AT300s confirmed for South West services by DfT

[superalbs]

I do not know the specifications of the AT300's but an ASLEF rep told me today that the drivers are concerned as they have been told that the 5 car AT300's will only have 3 engines.

That is less than a Voyager, maybe not a concern until you lose an engine and have to negotiate Rattery bank in drizzle in the leaf-fall season on 2 engines.

Is that right or has he been mis-informed?

Did somebody say carriages without engines?

It's OK, all is forgiven FGW. :3

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I do not know the specifications of the AT300's but an ASLEF rep told me today that the drivers are concerned as they have been told that the 5 car AT300's will only have 3 engines.
That is less than a Voyager, maybe not a concern until you lose an engine and have to negotiate Rattery bank in drizzle in the leaf-fall season on 2 engines.
Is that right or has he been mis-informed?

The AT300s seem to have the MTU 1600 engines at 940hp (700kW).
That's 2820hp for 3 engines on a 5-car train, or 564hp/vehicle.
HSTs are 4500hp (2x2250hp power cars) for a 10-car train, or 450hp/vehicle.
So the AT300 has significantly more power per vehicle than the HST.
Proportionately, it will have more power/vehicle still if one engine is out, compared to an HST on a single power car.

I'm sure this is only an approximation (as vehicle weights vary), but it's difficult to see why they are worried.
The much maligned Voyager is 750hp/vehicle, so they will leave both AT300s and HSTs for dead.

 

[HSTEd]

a. As I keep saying, portion working west of Plymouth was a fact of life pre-HST, so no first class or catering at all.

Why are you talking about first class or catering?
Portion working with loco hauled stock is an entirely different matter to portion working with non-corridor EMUs that expend significant volumes on the end portions.
And there was no technical reason that BR could not have built short HSTs with multiple working jumpers, and yet they didn't?
Why didn't they if portion working is such a wonderfully efficient thing?

Former senior BR manager Theo Steel says in an article about the railways in the West Country in the August Modern Railways that he thinks a mixed fleet of five and nine-car sets is a good idea, but what does he know?

This is hardly a 'mixed-fleet'.
This is a 5-car fleet with a handful of 9-car sets added in as window dressing.

b. Somewhere in the Class 800 thread there is a post by an FGW staff member about loadings on HSTs west of Plymouth after previous posts in the same vein as yours, stating that a five-car should cope just fine in Cornwall most of the time - and the people doing the stock diagramming probably have a fair idea of those services with heavy loadings which will actually need nine or 10 coaches.

But they will never diagram in double sets, they will simply tolerate the overloading of these trains because it is cheaper.
Putting a double train into Cornwall will require additional miles on the likely more lightly loaded return services and is a poor way to use your extra units.
There is a reason that double formation of DMUs were never projected to be a significant use of Voyagers until Operation Princess collapsed.
It is an inefficient way to use vehicles.

c. There's nothing magical about the extra local services on the main line in Devon and Cornwall, their provision is a requirement of the franchise, with the stock needed already identified, as noted above.

Except there are all sorts of problems with the actual provision of this service.
Not to mention that the all shacks sprinter services are achingly slow, even by the low standards of the Cornish Main Line.

d. And don't forget we are talking about Cornwall here, with a population not much more than that of the city of Manchester, scattered over a rather larger area, so unless they are all going to spend all day, every day, riding up and down on trains, they are not going to fill 600-plus seats on your preferred full-length AT300 formations, especially in the depths of winter, same as they don't fill 520-seat low density HSTs right now. Summer weekends are another matter, but the railways have had a few years' practice at revising diagrams to allow for them, so they might just allocate the odd long formation to venture across the Tamar.

Except the extra formations crossing the Tamar have been dying for years.
The number of HSTs assigned to Summer Saturdays has been dropping for years.
Many of the Summer Saturday specials from XC are simply Voyagers (see Newquay).

The modern railway does not do variations to its timetables.
After all, the stock has to be used the entire year, not just in the summer.
This is what the Southern Railway philosophy means when you attempt to penny pinch on stock provision.
It wants to run the same trains all day every day - and they will sized to be always full or overloaded rather than to handle the peak loads.

