IEP: 26 metres is too long

[themiller]

Don't understand what all the fuss is about when Pendolino driving vehicles are 23 metres long!

I did of course mean 25 metres long.

Since both ECML and WCML are cleared for pendolinos, both must be candidates for 26metre vehicles in the future!

 

[tbtc]

Since both ECML and WCML are cleared for pendolinos, both must be candidates for 26metre vehicles in the future!

RAGNARØKR spent a long time claiming some unspecified huge amount of money would be required for gauge clearance to allow IEP on the ECML until it was pointed out that a 390 managed it no problem.

If you want to make a case against IEP, you'd be better off attacking the fact the trains will be 5-car compared to fixed 10 car formation. Whilst this theoretically makes operations more efficient (you can run shorter trains when there are fewer passengers), you end up with more staff being needed because the units are effectively isolated from each other

This is a fair point - I'm normally a big fan of corridor connected stock (which I appreciate would be impractical on 125mph IEP) - I suppose my answer to this is that one Conductor and one trolley would struggle on any ten coach train (whether 23m or 26m or a rake of "Annie & Clarabel" coaches), so doubled up would at least ensure that everyone got seen regularly (at the moment you can go an hour or two on a HST/ 225/ 390 without seeing members of staff).

The "doubling up of buffets" is harder to justify, I accept. Whilst I'm generally in favour of IEP, I accept that the point that you've raised does count against it.

 

[The Ham]

Well hopefully that'll be enough. I believe the intention is to step up the number of diagrams using IEP (so for example Bristol can have 4tph all day to/from London).

If it isn't enough there is always the option to not replace the IC225's and use the IEP's which are listed as an add on order to replace them (9 coach electric) and then use the 5 coach IEP's on other longer distance services where splitting them to run to two different locations would be of great benefit.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

This is a fair point - I'm normally a big fan of corridor connected stock (which I appreciate would be impractical on 125mph IEP) - I suppose my answer to this is that one Conductor and one trolley would struggle on any ten coach train (whether 23m or 26m or a rake of "Annie & Clarabel" coaches), so doubled up would at least ensure that everyone got seen regularly (at the moment you can go an hour or two on a HST/ 225/ 390 without seeing members of staff).

The "doubling up of buffets" is harder to justify, I accept. Whilst I'm generally in favour of IEP, I accept that the point that you've raised does count against it.

Although the doubling of buffets is not just limited to IEP, it would be the case on any short form 125mph stock which could join up and still be shorter than the full length trains. The only way around it would be for all our IC trains to be full length and then there would be routes where they would be carrying around a lot of air. Either way it's not great.

 

[YorkshireBear]

This is the thing about IEP, with a factory in this country and more being constructed for the ECML straight after we have huge scope for increasing the order at little 'additional' expense. I personally think they have got it about right, the design seems solid. Okay the Bi-Mode annoys me greatly, but apart from that i support the project quite well. We shall see when they come the ultimate test will be do the people of the GW like them? not whether we do.
As normal passengers do not care what they have replaced, unlike 70% of this forum.

 

[tbtc]

Although the doubling of buffets is not just limited to IEP, it would be the case on any short form 125mph stock which could join up and still be shorter than the full length trains. The only way around it would be for all our IC trains to be full length and then there would be routes where they would be carrying around a lot of air. Either way it's not great.

I agree that neither way round is ideal - I wouldn't want to have to walk through seven coaches of moving train to get to the buffet car (and a similar distance to get back to my seat), so having one closer may benefit some people

 

[HSTEd]

Carrying around air is suprisingly cheap.
When you tally up the costs of having all Class 222s or 220s (and I know we can't have more vehicles, but it is the prototypical 125mph DMU) be 9 or 10 cars long instead of the current length it doesn't actually increase costs that much. Especially as it allows doubling up to be entirely eliminated with the requisite saving in crews.

If you sell a handful of extra seats you can cover those costs easily.
And that is before you consider the possibility of bargain basement advance fares.
It is a similar argument I make to having 400m double deck sets on HS2.

