Liverpool Lime St. - Norwich

[P156KWJ]

I really really think they've got it all wrong. I think EMT aren't playing their cards right with the 222s, but overall this is not their fault. If anywhere, the sardines should be sent to the offices of National Express - who frankly are well past caring.

Tim, especially, I think is doing a great job of keeping the public informed. Stagecoach, overall, have really surprised me - of course new build would be nice but the fact that we'll have a (hopefully) consistently good fleet in a few years is surely a good thing.

Are the 153s and 156s going to have their interiors done during the franchise?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if we end up with a couple 150s as soon as London Midland start shedding theirs, too.

153s and 156s will have a refurb I expect. The ex Central trains 153s and all the 156s were last refurbished at the end of British Rail (hence the Regional Railways coloured seats) but did get a slight refurb 2003-4 which involved new door buttons and such. 153302 has had the old (decent!) seats from 158783 put in it. I assume there must be another 153 with the 158783 seats floating about somewhere. Now it'd be good to re-upholster them and re-carpet them which would be fine internally.

As for 150s, the way I see it would be to use 150s on shorter local services like Nottingham - Mansfield Woodhouse and Newark - Cleethorpes, releasing some 153s/156s to strenghten 158s on other routes. This would leave the situation with 222s alone. Alternately, you could have the Hull Trains pioneers on Liverpool-Norwich alongside sprinters, and have the 150s operate Corby shuttles.

 

[WillPS]

In fairness, 158783 is effectively a prototype - there were bound to be unforeseen issues with the first 158 Delta have ever had their hands on. Hopefully lessons can be learnt and the remaining units can be speedily refitted, be that with Delta or with Wabtec!

 

[Kneedown]

In fairness, 158783 is effectively a prototype - there were bound to be unforeseen issues with the first 158 Delta have ever had their hands on. Hopefully lessons can be learnt and the remaining units can be speedily refitted, be that with Delta or with Wabtec!

Wabtec are tried and tested and have a good track record when it comes to refurbing 158's. EMT however only looked at the costs. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. The incidents 783 was involved in were serious and Deltarail should never have allowed the unit out with the faults it had. If they wern't aware of the faults then it just goes to underline the amateurishness of their work.

 

[Pumbaa]

Wabtec are tried and tested and have a good track record when it comes to refurbing 158's. EMT however only looked at the costs. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. The incidents 783 was involved in were serious and Deltarail should never have allowed the unit out with the faults it had. If they wern't aware of the faults then it just goes to underline the amateurishness of their work.

What were these incidents and faults?

 

[TEW]

153302 has had the old (decent!) seats from 158783 put in it.

Thats a recipe for disaster as the Wales and West 153s proved, they will be so uncomfortable in a few years time and you can't see out the window.

 

[Techniquest]

That thing with the seats was a running joke for years down this way!

 

[Kneedown]

What were these incidents and faults?

Shoddy paintwork during refurb neccessitating another paintjob.
Numerous electrical faults attributed to incorrectly wired loom.
Serious Cat A SPAD at Hazel Grove a couple of weeks back believed to be caused by poorly functioning brakes/WSP.

Rather more serious than just putting it down to "teething troubles".

 

[P156KWJ]

Faulty brakes is an extremely severe issue and needs to be looked in to as a matter of urgency. the next SPAD could claim as many lives and cost more than the difference of doing a crap refurb and a decent refurb!

 

[WillPS]

Yeah, it's pretty bad that was released into service!!

Whatever happens, I hope it's swift. These 158 refurbs are badly needed!

Perhaps this is a silly question, but is it possible for EMT to order 27 new centre cars for each of their 158s? Or would the cost be so much that you might aswell order a new set of trains?

 

[xtradj]

i notice on the EMT timetable that they have cut widnes out of the route at peak times, im guessing this is to reduce overcrouding, with commuters now having to use a stopper service to widnes

yet the northern rail timetable still shows EMT stopping there?

theres massive work to be done on EMT but cutting widnes out at peak times is a good step, but i still hope XC will take over the route liverpool to nottingham, with a anglia nottingham to norwich service instead

 

[djw1981]

Yeah, it's pretty bad that was released into service!!