 

[CC 72100]

Except the extra formations crossing the Tamar have been dying for years.
The number of HSTs assigned to Summer Saturdays has been dropping for years.
Many of the Summer Saturday specials from XC are simply Voyagers (see Newquay).

There's still a few HSTs on essentially stopping diagrams through Cornwall (although some would say that you can't tell the difference ) - such as the 16:55 Penzance - Newton Abbot or 8:18 Plymouth - Penzance.

Last time I was down there we passed a 4x 15x local, so extra demand is recognised.

XC send down 1 HST to Newquay and one to Penzance. The other 2 diagrams go to Paignton.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Did somebody say carriages without engines?

It's OK, all is forgiven FGW. :3

Yes, every driving vehicle has no engine underneath, as the space must be used for the transformer. No underfloor engine means the floor is completely flat, which helps as there is a pantograph well in the roof to take up more space, and it means the driving vehicles will provide the accessible seating and toilets on all trains. On longer rakes, there are some intermediate trailers as there's no need for every intermediate vehicle to be powered given that a 2x5 car IEP only has 6 powered vehicles out of 10.

 

[broadgage]

What terrible news, looks like I'll be travelling with SWT for my London bound trips from the day they enter service.

Whilst I agree that use of DMUs on long distance main line services is a most regrettable backward step, I fail to see what Is to be gained by use of SWT service into Waterloo ?
These were downgraded to DMUs years ago.
I don't think that an AT300 is much worse than a 159.

 

[RobShipway]

Whilst I agree that use of DMUs on long distance main line services is a most regrettable backward step, I fail to see what Is to be gained by use of SWT service into Waterloo ?
These were downgraded to DMUs years ago.
I don't think that an AT300 is much worse than a 159.

You will probably find that the AT300 is more comfortable than either the class 159/158's that travel to London Waterloo and get to London a lot faster as well.

 

[Class 170101]

The modern railway does not do variations to its timetables.
After all, the stock has to be used the entire year, not just in the summer.
This is what the Southern Railway philosophy means when you attempt to penny pinch on stock provision.
It wants to run the same trains all day every day - and they will sized to be always full or overloaded rather than to handle the peak loads.

You could argue in the London and South east, Glasgow Suburban area and probably in other parts of the UK could do summer.

Take a look at this on a weekday in late summer
Clacton On Sea

 

[jimm]

Why are you talking about first class or catering?
Portion working with loco hauled stock is an entirely different matter to portion working with non-corridor EMUs that expend significant volumes on the end portions.
And there was no technical reason that BR could not have built short HSTs with multiple working jumpers, and yet they didn't?
Why didn't they if portion working is such a wonderfully efficient thing?

This is hardly a 'mixed-fleet'.
This is a 5-car fleet with a handful of 9-car sets added in as window dressing.


But they will never diagram in double sets, they will simply tolerate the overloading of these trains because it is cheaper.
Putting a double train into Cornwall will require additional miles on the likely more lightly loaded return services and is a poor way to use your extra units.
There is a reason that double formation of DMUs were never projected to be a significant use of Voyagers until Operation Princess collapsed.
It is an inefficient way to use vehicles.

Except there are all sorts of problems with the actual provision of this service.
Not to mention that the all shacks sprinter services are achingly slow, even by the low standards of the Cornish Main Line.

Except the extra formations crossing the Tamar have been dying for years.
The number of HSTs assigned to Summer Saturdays has been dropping for years.
Many of the Summer Saturday specials from XC are simply Voyagers (see Newquay).

The modern railway does not do variations to its timetables.
After all, the stock has to be used the entire year, not just in the summer.
This is what the Southern Railway philosophy means when you attempt to penny pinch on stock provision.
It wants to run the same trains all day every day - and they will sized to be always full or overloaded rather than to handle the peak loads.

Let's see. Even on a five car AT300 there will be both first class and the ability to provide catering if required. Neither of which was possible once the coaches containing those facilities were left behind at Plymouth in pre-HST times. And BR often didn't bother with opening the buffet on the HSTs in Cornwall either, unlike FGW.