 

[AndyLandy]

Carrying around air is suprisingly cheap.
When you tally up the costs of having all Class 222s or 220s (and I know we can't have more vehicles, but it is the prototypical 125mph DMU) be 9 or 10 cars long instead of the current length it doesn't actually increase costs that much. Especially as it allows doubling up to be entirely eliminated with the requisite saving in crews.

If you sell a handful of extra seats you can cover those costs easily.
And that is before you consider the possibility of bargain basement advance fares.
It is a similar argument I make to having 400m double deck sets on HS2.

Do you have any numbers for that? It seems surprising, but then again, I don't know how much it costs to run a train. What's the break-even point for bums-on-seats to cover the running costs of the train?

Of course, it doesn't detract from the capital costs of buying the additional vehicles, but if they're cheap enough to haul around empty most of the day, maybe there's some merit to the idea.

 

[jimm]

If you want to make a case against IEP, you'd be better off attacking the fact the trains will be 5-car compared to fixed 10 car formation. Whilst this theoretically makes operations more efficient (you can run shorter trains when there are fewer passengers), you end up with more staff being needed because the units are effectively isolated from each other.

There is also the issue of diagramming. Are there enough units for the number of diagrams listed, such that there will be plenty of 2x5 formations as required? We don't want a repeat of Operation Princess thank you very much!

I know the various IEP-related threads are very long and things get buried but I have pointed out at least a couple of times previously that the GW franchise invitation tender documents issued by the DfT last summer made clear that the bidders could propose IEP formations other than five-car and nine-car. I'd surmise that's because some of them had raised the issue in the pre-qualification stage. FGW managing director Mark Hopwood has spoken publicly about whether five-car formations are what will be needed in a few years' time, given how busy some services worked by five-car 180s already are now and with growth in passenger traffic continuing.

As for more staff being needed, that's open to question. IEP sets are to be specced for driver-only operation - so in terms of shorter routes IEPs will cover no different from Turbos running DOO now - and while it doesn't happen so much nowadays due to the return of 180s, when pairs of Turbos work Cotswold Line services, splitting and joining at Oxford, normal practice tends to be for there to be a trolley service in the set working west of Oxford, to serve passengers making longer journeys, but no service in the one on the London-Oxford leg, presumably on the assumption people on the shorter journey will buy before boarding or won't require drinks and snacks as they're on board for under an hour.

Carrying around air is suprisingly cheap.

Well FGW doesn't seem to think so, given how quickly it dropped HSTs from quieter Cotswold Line services after putting them on the route in place of 180s in 2008-9.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

So where is the advantage of the longer vehicle? Let us say that we work to 22 metres instead of 26 metres. A 12 car train of 22 metre vehicles will be 264 metres long ie 4 metres longer than a train of IEP vehicles. Now what is the difference in capacity, given a sensible seating pitch, say 90cm?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

RAGNARØKR spent a long time claiming some unspecified huge amount of money would be required for gauge clearance to allow IEP on the ECML until it was pointed out that a 390 managed it no problem.

The 390 doesn't manage it, no problem. The end cars in a unit can always be longer, they are asymmetrical and can taper additionally. The same goes for the LUL C-stock.

The gauge clearance costs are not trivial and if the method used was the same as for improving freight clearances part of the extra clearance is obtained by better control of the infrastructure, which also incurs ongoing costs. The final accounts are not in, either.

 

[tbtc]

So where is the advantage of the longer vehicle? Let us say that we work to 22 metres instead of 26 metres. A 12 car train of 22 metre vehicles will be 264 metres long ie 4 metres longer than a train of IEP vehicles. Now what is the difference in capacity, given a sensible seating pitch, say 90cm?

I thought you were against non-standard lengths, now you want a 22m coach?

Okay, presumably your twelve coach train would have twenty four doors along each side (rather than twenty on a ten coach IEP)? And twenty four luggage areas, vestibules etc (rather than twenty on a ten coach IEP)? So your fictional train may be four metres longer but actually have fewer seats (assuming the same pitch)?

