If you were DfT - the future of Voyagers

[Goatboy]

I have not noticed any significant difference in passenger ambience between end door and third door position trains provided both are fitted with plug doors in good repair.

You don't notice when the wall behind your seat suddenly opens to reveal a rush of cold air, for example?

Additionally XC is not a true InterCity route, despite the claims of many to the contrary, it is more like TPE than ICWC.

Errr, ok.

The 2-4 hour journeys I make using XC certainly feel like Intercity journeys to me! Sure, they serve intermediate stations as well but then so do FGW, East Coast, etc. I suspect you are going to say that FGW et al have a greater proportion of passengers remaining on the service for its entire duration but I'm not sure this is relevent given that half of some of the XC journeys are longer in duration than any of FGW's IC services for example. Somebody sitting on an XC train for only half of its trip is likely to be sitting on the train for more time than somebody travelling from London to Edinburgh which you'd presumably not argue is an IC journey.

Mind you, I guess mid-coach doors would give us all more places to stand

 

[ainsworth74]

Mid-coach doors are for suburban commuter trains IMHO and should not be fitted to medium or long distance stock. End doors give a far better ambience in the passenger cabin and as a result improve passenger comfort.

I don't disagree with you but the problem is that many services are multi-purpose depending on where they are in their run. For example TPE 185s in the peak (and sometimes even outside of it) need the door layout they have to deal with the really heavy loadings between York and Manchester. Even though if you're travelling from Middlesbrough to Manchester having the layout of a 158 would be preferable. Unless someone comes up with a way of dealing with that problem then it's going to be very difficult to justify going back to more traditional end door type layouts.

 

[HSTEd]

You don't notice when the wall behind your seat suddenly opens to reveal a rush of cold air, for example?

This is not a major inconvenience really, the blast only lasts a few seconds before the previous equilibrium of the carriage reasserts itself.

And you do notice this in cold weather with end door vehicles anyway, just not quite as noticeably, and things like this are minor compared to the difference between plug and sliding doors for example. (Or horrific slammers like Mark 3s where you can hear the air rushing through the improperly sealed droplight from the saloon with the intervening door closed).

Remember the shorter dwell times afforded by third position doors mean that the external doors are open for less time which helps to offset the greater area of the "hole".

The 2-4 hour journeys I make using XC certainly feel like Intercity journeys to me! Sure, they serve intermediate stations as well but then so do FGW, East Coast, etc. I suspect you are going to say that FGW et al have a greater proportion of passengers remaining on the service for its entire duration but I'm not sure this is relevent given that half of some of the XC journeys are longer in duration than any of FGW's IC services for example. Somebody sitting on an XC train for only half of its trip is likely to be sitting on the train for more time than somebody travelling from London to Edinburgh which you'd presumably not argue is an IC journey.

Mind you, I guess mid-coach doors would give us all more places to stand

Wasn't there a statistic that XC journeys average under 2 hours?
How many people actually stay on for these very long haul journeys?
And note how I was actually proposing replacing the soon to be electric XC trains, not the entire fleet, which means the ultra long NE-SW journeys would not be included.

Meanwhile TPE has already moved to a third position door layout.

EDIT:

AS of 2006, apparently 70% of journeys on XC averaged under 100 miles, I believe this was before the collapse of central trains so that would be without the Turbostars distorting the figures. Source

This certainly puts it more in the ballpark of TPE than ICEC or ICWC.

 

[Goatboy]

I can offer nothing but anecdotal evidence but certainly on my XC journeys when sitting with strangers around a table and whatnot I don't notice much in the way of regular changes in passengers. A quick look at the reservation screens - which account for the majority of seats infact on a typical Voyager - will reveal numerous 2+ hour journeys.

 

[HSTEd]

Do those systems reliably show the actual individual reservations? I seem to recall them showing when the seat is supposed to have been booked rather than the journeys under each individual reservation.

Although I have only ever travelled first class on XC so I wouldn't have that much experience with conditions in standard.

I can't see having had a massive reversal of the trend on XC since 2006, especially since the trend was very definitely towards lots of short journeys at that time.

Remember XC has lots of flows like Manchester-Birmingham and Bristol-Birmingham and Birmingham-Leeds which are relatively short and help balance the very long journeys, it also acts as part of the "stopping" provision on the northern ECML, alongside TPE.