Whatever happens, I hope it's swift. These 158 refurbs are badly needed!

Perhaps this is a silly question, but is it possible for EMT to order 27 new centre cars for each of their 158s? Or would the cost be so much that you might aswell order a new set of trains?

No 158 production line available, so you may as well order new stock and split the current 158's to boost existing stock, or cascade.But for EMT DfT are not allowing funding of that option during this franchise. The RVAR-compliant stock introduction in mid 2010's may be your best bet.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

i still hope XC will take over the route liverpool to nottingham, with a anglia nottingham to norwich service instead

Why would giving XC the top half be any sense when they coudl run the whole thing and offer better connectivity. But unlikely before the enxt franchise change.

 

[xtradj]

Why would giving XC the top half be any sense when they coudl run the whole thing and offer better connectivity. But unlikely before the enxt franchise change.

I just assumed they'd leave nottingham to norwich as its not the busiest part of the line? Easier if they did run it all the way however.

Liverpool - Warrington - Manchester - Stockport - Sheffield - Chesterfield - Nottingham - Peterboro - Ely - Norwich

Id cut out Widnes, Dronfield, Alfreton, Grantham, Thetford etc, and use local stopper services. This way it would reduce overcrowding and stop passengers using the service as a next stop destination service. Only calling at the major stations would improve the lengthy journey time, overcrowding and puncuality

For me EMT seem to be running this service more as a local stopper service that carries on across the country, rather than a fast express service which is really what it should be

 

[Donny Dave]

It's fair enough to cut some stops from the service, but I refer you to my previous post in this topic. By cutting out stops, connections will be cut, thus forcing people back onto the roads.

By cutting out Grantham as a stop, the links to Scotland from Nottingham are a lot worse. Instead of a 25 minute journey, followed by a small wait at Grantham, passengers will either be waiting for the slower, more infrequent service to Grantham, or changing at Sheffield and possible Doncaster. Either way, it adds more time to the journey, and more inconvience.

 

[WillPS]

Grantham should definitely stay. As I say if it were up to me then Thetford should stay as it represents not only Thetford town but also a large chunk of Breckland, but changing at Ely wouldn't be too much of a hassle.

 

[MCR247]

From Liverpool-Norwich, Grantham would have to stay becasue why cut it? You would still go through P4 so why not stop?

 

[Waverley125]

Grantham is a no-brainer. You can't currently move it do the up fast through platform one since there is an NXEC service going through at the same time, so the train would have to go through platform 4 at 25 and wait till it could rejoin the up fast before accelerating. Grantham also offers connections to passengers from South/Mil Lincolnshire, Stamford, Lincoln etc.

 

[ashworth]

I think we've been through all this before a couple of weeks ago!
EMT has probably got it about right from the December timetable with cutting the stops at Langley Mill and Dronfield. The only other stop that perhaps could be cut is Widnes. Despite other people's opinions I think Grantham, Thetford and Alfreton must stay. Grantham because of the important connections and Thetford and Alfreton because of the wide areas they serve.

It would be great to speed the service up a bit but I don't really think that it is the number of stops that make the service so slow, but more the nature of the route and all the busy rail centres it passes through with speed restrictions etc.
Reversals at Sheffield and Ely, passing through Manchester, slow speeds for many miles both sides of Nottingham, and slow speeds between Ely and Norwich are what make this journey take so long. Missing out two or three stops is not the answer as people want through trains - hence why it is so overcrowded with passengers along all parts of this route.

 

[WillPS]

I couldn't agree more - the answer is not in taking stops away further than already has happened, the solution is a change in the way the route is treated.

At the moment, it's just a massive 'local' service which just isn't working for anybody. Simply, we need longer trains with higher capacities (and ideally seats which have some padding left). What'd be perfect would be getting the Turbostars back - but realistically this isn't gonna happen for a good few years. In the longer term, it seems relatively obvious that when the lucky TOCs get their fancy new Turbostars, EMT might be entitled to some 150s or Sprinters of some kind. Shove these along with the 153s and 156s on the Robin Hood Line, the Crewe-Derby connection and perhaps Nottingham-Matlock, and then let all the 158s run as 4-car units.