 

[bb21]

So where is the advantage of the longer vehicle? Let us say that we work to 22 metres instead of 26 metres. A 12 car train of 22 metre vehicles will be 264 metres long ie 4 metres longer than a train of IEP vehicles. Now what is the difference in capacity, given a sensible seating pitch, say 90cm?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The 390 doesn't manage it, no problem. The end cars in a unit can always be longer, they are asymmetrical and can taper additionally. The same goes for the LUL C-stock.

The gauge clearance costs are not trivial and if the method used was the same as for improving freight clearances part of the extra clearance is obtained by better control of the infrastructure, which also incurs ongoing costs. The final accounts are not in, either.

You seem obsessed with a few centimetres of seat pitch. While it would be nice to have wider seats, it might be a surprise to you that not everyone requires the additional space, which is precious when we are struggling for capacity.

As for the cost of additional engineering work associated with 26m-long coaches on the routes they are proposed to be used, it has already been pointed out that your claims are false, several times.

I only started to read this thread two days ago and apart from you repeating your calculations again and again, I fail to see why these are such major issues after this many pages, when others have pointed out to you repeatedly why your calculation alone doesn't tell the whole story. Simply repeating what you're saying a hundred times doesn't make it true.

Move on.

 

[Paulinbelper]

Carrying around air is suprisingly cheap.
When you tally up the costs of having all Class 222s or 220s (and I know we can't have more vehicles, but it is the prototypical 125mph DMU) be 9 or 10 cars long instead of the current length it doesn't actually increase costs that much. Especially as it allows doubling up to be entirely eliminated with the requisite saving in crews.

If you sell a handful of extra seats you can cover those costs easily.
And that is before you consider the possibility of bargain basement advance fares.
It is a similar argument I make to having 400m double deck sets on HS2.

Carrying around air is incredibly expensive, particularly for the type of leasing / availability contract which IEP will be provided under. Taking into account that an IEP carriage will typically cost £20k a month more that a pendolino carriage, you definately want to make sure that the passenger demand is there all day to make use of that capacity to make the investment worthwhile.

 

[Haydn1971]

I realise this isnt quite a simple question, but does anyone have access to the comparative full costs of running 125mph+ trains, including leasing, track access, power, crew and whatever else a TOC has to pay for ? Giving a picture of how much a TOC has to actually full before making a profit ? Presumably costs vary by time of the day for tack access, crew costs and power costs too.

 

[HSTEd]

Well FGW doesn't seem to think so, given how quickly it dropped HSTs from quieter Cotswold Line services after putting them on the route in place of 180s in 2008-9.

My understanding is that FGW had an overall shortage of rolling stock thanks to retiscence on the parts of the TOC, the DfT and everyone else concerned.
If there is no possibility of new stock ordering no matter the economic case then my point no longer holds.

Carrying around air is incredibly expensive, particularly for the type of leasing / availability contract which IEP will be provided under. Taking into account that an IEP carriage will typically cost £20k a month more that a pendolino carriage, you definately want to make sure that the passenger demand is there all day to make use of that capacity to make the investment worthwhile.

That is not a result of the cost of actually carrying around air, that is a result of the trains being ordered under an absurdly bad value-for-money PFI.

Do you have any numbers for that? It seems surprising, but then again, I don't know how much it costs to run a train. What's the break-even point for bums-on-seats to cover the running costs of the train?

Of course, it doesn't detract from the capital costs of buying the additional vehicles, but if they're cheap enough to haul around empty most of the day, maybe there's some merit to the idea.

Well, if we assume the vehicles are ~£2m each (comparable to the cost of the new IEP vehicles) and are otherwise comparable to Class 222s, then this means that extending a four coach set to ten coaches would cost something on order of £12m.
If this amortises down over 30 years and state money is used (see Crossrail's rolling stock order) then that brings us to something on order of £920/day in interest/capital repayments for the entire six car addition.

