Greater Anglia Rolling Stock Updates

[samuelmorris]

I'd assume that refers to 102% of the requisite 92, rather than 102% of the entire fleet. though if that's the case, I wonder what the previous target was...

 

[Wivenswold]

New CGI of a Class 720/5. Photo courtesy of Greater Anglia.

 

[dp21]

New CGI of a Class 720/5. Photo courtesy of Greater Anglia.

As much as I was disappointed when I found out that the yellow was being put on I think it actually looks pretty good!

I'm sure you can see in the render but the full unit numbers will only be displayed on the sides however there will be the final 3-digits on the front of each unit. This is not planned to be the case for the Stadler units however that's all TBC.

 

[Wivenswold]

Me too @dp21, I think it actually looks good. That's a sensible plan with the numbers too.

I see that a 755 will be at Innotrans 2018.

 

[387star]

Me too @dp21, I think it actually looks good. That's a sensible plan with the numbers too.

I see that a 755 will be at Innotrans 2018.

isn't this a corporate livery? maybe acceptable as quite neutral

 

[Domh245]

Interesting that these have gone yellow fronted as well. Has it been done for consistency across the fleet, as I had been under the impression that it was only level crossings on some of the rural DMU lines that necessitated the yellow front on the short flirts.

 

[dk1]

Most wonderful shade of yellow I've ever seen in my life. Very smart indeed.

 

[Wivenswold]

Interesting that these have gone yellow fronted as well. Has it been done for consistency across the fleet, as I had been under the impression that it was only level crossings on some of the rural DMU lines that necessitated the yellow front on the short flirts.

There's a few pedestrian crossings on the electric branches too, Network Rail have met with a lot of local resistance in its attempts to close some of them.

 

[Alfie1014]

There's a few pedestrian crossings on the electric branches too, Network Rail have met with a lot of local resistance in its attempts to close some of them.

I agree Wivenswold, though I quite like the little yellow front I'm not so keen on those without, except the refreshed 378s, they look somewhat Japanese.

Going back to the 720s the latest issues I've heard about are that the 5 cars are too long for the bay platforms at Wickford (by about 12m) and that plat 1 (down side) can't be extended as the toes of the points cant be moved as they are almost on the adjacent over bridge. Lengthening at the London end of this platfrom would require demolition of the station building. Platform 4 is almost as bad but it might be possible to exend the bay but this would require earthworks, signalling and OLE alterations and operationally is really the wrong side of the station with movements to/from blocking both up and down lines!

Hertford East is also problematic, the current platforms are 8 x 20m so will only be able to hold a 5 car 720. Extending the platfoms might be possible but would be perilously close to the trailing crossover which almost certainly have to be moved towards Ware to give adequate clearance, againing triggering signalling and OLE alterations. So does Herford East only get 5 car 720s in the future or will a solution be found?

 

[Wivenswold]

Thanks for the update Alfie1014.

Latest on the Renatus project. We have 301-319 and 321 refurbished and back in service. 320, 323-327 at Doncaster (unless one sneaked back unreported) and 322, 328-330 still to go. So your chance to experience what's left of First Great Eastern decor on those last 4 units are running out. 321448 is, as reported above, at Clacton Depot presumed to be under preparation for service. Strange that 322 seems to have been missed out so far.

 

[samuelmorris]

I really don't understand issues like those coming up at times like these. This order was announced in at least as much detail as vehicle length well over a year ago and the first units are nearing completion ready for testing - how has nobody noticed this up until now?

Thanks for the update on Renatus. 7 months before the planned service entry date of the first 720s and four units haven't even gone to Doncaster yet... I sincerely hope another TOC has plans for these units!

 

[jopsuk]

The franchise agreement included fitting out 27 317s with SDO equipment (presumably for 12-car operation?)- is there progress on this?

Is anything going to be done at Shelford, or are down 720s going to either be limited to 5 car or block station road during stops?

 

[Alfie1014]

I really don't understand issues like those coming up at times like these. This order was announced in at least as much detail as vehicle length well over a year ago and the first units are nearing completion ready for testing - how has nobody noticed this up until now?

Thanks for the update on Renatus. 7 months before the planned service entry date of the first 720s and four units haven't even gone to Doncaster yet... I sincerely hope another TOC has plans for these units!

The suggestion is that the newbie ROSCO that is funding them, significantly under estimated the scale of the task needed to introduce a complete new design of train onto the existing infrastructure.