Back to my original post, I would personally prefer to see these units run on the Corby-London services, and have Hull Trains' Pioneers forming part of the service from Liverpool-Norwich, but the reality is that Sprinters can do that changey-speedy thing on the line and a 4-car refurbished 158 set would carry 320 passengers, whilst a Pioneer would carry around 200 at a guess.

Thinking about it, 320 is probably a bit excessive, so it'd be good to see the tables going back into the refurb units in this eventuality.

So, does anybody know if any fleet changes are due on the 14th for this service?

 

[John_158]

They are supposed to be strengthening more of them at the expense of the Crewe-Derby but yet since EMT was publicly humiliated on we have had four coaches on the 07.47 LLST-SHF diagram but yet this week MON-TUE four coaches WED-THUS-FRI and probably today we have been back to just two carriages.

So therefore its is anyone’s guess as to whether or not they will strengthen more diagrams as personally I think that the fleet manger for Nottingham Depot doesn’t know what he / she is doing.

This route is seriously letting EMT down dramatically as i was out and about on there trains in Lincolnshire last Saturday and they really impressed me as all services where a minimum of three carriages.

So it seems to as if they don't want to strengthen the Liverpool-Norwich route at all and I would goes as far as saying they don't even what it as part of there franchise.

Because if they can afford to strengthen there own services and put extra trains on between Nottingham and Lincoln on a Saturday they can afford to do it on the Liverpool-Norwich on Saturdays which can be one of the worst days for overcrowding.

Even during the week if they made more effort with the maintenance they could strengthen the service a great deal as what comes in to my mind as to what they could do is :-

If a 158 has an engine failure or fault on one carriage and has to go in to the work shop to be repaired then they could split the unit so that the bad half is in the work shop and then add the good half to the unit which is on the 07.47 Diagram to provide a minimum of three carriages.

When CT operated the service it was always 170s that operated the route ether a three car one or two 2carrige ones together you very rarely saw 158s on this route in fact if I remember rightly it was only the last day of CT operation of this route that a 158 appeared on the 19.12 from Hunts Cross to LLST an then the service was formed of four coaches 1x158 and 1x 2 car 170.

So how CT provided duff figures I don not know it seems as though this is a bit of a cover up to me personally but putting in extra seats isn’t going to be the answer because ten extra seats means that another ten people can squash on so you’ve still got the over crowding.

I believe Scot Rail have had 158868 sitting around idle for 12months now and that could have provided two extra carriages for two of the other alpha line units as for this route you need a minimum capacity of three carriages not two.

I also do not think that Northern Rail need to have the amount of 156s that they have got as they to me personally seem to have large amounts Rolling Stock sitting around in the depot doing nothing apart from wait for a part as an improvement in there maintenance too would free up more rolling stock.

 

[222001]

They are supposed to be strengthening more of them at the expense of the Crewe-Derby but yet since EMT was publicly humiliated on we have had four coaches on the 07.47 LLST-SHF diagram but yet this week MON-TUE four coaches WED-THUS-FRI and probably today we have been back to just two carriages.

I know what you mean on Thursday I seen a single 153 (153302) on the 08:52 Chesterfield to Norwich service.

So it seems to as if they don't want to strengthen the Liverpool-Norwich route at all and I would goes as far as saying they don't even what it as part of there franchise.

I think they do see it as an important route. We'll see what happens at the timetable changes. What this route needs is a new order of stock. Personally I don't think this route will ever see any new stock until the end of the East Midlands franchise.

If a 158 has an engine failure or fault on one carriage and has to go in to the work shop to be repaired then they could split the unit so that the bad half is in the work shop and then add the good half to the unit which is on the 07.47 Diagram to provide a minimum of three carriages.

That isn't possible as 158s have to have some sort of special fitting (or so I heard) to couple half of a 158 to a full 158.

When CT operated the service it was always 170s that operated the route ether a three car one or two 2carrige ones together you very rarely saw 158s on this route in fact if I remember rightly it was only the last day of CT operation of this route that a 158 appeared on the 19.12 from Hunts Cross to LLST an then the service was formed of four coaches 1x158 and 1x 2 car 170.