If we assume this train is running a CrossCountry diagram then it will run typically, one and a half round trips on Bristol-Glasgow. (I know that is not an actual diagram but it seems reasonable in distance terms).
That translates to about 2100km per day.
Using known figures for the Class 222 (0.52L/vehicle km) the six additional vehicles will consume something on order of 6240L of diesel during the day. This translates to a cost of approximately £4370 at current diesel prices.

Maintenance costs on the vehicles will be approximately 25p/vehicle kilometre, which increases the cost by roughly another £3150.

Finally we come to access charges: 10.55p/vehicle-mile for the Class 222, or roughly 6.6p/vehicle-km.
That translates to essentially £832.

This means the excess cost of running a ten vehicle train compared to a four vehicle onei s approximatley: £920+4370+£3150+£832 or £9272.
That is for a diagram of roughly 2100km.
That means that it costs roughly £4.40/km to run this very large new train instead of the old one. But it does not account for the reduction in costs due to the total elimination of the double manning inherent in running doubled up units.

Even so, given that the price of a ticket in the XC core (say Leeds-to-Bristol) is £104.40 off-peak you would only need to sell 90 additional tickets in the XC core.... during your three trips through it to be better off.

And that is before we even calculate the amount of extra custom generated by the advertising campaign that follows this "XC overcrowding is a thing of the past!" with lots of pictures of ten coach trains running past and half empty vehicles.

Ticket prices are so high and the marginal price of operations is so low that very minor increases in passenger numbers can cover them.

 

[jimm]

My understanding is that FGW had an overall shortage of rolling stock thanks to retiscence on the parts of the TOC, the DfT and everyone else concerned.

I don't know where you get that 'understanding' from, unless you are getting confused with the situation when the franchise started in 2006, because when FGW decided to get rid of the 180s, they set out to acquire just about every spare HST they could get their hands on and used them to replace 180s pretty much like for like on Cotswold and Cheltenham diagrams in 2008-9.

They then pulled the HSTs off the Cotswold Line weekday off-peak and most Saturday duties pretty quickly because they were carting round air at great expense, whereas the 180s were the ideal size for those jobs, so their return was most welcome in these parts, just a pity that so far they still aren't allowed out at weekends, so there are still a lot of Turbos about then.

It would have taken a lot more than a minor increase in passenger numbers to make running a 500-seat train in place of one with 280 seats worthwhile.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

You seem obsessed with a few centimetres of seat pitch. While it would be nice to have wider seats, it might be a surprise to you that not everyone requires the additional space, which is precious when we are struggling for capacity.

As for the cost of additional engineering work associated with 26m-long coaches on the routes they are proposed to be used, it has already been pointed out that your claims are false, several times.

I only started to read this thread two days ago and apart from you repeating your calculations again and again, I fail to see why these are such major issues after this many pages, when others have pointed out to you repeatedly why your calculation alone doesn't tell the whole story. Simply repeating what you're saying a hundred times doesn't make it true.

Move on.

There is more to this than just the extra width which is nice to have, especially when the norm outside the UK is up to 3.5 metres wide. Please explain how vehicles are going to be fitted on to the system when they occupy a larger envelope? Either clearances have to be increased or tolerances have to be reduced. Or a bit of both. Each comes at a price and the bill hasn't come in yet.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I thought you were against non-standard lengths, now you want a 22m coach?

Okay, presumably your twelve coach train would have twenty four doors along each side (rather than twenty on a ten coach IEP)? And twenty four luggage areas, vestibules etc (rather than twenty on a ten coach IEP)? So your fictional train may be four metres longer but actually have fewer seats (assuming the same pitch)?

It is not the non-standardness that is the potential problem, it is the extra length, which was the title of the original thread. Now how many extra seats will the IEP actually have? Assume for the sake of comparison that the 22 metre vehicle has 76 seats at a pitch of 95 cm, which puts most of the luggage space exactly where people want it ie between seat backs where they can supervise it, rather than at vehicle ends where it is not secure. If you lose a coach for a buffet and another half for driving cabs, staff space etc, this fictional train has a capacity of around 800. Incidentally one of the benefits of the better ambience of the slightly wider vehicle is that the ratio of first and standard class can be adjusted on-the-fly, thereby optimising utilisation for all journeys.