 

[Alfie1014]

Thanks for the update Alfie1014.

Latest on the Renatus project. We have 301-319 and 321 refurbished and back in service. 320, 323-327 at Doncaster (unless one sneaked back unreported) and 322, 328-330 still to go. So your chance to experience what's left of First Great Eastern decor on those last 4 units are running out. 321448 is, as reported above, at Clacton Depot presumed to be under preparation for service. Strange that 322 seems to have been missed out so far.

It’s been reported elsewhere that 320 returned with 319 last week.

 

[samuelmorris]

I think that much is self-evident, and there were plenty of naysayers who were calling that before the project began - my point really is that, are the penalties for not fully completing the project still going to outweight the losses of having carried out this work for what could be as little as 6 months usage in return?

 

[dp21]

Me too @dp21, I think it actually looks good. That's a sensible plan with the numbers too.

I see that a 755 will be at Innotrans 2018.

Indeed, should be 755405. I believe this will then head straight to NCP as the first one on these shores.

Interesting that these have gone yellow fronted as well. Has it been done for consistency across the fleet, as I had been under the impression that it was only level crossings on some of the rural DMU lines that necessitated the yellow front on the short flirts.

It's to do with the level crossing risk assessment issues. The GA network has a huge proportion of the UK's crossings and it's necessitated yellow on all fleets including the 745s and 720s.

 

[F Great Eastern]

This doesn't surprise anyone though, all of us in the know, saw the flaws of many of these projects from day one and never got involved in the bluster and spin that Abellio have been putting out for the last year. I said then that the plan was not deliverable and was going for replacing the whole fleet to look good rather than actually being able to do it properly and it was far too ambitious as well as the Renatus project.

I really don't understand issues like those coming up at times like these. This order was announced in at least as much detail as vehicle length well over a year ago and the first units are nearing completion ready for testing - how has nobody noticed this up until now?

Well as I called out a year ago, look at the backgrounds of all the management since the reshuffle that happened in around 2016 mostly and you will see it's a very unbalanced team when it comes to running a train operator, full of bid managers and finance people and pretty much zero experience of new fleet delivery.

The Engineering director who had no rail experience before joining GA must be on borrowed time because his tenure has resulted in approaching 100 short forms a day during the summer and a collapse in the availability of virtually every single class in the fleet. I fail to comprehend how he is still in a job.

I really don't want this all to go tits up as it's going to effect me majorly, but everything I keep seeing is the kind of mistakes that experienced people, who have delivered big rolling stock projects, wouldn't make because they have been there and done it before. It just seems what it is, people learning things the hard way since they had no real idea what something like this involves as they've never done it before.

At the end of the day you can expect the Abellio spin machine will come out sooner or later though to defend themselves and I have to admit, they are excellent at that, having spent the last 9 months pretty much avoiding directly answering any question that myself and others ask them about rolling stock.

 

[MP33]

During a ticket inspection I asked the inspector what is the future of 1st class with the new rolling stock as I cannot get a straight answer. The inspector advised that they are not getting an answer either.

 

[Wivenswold]

I think a lot of us with railway experience looked at the delivery of the transformation project and had concerns.

If I hear a non-answer from anyone (here's looking at Westminster in particular) I assume the actual answer is not good news. It was all deliverable but it required a lot of preparatory work which I assumed would have been done prior to the bid being sealed. The Manningtree Depot fiasco was perhaps the first big warning that maybe they are making it up as they go along. I'm really tempted to put in a FOI act request for the indicative timetable used by the bid team to calculate rolling stock requirements and compliance with the minimum service standards in the agreement. I bet it's a work of utter fiction.

Thanks to Alfie for the info on 320.

 

[samuelmorris]

Agreed, radio silence from the PR department I think is a pretty sure fire guarantee that the original plan of first-class being exclusive to the 745/0 is likely to proceed.

I'm not sure you'll be able to get a timetable on a FoI would you if it's considered commercial to GA? I appreciate the DfT have a lot of involvement but it's not something like TfL where the whole operation is a public body. Either way, good luck, I'd be fascinated to see it.
The manningtree depot farse is certainly concerning, the interim storage problem may have been mitigated, but what's happening long-term with looking after the new fleet once it's all here? Unless I've missed something I haven't seen a solution to that come up yet. Although nothing like as disruptive as the Thameslink situation I'm anticipating around 1 year's worth of slippage in the rollout of the new fleet due to the combination of the above and the usual bedding in issues with new fleets. 15 months in, the reliability of 345s remains appalling so I don't imagine 720s will be wonderful for the first couple of years. The 745s and 755s are a complete unknown in the UK so I doubt they'll be trouble free either, even if they have a better improvement curve than the Aventras.

