CAF class 197 Civity for TfW: News and updates on introduction.

[hexagon789]

In some cases the 175s are already tanked only every 2 days. The units that stable at Carmarthen & Shrewsbury can't get tanked. Lately units have been stabled at Crewe as well and although the depot there does have CET emptying facilities, I'm not 100% sure TfW uses them.

Are they designed for a two-day tank life then?

At least though they have two toilets, so overall tank capacity will higher you'd imagine. Having only one toilet for such long journeys seems ludicrous with the CAFs.

 

[hexagon789]

Can you imagine Football/Rugby/Event days in Cardiff, loads of pissed up punters drinking on the train, on the way to the stadium, in the stadium & around the stadium on event days all needing a pee on a train with one toilet, that tank will be full to bursting before it hits Swansea or (insert Welsh town/village) up in the valleys.
I think you might want to remove the carpets just in case

That's another reason, crush-laden units for special events, such as football or rugby, is just as long for more trouble.

Does anyone in this thread seriously think the provision of one toilet in a two-car is either sufficient or sensible?

 

[Starmill]

Much more suitable for most of the services these units will be working. It will be a big improvement on dwell times, especially in the peaks. Remember, these units aren't just working rural Welsh services, they will work busy commuter services out of Manchester, Birmingham and of course Cardiff. As great as the 175s are (both to travel on and for us staff to work on) they do struggle to cope with big crowds. Bombardier proved years ago you can make comfortable medium - long distance trains with doors at ⅓ ⅔ with the 170s, and I see no reason why these will be any different.

They're sound justifications but they're the same justifications that have been used to cheapen the North West Express routes. You used to have First Class and onboard catering, comfortable interiors designed with longer journeys in mind, more than one toilet on all services and reserved seating. Now you've just got the cheapest possible spec, and if you need to use the toilet on the 3 hour journey between Manchester and Barrow-in-Furness and the onboard one is out of service, you just have to get off.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They're sound justifications but they're the same justifications that have been used to cheapen the North West Express routes. You used to have First Class and onboard catering, comfortable interiors designed with longer journeys in mind, more than one toilet on all services and reserved seating. Now you've just got the cheapest possible spec, and if you need to use the toilet on the 3 hour journey between Manchester and Barrow-in-Furness and the onboard one is out of service, you just have to get off.

Wha? The NorthWest Express routes (with that brand) were normally operated with pairs of Class 156s, which never had First Class and had one toilet per unit. There was a trolley, but station catering wasn't what it is now. The Class 195 without a doubt provides a better travelling environment than that.

Reservations might have been offered, I forget, but you never saw very many.

The North Wales Coast LHCS was at one point branded NorthWest Express (though never got the green stripe) but this was more incidental. And 1st wasn't enforced. I once asked a guard how much the upgrade was, and he just invited me to sit there without paying.

If you're talking about the "blip" when Class 185s were used I can see that point, but they were grossly undercapacity, and that was far, far worse than any "downgrade" the 195s may be (which, on Standard, they are, but not by that much). And in my experience of the Barrows they *took* reservations but rarely bothered to place them, which just caused the classic arguments all the time.

 

[Mollman]

I can see the 'two-day' capacity becoming an excuse to empty the tanks less frequently leading to more issues

Northern's toilets lasted much longer as they were always broken anyway. I think they have started working properly now there is no-one around to travel on them.

 

[hexagon789]

Northern's toilets lasted much longer as they were always broken anyway. I think they have started working properly now there is no-one around to travel on them.

Well then, there's TfW's solution - break the toilets so they can get used and the tanks never get filled!

 

[fgwrich]

They seem to be rather Marmite. There's as much "this is wonderful" about IET seats on GWR, TPE and LNER's Twitter as there is "this is awful".

To me, I don't mind hard seats at all and they would be great apart from two things - the headrest is a bit low (but legroom so far generally good enough to slouch, so this isn't a killer) and the "metal bar" that I feel under my thighs. I suspect the latter is only perceptible if you are heavy enough to squash the foam down completely. So there may well be a weight divide here - it might be that if you're say 80kg you'll love them, but if you're 130kg (hello! ) you won't.

