Future of the Intercity 125s

[Lewisham2221]

Modern vs Old

Ladbroke Grove.. Class 165 (Welded aluminium extrusions that came apart.. Mk3's that didn't and central partitions still in place at that point)

And now FGW's Mk 3's

Colwich.. Head on crash involving Mk 1,2 and 3 coaches..No deaths (passengers)

Now compare that to Ufton Nervet. Just a car and a HST with the central partitions removed from the coaches and look at the pictures.. some folded in half.. Deaths we all know about.

What I am trying to say is that, the way SOME modern trains are built, you would be better off in a Mk 3 or a papermache train! A 170/375/377 etc will split open.

I will look for the RAIL article that had the "6 bolt" thing also!

Was there not a significant difference in speed between the Ladbroke Grove and Ufton Nervet collisions though?

 

[dubscottie]

Why did Adtranz refuse to put a 170 body through a crash test when the first were being built for Chiltern and MML?
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Was there not a significant difference in speed between the Ladbroke Grove and Ufton Nervet collisions though?

My point is how the coaches behaved.. Had FGW refurbished Mk 3's been in the rake at Ladbroke Grove then I would say the death toll would have been higher.. The HST coaches would have folded as the did at Ufton Nervet.

There is a reason why the central partitions on a Mk 3 are made of metal and welded in.. (as on the 150/1 and the early build 317 and 455) It stops the body from bending.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Why did Adtranz refuse to put a 170 body through a crash test when the first were being built for Chiltern and MML?
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My point is how the coaches behaved.. Had FGW refurbished Mk 3's been in the rake at Ladbroke Grove then I would say the death toll would have been higher.. The HST coaches would have folded as the did at Ufton Nervet.

There is a reason why the central partitions on a Mk 3 are made of metal and welded in.. (as on the 150/1 and the early build 317 and 455) It stops the body from bending.

But it's surely not a fair comparison? I'm not saying you're wrong, or that the behaviour of the coaches would or wouldn't have been different if, for example, they'd both been in similar collisions, it just doesn't seem a fair comparison. However, as there are such wide ranging factors that could affect the behaviour of rolling stock in any collision, I don't necessarily agree that any one item of rolling stock could accurately be described as "safer" than another.

 

[dubscottie]

This is how a Mk 3 was designed. (School boy science)

Get an empty kitchen roll tube..

Now press it at each end. End loading no problem. (wont bend)

Now place it on something, so it is supported at each end ( to simulate the bogies).

Press down in the middle.. It starts to bend.(as FGW ones do)

Now imagine the central partition in the middle.(as Mk3's were built)

Do you think it would bend? No!! It stops it bending on the vertical and the horizontal.
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This is the point i was trying to make about FGW HST's being unsafe.

 

[Lewisham2221]

This is how a Mk 3 was designed. (School boy science)

Get an empty kitchen roll tube..

Now press it at each end. End loading no problem. (wont bend)

Now place it on something, so it is supported at each end ( to simulate the bogies).

Press down in the middle.. It starts to bend.(as FGW ones do)

Now imagine the central partition in the middle.(as Mk3's were built)

Do you think it would bend? No!! It stops it bending on the vertical and the horizontal.

Was there a significant top down impact in the Ufton Nervet collision. Whilst I appreciate what your patronising "school boy science" example explains, I'm still unconvinced that it is entirely relevant. Nor does it mention how a kitchen roll tube, with no centre partition, acts if end to end pressure is applied when it is supported at either end by something representing bogies. Thus, it appears to be another unfair comparison.

 

[dubscottie]

Was there a significant top down impact in the Ufton Nervet collision. Whilst I appreciate what your patronising "school boy science" example explains, I'm still unconvinced that it is entirely relevant. Nor does it mention how a kitchen roll tube, with no centre partition, acts if end to end pressure is applied when it is supported at either end by something representing bogies. Thus, it appears to be another unfair comparison.

Pressing down is the same as pressing sideways.. A Mk3 is a tube made of complex steel after all.. up, down,left.right.. the forces are all the same..Its a tube in effect..

Please someone do this.. you will see my point! Or I will pop up a youtube vid myself!
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Also others have said the voyager bogie is new.. the b5000(or6000 need to check) was launched the same day as the first class 165 in 1991!

Voyager bogies are 20 years old now!

 

[Lewisham2221]

Pressing down is the same as pressing sideways.. A Mk3 is a tube made of complex steel after all.. up, down,left.right.. the forces are all the same..Its a tube in effect..