Portion working is portion working, whatever the rolling stock being used.

So you are still sticking by the view that running empty coaches around for mile after mile is efficient are you? Oh well, each to their own...

So Mr Steel doesn't know anything but you know everything. Ho hum.

They will never diagram in double sets? Really, and you know this because...? And did you miss the bit about the FGW staffer posting here that most HSTs are not anywhere near full, never mind overloaded in Cornwall.

What problems are there with provision of the extra services? People keep telling you where the stock is coming from. As for the speed, the last time I looked, the 158s can manage 90mph, not that high speed is exactly a big issue most of the way west of Exeter. And stopping trains tend, by their very nature to be, er, slower. What's the issue? Some people in Cornwall might be quite pleased to see extra trains running full stop - whatever their speed.

The extra formations crossing the Tamar have been dying for years? Since when? The 1950s? Hardly surprising given the growth in car use over many decades, the building of the M5 and the improvements to the A30 since the 1980s. So what if XC uses Voyagers? It's not as if they have much else available and their HSTs do seem to manage to put in an appearance too.

As for the gem about

The modern railway does not do variations to its timetables.

could you please explain in what way XC operating summer Saturday services on the Newquay branch is not a variation, or FGW's daily London-Newquay HSTs, the beefed-up West Country branch services with stock moved from Bristol and the series of FO and FX alterations and extra Saturday trains between London and the West Country over the summer are not variations?

And how will the trains 'be always full or overloaded' when it is stark staring obvious that passengers numbers in the West Country during the winter are nothing like those seen in summer?

 

[Martin222002]

But they will never diagram in double sets, they will simply tolerate the overloading of these trains because it is cheaper.
Putting a double train into Cornwall will require additional miles on the likely more lightly loaded return services and is a poor way to use your extra units.
There is a reason that double formation of DMUs were never projected to be a significant use of Voyagers until Operation Princess collapsed.
It is an inefficient way to use vehicles.

"An ineffecient way to use vehicles." I think you may have stabbed yourself in the foot there by dismissing your own argument. As that means it would be "inefficient" to run 9 car AT300s down to Penzance rather than just a 5 car.

 

[RobShipway]

"An ineffecient way to use vehicles." I think you may have stabbed yourself in the foot there by dismissing your own argument. As that means it would be "inefficient" to run 9 car AT300s down to Penzance rather than just a 5 car.

Is it not the case that a 5 Car AT300 is going to have just as many if not more seats than an 8 car HST?

If the above is correct, then you are still going to be having a train going down to Penzance that will be half full.

 

[RPI]

Which was a decision taken at the time so people wouldn't associate the withdrawal with the introduction of the new trains, the Travelling Chef made quite a profit and was well used and liked by the passengers.

Was more down to the fact that no one used it, the hype at the time was serously over hyped.

 

[Haydn1971]

Is it not the case that a 5 Car AT300 is going to have just as many if not more seats than an 8 car HST?

270std+45fst (315 seats) on a 5 car Class 800

Per car 74std or 48fst - that's over 500 seats with a 6std+2fst+Buffet car arrangement so less seats

 

[RPI]

A for 5 car sets in Cornwall, easily enough capacity once the half hourly Cornish mainline service is introduced, although currently the HST services are usually very busy, the vast majotity is local travel and not long distance, a regular local service will spread this out quite nicely.

 

[Martin222002]

Is it not the case that a 5 Car AT300 is going to have just as many if not more seats than an 8 car HST?

If the above is correct, then you are still going to be having a train going down to Penzance that will be half full.

I'm not sure where you have got that for a 5 car. Under the figures given in the new direct award franchise agreement it stated that the IEP 5 cars would have 290 seats in standard and 36 seats in first class. Depending on what layout FGW / GWR go with for these AT300s the seating figures could be the same or possibly less.

Just for clarity sake, the IEP 9 cars for Great Western are 576 in standard and 71 in first class.

 

[jimm]

Was more down to the fact that no one used it, the hype at the time was serously over hyped.