 

[tbtc]

A quick look at the reservation screens - which account for the majority of seats infact on a typical Voyager - will reveal numerous 2+ hour journeys.

You're far more likely to reserve a seat on a long distance route though - the hundreds commuting from Sheffield to Leeds each day aren't going to bother with a reservation, but if I were going down to Bristol then I'd want to ensure I had a seat - it's not a fair bellweather.

 

[Goatboy]

You're far more likely to reserve a seat on a long distance route though - the hundreds commuting from Sheffield to Leeds each day aren't going to bother with a reservation, but if I were going down to Bristol then I'd want to ensure I had a seat - it's not a fair bellweather.

I agree but given the majority of seats on a typical Voyager are reserved that tells you something about quite how many people use these services for long journeys. On many journeys, particularly Friday evenings, the train is entirely reserved *days* before it sets off - try booking a seat on one of the evening services within a week of departure and you won't get one. Not many people doing 20 minute trips are booking tickets with seat reservations over a week in advance..

I accept that people will do short hop commutes but that doesnt stop it being an IC service in the same way that the 17:06 Paddington to Penzance isnt suddenly not an IC train becuase people use it to do the 25 minute commute to Reading..

 

[Zoe]

http://www2.passengerfocus.org.uk/news-and-publications/document-search/document.asp?dsid=870

There were around 20 million journeys on Virgin Cross Country (VXC) during 2005/6.
The average journey was 81 miles, with c. 50% of journeys at < 50 miles (c. 9.8 million
passengers), c. 20% between 50-100 miles (c. 4.2 million passengers) and 20% of
journey between 100-200 miles (c. 4 million passengers). Around 10% of the journeys
are over 200 miles.

Long distance journeys are very much in the minority. Cross Country also provides a local/regional service in some areas and this allows other TOCs to run some fast trains without stations with gaps in services longer than an hour. For example by Cross Country stopping everything at Tiverton Parkway and Totnes (which Virgin didn't do until quite late on) it maintains an hourly service at these stations when FGW run fast services to London.

 

[HSTEd]

So now we have an argument about whether the very marginal reduction in comfort from using third position door layouts is worth the 15 minute or more savings on the end to end journey time from reduced dwell times.

 

[tbtc]

I agree but given the majority of seats on a typical Voyager are reserved that tells you something about quite how many people use these services for long journeys. On many journeys, particularly Friday evenings, the train is entirely reserved *days* before it sets off - try booking a seat on one of the evening services within a week of departure and you won't get one. Not many people doing 20 minute trips are booking tickets with seat reservations over a week in advance..

I accept that people will do short hop commutes but that doesnt stop it being an IC service in the same way that the 17:06 Paddington to Penzance isnt suddenly not an IC train becuase people use it to do the 25 minute commute to Reading..

Personally I think that "Inter City" is a very vague benchmark these days - there are some services between cities that clearly come nowhere near that definition of standards whilst you can get an "Inter City" service between some towns (almost everything serving Diss/ Alnmouth etc is "Inter City" despite the populations of those places).

Now that standards vary from TOC to TOC, I don't think there's any black/white definition.

 

[Goatboy]

http://www2.passengerfocus.org.uk/news-and-publications/document-search/document.asp?dsid=870


Long distance journeys are very much in the minority.

I won't begin to understand how only 30% of journeys can be over 100 miles yet almost every seat on a Voyager is reserved most of which are for journeys of over this duration.

Perhaps it's changed in the 7 years since that particular survey? I didn't travel XC much (at all?) in 2005 so I couldnt tell you how it compares. All I know is that I travel at least monthly on XC - on a journey of almost 200 miles in total - and once I've sat down near a bunch of 5-6 people, after walking past countless seats reserved for long journeys, most of them are on the train until at least Bristol. It's also often impossible to even get a reservation more than 5-6 days out, so unless people have taken to booking seats from Tiverton to Taunton...

Perhaps it's just a trait of the particular trains I use most often, being timed such that they are the most popular outward and return journeys for students travelling home for the weekend.

 

[The Ham]

Wasn't there a statistic that XC journeys average under 2 hours?
How many people actually stay on for these very long haul journeys?

I'd have thought that most GW passengers are less than 2 hours. As London/Cardiff and London/Exeter are a little over two hours.

 

[tbtc]

I won't begin to understand how only 30% of journeys can be over 100 miles yet almost every seat on a Voyager is reserved most of which are for journeys of over this duration

...because only 30% of Voyager passengers are lucky enough to get a seat?