Please someone do this.. you will see my point! Or I will pop up a youtube vid myself!
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Also others have said the voyager bogie is new.. the b5000(or6000 need to check) was launched the same day as the first class 165 in 1991!

Voyager bogies are 20 years old now!

Your comparisons still have very little in common though.

A 1985 collides with a motorcycle, at speed,at a traffic light controlled junction after the motorcycle runs a red light. The solo motorcycle rider is killed, but the sole occupant of the car escapes with minor injuries.

A 2005 collides, at speed, with a tree. The sole occupant of the car is killed.

Therefore, the 2005 car is not safe. The 1985 model, however, is far safer.

 

[dubscottie]

Your comparisons still have very little in common though.

A 1985 collides with a motorcycle, at speed,at a traffic light controlled junction after the motorcycle runs a red light. The solo motorcycle rider is killed, but the sole occupant of the car escapes with minor injuries.

A 2005 collides, at speed, with a tree. The sole occupant of the car is killed.

Therefore, the 2005 car is not safe. The 1985 model, however, is far safer.

mmmm I am a biker myself and You should change it to "the car runs a red light and hits a bike" but that is for a different forum!

When, god forbid, but it will happen, a 170,377 etc is involved in a serious accident, we will all be here talking about structural integrity..

Or when FGW has another bendy Mk3 crash..

 

[Zoe]

My point is how the coaches behaved.. Had FGW refurbished Mk 3's been in the rake at Ladbroke Grove then I would say the death toll would have been higher.. The HST coaches would have folded as the did at Ufton Nervet.

The FGW refurbishments were not done until 2007 and so none were involved in Ufton Nervet.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

Why did Adtranz refuse to put a 170 body through a crash test when the first were being built for Chiltern and MML?
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My point is how the coaches behaved.. Had FGW refurbished Mk 3's been in the rake at Ladbroke Grove then I would say the death toll would have been higher.. The HST coaches would have folded as the did at Ufton Nervet.

There is a reason why the central partitions on a Mk 3 are made of metal and welded in.. (as on the 150/1 and the early build 317 and 455) It stops the body from bending.

I understood that the primary point of the centre partitions was to raise the resonant frequency. On what evidence do you claim that removal of the central partitions weakened the bodyshell structures to the point of making them dangerous? If that really is the case they should not have been removed and someone should be hauled over the coals for permitting it. On the face of things, removing them sounds like a bad idea, but that said, mark 4 stock does not have them.
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Was there a significant top down impact in the Ufton Nervet collision. Whilst I appreciate what your patronising "school boy science" example explains, I'm still unconvinced that it is entirely relevant. Nor does it mention how a kitchen roll tube, with no centre partition, acts if end to end pressure is applied when it is supported at either end by something representing bogies. Thus, it appears to be another unfair comparison.

Forget Ufton Nervet, look what happened at Southall. But then ask what would be necessary to maintain integrity in a collision at this speed? How would more recent stock have performed?

The early aluminium bodied stock is also known to perform badly in a collision. Improved welding techniques are claimed to have solved the problem. But there is a lot of energy to be dissipated in a high speed accident eg Great Heck. "Crumple zones" will not deal with it and it is not claimed that they will - all they can do is soften the blow in an end-on shunt at around 60kph. Fatalities and injuries are caused by crushing or destruction of the vehicle envelope, collisions with objects inside the vehicle and falling through broken windows. The latter risk has been minimised by fitting laminated glass.

Safety investment needs to be rigidly controlled on a cost-per-life-saved basis or it makes the railways so expensive that people shift to less safe modes (the "can't afford the train fare so I will go on my motor bike" decision)
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Problem sorted then, we can just keep running HST's under the wires.

Buy a fleet of TRAXX or similar and push-pull them.
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Then again MUs (and locos for that matter) are far more complex than they once were. The 1st Gen DMUs were in many cases little more than hauled stock with engines, similarly with the Slammers. Inserting a Mk3 into a 377 strikes me as being a rather more complex operation.

Though I'd be interested in knowing what examples you were thinking of with the above as I can't think of any of the top of my head (and at 00:45 ).

I was not suggesting inserting mark 3s into class 377s. You have a small build of power cars and put the trailers in between. There will be a need for a duct for the through-cabling to enable the power cars to talk to each other, and a power supply for the hotel services in the trailers.