Nope, I cant say there's a weight divide. I'm quite 'light' and notice the metal bar through the centre too! Having used both the standard version in the 80X and the slightly more luxurious version in the FC on the 700s, good luck to TFW Passengers. I think a park bench remains more comfortable!

DfT apparatchiks, Hitachi and FirstGroup.

Indeed - I think I'd rather have the 'ironing board' versions used on the Northern units, they don't seem too uncomfortable on the ScotRail fleet (and some of those 156s are on some fairly lengthy journeys up there!)

Northern's toilets lasted much longer as they were always broken anyway. I think they have started working properly now there is no-one around to travel on them.

Northern seem to have found a solution - Lock them out of use (or cancel the train in the current climate). It seems that some of those toilets are shall we say, not very robustly built with leaks cropping up largely from the plumbing from around and under the sinks.

 

[craigybagel]

They're sound justifications but they're the same justifications that have been used to cheapen the North West Express routes. You used to have First Class and onboard catering, comfortable interiors designed with longer journeys in mind, more than one toilet on all services and reserved seating. Now you've just got the cheapest possible spec, and if you need to use the toilet on the 3 hour journey between Manchester and Barrow-in-Furness and the onboard one is out of service, you just have to get off.

Of course, some of the TfW units will have first class, and the hours in which catering is provided is being expanded.

 

[Starmill]

If you're talking about the "blip" when Class 185s were used I can see that point, but they were grossly undercapacity, and that was far, far worse than any "downgrade" the 195s may be (which, on Standard, they are, but not by that much). And in my experience of the Barrows they *took* reservations but rarely bothered to place them, which just caused the classic arguments all the time.

A blip that was in fact the status quo for 14 years? Which followed operation by 175s themselves from new? They were "under-capacity" because of the nonsense of diverting some of them to operate to and from Scotland instead without any additional rolling stock, reducing frequency of through services and train length. That which was completely inappropriate and should have been retained in the IC West Coast franchise as services from Birmingham were.

Of course, we have all of the standard excuses about quality. All of CAF's new products, from Cal Sleeper to TPE, have a feeling of being exceptionally cheap, and an introductory delivery record to match. One only hopes and the Transport for Wales ones will get more right than wrong.

 

[hooverboy]

Of course, we have all of the standard excuses about quality. All of CAF's new products, from Cal Sleeper to TPE, have a feeling of being exceptionally cheap, and an introductory delivery record to match. One only hopes and the Transport for Wales ones will get more right than wrong.

Maybe they are cheaper than their competitors. Does anyone have any figures on how CAF units compare to other vendors in terms of price per vehicle/set?
I think also the price maybe somewhat skewed by the fact that bombardier isn't interested in DMU's any more, siemens could but won't and nobody trusts alstom with anything diesel!
that only leaves stadler and CAF, which a bit too small a field to get reduced price and higher quality through competition

Nobody was going to expect an all bells+ whistles option for mostly low density and rural operations, but robust and reliable is definitely required.
Personally I don't mind the 195/6/7 civities, the ride is a bit firm but its bearable,the seating isn't that bad-although point taken about window alignments(or lack of),and they are pretty nippy.Also tonnes of space in the overhead racks which is definitely a plus,especially on tourist and holiday routes.

The GA stadlers on the other hand are in a different league.They feel like they've had some love put into the build.Excellent quality trains.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Stadler are clearly a premium option, I'd be surprised if CAF weren't loads cheaper. It'd be different if Bombardier was still churning out Turb-aventras en masse.

 

[hooverboy]

Stadler are clearly a premium option, I'd be surprised if CAF weren't loads cheaper. It'd be different if Bombardier was still churning out Turb-aventras en masse.

the turbostars were/are quite a good design,but they still have their drawbacks.
Slow acceleration and pointlessly small overhead luggage areas to name a couple...EMR will have fun with the latter on the skeggy run this summer!

plus point is they are supposed to be very economical to run in terms of fuel consumption,and reliability is pretty good

 

[Bletchleyite]

the turbostars were/are quite a good design,but they still have their drawbacks.
Slow acceleration and pointlessly small overhead luggage areas to name a couple...EMR will have fun with the latter on the skeggy run this summer!

