than you have.

 

[hwl]

Part of that is progress.

23m coaches were an improvement on 20m coaches but there are places where the clearances don't permit their use. Should we have been constrained to 20m coaches forever?

Crossrail 345s extend to 24m which saves a coach relative to running 20m coaches and allows three doors on the side of each coach. Just like Mk3s, you can't run 24m coaches on all routes.

345s are 22.4m rather than 24m. The Anglia and LNR units are 24.Xm

 

[krus_aragon]

Surely what the OP suggests requires a central controlling brain and a linked train building company. We don't have that...................

Now I have images of the Wizard of Oz's Scarecrow playing with a train set. If I only had a brain...

 

[nw1]

I can remember when everything running between Ramsgate and Poole was compatible, different divisions of the Southern Region sometimes borrowed units from each other and it worked well because maintenance staff and drivers all knew what to do with it.
Nowadays with 465, 466 not working with 455 and 375, 377 not working with 450 and then add 442, 444 and 313 what a big mess.

The idiocy was dividing up the old SR into separate SWT, Southern and South Eastern franchises.

It would surely have made much more sense to have one big 'Southern' franchise which ordered one standard replacement for the CIGs and VEPs which would have operated in the whole area (with subvariants for long-distance/low density - a CIG/CEP replacement, shorter distance/high density - a VEP replacement, and buffet - a BEP/BIG replacement - and then maybe a two-car variant to allow 6- and 10-car working). These replacements would probably end up being either today's 444s and 450s, or today's 377s - but crucially, not both. Either the Siemens or the Electrostar stock would operate throughout the Southern - don't really care which.

On the other hand I would not go for a 'one size fits all' single class, a la Thameslink - as stated above, I would go with several compatible sub-varieties (in the same way as CIG/VEP, 444/450 or the different kinds of 377), so that longer-distance travellers get low-density high-comfort stock (in CIG/444 style) and shorter-distance or commuter workings get higher-density 3x2 stock (in VEP/450 style).

Never, ever understood why they made three separate franchises for the Southern (with the result we have ended up with incompatible stock). Would it not have made so much more sense to have one integrated Southern third-rail network?

 

[nw1]

The Southern Region was very standardised. Which had great benefits I presume for maintenance and reliability, but did lead to a lack of design progression and slam door Mk1 based units like the Class 423 still being made in 1974, using the same traction motors that had first been used 30/40 years earlier!

Strange to think that the newest VEPs are only a couple of years older than the 313s - they always seem to come from different eras. I always think of VEPs as a 1960s-build which was mature and established by the 1980s, and the 313s as a 1980s-era unit which seemed very new in the early 80s when most stock was slam-door of one sort or other.

 

[notlob.divad]

Part of that is progress.

23m coaches were an improvement on 20m coaches but there are places where the clearances don't permit their use. Should we have been constrained to 20m coaches forever?

Crossrail 345s extend to 24m which saves a coach relative to running 20m coaches and allows three doors on the side of each coach. Just like Mk3s, you can't run 24m coaches on all routes.

You state 23m coaches are an improvement, but you fail to say under what criteria. They are clearly a retrograde step under the criteria of compatability with the existing infrastructure at the time the first one was made. Because they couldn't go everywhere.

Should we have been constrained to 20m forever? Any particular reason why not to keep that supposed constraint. However the point is the actual number is immaterial. What matters is to have one, as it impacts upon everything from Loading gauge, door positions, platform lengths etc etc. all critically depend upon the external diameters of the tube of metal you want to transport. Fix the big numbers then everything else can fall into place around it.

 

[a_c_skinner]

Mk3 and Mk4 are (wiki here) 23m. They seem widely cleared to run so it doesn't seem to me to be beyond the wit of humankind to only buy new stock that is the right size to run everywhere and have the same sort of couplings and brake hoses at each end. It isn't anticompetetive, you just specify the same for everyone. Even the Carlisle and Maryport can take some 23m vehicles so it cannot be too difficult to clear the vast bulk of the network for a useful "go anywhere" passenger vehicle size. Add in a standard driving cab and door controls. As above the problem is it needs someone to take control but the gains in being able to move stock around, reduced training, rescuing stranded vehicles must be substantial.

 

[swt_passenger]

The idiocy was dividing up the old SR into separate SWT, Southern and South Eastern franchises.

It would surely have made much more sense to have one big 'Southern' franchise which ordered one standard replacement for the CIGs and VEPs which would have operated in the whole area (with subvariants for long-distance/low density - a CIG/CEP replacement, shorter distance/high density - a VEP replacement, and buffet - a BEP/BIG replacement - and then maybe a two-car variant to allow 6- and 10-car working). These replacements would probably end up being either today's 444s and 450s, or today's 377s - but crucially, not both. Either the Siemens or the Electrostar stock would operate throughout the Southern - don't really care which.

On the other hand I would not go for a 'one size fits all' single class, a la Thameslink - as stated above, I would go with several compatible sub-varieties (in the same way as CIG/VEP, 444/450 or the different kinds of 377), so that longer-distance travellers get low-density high-comfort stock (in CIG/444 style) and shorter-distance or commuter workings get higher-density 3x2 stock (in VEP/450 style).

Never, ever understood why they made three separate franchises for the Southern (with the result we have ended up with incompatible stock). Would it not have made so much more sense to have one integrated Southern third-rail network?

The pre-privatisation “Southern” was run as three separate operating divisions, that’s basically why it became three franchises. Nothing was split up...

 

[Dr Hoo]

Notwithstanding the theoretical benefits of standardisation I still find it very telling that (other than for essentially ‘dumb’ hauled coaches of Mark I, II and III) BR still had a great variety of types of train even when it had its own workshops.

The engineering ‘conservatism’ that led to many new Modernisation Plan EMUs having slam doors rather than sliding doors has been the subject of considerable discussion on a parallel current thread.

As a former operator I have to say that ‘assistance’ of trains that have just sat down in the middle of nowhere is actually quite rare. When it does happen even a supposedly compatible unit often seems to suffer from ‘fault transfer’, especially with modern systems.

 

[nw1]

The pre-privatisation “Southern” was run as three separate operating divisions, that’s basically why it became three franchises. Nothing was split up...

Except those operating divisions were all part of BR; I'm not a fan of privatisation especially but do feel that the biggest problem with it was the franchises were too small which prevented a unified service; something that admittedly has been rectified more recently with GWR for example.

Granted a 'pan-Southern' franchise would continue to operate from different depots and have subdivisions for the SW, S and SE, but the point is it would be the same company, all divisions would be running in cooperation, not in competition, with each other, and could order the same stock, allowing one division's units to 'rescue' another's for example, plan a unified timetable to minimise conflicts at places like Havant, or enable joint working of certain routes which crossed subdivisions, such as SOU to Victoria (granted this didn't happen under BR either but in theory it could), or even design completely new routes from scratch without having to tread on another company's toes.