As regards your point about complexity, each generation of trains is getting more complex and expensive than the one before. This has improved the passenger experience not one iota - 1930s stock is more spacious and comfortable than Voyagers and Pendolinos. The significant and worthwhile improvements have been air conditioning, which usually works these days, at long last, retention toilets, centralised door locking and passenger information systems, the latter three of which are little more than relatively simple add-ons - our 1960s trams have had power doors and PIS retro-fitted. Crashworthiness up to a reasonable level should not add mass, complexity or cost since it is primarily a matter of putting the metal in the right place.

Someone ought to ask whether all the rest is providing genuine added value.
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You haven't even managed to understand your own argument. The article states they could be life extended, if a lot of money was spent on them. That money may have represented value for money if they were to be retained on InterCity services, but they're not. The article doesn't say they should have vast sums spent on them just for the sake of it and just because it is possible.

That article was of course written before the IEP order was placed, and was part of the case for not ordering them. The kind of thorough refurbishment you are talking about would have been about 15% of the cost of the IEP vehicles, which would still have left plenty in hand for the purchase of locomotives or powered vehicles.

Railway vehicles, like cars and houses, are a collection of systems with different life spans. You don't scrap your Rolls Royce when the ashtrays are full, or knock your house down when it needs redecorating. In the case of a house, everything apart from the main shell of the building will have had to be replaced after fifty years but it will be kept going for much longer than that. At some point it will become completely obsolete or the main structure will be beyond economic repair and then it is time for demolition.

 

[starrymarkb]

Now compare that to Ufton Nervet. Just a car and a HST with the central partitions removed from the coaches and look at the pictures.. some folded in half.. Deaths we all know about.

The HST in Ufton Nervet was in the older configuration with partition and original seats. A lot of the features in the refurbs were based on the experiences in that and the Paddington accident. One that comes to mind is the switch to metal seat backs as in the UN crash the IC70 seat backs were found to have shattered in the impact causing many injuries.

 

[ainsworth74]

dubscottie so the answer to my question is no? I also note that you've yet to compare like with like. A Mk3 vs a 390 or a 450 vs a 4CIG for example. You've also yet to address my point that trains are built to much higher safety standards than previous generations of vehicles. Or do you claim that these safety standards are being ignored? In which case I'd urge you to take your evidence of this to the authorities so an investigation can be started. Again do you have any actual evidence that would suggest, for example, that a 390 is less strong than a Mk3? Or that any of a host of other vehicles are less strong than those they replaced? So far your only, unsubstantiated, claim is that all modern vehicles are weaker because you believe that 170s are weak. This is clearly a rubbish argument as all modern trains are not 170s (or from that family of trains).

The kind of thorough refurbishment you are talking about would have been about 15% of the cost of the IEP vehicles, which would still have left plenty in hand for the purchase of locomotives or powered vehicles.

Source?

 

[RAGNARØKR]

Source?

Confidential. But a proposal for an almost complete mark 1 rebuild with a strengthened bodyshell, retained bogies and everything else new came in at under 200k in 1998. New hauled vehicles are around 1 million. Turbostars were around 750 k when first ordered. Now about double. 15% of 2.7 million will pay for a lot of refurb.

 

[swt_passenger]

Could you fit, for instance, the traction equipment neccesary to propel 4 Mark 3s into one 23m vehicle (if you powered all four axles Shinkansen style maybe.... as I understand it the pantograph and transformer vehicles of some Shinkansen are powered)?

That's basically what a 442 is surely? Four Mk3s surrounding a single powered Mk3? Seems no need to go to Japan for an example...

The question is basically just whether you can do it with modern AC traction equipment in the same way - or is the motor coach to be new build?

 

[ainsworth74]

Confidential.

Forgive me then for not listening to a word you say on this issue if your only answer to a reasonable question is 'confidential'.

 

[John55]

Why did Adtranz refuse to put a 170 body through a crash test when the first were being built for Chiltern and MML?
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My point is how the coaches behaved.. Had FGW refurbished Mk 3's been in the rake at Ladbroke Grove then I would say the death toll would have been higher.. The HST coaches would have folded as the did at Ufton Nervet.

There is a reason why the central partitions on a Mk 3 are made of metal and welded in.. (as on the 150/1 and the early build 317 and 455) It stops the body from bending.

There are 2 mk 3 coaches which have suffered extreme damage due to folding into a U shape. Southall and Ufton Nervert were the 2 incidents.

In both cases the extreme damage was caused by the side (or part of the side) of the coach being ripped (or sliced off) in the initial collision before the vehicle suffered further damage by hitting or being hit by other vehicles in subsequent collisions as the train decelerated from high speed to zero in a few seconds.