/joke

 

[Goatboy]

...because only 30% of Voyager passengers are lucky enough to get a seat?

/joke

Good point well made

 

[RAGNARØKR]

I have not noticed any significant difference in passenger ambience between end door and third door position trains provided both are fitted with plug doors in good repair.

You haven't noticed that the ride quality in the centre of a vehicle is better than that at the extreme outer ends or directly over the bogies?

Or that the options for seat configuration are limited when the vehicle is divided into a four or five-bay centre saloon and a two-bay saloon at each end?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Remember the shorter dwell times afforded by third position doors mean that the external doors are open for less time which helps to offset the greater area of the "hole"

Only if people are passing through the wider door opening two abreast, which in practice tends not to happen, for a variety of reasons.

The end door vehicles that are actually in service eg mark 3 and class 158, have other features that are detrimental to station dwell times. With attention to these details there would be less of a difference.

 

[Rhydgaled]

If a 22x is a poor choice for a regional express route, just what IS it a good choice for? It's better suited to Regional Express services than it is to current long distance services, thats for sure. They'd work pretty well on Cardiff to Portsmouth Harbour services in 4-5 car form, freeing up 158's for other regional long distance services.

I don't think 22xs are really suitable for anything in their current form. Reduce the number of sets and put all the intermediate coaches from the retired sets into others to allow a reduction in seating density and improved capacity, then they may be suitable for something. Otherwise they are totally awful.

As tbtc says, you need more Voyager coaches than class 158 coaches to provide the same capacity. Also, given they are 125mph units they are much more expensive to run (abysmal fuel ecconomy) both finantially and enviromentally.

Although if the 22x's were re geared to limit them to 100mph or possibly even 110mph which would enable the full use of the end coaches, which would overcome much of the capacity problem.

That's an interesting one. If you cut windows and added seats in the crumple zone, made it all standard class, removed some toilets and somehow derated the engines to have reasonable fuel ecconomy would you create a train with a purpose?

Mid-coach doors are for suburban commuter trains IMHO and should not be fitted to medium or long distance stock. End doors give a far better ambience in the passenger cabin and as a result improve passenger comfort.

I agree with you entirely. 170s, with outer-suburban doors but (so I'm told on here) poor acceleration (not what you really want for suburban stock), seem almost as silly a design as Voyagers, but for different reasons.

Additionally XC is not a true InterCity route, despite the claims of many to the contrary, it is more like TPE than ICWC.

TPE should have regional-express/intercity door layouts too, in my opinion. If 1/3, 2/3 doors are really needed then perhaps the E should be dropped and the service renamed 'Trans-Pennine Suburban'. 185s and 170s are not, in my opinion, 'Express' trains at all.

Mind you, I guess mid-coach doors would give us all more places to stand

There, you hit the nail on the head. More room to stand, surely that means less room for seats which in turn means you are more likely to have to stand. Since standing still is generally much less comfortable than sitting (I normally perfer to sit on the floor than stand, and do so on occasion) it is certainly not something you'd want to do on a medium or long-distance journey.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The end door vehicles that are actually in service eg mark 3 and class 158, have other features that are detrimental to station dwell times. With attention to these details there would be less of a difference.

I presume the extention to dwell times with mark3s is down to the slam doors, with a member of staff having to slam any the passengers haven't slammed prior to departure, but what is wrong with the 158 design that causes slow dwells? Does a class 175 have such problems?

 

[Lewisham2221]

I won't begin to understand how only 30% of journeys can be over 100 miles yet almost every seat on a Voyager is reserved most of which are for journeys of over this duration.

Possibly something to do with the large number of people who do make shorter journeys. I certainly can't recall many occasions where I've been on an ex-Manchester service and most people haven't left at Birmingham. That's well under 100 miles. Multiply that by 2tph all/most of the day and the numbers start adding up. The same no doubt applies for many other locations.

Perhaps it's changed in the 7 years since that particular survey? I didn't travel XC much (at all?) in 2005 so I couldnt tell you how it compares. All I know is that I travel at least monthly on XC - on a journey of almost 200 miles in total - and once I've sat down near a bunch of 5-6 people, after walking past countless seats reserved for long journeys, most of them are on the train until at least Bristol. It's also often impossible to even get a reservation more than 5-6 days out, so unless people have taken to booking seats from Tiverton to Taunton...