 

[bb21]

There is more to this than just the extra width which is nice to have, especially when the norm outside the UK is up to 3.5 metres wide. Please explain how vehicles are going to be fitted on to the system when they occupy a larger envelope? Either clearances have to be increased or tolerances have to be reduced. Or a bit of both. Each comes at a price and the bill hasn't come in yet.

Irrelevant. People have already pointed out that there is not much additional work to be done specifically for this reason on the routes they are planned to be used. Unless you can find any evidence to suggest otherwise (and by that I do not mean your paper calculations but concrete evidence of cost estimates, etc) there is simply no reason to believe you.

You clearly know a lot about engineering and I have no desire to get involved in a discussion about it. I don't know the nitty-gritty of all the technical issues and have no desire to, however reading through the whole 8 pages of preceding discussion I know whose opinions make sense and who I would rather trust - one guy or everyone else on the other side of the fence.

 

[The Ham]

It is not the non-standardness that is the potential problem, it is the extra length, which was the title of the original thread. Now how many extra seats will the IEP actually have? Assume for the sake of comparison that the 22 metre vehicle has 76 seats at a pitch of 95 cm, which puts most of the luggage space exactly where people want it ie between seat backs where they can supervise it, rather than at vehicle ends where it is not secure. If you lose a coach for a buffet and another half for driving cabs, staff space etc, this fictional train has a capacity of around 800. Incidentally one of the benefits of the better ambience of the slightly wider vehicle is that the ratio of first and standard class can be adjusted on-the-fly, thereby optimising utilisation for all journeys.

Using your numbers that allows about 4m for all non passenger space per coach, which sounds a little tight, as there will be about 2x1m for the door ways and 2x0.5m for the corridor between coaches.

As 76 seats divided by 4 to give the number of rows, which is 19. 19 rows at 0.95m is 18.05m meaning that from a 22m long coach there is 3.95m of non passenger space.

IEP coaches (which are 4m longer than "your" coaches) have 22 rows, which allows 5.1m of non passenger space (still using 0.95m seat pitch).

Also there are some seats with back to back layouts proposed on IEP, about 6 in standard and 7 in first class where they are a full carriage, some of which may be suitable for medium bags.

Also your total of 800 does not appear to have made an allowance for first class seating, if you did the same calculation for IEP you'd end up with a total of about 770 (which would also allow for 2 accessible and 9 standard toilets which your calculation doesn't appear to have included).

If you lost 1 row of seats on each of "your" coaches (to be closer to the 5m of non passenger space of IEP) that would bring the total seating down to about 750 seats.

 

[tbtc]

It is not the non-standardness that is the potential problem, it is the extra length, which was the title of the original thread. Now how many extra seats will the IEP actually have? Assume for the sake of comparison that the 22 metre vehicle has 76 seats at a pitch of 95 cm, which puts most of the luggage space exactly where people want it ie between seat backs where they can supervise it, rather than at vehicle ends where it is not secure

But if your argument is just about vehicle length (?) then why are you changing the subject onto whether luggage is stored in one big facility at the end of a coach or whether luggage is between the seats?

Not like its impossible to build a 26m coach with luggage space between seat backs... that's a bit like complaining about the paint job on IEP!

 

[YorkshireBear]

.. that's a bit like complaining about the paint job on IEP!

If its noy IC Swallow they should be scrapped instantly.

26m coaches seem to offer a good solution by removing wasted space.

 

[The Ham]

If its not IC Swallow they should be scrapped instantly.

True GW and/or ECjust need to announce that the IEP's will be in the IC swallow and they'll be the most loved train ever.

Better still why don't the government announce that HS2 trains will have to have the IC swallow!

 

[asylumxl]

They should be able to play Valenta engine recordings too.

No enthusiast in the land will ever hate them again and the world will be at peace once again.

 

[Greenback]

This discussion doesn't seem to be going anywhere and I don't think there is much more to be said.