No vehicle can withstand this kind of damage and retain any significant ability to survive a second impact.

As another has mentioned the significance of the internal partitions is to tune the resonant frequency of the body to ensure it is high enough to prevent interaction with the vehicle suspension and has no bearing on the collision resistance of the vehicle. If the side of the coach is missing whatever happens internally is totally irrelevant.

Railway vehicles in the UK are not put through crash tests (with the exception of a single nuclear fuel flask). They are submitted to end loading and other stress tests but these are non destructive and usually performed on a vehicle which is later fitted out for normal use.

I always understood that the 170 was so similar to the 168 and earlier bodies from ABB/Bombardier that repeat testing was unnecessary.

 

[The Ham]

As regards your point about complexity, each generation of trains is getting more complex and expensive than the one before. This has improved the passenger experience not one iota - 1930s stock is more spacious and comfortable than Voyagers and Pendolinos. The significant and worthwhile improvements have been air conditioning, which usually works these days, at long last, retention toilets, centralised door locking and passenger information systems, the latter three of which are little more than relatively simple add-ons - our 1960s trams have had power doors and PIS retro-fitted.

Someone ought to ask whether all the rest is providing genuine added value.

Most passengers would rather have more seats than have more space per seat (up to a point). Not only because it makes getting a seat easier, but because it keeps the rail fairs down (more seats per train means lower cost per passenger).

Retro fitting equipment is expensive and there comes a point when it is better value (give the life of the train) to get new.

Railway vehicles, like cars and houses, are a collection of systems with different life spans. You don't scrap your Rolls Royce when the ashtrays are full, or knock your house down when it needs redecorating. In the case of a house, everything apart from the main shell of the building will have had to be replaced after fifty years but it will be kept going for much longer than that. At some point it will become completely obsolete or the main structure will be beyond economic repair and then it is time for demolition.

You do however scrap a car when the cost of fixing it becomes too expensive. For instance when you need to replace the wiring, not because the cost of the wires, but rather because you need to spend a long time and a lot of effort taking the wires out to then put the new in.

Likewise with a house, it is not uncommon for a house to be flattened and rebuilt when you could just redecorate it. Why, because the cost of faffing about making it good (new bathroom, kitchen, electrics, heating, etc.) is not much different to building new with the added bonus of redesigning the layout to meet current requirements and having a better insulated house.

There are of course those who do keep old houses and cars going for as long as possible, but that very rarely has anything to do with it being better value and more to do with Heritage.

 

[Royston Vasey]

As regards your point about complexity, each generation of trains is getting more complex and expensive than the one before. This has improved the passenger experience not one iota - 1930s stock is more spacious and comfortable than Voyagers and Pendolinos. The significant and worthwhile improvements have been air conditioning, which usually works these days, at long last, retention toilets, centralised door locking and passenger information systems, the latter three of which are little more than relatively simple add-ons - our 1960s trams have had power doors and PIS retro-fitted. Crashworthiness up to a reasonable level should not add mass, complexity or cost since it is primarily a matter of putting the metal in the right place.

...

Railway vehicles, like cars and houses, are a collection of systems with different life spans. You don't scrap your Rolls Royce when the ashtrays are full, or knock your house down when it needs redecorating. In the case of a house, everything apart from the main shell of the building will have had to be replaced after fifty years but it will be kept going for much longer than that. At some point it will become completely obsolete or the main structure will be beyond economic repair and then it is time for demolition.

Long post, but you're bringing up many points which are interrelated. The fact that vehicles are becoming more expensive and complex is the inevitable march of safety and computer control.

You suggested before salvaging the body shell of a Mk 3 as "an expensive component" but you should realise that the body shell is actually made up of stressed mild steel panels. Retrofitting an entire design to a Mk III shell is not an economy when so many rolling stock designs are on the shelf and already have their components packaged into the design. Every design is bespoke. A few steel panels are not an expensive component! A modern extruded bodyshell would be much more significant a cost.

As for benefits to the passenger... you omit the most important which is crash worthiness. Air con, big windows, comfort, ride etc are all important considerations (often subjective though, it must be said), but you cannot ignore how important it is that the coach resists a blow, including efficient crumpling, from another vehicle with a closing speed of 125 mph or worse.

It is hard to compare coach with coach and crash with crash, but...

For 125mph stock:

The Mk III and Mk IV are of welded steel monocoque construction with a steel skin mounted on structural ribs. The Pendolino shell is longitudinally extruded from aluminium alloy and carries far more intrinsic structural integrity and stiffness than its BR predecessors. It is harder to rip the side of a coach off when it is a single tube of aluminium, especially when it has small windows.