 

[F Great Eastern]

That's what I have believed all along, it's just the PR machine working in overdrive, if you can't answer a question directly in a way that is positive, avoid answering it directly at all or answer a different question entirely.

The MD and the projects director are basically bid mangers with no real experience of this kind of project, one of the biggest in the history of privatisation rail is not good, but an experienced engineering director, who has experience of fleet transformation to guide them in relation to the possible pitfalls could make all the difference.

I just worry about this project, based on what has happened so far. They don't have expertise at the top and the current engineering director walked into GA in that role 2 years ago with no railway experience, has oversaw large amounts of short formations and a big downturn in the availability of pretty much all fleets, having replaced a very experienced rail engineering director.

The lack of experience is pretty obvious on everything we have seen so far.

 

[306024]

I'm really tempted to put in a FOI act request for the indicative timetable used by the bid team to calculate rolling stock requirements and compliance with the minimum service standards in the agreement. I bet it's a work of utter fiction.

It wouldn’t be the first one . The National Express Lowestoft / Peterborough bid timetable had to be completely re-written to make it work operationally, although running just 3 car 170s to Liverpool St was always going to create ‘issues’.

Bid teams rarely have the detailed knowledge to put together an operationally coherent bid. If they did they wouldn’t win, you need to be bold and innovative It is then left to the incumbent staff to put it right, but Wickford and Hertford East look particularly challenging.

Throw in the current NR timetable planning issues and who knows what may ensue.

As for first class, thought that was clear. Nothing but the Norwich ‘InterCity’ service. Haven’t the bidders for Southeastern been asked by the DfT to abolish first class too?

 

[Wivenswold]

It wouldn’t be the first one . The National Express Lowestoft / Peterborough bid timetable had to be completely re-written to make it work operationally, although running just 3 car 170s to Liverpool St was always going to create ‘issues’.

Ha, I'm going to give it a go. I'll need to spin it a bit, if I just say "I want to see the indicative timetable" they'll say it's commercially sensitive. You can get civil servants onside if you approach them from the right direction.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Bid teams rarely have the detailed knowledge to put together an operationally coherent bid. If they did they wouldn’t win, you need to be bold and innovative It is then left to the incumbent staff to put it right, but Wickford and Hertford East look particularly challenging.

That is the problem I fear - the whole thing has been driven by nothing but bid directors, both for those who prepared the bid in Abellio itself, through to the top two or three people in Abellio, who are also, you've guessed it, career bid directors.

It'll be interesting to see how the next few years work out for Abellio, both on GA and elsewhere, since the strategy of going down the investing in the top talent for bidding might win them plenty of contracts, but it remains to be seen if that is at expense of operational deliverability.

 

[Wivenswold]

I think it was Jonathan Denby who said, in an email to me, that the bid team had put forward the specification for the franchise and it was now for the GA Ops team to fit the trains ordered into the new timetable. At the time I thought it sounded like excuses were already being lined up for the inevitable internal investigation into what went wrong. I also noticed that he ignored my question about contract clauses for additional units if required.

More recently Mike Kean batted away my concerns about the unit lengths for peak shoulder services with a haughty "I think you'll be impressed with the amount of extra seats". Could be read as "You're worrying over nothing" or an avoiding tactic.

 

[F Great Eastern]

I think it was Jonathan Denby who said, in an email to me, that the bid team had put forward the specification for the franchise and it was now for the GA Ops team to fit the trains ordered into the new timetable. At the time I thought it sounded like excuses were already being lined up for the inevitable internal investigation into what went wrong. I also noticed that he ignored my question about contract clauses for additional units if required.

It does sound a bit like that doesn't it, almost like they are preparing the blame culture for what follows. But ultimately Kean and Burles both have bid director history with Abellio so it's pretty hard to believe that they would not have had any input with the operational side and also the bid side.

More recently Mike Kean batted away my concerns about the unit lengths for peak shoulder services with a haughty "I think you'll be impressed with the amount of extra seats". Could be read as "You're worrying over nothing" or an avoiding tactic.

