How nice to see a thread about the south west without the Crayonista stuff about Okehampton/ Waterloo to Barnstaple/ finding a future for 222s/ fanboy posts about the LSWR...
A few thoughts:
Firstly, a five coach IEP-style train is going to be 130m long given the space wasted by doors in shorter carriages, that may mean that a five coach IEP has more seats than a conventional six coach DMU and a five coach IEP could have more than half the seating of an HST so not the *huge* reduction it may appear.
Secondly, the frequency increase (both in terms of Paddington services and Bristol services) will make quite a difference to overall capacity in Devon/ Cornwall. The current situation (where awkward gaps in the timetable mean that the first direct service for a couple of hours is bound to be disproportionately busy) isnt going to be the case in the future.
Thirdly an hourly (158 operated) service from Bristol/ Taunton to Exeter/ Plymouth/ Cornwall could make a big difference to loadings on the parallel XC service especially if three coach 158s (which will be comparable in capacity to a four coach Voyager).
Fourthly now that 800s are being ordered beyond the initial batch, presumably the unit cost comes down a fair bit (given that a lot of the expense being complained about related to the design costs being spread over the initial first bunch of units only), which must make them more attractive for future bids (TPE, MML) bi-mode means that the slow pace of electrification on those lines isnt the barrier we thought it might be.
Fifthly if we can order 26m coaches for the twisty turny route through Devon/ Cornwall, does this mean we can forget about the IEP will need billions of pounds of route clearances froth?
Sixthly whilst I dont want to turn yet another thread into a Northern one, the new Northern franchise will need over 86 EMUs in total by the end of CP5 (based on current timescales, assuming no additional wires east of Stalybridge in that period). Im not saying that theyll take on all of the 319s, but they could do if they wanted to (albeit at the cost of losing some/all of their 321/ 322/ 323/ 333s). Thats for the future, but they could be a home for all 86, given therell be around fifty
additional EMUs required for all of the Lancashire Triangle stuff. The overall numbers work out fairly well for "all the 319s plus ten 350/4s for the posher services"...
Seventhly I agree with
LNW-GW Joints comment about the government slowly moving away from ROSCOs. No big announcement thatll spook investors, no sabre rattling from a tubthumping politician, but theyre subtly ensuring that a lot of new stock is ordered independent of the big three at the same time as insisting that hundreds of existing ROSCO carriages (the Pacers) are unsuitable for major franchises - will the ROCSOs react to their market being slowly squeezed, or will they accept a death of a thousand cuts? And will the direct from the manufacturer model become the norm for other orders?
Eighthly if I were a ROSCO with a large number of 125 mph stock (180s, Voyagers, 91s etc), I may be a little concerned about their long term prospects, since we could be seeing a surplus by the end of the decade such stock may not be the cash cow that we would have assumed a few years ago. It could be a buyers market if you are bidding for new franchises though (with the option of refurbished HSTs versus midlife 180s versus new bi-modes... make the ROSCOs compete against each other)?
Ninethly - maybe therell be regrets in Scotland that they didnt wait for a subsequent batch of shiny new bi-mode 80Xs, and are getting 1970s HSTs instead? I know that the mindset of enthusiasts is to envy the greener grass north of the border (and to use the freak circumstances of the Borders branchline as some kind of benchmark for what could/ should be built in England "if only things were more enlightened"), but maybe that attitude will change? New bi-modes in Cornwall, over a hundred self-powered coaches at Northern... whilst almost all post-privatisation diesels to leave Scotland?
Tenthly maybe ordering trains similar to the Oxford/ Swansea/ Bristol order means that the operator will be able to swap units on busy summer weekends, to ensure that everything heading to Cornwall is nine coaches during the school holiday weekends (i.e. its not leaving a microfleet)?
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re the 222s comment: The four coach 222s werent an Operation Princess on the MML, they were to replace three coach 170s on existing services (which had previously replaced two coach 170s, which had been introduced to run brand new services with no reduction to the existing HST services).
Since MM didnt get permission for their proposed hourly London Leeds service, they didnt need the nine coach 222s, so changed the plans (with some HSTs replaced by seven coach 222s, but this was not an attempt to replace HSTs with four coach 222 the comparison to the double the frequency at half the length seen elsewhere isnt entirely fair).
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