As for crashes, it's impossible to compare like for like. Certainly the Mk IVs have performed much better than Mk IIIs in high speed crashes. The Southall Coach G image (which had the internal partitions btw) is haunting quite frankly, and certainly no Mk IV has presented such a catastrophic failure, even at Great Heck which is the most akin to Southall or Ladbroke Grove. The Pendo is yet to be tested in a significant impact, but certainly the damage at Grayrigg was little more than superficial.

For slower stock:

It depends on which stock, age and manufacturer. Naturally the requirements are less stringent. The Electrostar is also seam welded extruded panels like the Pendolino. The Turbostar construction is similar; partly extruded with welded panels. To suggest that there has been any oversight or corner-cutting in safety is as best, naive and at worst, slanderous. You seem to hint at some sort of inside knowledge but all you've quoted is the cost of Adtranz's Networker Classic conversion which is public domain and little more than a rebodying and refurbishment exercise, not mechanical reengineering.

The various accidents involving Mk 1 commuter stock display catastrophic damage at relatively low speed and even those pacers which have been involved in impacts have not shattered like those at Clapham for instance - I would much rather be in an expensive new Electrostar than a 4REP, or 4REP frames with a newer body attached.

I still think you have "enthusiast's" reasons for trying to make an economic and technical case for something which makes no sense.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

There are 2 mk 3 coaches which have suffered extreme damage due to folding into a U shape. Southall and Ufton Nervert were the 2 incidents.

The mark 3 design was influenced by results of experiments carried out in the late 1950s in which models were dropped on their ends in a test rig. The tubular structures were best at surviving their impact with the ground, and this design principle was put into practice with the mark 2 and mark 3 designs. The commonest type of accident at that time involved end-on impact.

Since then, railway accidents have become less frequent and the nature of the accident less predictable. Speeds have increased and when an incident does occur there can be anything up to double the amount of energy to dissipate. In these circumstances it becomes more difficult to design even for the most likely eventualities. The best that can be done is to construct a strong container with some ability to absorb energy, to reduce the likelihood of people being thrown out of windows, and to take care of the design of interior fittings.
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I still think you have "enthusiast's" reasons for trying to make an economic and technical case for something which makes no sense.

I don't have enthusiasts' reasons for anything. I don't even live in the UK. I don't go there often either, amongst other reasons because getting around it is a pain. But what I see looks like poor value for money. Resources are not conserved.

You might feel safer in an Electrostar than a mark 1 but you have paid the price for the safer train and that price will mean that there are some people who have opted to go by car. The question then becomes "Do you feel safer in a car than a mark 1"?

 

[ainsworth74]

You might feel safer in an Electrostar than a mark 1 but you have paid the price for the safer train and that price will mean that there are some people who have opted to go by car.

Can't be that many of them seeing as the network is carrying more passengers than it has at any time since the war and on a smaller network.

 

[Royston Vasey]

I don't have enthusiasts' reasons for anything. I don't even live in the UK. I don't go there often either, amongst other reasons because getting around it is a pain. But what I see looks like poor value for money. Resources are not conserved.

Neither do I. I live in the US, which has a shambles of a rail system. But to me, the UK is suffering more from chronic underinvestment rather than frivolous overspending. I think most on here would concur.

 

[Goatboy]

Can't be that many of them seeing as the network is carrying more passengers than it has at any time since the war and on a smaller network.

And what is the percentage growth in the population of the UK over the same time period? ie, are more people using rail because its better now than ever or are more people using rail because there are more people now than ever?

I suspect a bit of both - but there are many many hundreds of thousands of people who drive because they feel rail is poor value, which it often is.

 

[John55]

The mark 3 design was influenced by results of experiments carried out in the late 1950s in which models were dropped on their ends in a test rig. The tubular structures were best at surviving their impact with the ground, and this design principle was put into practice with the mark 2 and mark 3 designs. The commonest type of accident at that time involved end-on impact.

Since then, railway accidents have become less frequent and the nature of the accident less predictable. Speeds have increased and when an incident does occur there can be anything up to double the amount of energy to dissipate. In these circumstances it becomes more difficult to design even for the most likely eventualities. The best that can be done is to construct a strong container with some ability to absorb energy, to reduce the likelihood of people being thrown out of windows, and to take care of the design of interior fittings.