"...at least Bristol" from where?

Perhaps it's just a trait of the particular trains I use most often, being timed such that they are the most popular outward and return journeys for students travelling home for the weekend.

You've probably hit the nail on the head there. In my experience students are more likely to purchase advance tickets, thus requiring them to have a seat reservation. People are more likely to buy advance fares for longer distance journeys so seat reservations are more likely to be for longer journeys. It doesn't mean that the majority of journeys are long distance.

And, at risk of sending the thread further off topic, are there any statistics for the number of seat reservations made in with/without advance tickets? It would be interesting to see how many people reserve seats with walk-up tickets.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

You haven't noticed that the ride quality in the centre of a vehicle is better than that at the extreme outer ends or directly over the bogies?

Honestly, I can't say I've ever noticed such a difference, or certainly not a significant one.

Or that the options for seat configuration are limited when the vehicle is divided into a four or five-bay centre saloon and a two-bay saloon at each end?

Using the example of 170 (the mid-door type that I've probably frequented most) and 220/153 (the end door types that I've probably experenced most) I'd far rather the seating configuration of the 170. Or the 350 for that matter, even those 3+2 seated ones that everyone seems to loathe despite them still being roomy.

Only if people are passing through the wider door opening two abreast, which in practice tends not to happen, for a variety of reasons.

End doors: Person 1 boards and turns right, into the aisle. Person 2 boards and waits for person 1 to clear the aisle. Person 3 waits for person 2 who is waiting for person 1. Person 4 waits for person 3 who is waiting for person 2 to finish waiting for person 1.

Mid doors: Person 1 boards and turns left. Person 2 boards and turns right. Person 3 boards and turns left. Person 4 boards and turns right.

Quite how this doesn't speed up the boarding time is beyond me...

The end door vehicles that are actually in service eg mark 3 and class 158, have other features that are detrimental to station dwell times. With attention to these details there would be less of a difference.

Can't say I've ever noticed that the boarding times for a 153, 156, 175, 220 or 390 are considerably faster than a Mk III or 158, so I'd be interested to know the limiting factors for Mk III or 158 compared to other end door stock.

 

[Manchester77]

If the interior of the voyagers was better designed I reckon people wouldn't complain so much about things such as the toilets. If you take out the interior and refit it with more tables and space then people won't moan about seats not being aligned very well. Then you have a problem because you'll have removed even more seats from overcrowded intercity trains. Really project Thor would come in here and the voyagers would have extra carriages with pantographs and transformer cars providing extra capacity. The existing coaches having already been spruced up and refurbished would still have the awkward DDA toilets but you'd then have new carriages.
Take a class 220:-
Take it out of service and charter one of XC's under used HSTs to cover for it.
Gut the interior of seats, tables etc
Install seats simular to those in XC's HSTs for a standard look
Have the seats aligned as close as possible to the windows with a reasonable number of tables and luggage racks.
The new 'Thor' carriages should have simular seating layout with them have a standard non-DDA toilet
For 220s all units in my opinion should be extended to eight coaches

Awaits comments and probable critisms.....

 

[ainsworth74]

The new 'Thor' carriages should have simular seating layout with them have a standard non-DDA toilet

Project Thor has been canned. The finances for it could not be made to stack up.

 

[HSTEd]

You haven't noticed that the ride quality in the centre of a vehicle is better than that at the extreme outer ends or directly over the bogies?

I have noticed this effect, to a degree, when travelling at relatively high speed over jointed track on older stock like Super Sprinters.

I have never once noticed this effect on lines using CWR, which are most of the main lines we have today, with the proportion only growing larger with time.
Improvements in secondary suspensions have also rendered the position in the vehicle almost irrelevant.

Or that the options for seat configuration are limited when the vehicle is divided into a four or five-bay centre saloon and a two-bay saloon at each end?

I don't see why a supposed restriction in seating options is really relevant, we can fit enough seats into the available options such that providing more is just pointless overspecialisation with its attendant operational and other issues.

Only if people are passing through the wider door opening two abreast, which in practice tends not to happen, for a variety of reasons.

Have you not seen a TPE service to Leeds boarding at Piccadilly?
This tends to happen all the time.

I don't think 22xs are really suitable for anything in their current form. Reduce the number of sets and put all the intermediate coaches from the retired sets into others to allow a reduction in seating density and improved capacity, then they may be suitable for something. Otherwise they are totally awful.