I don't know about the economics of the Travelling Chef but people certainly did use it. Maybe not as much as needed to make it cover the bills.

I rode on trains where the chef had run out of ingredients well before the station where service was supposed to end and PA announcements were made to that effect, so someone must have bought the odd sausage baguette.

"An ineffecient way to use vehicles." I think you may have stabbed yourself in the foot there by dismissing your own argument. As that means it would be "inefficient" to run 9 car AT300s down to Penzance rather than just a 5 car.

No, he's deadly serious - apparently long trains are efficient, even if carrying around several coaches with no one sat in them for hours on end - while well-loaded short trains are not efficient. 'Proper' express trains must apparently all have a big engine at the front and a long string of coaches, whether or not there is actually anyone riding in them...

But for some reason FGW doesn't think running big empty trains around all the time is efficient, which is why in 2009-10 the HSTs that had replaced Class 180s on off-peak Cotswold Line trains were soon replaced by Turbos that were rather better matched to the passenger numbers - if leaving a lot to be desired in the comfort stakes. Once a few 180s came back, guess where FGW decided to use them?

The only remaining weekday off-peak HSTs to Worcester and Hereford and back are carefully diagrammed to be in Oxford at the right point of the afternoon to form part of the sequence of HST departures at half-hourly intervals from 16.31 until 18.31 - just at the time of day when there are a lot of people heading towards London.

Which suggests that FGW are quite good at the art of diagramming but the fact remains that sending a high-density HST with nearly 600 seats west of Oxford outside the peaks is pretty pointless and the whole operation might be made a lot more efficient by being able to split and couple two 300-seat trains together at Oxford, the point where the level of demand changes.

In the case of future AT300 operations in the West Country, read Plymouth for Oxford. There simply isn't the traffic west of Plymouth to fill 650-seat trains all day, every day, especially not if you are going to beef up the local service frequency through Cornwall anyway.

And on summer Saturdays, when you do need lots of big trains, IEPs that spend the rest of the week meeting peak-time demand in places like Bristol and the Cotswolds will be available to cover Exeter and Torbay services, freeing up AT300s to go further west. Indeed FGW is on record as saying that some AT300s will be helping out on the Cotswold Line in the weekday peaks anyway. All of which seems to me to be a reasonably efficient way to use rolling stock.

 

[47802]

I'm not sure where you have got that for a 5 car. Under the figures given in the new direct award franchise agreement it stated that the IEP 5 cars would have 290 seats in standard and 36 seats in first class. Depending on what layout FGW / GWR go with for these AT300s the seating figures could be the same or possibly less.

Just for clarity sake, the IEP 9 cars for Great Western are 576 in standard and 71 in first class.

Indeed so for starters lets stop talking about the 5 car units in the same category of voyagers given that the seating capacity is around 164S and 21F for a 4 car or 225S 21F for a 5 car unit, there is very little comparison frankly.

FGW current fleet is what 58 HST's and 5 x 180's The new combined AT300/IEP fleet will be 28 x 9 Car and 58 x 5 car or the equivalent of 57 x 9/10 car IEP with higher capacity than HST's and much more flexibility to match capacity with demand.

Apparently also these trains will be inferior to 25 year old 90mph DMU's even though I suspect the person made that comment has probably not even seen an IEP train in the flesh let alone travelled on one.

 

[455driver]

I like that

They do have air conditioning, it doesn't work but they do have it!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Even on 2 engines that's nearly 2000hp to shift a 5 car train

2000hp going through 4 axles of 2 lightweight (compared to a loco) DMU coaches, power is nothing if you cant transfer it to the rails as traction!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

XC trains and the local sprinters.