They aren't perfect, but they are cheap and ubiquitous. With their new role being on local stopping services typically under 70mph, though, I do think a regear would benefit them to make them more like the new CAF units in acceleration terms.

Fitting bigger racks wouldn't be hard, the ScotRail ones have quite big racks in 1st, a quite different design from the standard ones.

 

[hooverboy]

They aren't perfect, but they are cheap and ubiquitous. With their new role being on local stopping services typically under 70mph, though, I do think a regear would benefit them to make them more like the new CAF units in acceleration terms.

I'm inclined to agree.perhaps a small downshift to 90mph would give enough flexibility for a bit of mainline running and improve the acceleration a bit.You should get quite close to 15x/158 timings that way

 

[Envoy]

Maybe they are cheaper than their competitors. Does anyone have any figures on how CAF units compare to other vendors in terms of price per vehicle/set?
I think also the price maybe somewhat skewed by the fact that bombardier isn't interested in DMU's any more, siemens could but won't and nobody trusts alstom with anything diesel!
that only leaves stadler and CAF, which a bit too small a field to get reduced price and higher quality through competition

Nobody was going to expect an all bells+ whistles option for mostly low density and rural operations, but robust and reliable is definitely required.
Personally I don't mind the 195/6/7 civities, the ride is a bit firm but its bearable,the seating isn't that bad-although point taken about window alignments(or lack of),and they are pretty nippy.Also tonnes of space in the overhead racks which is definitely a plus,especially on tourist and holiday routes.

The GA stadlers on the other hand are in a different league.They feel like they've had some love put into the build.Excellent quality trains.

I have not been on a CAF or Stadler train but from the way people are talking, it would seem that the shorter routes that TfW will operate - such as Rhymney to Barry & Cheltenham to Maesteg, will have better trains than the long distance routes? Of course, that remains to be seen. I would not call some of these routes “low density rural operations”. On the contrary, many passengers are travelling InterCity such as Swansea/Cardiff/Newport to Manchester or Liverpool. (Some change at Crewe for places further north up to Scotland). Let us not forget that the shortest & quickest route between south Wales and the aforementioned cities is via The Marches & not via Birmingham. I note that the only true Inter City style trains on The Marches, will be the ones hauled by Class 67’s going from Cardiff to north Wales - yet north Wales has no major city.

 

[samuelmorris]

I have not been on a CAF or Stadler train but from the way people are talking, it would seem that the shorter routes that TfW will operate - such as Rhymney to Barry & Cheltenham to Maesteg, will have better trains than the long distance routes? Of course, that remains to be seen. I would not call some of these routes “low density rural operations”. On the contrary, many passengers are travelling InterCity such as Swansea/Cardiff/Newport to Manchester or Liverpool. (Some change at Crewe for places further north up to Scotland). Let us not forget that the shortest & quickest route between south Wales and the aforementioned cities is via The Marches & not via Birmingham. I note that the only true Inter City style trains on The Marches, will be the ones hauled by Class 67’s going from Cardiff to north Wales - yet north Wales has no major city.

I think generally that seems to be the case. At the time the stock was ordered, however, it was probably a lot less obvious. The mediocrity of the CAF products has only become apparent in the last year since they entered revenue service, and the same is true of the relatively high-grade fit & finish of the Stadler units. The design of the Stadler units is a complete change from the norm in the UK and was originally derided as 'they only went with those because they were cheap'. I will throw caution over people praising the Stadler units too much as they are still appallingly unreliable over at Greater Anglia. The Civity units at Northern are bad but not quite as bad.

 

[Jamesrob637]

EMR will have fun with the latter on the skeggy run this summer!

Probably won't be an issue this summer! But summer 2021 maybe.

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

I have not been on a CAF or Stadler train but from the way people are talking, it would seem that the shorter routes that TfW will operate - such as Rhymney to Barry & Cheltenham to Maesteg, will have better trains than the long distance routes? Of course, that remains to be seen. I would not call some of these routes “low density rural operations”. On the contrary, many passengers are travelling InterCity such as Swansea/Cardiff/Newport to Manchester or Liverpool. (Some change at Crewe for places further north up to Scotland). Let us not forget that the shortest & quickest route between south Wales and the aforementioned cities is via The Marches & not via Birmingham. I note that the only true Inter City style trains on The Marches, will be the ones hauled by Class 67’s going from Cardiff to north Wales - yet north Wales has no major city.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown for passenger numbers on the Marcher Line to see how many passenger are using it to travel long distances and how many are travelling for a stop or two. From personal limited experience, there seems to be a lot of local travel north of Shrewsbury and south of Abergavenny with not so much in between. Is the data available somewhere?