Are you referring to the testing of a Swindon Cross Country trailer car at Vitry in 1957 which actually took place after the units had entered service? Design work on these vehicles started in 1954 and after the testing at Vitry the designers realised the structure was heavier than necessary and so could be redesigned using lighter sections and hence the basic mk 2 was designed. Not a hint of dropping tubes onto the ground in a test jig.

The concept of integral construction coaches was well known in the UK before the 2nd world war as Stanier of the LMS kept banging about how wonderful his 1939 Liverpool - Southport stock was in terms of weight per passenger to anyone who would listen to him. The Southern also had some integral vehicles but low weight wasn't achieved with their motor cars for the Brighton electrification (however at >53 tons per vehicle one can see were the inspiration for the main battle tanks of WW2 came from!).

One of the interesting issues noted in a quick review of the Selby and Southall accident reports is the clear inference that on the NR network one of the greatest danger to passengers in a collision is the design of the freight locos and wagons. These vehicles are designed with no thought given to what happens in a collision with a passenger train. In fact they are a positive hazard to passengers in a collision the class 66 in particular being very poor as the design allows major components to become detached and become missiles easily capable of penetrating passenger vehicles.

 

[corfield]

RAGNARØKR.

Your house analogy, like everything else I've read of yours, is flawed.
In railway terms, the house is the infrastructure; the plot of land the rail corridors; the walls the lines; the roof the tunnels, cuttings, viaducts and bridges; the windows & doors the stations; the wiring the signalling, the plumbing the ballast and under track drainage.

The trains are the furnishings, fittings and decoration, and as you said, you have to renew that much more often because it becomes tired, dated and isn't the modern fashion/standard. Wallpaper and fittings will however, like a train, go on for nearly ever if you keep patching them, sticking them back togeather and replacing bits. Usually, as you say, we refurbish all that fairly frequently. Often, for reasons of uniformity and ease (cheaper to do something in one go than spread it out), we remove good stuff along with bad. Exactly the same with trains.

But, taking this analogy further, it isn't a private house at all - it's a restaurant and B&B and you need to entice people in and justify your prices to pay your staff and consumable costs. That means really keeping on top of furnishings, fittings and decoration, probably requiring some stuff that still works ok to be passed over in favour of something better sooner rather than later.

You say you live outside the UK, and that somehow this means you can't be guilty of enthusiast "rose tinted glasses" syndrome. Again you are flawed - someone not exposed to something is far more likely to develop and sustain irrational enthusiast urges than someone confronted with the reality. I am in the UK. I ride in Mk3s. They are noisy, bouncy, draughty and I much prefer a Pendo or 22X class train. In fact, I prefer my local 165s having had to sit in a Mk3 back from Exeter recently. I also half suspect the 165 would have been quicker...

I do ponder why you post here? If all you can do when challenged on facts and unsubstantiated claims is hide behind the utterly laughable "confidential" who, other than yourself, do you think you are kidding?

I love debate and disussion - I've put a few ideas up in this forum recently. I've even challenged those with negayive feedback to my ideas. But I don't stick obstinately to a patently obvious fallacy out of some desperate adherance to my belief set because I listen. I think you'd benefit from doing some listening rather than ignoring every legitimate and well founded criticism, and instead of digging yourself ever deeper into more desperate ways to spin the discussion to give yourself some kind of win.

Sometimes when one is on one's own, seperate from the pack; one is the leader, the wise man, the guy with the right answer. Usually however, one is just being a ****.

 

[ainsworth74]

And what is the percentage growth in the population of the UK over the same time period? ie, are more people using rail because its better now than ever or are more people using rail because there are more people now than ever?

Well I suppose the growth in passengers numbers over the entire period is zero as we've returned (or are slightly above now) the immediate post war levels. But if we take the nadir of 1981ish when there were 620 million passenger journeys compared with 2011s 1250 million then that growth has been around 100%. At the same time the population has gone from something in the region of 55 million to 62 million or a roughly 12% increase.

My original post was perhaps victim of a certain amount of hyperbole but I don't think you can deny that the during the period of 1980 to 2012 railway has undergone growth that has far and away outstripped population growth.

but there are many many hundreds of thousands of people who drive because they feel rail is poor value, which it often is.

In some ways it's good job that they do. The network would be unable to cope with the extra demand.

 

[HSTEd]

Well I do wonder what would happen if all the local trains like the Crewe-Manchester were joined onto other trains like the London-Crewe trains to provide slow low cost through tickets.

Wold require platform lengthening but it would be useful.