1 down and 2 up trains in a morning, 2 down and one up train late evening.
Not much use during the main part of the day.
The morning peak up train (and evening peak down train) are crush loaded 8 coach HSTs, people wont use other trains because the times will be wrong! <cough Operation Princess cough>

 

[jimm]

1 down and 2 up trains in a morning, 2 down and one up train late evening.
Not much use during the main part of the day.
The morning peak up train (and evening peak down train) are crush loaded 8 coach HSTs, people wont use other trains because the times will be wrong! <cough Operation Princess cough>

In a not dissimilar discussion going on in a not dissimilar thread here

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=16026.0

someone has pointed out what is said about the additional local services in this FGW document given to stakeholders:

https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/-/media/pdf/aboutus/ourbusiness/stakeholders report/nfgwf.pdf

December 2018
• FGW will meet the key Cornish stakeholder aspiration of a half hourly service in Cornwall. The service pattern is expected to be made up of CrossCountry services, our long distance West of England services and additional local services
• 12 additional return local services will operate between 0642 and 2148 from Plymouth and 0640 and 1850 from Penzance
• Where possible we will link the services across Plymouth, and combine them with Plymouth to Exeter services. The present Plymouth to Newton Abbot shuttle services will be extended to and from Exeter and linked into the new Cornish services

And might not the two busy trains you refer to just perhaps be among the Cornish services that get a nine or 10-car AT300 formation?

Also, if any of the additional services are slotted in at times close to these two trains, some passengers may find the new services are indeed at the 'right' time for their needs. I've often had to commute on a train arriving 20 or 30 minutes earlier than I would have liked, because there wasn't one at the ideal time.

I would think a 158 departing from Penzance between the 0645 and 0741 London services and reaching Plymouth about 0920 would likely attract plenty of passengers who have no need to be at a job/college in Plymouth by 9am but would still like to get there earlier than 0949.

And can we please drop the silly stuff about Operation Princess, because what is planned is nothing of the sort. Unless, of course, one of you knows for sure about the top-secret DfT plan to only have five-car sets delivered:roll:

 

[sprinterguy]

I'm not sure where you have got that for a 5 car. Under the figures given in the new direct award franchise agreement it stated that the IEP 5 cars would have 290 seats in standard and 36 seats in first class. Depending on what layout FGW / GWR go with for these AT300s the seating figures could be the same or possibly less.

Just for clarity sake, the IEP 9 cars for Great Western are 576 in standard and 71 in first class.

That's interesting, FGW would seem to have upped the number of standard class seats on the 9-car sets by dispensing with the composite vehicle (in favour of a fully standard class layout in that carriage), compared to the draft layouts. Presumably they have increased the seating capacity on the 5-car sets by reducing the size of the first class section of the composite carriage.

 

[Martin222002]

That's interesting, FGW would seem to have upped the number of standard class seats on the 9-car sets by dispensing with the composite vehicle (in favour of a fully standard class layout in that carriage), compared to the draft layouts. Presumably they have increased the seating capacity on the 5-car sets by reducing the size of the first class section of the composite carriage.

Indeed, this is the case. Also please find the link below to the Interim FGW/GWR franchise agreement where the seating figures can be found.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...426295/FGW_Interim_Franchise_Agreement_02.pdf

Just for reference the original draft IEP layouts for a 5 car had 270 standard class seats and 45 first class seats. The draft layout 9 car had 526 standard class seats and 101 first class seats.

Though slightly off topic, it's worth noting that VTEC has also changed the quantity of seating on its 800s and 801s. VTEC 5 cars will have 45 first class seats and 258 standard seats, while their 9 cars will have 101 first class seats and 501 standard seats. Of cause these changes are mostly due to the VTEC examples being fitted with a buffet, the 5 cars kitchen/galley will be slightly smaller, making space for an extra row of seats in the first class driving car. These details can be found in the VTEC franchise agreement linked below.

http://www.gov.uk/government/upload...ile/436043/intercity-east-coast-franchise.pdf

 

[nw1]

6 x 9-car units will provide an hourly (bi-hourly?) Paddington to Exeter semi-fast service.

There will be an hourly Paddington to Plymouth service formed of pairs of 5-car units, with one 5-car unit going forward to Penzance once every two hours.