 

[hooverboy]

Probably won't be an issue this summer! But summer 2021 maybe.

on the contrary, if there are international travel restrictions then a lot of people will be planing staycations this year.Domestic travel will be far,far easier than the rigmorol of flying .
I think EMR 170's are going to get a baptism of fire come july/august.

anyway,back to the topic in hand.I think the CAF civities are what you would call "adequate".Not got the "wow" factor by any means,but will do the job.

 

[hooverboy]

I will throw caution over people praising the Stadler units too much as they are still appallingly unreliable over at Greater Anglia. The Civity units at Northern are bad but not quite as bad.

how much of the unreliability of the stadlers is down to dft tweaks(reduction of fuel tank size) and general teething troubles?.They should be getting these sort of things ironed out by now
I like the stadlers immensely,they are a massive step change from the GA sprinters,and definitely a worthy replacement for turbostars.

the people on the wherry lines etc who use them regularly feel they hit the jackpot! ok, it's not exactly difficult when you have to compete against a single car dogbox,but overall the reaction to them has been extremely positive.

I would think the CAF units would provide a similar reaction from the poor downtrodden northerners who have had to put up with pacers for decades!

 

[craigybagel]

It would be interesting to see a breakdown for passenger numbers on the Marcher Line to see how many passenger are using it to travel long distances and how many are travelling for a stop or two. From personal limited experience, there seems to be a lot of local travel north of Shrewsbury and south of Abergavenny with not so much in between. Is the data available somewhere?

Don't have the data, but anecdotally as someone who's worked the line for years - there's lots of local traffic. I would say the vast majority of the passengers boarding at stations between Shrewsbury and Hereford are traveling to one of those two towns. Obviously there are a fair few on board making long journeys to Manchester and/or Cardiff as well, and a large amount of commuters for both cities in the peaks. I don't think there's any one dominant flow on the line, so the stock needs to be able to cope with all kinds of different passenger journeys. From what I've seen, the CAFs look pretty well specced for that.

 

[Envoy]

I was reading on a thread about CAF and someone said that the bogie design was not that good for ride quality. Let us hope that things turn out well. It is disappointing to read that the same hard seats as used by GWR IET’s are to be used. Perhaps CAF could get a modification of the base?

Many thanks ‘craigybagel’ for your comment above about the fact that we have a mix of short hop passengers and long distance travellers. I am not sure how many passengers split the tickets but have noted that a split at Crewe for those proceeding up the WCML definitely results in cheaper fares along with a split at Manchester for those making longer journeys. Cwmbran & Shrewsbury splits can also result in lower fares. If people are splitting the tickets, then that surely means that the TOC’s / Welsh Government/ UK Government/ Rail Delivery Group - would not have a clue about the true state of passenger movements?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Don't have the data, but anecdotally as someone who's worked the line for years - there's lots of local traffic. I would say the vast majority of the passengers boarding at stations between Shrewsbury and Hereford are traveling to one of those two towns. Obviously there are a fair few on board making long journeys to Manchester and/or Cardiff as well, and a large amount of commuters for both cities in the peaks. I don't think there's any one dominant flow on the line, so the stock needs to be able to cope with all kinds of different passenger journeys. From what I've seen, the CAFs look pretty well specced for that.

Also don't forget the connectional traffic to destinations like London/Thames Valley and Bristol, from places like Ludlow.
Either via Shrewsbury/Crewe or Hereford/Newport.
There's no easy way eastwards from any of the Marches stations, and these destinations are at least as important as Cardiff or Manchester.

 

[craigybagel]

I was reading on a thread about CAF and someone said that the bogie design was not that good for ride quality. Let us hope that things turn out well. It is disappointing to read that the same hard seats as used by GWR IET’s are to be used. Perhaps CAF could get a modification of the base?