Yes give me Central Trains back anyday on this route! Unlike you I did see quite a few 158s out on this route but there were always more 170s. Quite a lot services were made up to 4 or 5 car units unlike these days. I think its the greatest robbery of units from a route ever!

 

[John_158]

Quoting 222001 :-That isn't possible as 158s have to have some sort of special fitting (or so I heard) to couple half of a 158 to a full 158.


I qoute,

It is only an adapter plate that is needed as iam shure all Operators of 158s have them FGW have split 158s and added them as CTR carriges FTPE odne it too.

But what i mean is to just add it to the front day of the other unit with the adaptor plate.

A sort of rolling program is how it can be done a little hard to explain thogh .

 

[xtradj]

who took all the 170's? XC?

East Midlands trains need to get it sorted, and quick, because the route is a disgrace. As from tommorow its now Lime St - Norwich for the first time in 3 months rather than Lime St - Sheff / Notts - Norwich .. so hopefully that will allow trains to be longer, as theres now no need for a split as the route goes straight through

 

[John_158]

Yes indeed which brings me to apoint about Sundays on the route which is when the Blockade first Started for a few weeks on a Sunday everything was four coaches then aproching chrsitmas nmaley fiorst Sunday in DEC they Started just sending two carriges again and only one doiagram paered to be four coaches.

I personlay think that there is some seroius penny pinching going on and nothing much to do with faliures or duff figures from CT etc.

 

[xtradj]

Yes indeed which brings me to apoint about Sundays on the route which is when the Blockade first Started for a few weeks on a Sunday everything was four coaches then aproching chrsitmas nmaley fiorst Sunday in DEC they Started just sending two carriges again and only one doiagram paered to be four coaches.

I personlay think that there is some seroius penny pinching going on and nothing much to do with faliures or duff figures from CT etc.

do you agree there is likely to be more carriges on trains as from tommorow with the re opening of the sheff - chesterfield section?

sundays they have no excuse not to have longer trains as services dont leave liverpool until 12.52!, however sundays is the one day the service probably doesnt need so many coaches

 

[John_158]

Busy Day Sunday xrat coahes needed still

 

[xtradj]

no sunday service from lime street until 25th jan, then even then not until 12.52

ive noted they now wont call at widnes from 17.52 mon-fri lime st - norwich, hopefully reducing capacity... yet they stop at south park way which i assume would increase it even more!!

 

[Kneedown]

Quoting 222001 :-That isn't possible as 158s have to have some sort of special fitting (or so I heard) to couple half of a 158 to a full 158.


I qoute,

It is only an adapter plate that is needed as iam shure all Operators of 158s have them FGW have split 158s and added them as CTR carriges FTPE odne it too.

But what i mean is to just add it to the front day of the other unit with the adaptor plate.

A sort of rolling program is how it can be done a little hard to explain thogh .

Cast your mind back a few years ago and Central did just that. Remember the 158/9xx's?
I dont believe an adapter of any sort is required (to the best of my Drivers knowledge) only a jumper cable and maybe the res pipe.

 

[1D53]

An adaptor plate is needed for the corridor connection, thats it.

 

[WillPS]

Realistically, the best we can hope for is a 4-car 158 as standard for this route, at least whilst EMT are in control, and as has been suggested above, 3-car 158s should be the minimum sent out in the morning. As much as I'd love to see Meridians (or Pioneers) flying along here one has to accept that this isn't the best in terms of capacity or speed.

 

[John_158]

Yeh no Sunday Service untill End of January would have been nice of Networkrail to have put the posters up where people can an will notice them it in Lime St as i disn't know my self untill i looked arround and ended up half an hour late for work becuse they put the poster in the wrong place.

This route seems to be pluged by engineering work and over crowding !


Just noticed thus affternoon that they seem to be using Platfrom 6 in Liverpool Lime St all day as aposed to previoulsey used platform 8 or 9.

Though not many people using it to / from LSPW only five people got on there on the 13.52 LLST-NOTT and two on the 14.15 return and on of those was me.