Or if the only limit placed on train lengths was length of platforms and we ran every train as long as possible.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

Forgive me then for not listening to a word you say on this issue if your only answer to a reasonable question is 'confidential'.

Why? Is the ball park figure I provided unreasonable or given the information that is in the public realm? Will you not be satisfied unless you want to see the actual internal documents containing this information, if they still exist?
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RAGNARØKR.

Your house analogy, like everything else I've read of yours, is flawed.
In railway terms, the house is the infrastructure; the plot of land the rail corridors; the walls the lines; the roof the tunnels, cuttings, viaducts and bridges; the windows & doors the stations; the wiring the signalling, the plumbing the ballast and under track drainage.

The trains are the furnishings, fittings and decoration, and as you said, you have to renew that much more often because it becomes tired, dated and isn't the modern fashion/standard. Wallpaper and fittings will however, like a train, go on for nearly ever if you keep patching them, sticking them back togeather and replacing bits. Usually, as you say, we refurbish all that fairly frequently. Often, for reasons of uniformity and ease (cheaper to do something in one go than spread it out), we remove good stuff along with bad. Exactly the same with trains.

But, taking this analogy further, it isn't a private house at all - it's a restaurant and B&B and you need to entice people in and justify your prices to pay your staff and consumable costs. That means really keeping on top of furnishings, fittings and decoration, probably requiring some stuff that still works ok to be passed over in favour of something better sooner rather than later.

You say you live outside the UK, and that somehow this means you can't be guilty of enthusiast "rose tinted glasses" syndrome. Again you are flawed - someone not exposed to something is far more likely to develop and sustain irrational enthusiast urges than someone confronted with the reality. I am in the UK. I ride in Mk3s. They are noisy, bouncy, draughty and I much prefer a Pendo or 22X class train. In fact, I prefer my local 165s having had to sit in a Mk3 back from Exeter recently. I also half suspect the 165 would have been quicker.

I have never particularly liked the mark 3 stock. The bay size has always made it difficult to get a good standard class seating layout. And the latest FGW refurbs are particularly unpleasant and definitely unenticing, but the design was driven by the need to pack in as many seats as possible, which meant mostly airlines at the minimum acceptable pitch. The BREL International, with a similar construction, is much better bodyshell from the point of view of window positions.

This was a UK gauge version of the UIC train using mark 3 construction, and an actual UIC dimension vehicle was also built which spend most of its time at Derby. On the strength of the BREL demonstrator, the company had an important role in setting up a production line Changchun to mass produce a Chinese version presumably on the same construction principle.

But the mark 3 stock are on the system in large numbers and because the UK system has a narrow gauge infrastructure on standard gauge track it isn't possible to participate in the standard European rolling stock market, unlike, say, Bulgaria, which can buy in from all over the place, now will there be much interest in buying the old stock, so its after-use is scrap metal.

Your restaurant analogy is a good one, but what you are talking about is decor which is relatively inexpensive and is what people see. Internal and external repainting, a set of cushion covers and new floor coverings will transform the appearance of a railway vehicle at a relatively trivial cost. That level of investment will not do anything about fundamental issues like ride quality, or of course the speed at which the vehicle can run. But the BT10 bogie has always been regarded as giving a good ride quality, and tastes vary. Electrostars give a very soft ride and tend to roll around. Voyagers give a firm ride, which you obviously prefer or have got used to. The original mark 1 bogie was unpleasantly wobbly, whilst the B4 was excellent up to its design speed, and tolerant of bad track.

Safety improvements are not necessarily expensive either eg fitting laminated glass windows is not particularly expensive operation in the scheme of things.

After that it starts to get expensive as you get into the heavier engineering. There is a hierarchy of life cycles and a hierarchy of costs, not necessarily in the same order: eg wiring, electronic systems eventually need to be renewed and some systems have to be replaced as they are no longer compliant with regulations or expectations. Powered doors and retention toilets, on the other hand, obviously come with a bigger price tag.

Then there are some very long-lived major components of which the most costly are the bogies and bodyshell. Naturally, the point comes when these main structural elements need to be replaced due to things like corrosion and metal fatigue. Then it is time to start again The Railway Gazette report on the IMechE meeting in February 2011 referred to a date of around 2035 for the mark 3 stock. So they remain a valuable resource. Given that the UK network needs to grow to accommodate ever increasing transport needs, it would be surprising if this resource cannot help to support this growth

Why pointing this out should make you or anyone else annoyed, however, as it evidently does, is an interesting question. I had a barrage of hostility on this same subject nearly ten years ago when people on this forum were insisting that the HSTs and other mark 3 vehicles were ready for the scrap heap, but they remain in front line service having received investment from their owners. Naturally the time will come to be rid of them but it is at least ten or fifteen years away. To replace them sooner would be a waste of money which could be better spent.
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Are you referring to the testing of a Swindon Cross Country trailer car at Vitry in 1957 which actually took place after the units had entered service?