Many thanks ‘craigybagel’ for your comment above about the fact that we have a mix of short hop passengers and long distance travellers. I am not sure how many passengers split the tickets but have noted that a split at Crewe for those proceeding up the WCML definitely results in cheaper fares along with a split at Manchester for those making longer journeys. Cwmbran & Shrewsbury splits can also result in lower fares. If people are splitting the tickets, then that surely means that the TOC’s / Welsh Government/ UK Government/ Rail Delivery Group - would not have a clue about the true state of passenger movements?

To be fair, going by what I've seen anyway whilst there are indeed a multitude of splits available involving the Marches line, it's still very much a niche market. The vast majority of travellers still don't bother with such things. And there are other methods of logging passenger journeys - regular on-board surveys for example, and also TfW conductors are required to log passenger numbers at certain points of the journey on all trains.

Also don't forget the connectional traffic to destinations like London/Thames Valley and Bristol, from places like Ludlow.
Either via Shrewsbury/Crewe or Hereford/Newport.
There's no easy way eastwards from any of the Marches stations, and these destinations are at least as important as Cardiff or Manchester.

Also very true. Newport can be almost as busy a station for loading and unloading as Cardiff, and Crewe normally has a very large turnover as well. Connections at Hereford tend to be from local Marches stations towards Worcester or Birmingham; few go to London that way in my experience as it takes longer.

Also worth pointing out that a Manchester - Bristol ticket routed via Hereford can, depending on the time of day and the nature of the journey, offer big savings over an Any Permitted.

 

[Rhydgaled]

What would they sue them for anyway? Is an 'uncomfortable' seat breaking the franchise agreement?

This appeared in Modern Railways a month or two back: "The trains' technical specification mandates that they must be comfortable and practical for journeys of up to three hours." It is suggested the TfW considered using that clause to force the change of seats from Comrail to Sophia but decided they wouldn't have a strong enough legal case.

Just out of curiosity, why have TfW chosen commuter-type trains for routes that have been Class 175-worked (in other words worked by end-door trains) for over 10 years?

I'm guessing this improves punctuality - as long as the journey experience is great then I'm all for 197's. Just curious.

They have done it because (nearly) everyone else is doing it, because they think they can get away with downgrading interior standards and/or because the rail industry is becoming as obsessed with dwell times as I am with quality (and, as many here will vouch, I am obsessed with quality).

I imagine that it's almost entirely down to the lower prices they happened to be able to offer. It seems very unlikely indeed they will be as suitable as from-new 175s.

As regards capacity, I'm guessing a 3-car 175 seats around 200. If that's true then a 4-car 197 won't have that much more seats, although an extra 35 ish seats is still an ok increase.

The capacity of a 175 is less than that, 186, and a 197 is very similar. Here's a comparison table

Type	Length	Fixed Seats	Toilets	Seating Bays	Airline Seat Pitch
Class 158	2-car	?	2	16	80
Class 175/0	2-car	118	2	12	84
Class 175/1	3-car	186	3	22	84
Class 197	2-car	116	1	10	82
Class 197	3-car	188	2	16	82

Seat-pitch for the 158 and 175 are my own measurements. I don't have a current seat plan for the 158s so not sure how many seats they have now. It was 134 at one point.

As you can see a class 197 has practically the same number of seats as a 175. The 175 acheives this with more tables, more legroom and 1 more toilet per train. This despite the class 197 having a slight vehicle length advantage.

I can see the 'two-day' capacity becoming an excuse to empty the tanks less frequently leading to more issues

Northern's class 195 DMUs have a 405 litre CET tank capacity. Their class 158s have a 310 litre CET tank under each coach. A 2-car 158 therefore has 215 litres more capacity than a 195. Of course we do not know if the TfW units are specified with the same CET tanks.

Remember, these units aren't just working rural Welsh services, they will work busy commuter services out of Manchester, Birmingham and of course Cardiff.

Busy yes, commuters yes, but NOT commuter services. Out of Birmingham, TfW have fewer stops than WMT. Out of Manchester, TfW are non-stop to Newton-Le-Willows on north Wales services and have the same stops as ICWC between Manchester and Crewe. Out of Cardiff, the services in question similarly only serve stations that are also served by GWR. These are long-distance regional express services, not outer suburban stoppers. If we were to call every route that is busy with commuters for part of the day "commuter services" we would not have much of the intercity network left.