Of all the conversations I've had with Greater Anglia about train lengths and capacity and/or seat pitch, every single one of them turns into a discussion about the amount of seats being provided and the benefits of being seated versus having to stand on a train.

It's no good having an uplift in seating capacity if there's a big loss in standing capacity on busy trains so the end result is that people get left behind that can be accommodated now and the ones who do get on-board have the knees hard pressed against the seat in front.

 

[Alfie1014]

I must admit that the chances for a smooth introduction of the 720s looks slim. Problems with the 345s and the news reported on this forum that driver training on the WA 710 isnt now due to start until Feb (18 months late?) next does not auger well for the 720s. I estimate that they will need somewhere around 65-70 fully commisioned 5 car units in traffic by 01/01/20 to remove all non PRI-TSI units, with first due to arrive in March that's close to 2 units a week for most of next year. I hope it doesn't turn into another Thameslink with the region waking up on 2nd January to a dearth of usable trains after being reassured all along all was going to be OK!

 

[47421]

"The franchise agreement included fitting out 27 317s with SDO equipment (presumably for 12-car operation?)- is there progress on this?

Is anything going to be done at Shelford, or are down 720s going to either be limited to 5 car or block station road during stops?"

"Going back to the 720s the latest issues I've heard about are that the 5 cars are too long for the bay platforms at Wickford (by about 12m) and that plat 1 (down side) can't be extended as the toes of the points cant be moved as they are almost on the adjacent over bridge. Lengthening at the London end of this platfrom would require demolition of the station building. Platform 4 is almost as bad but it might be possible to exend the bay but this would require earthworks, signalling and OLE alterations and operationally is really the wrong side of the station with movements to/from blocking both up and down lines!

Hertford East is also problematic, the current platforms are 8 x 20m so will only be able to hold a 5 car 720. Extending the platfoms might be possible but would be perilously close to the trailing crossover which almost certainly have to be moved towards Ware to give adequate clearance, againing triggering signalling and OLE alterations. So does Herford East only get 5 car 720s in the future or will a solution be found?"​

On the above observations, it is not looking good. Franchise specifies per below. I am assuming we will never see 12x317, which is not really that big a deal, as they all go off lease in next 12 months. But the absence of any platform lengthening looks like a mess. I agree that the works required at Hertford East are quite extensive to accommodate 10 car 720s. I queried this with GA recently and got a brush off response " we are in discussions with Network Rail". Network Rail did not respond to my email. Few weeks ago I emailed Mark Prisk MP for Hertford and Stortford, no response yet, but he is usually pretty good at following up so will have to wait to see what he says. Of course 5 car only to Hertford East means most Lea Valley stops will be 5 car only. I emailed TfL about that and they said was for GA.

Automatic Selective Door Operation Installation
9.1 By no later than 31 October 2018, the Franchisee shall incur expenditure of not less than [REDACTED35] to ensure that Automatic Selective Door Opening technology is operational on twenty seven (27) Class 317 units (the "Class 317 Upgrade Units"), the provision of such Automatic Selective Door Opening technology to encompass correct side door enable and the installation of trackside beacons to ninety six (96) platforms.


105.2 Pursuant to paragraph 105.1 such changes to the infrastructure shall include such infrastructure works at each of Hertford East, Wickford, Manningtree, Kings Lynn, Elsenham, Ware, St Margarets and Enfield Lock Stations as are necessary to enable any Passenger Services comprised of 10 rolling stock vehicles to call at such Stations by no later than 1 September 2018​

 

[Alfie1014]

I see that GAs latest performance figures (4 weeks up to 18th August) have been published on their website; the headline is that the period performance was a woeful 82.0% and the MAA 87.8%. Now these might be adjusted (upwards?) following review with NR but even so they are pretty dismal and if are correct the MAA figure is the worst (by a long way) since the creation of the original franchise back in 2011. The drop of 0.7% of the MAA is pretty much unprecidented for this TOC and can only make the target of 93% by franchise end even more challenging!

The cancellation figure was 5.6% and the number of 'short forms' declared was 169. The cancellation figures have only been worse during the extreme winter weather in 2011 and this year's Beast from the East and the MAA for short forms has doubled from around 30 to 70.

 

[samuelmorris]

82% in summer... Yikes