As tbtc says, you need more Voyager coaches than class 158 coaches to provide the same capacity. Also, given they are 125mph units they are much more expensive to run (abysmal fuel ecconomy) both finantially and enviromentally.

They have similar vehicle-fuel economy to the class 185 that everyone is always defending, and have better performance into the bargain. They are fine fuel economy wise really, per hundred seat kilometres they are only marginally worse than HSTs.

TPE should have regional-express/intercity door layouts too, in my opinion. If 1/3, 2/3 doors are really needed then perhaps the E should be dropped and the service renamed 'Trans-Pennine Suburban'. 185s and 170s are not, in my opinion, 'Express' trains at all.

Stopping at every station north of York to Newcastle is not exactly what I would call "Regional Express"......
They have the right layout for the right journey profile.

I presume the extention to dwell times with mark3s is down to the slam doors, with a member of staff having to slam any the passengers haven't slammed prior to departure, but what is wrong with the 158 design that causes slow dwells? Does a class 175 have such problems?

Narrow doors in suboptimal positions, putting them at the end of the carriage means that you have two doors right next to each other rather than spread more evenly along the entire train's length, with the advent of wide inter carriage gangways this has become even more of a problem than it has been in the past.

 

[Manchester77]

Project Thor has been canned. The finances for it could not be made to stack up.

I know but I don't see how though. When voyagers were introduced on XC people flocked so with and increase n capacity surely people would see its comfortable and begin traveling with XC again

 

[RAGNARØKR]

I don't see why a supposed restriction in seating options is really relevant, we can fit enough seats into the available options such that providing more is just pointless overspecialisation with its attendant operational and other issues.

Narrow doors in suboptimal positions, putting them at the end of the carriage means that you have two doors right next to each other rather than spread more evenly along the entire train's length, with the advent of wide inter carriage gangways this has become even more of a problem than it has been in the past.

The limiting factor is the bottleneck, which may be the doorway itself or it may be the pinch point between the vestibule and the saloon. I have said this before - there is a need for research to establish what is actually happening. The latest X55 Swedish EMU trains have 26 metre vehicles with one wide doorway per vehicle, about 1/3 rd of the way along. They are a development of the X31 and Regina types.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Have you not seen a TPE service to Leeds boarding at Piccadilly? This tends to happen all the time.

It does not tend to happen with Electrostars on Southern routes as there are people standing in the vestibule on either side of the doorway opening. Nor did it happen with class 455 until they were reconfigured. Also people on the platform tend to let passengers off before they start to board. As I said, there are many more factors here than the position and width of the doorway itself.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

End doors: Person 1 boards and turns right, into the aisle. Person 2 boards and waits for person 1 to clear the aisle. Person 3 waits for person 2 who is waiting for person 1. Person 4 waits for person 3 who is waiting for person 2 to finish waiting for person 1.

Mid doors: Person 1 boards and turns left. Person 2 boards and turns right. Person 3 boards and turns left. Person 4 boards and turns right.

Quite how this doesn't speed up the boarding time is beyond me...

Because that is not what happens in practice. In the first place people have a look to see where there is most space. The natural inclination is to look towards the larger central section. If they turn towards the small end section and find no vacant seats they will then try and come back the other way.

Can't say I've ever noticed that the boarding times for a 153, 156, 175, 220 or 390 are considerably faster than a Mk III or 158, so I'd be interested to know the limiting factors for Mk III or 158 compared to other end door stock.

All the end door stock has a pinch point, the vestibules are quite smaller there are luggage shelves at the entrance to the saloon. All of these are obstructions to the free flow of passengers.

There are no end-door vehicles where everything is the same as, say, a class 170 apart from the location of the doors. So no like-for-like comparison can be made and no conclusion can be drawn. The only way to establish what was happening would be to construct a mock-up and carry out realistic tests.

A major benefit of end-door stock is that the configuration lends itself better to monocoque construction as there are no large apertures in the structure in the exact place where you do not want them ie a third of the way in from each end.

There are also benefits in terms of H&V.

 

[transmanche]

End doors: Person 1 boards and turns right, into the aisle. Person 2 boards and waits for person 1 to clear the aisle. Person 3 waits for person 2 who is waiting for person 1. Person 4 waits for person 3 who is waiting for person 2 to finish waiting for person 1.