The Class 175 has overheads that are so tiny you can barely put your coat in them - the smallest I can think of on the network. The Civity has massive racks - they will take a 100+ litre rucksack or a full size trolley case with ease (I've put both of those things in them). If there are floor-level racks as well this will make a massive difference.

In terms of ground-level racks for large luggage TfW informed me some time ago that their CAF DMUs would have a rack 1227mm long in each carriage. Two of these would of course be a total of 245.4cm on a 2-car unit which is a bit less than I found with my tape measure on a 2-car 175 (260cm). Unfortunately I don't know how much luggage space there is on coach B of a 175 but my measurements on a 158 were 379cm of free-standing luggage rack. That's more than a 3-car 197.

The Class 444 for example isn't fully end doored, some are nearer thirds, and that works fine. The smaller saloon also increases privacy.

Since TfW first published renders of the as-yet-undesignated 197s a long time ago I've been looking at ways to provide a high-quality train while giving some thought to dwell times. The class 444 does appear to be the closest the rail industry has come to this, followed closely by the 158/159 and the 800/801/802. The trick I think is to put a toilet at one end of the vehicle (with a bicycle space on the opposite side of the aisle), followed by the first set of exterior doors. The other set of exterior doors would be positioned towards the other end of the vehicle but roughly one third (optimising the position to avoid window pillar issues) inwards. A bit like a 444 then, but ensuring that there is always an interior door seperating each vestible from the saloons. Of course driving vehicles and the PRM toilet complicate matters.

Does anyone in this thread seriously think the provision of one toilet in a two-car is either sufficient or sensible?

Not only do I not think it is sufficient, the Rail Delivery Group's Key Train Requirements recommend against it* but because that document is only 'guidance' and 'best practice' it is frequently ignored.

* Both in terms of always fitting at least two toilets to all toilet-fitted trains to provide a level of redundancy and in terms of a recommended ratio of seats to toilets for long-distance trains. If tip-up seats are counted the 2-car 197 is not far off breaching the 125 seats per toilet ratio recommended for short-distance commuter services.

many passengers are travelling InterCity such as Swansea/Cardiff/Newport to Manchester or Liverpool. (Some change at Crewe for places further north up to Scotland). Let us not forget that the shortest & quickest route between south Wales and the aforementioned cities is via The Marches & not via Birmingham. I note that the only true Inter City style trains on The Marches, will be the ones hauled by Class 67’s going from Cardiff to north Wales - yet north Wales has no major city.

Agreed. InterCity passengers might be in the miniority on the marches compared to passengers going only two or three stops into Shrewsbury or Hereford, but the InterCity passengers do exist. The class 197s have very little going for them that would help to grow and retain that market. If they take over as planned I fear rail will lose long-distance market share as a result.

 

[Starmill]

The class 444 does appear to be the closest the rail industry has come to this, followed closely by the 158/159 and the 800/801/802.

Really? 444s and 395s have this balance set up fairly nicely, but 158s and 800s are as bad as it gets for dwell times with long distance passengers. They suffer from a serious lack of space around the doorways, congestion from very long aisles, totally inadequate luggage space and exceptionally high double-steps on the latter. Voyager trains are better for dwell times despite being universally maligned on here.

 

[craigybagel]

They have done it because (nearly) everyone else is doing it, because they think they can get away with downgrading interior standards and/or because the rail industry is becoming as obsessed with dwell times as I am with quality (and, as many here will vouch, I am obsessed with quality).

You're obsessed with your own definition of "quality", which appears to be "end doors good, ⅓⅔ doors bad", regardless of the context or the role the trains will be filling

Busy yes, commuters yes, but NOT commuter services. Out of Birmingham, TfW have fewer stops than WMT. Out of Manchester, TfW are non-stop to Newton-Le-Willows on north Wales services and have the same stops as ICWC between Manchester and Crewe. Out of Cardiff, the services in question similarly only serve stations that are also served by GWR. These are long-distance regional express services, not outer suburban stoppers. If we were to call every route that is busy with commuters for part of the day "commuter services" we would not have much of the intercity network left.