Incidentally would these Exeter semi-fasts not be an ideal opportunity to solve the Hungerford and Bedwyn issue where these stations are (IIRC) being reduced to getting a shuttle to Newbury? Presumably they could stop these at Kintbury, Hungerford and Bedwyn - all the long-distance passengers to the SW would presumably be on the hourly fast service as now so the 6 minute (or whatever) slowdown through the extra stops would not be too big a deal?

Though is 9 coaches a bit OTT for the Exeter semi-fast? Could they not get away with 5 for this (and minimise platform length issues - not sure how long Hungerford, Bedwyn et al platform lengths are... I was in the area recently, ISTR they could take about 5 coaches)

Then in the "other" hour could they provide a bi-mode IEP to say Westbury from London?

 

[swt_passenger]

Incidentally would these Exeter semi-fasts not be an ideal opportunity to solve the Hungerford and Bedwyn issue where these stations are (IIRC) being reduced to getting a shuttle to Newbury? Presumably they could stop these at Kintbury, Hungerford and Bedwyn - all the long-distance passengers to the SW would presumably be on the hourly fast service as now so the 6 minute (or whatever) slowdown through the extra stops would not be too big a deal?

Though is 9 coaches a bit OTT for the Exeter semi-fast? Could they not get away with 5 for this (and minimise platform length issues - not sure how long Hungerford, Bedwyn et al platform lengths are... I was in the area recently, ISTR they could take about 5 coaches)

Then in the "other" hour could they provide a bi-mode IEP to say Westbury from London?

The proposal in the stakeholder briefing is only for a 2-hourly semifast to Exeter, ( the second link in jimm's post above) so I'd expect there probably isn't IEP stock available for your proposed additional Westbury service.

 

[Goldfish62]

a. As I keep saying, portion working west of Plymouth was a fact of life pre-HST, so no first class or catering at all.

Incorrect. There was at least one 1st class carriage on the PZ portion.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

What terrible news, looks like I'll be travelling with SWT for my London bound trips from the day they enter service.

That would depend on who wins the South Western franchise in 2017. Abellio South Western, anyone?

 

[83G/84D]

Well the dispute between FGW & the unions rumbles on without agreement and the industrial action on bank holiday weekend will go ahead.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-34063596

 

[jimm]

By way of a footnote on the AT300s and the persistent posts in other IEP threads about how these trains were the most expensive thing ever seen on rails, etc, etc, in the September issue of Modern Railways, Roger Ford says that the AT300s, to be acquired via a typical leasing company arrangement through Eversholt, come in at an average cost of £2.08m per coach, which he says is a "pretty keen price", compared with £1.5m for a typical recent emu coach, given the complexity of a bi-mode. And I have a feeling that some recent Pendolino orders in Europe are more like £2.5m per coach.

Mr Ford reckons the monthly cost of the lease charges and maintenance for an AT300 will be about 50 per cent of the DfT's IEP train service provision deal, which just goes to show that I and others were quite right to point out that the sky-high cost of the 800/801 deal was down to it being handled by the DfT, instead of them leaving it to people who actually knew what they were doing.

 

[WatcherZero]

And all the extras that were bolted on, remember the construction of the factory that the government paid for in the original deal would be the equivalent of at least two dozen carriages, and the research costs that were amortised on the first deal (since government commissioned and paid for the R&D) mean they don't have to be paid for on the later orders making those cheaper.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Mr Ford reckons the monthly cost of the lease charges and maintenance for an AT300 will be about 50 per cent of the DfT's IEP train service provision deal, which just goes to show that I and others were quite right to point out that the sky-high cost of the 800/801 deal was down to it being handled by the DfT, instead of them leaving it to people who actually knew what they were doing.

Or that any extra AT300s are now cheap, because the DfT's overpaying has paid for all the R&D, so they just need to build them and flog them now. So the railway as a whole might pay the same as if the R&D cost had been more spread out.

 

[47802]

Which probably means we could well see AT300 ordered to replace HST's and provide extra capacity on XC and MML.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Which probably means we could well see AT300 ordered to replace HST's and provide extra capacity on XC and MML.

Yes, I think there's a good chance of that, and I think it would be a very good thing indeed, particularly bi-modes that can run under wires part of the way and switch to diesel.