Mid doors: Person 1 boards and turns left. Person 2 boards and turns right. Person 3 boards and turns left. Person 4 boards and turns right.

Quite how this doesn't speed up the boarding time is beyond me...

And when you consider a unit like a 365 (where the doors are located at something more like 1/4-3/4, rather than 1/3-2/3) it means every seat is within a quarter of a carriage length from a door.

There are no end-door vehicles where everything is the same as, say, a class 170 apart from the location of the doors. So no like-for-like comparison can be made and no conclusion can be drawn. The only way to establish what was happening would be to construct a mock-up and carry out realistic tests.

The nearest you'll get to that is probably cars from a 185 and a 444: both 23m long, both 2+2 seating, both from the same manufacturer.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

And when you consider a unit like a 365 (where the doors are located at something more like 1/4-3/4, rather than 1/3-2/3) it means every seat is within a quarter of a carriage length from a door.

Distance from the doorway is not the point. People do not stay in their seats until the moment the train stops. Passengers getting on the train are looking for somewhere to sit and the queue can back-up if there is not a "holding area" near the doorway. That will happen wherever the doors are.

The important thing for station dwell time is the time it takes for people to pass through whatever is the bottleneck, which needs to be identified. It may be the doorway itself, or it may be a pinch-point inside the vehicle.

Most if not all of the end-door types have a pinch point inside. A short section with tip-up or longitudinal seating would ease the flow and remove that problem. But detailed issues such as the design of the step may be critical. And the width of the gap between platform and train. One option is to fit platform bridges. Another is to locate the doorway close to the bogie centre as on class 158.

Research is needed.

 

[The Ham]

I know but I don't see how though. When voyagers were introduced on XC people flocked so with and increase n capacity surely people would see its comfortable and begin traveling with XC again

True, but the problem comes when in 2019 the Manchester to South Coast services can be converted to solely EMU with the possibility of the Newcastle to Reading/South Coast could be converted soon after (subject to CP6 electrification).

Although by doing project thor you do save a lot of under the wire running, you limit the benefit of buying new EMU's for the core of the XC services.

As discussed before if you order 7 coach EMU's (which would be cheaper to lease, run and with lower track access charges) that will bring better capacity improvements than a 5 or 7 coach Thored 22x. It also allows, if future demand requires it, for the trains to be reconfigured to run as 9 and 5 coach trains (with the 5 coach trains being used either doubled up, on lighter loaded routes, or a mixture with the trains splitting/joining).

If project Thor went ahead then it proberbly would be about half way through the life span of the 22x's, whilst new EMU's would be new trains and able to run for many more years than the 22x's. Meaning even if the new EMU's were 20% more than project Thor it is likely to still work out more cost effective.

 

[AndyLandy]

Possibly something to do with the large number of people who do make shorter journeys.

The other observation here is that there can be a lot more of these per service than long-distance passengers. If I ride from Manchester to Bournemouth, I'm a single passenger. If there is a different passenger riding Manchester-Stafford, Stafford-Birmingham, Birmingham-Reading, Reading-Southampton and Southampton-Bournemouth, that's 5 distinct passengers. But they'd still use the same amount of space.

 

[starrymarkb]

I know but I don't see how though. When voyagers were introduced on XC people flocked so with and increase n capacity surely people would see its comfortable and begin traveling with XC again

Problem is the existing 4/5 engines would struggle with 3/4 unpowered trailers. New engines are not available due to emissions regs (Siemens had the last QSK-19 batch (20 engines IIRC) stockpiled for 185 lengthening but when that project was dropped they've presumably used them elsewhere)

 

[AndyLandy]

Problem is the existing 4/5 engines would struggle with 3/4 unpowered trailers. New engines are not available due to emissions regs (Siemens had the last QSK-19 batch (20 engines IIRC) stockpiled for 185 lengthening but when that project was dropped they've presumably used them elsewhere)

Is it really impossible to produce a more modern suitable engine that's compliant with current emissions regulations? I guess the issue just comes down to $$$

 

[RAGNARØKR]

Is it really impossible to produce a more modern suitable engine that's compliant with current emissions regulations? I guess the issue just comes down to $$$

A Swiss company has produced external combustion locomotives have been produced that satisfy emission regulations without difficulty, but so far only for demonstration purposes

 

[ainsworth74]

Are they capable of 125mph? If so does their acceleration match that of a 22x or at least existing 125mph capable locomotives?