No I am referring to some laboratory tests. I remember reading about them probably in the New Scientist which must have been between 1956 and 1959.
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Neither do I. I live in the US, which has a shambles of a rail system. But to me, the UK is suffering more from chronic underinvestment rather than frivolous overspending. I think most on here would concur.

The UK suffers from a combination of underinvestment and frivolous overspending. The typical picture is you come off the Eurostar train from Paris at St Pancras, make your way past the longest champagne bar in Europe, and then squander the time waiting in the taxi queue which then get stuck in the traffic jam in the Euston Road. Or have to struggle onto grossly overcrowded tube trains. Or if you are travelling north, make your way to the far end of the station to where the Midland main line trains have been relegated. In the both Eurostar directions you squander time at the check-in because UK Border Control refuse to put their staff on the trains and the UK will not join the Schengen area. And five years after completion of the high speed link, there are still no through trains from Germany or the Netherlands.

One of the difficulties is that the UK has utterly failed to solve its problem of regional imbalance, so everyone and everything is crowding into the bottom right hand corner, leaving wide empty spaces everywhere else. There is in fact a simple fiscal measure which would greatly alleviated the situation but nobody in authority is willing to take it.

 

[tbtc]

Well I do wonder what would happen if all the local trains like the Crewe-Manchester were joined onto other trains like the London-Crewe trains to provide slow low cost through tickets

That's kind of what happened on many "Provincial" lines in the '80s - ending up with lots of weird/ wonderful combined services like Aberystwyth - Birmingham - Nottingham - Cleethorpes.

The longer the service, the more unreliable it gets though - hence many of these routes being chopped back up again in recent years.

 

[HSTEd]

That's kind of what happened on many "Provincial" lines in the '80s - ending up with lots of weird/ wonderful combined services like Aberystwyth - Birmingham - Nottingham - Cleethorpes.

The longer the service, the more unreliable it gets though - hence many of these routes being chopped back up again in recent years.

Chopping services in half to make them more reliable is merely an idiotic artefact of privatisation IMO.
And timetables are so absurdly padded its not really that much of a problem anyway..... and I imagine people who would take such a London-Manchester service would not mind a few minutes extra padding at Crewe....

Whats the maximum length of train that can be run between Crewe and Manchester Piccadilly? I imagine a 12 car Cl350 lashup would not fit on the platforms at stations like Mauldeth Road.

 

[The Ham]

The UK suffers from a combination of underinvestment and frivolous overspending. The typical picture is you come off the Eurostar train from Paris at St Pancras, make your way past the longest champagne bar in Europe, and then squander the time waiting in the taxi queue which then get stuck in the traffic jam in the Euston Road. Or have to struggle onto grossly overcrowded tube trains.

The problem is there is only so much space in London, and with a population of over 10% of the whole of the UK then there is always going to be problems with providing enough capacity without consistently spending vast amounts of money. Although to be fair to TfL they have been upgrading a lot of the tube network over the last 10 years. Over the next 10 years crossrail is coming online and I would expect that crossrail 2 would be following not too much further down the line.

Or if you are travelling north, make your way to the far end of the station to where the Midland main line trains have been relegated. In the both Eurostar directions you squander time at the check-in because UK Border Control refuse to put their staff on the trains and the UK will not join the Schengen area. And five years after completion of the high speed link, there are still no through trains from Germany or the Netherlands.

MML is going to get electrified in the next 7 years and so is likely to be getting new trains.

The UK do want to join the Schengen area for many reasons including the population of the UK do not want it to be too easy for people to enter the UK (i.e. so we retain the illusion of controlling our borders)

One of the difficulties is that the UK has utterly failed to solve its problem of regional imbalance, so everyone and everything is crowding into the bottom right hand corner, leaving wide empty spaces everywhere else. There is in fact a simple fiscal measure which would greatly alleviated the situation but nobody in authority is willing to take it.

A simple fiscal measure such as? Massively inflated house prices (nope not worked), Costly to travel (either through congestion and/or higher fairs - nope not worked either), Moving government departments out of London (nope not work)