Your names are irrelevant - the fact is, the trains are busy with commuters and need to be equipped accordingly. Are we supposed to turn away all passengers with season tickets because they shouldn't be commuting on these trains as they don't fit your definitions?

Agreed. InterCity passengers might be in the miniority on the marches compared to passengers going only two or three stops into Shrewsbury or Hereford, but the InterCity passengers do exist. The class 197s have very little going for them that would help to grow and retain that market. If they take over as planned I fear rail will lose long-distance market share as a result.

Nonsense. If passenger numbers shot up on the Cross-country network when MKIIs and HSTs got replaced with Voyagers I think CAF would really need to be scraping new lows to bring about a reduction in travellers.

All this doom and gloom for a train that's not even beeb built yet?!

 

[tomuk]

The class 197s have very little going for them that would help to grow and retain that market. If they take over as planned I fear rail will lose long-distance market share as a result.

As demonstrated by your data and from personal experience of travelling on 195s, as well as years of travel on 158s, 175s, 170s and 168s. There isn't a great deal between the units. Some have slightly better seats than others, some have better aircon, some are in better condition then others.

The key driver of changing market share will be capacity not a slight difference in train quality. Standing in the vestibule of a 175 from Manchester to Nantwich (3.30pm departure) will put off far more people than those feeling a bit of a cold draft during a winter stop at Ludlow on a 197.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Really? 444s and 395s have this balance set up fairly nicely, but 158s and 800s are as bad as it gets for dwell times with long distance passengers. They suffer from a serious lack of space around the doorways, congestion from very long aisles, totally inadequate luggage space and exceptionally high double-steps on the latter. Voyager trains are better for dwell times despite being universally maligned on here.

Ok, maybe 800s weren't such a good example. I was just pointing them out because the toilets are beyond the exterior doors (as they are on a 158) which makes the aisles slightly less long than they would otherwise be. Compare the centre coach of a 3-car 158 to coach B on a 175. Granted the 158s have particularly narrow doors (unlike the class 175 type) that can take an age to open but it was the bodyside layout I was pointing towards rather than the detail of the door mechanism. Interesting that you say the Voyagers perform better, what features do they have that help with dwell times?

You're obsessed with your own definition of "quality", which appears to be "end doors good, ⅓⅔ doors bad", regardless of the context or the role the trains will be filling

Your names are irrelevant - the fact is, the trains are busy with commuters and need to be equipped accordingly. Are we supposed to turn away all passengers with season tickets because they shouldn't be commuting on these trains as they don't fit your definitions?

Commuters don't get turned away from class 800s (and before that slam-door HSTs) do they? So why should they be turned away from a Swansea to Manchester service? I am not saying that the long-distance services should be reserved for long-distance passengers. I'm meerly saying that Swansea-Manchester (along with other routes on the Wales & Borders franchise) is important for long-distance passengers and that the trains should be designed to be attractive to that market. That isn't just about the position of the doors (and, as noted above, I'm open to a compromise door layout). The width of the doors (almost double a 175 I believe, though I don't have the figures) is the bigger problem because it robs space from everything else, things that do matter to everyone not just me.

As demonstrated by your data and from personal experience of travelling on 195s, as well as years of travel on 158s, 175s, 170s and 168s. There isn't a great deal between the units. Some have slightly better seats than others, some have better aircon, some are in better condition then others.

Not big differences in many respects, but compared to a 175 my data shows a negative difference in almost every aspect. Also one 'small difference' on the data table (one fewer toilet) makes the new fleet to fail to meet the industry's best practice guidance.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Really? 444s and 395s have this balance set up fairly nicely, but 158s and 800s are as bad as it gets for dwell times with long distance passengers. They suffer from a serious lack of space around the doorways, congestion from very long aisles, totally inadequate luggage space and exceptionally high double-steps on the latter. Voyager trains are better for dwell times despite being universally maligned on here.

I like 444s, and they do achieve a bit of an improvement by having some doors not at the ends, but they are really end-doored EMUs. To be honest I think the Class 350 is great, much more comfortable and practical than a Pendolino and easier to board, too. It just needs a couple of rows removing from the centre sections to add a big luggage rack and space the airline-seat side out a bit more.

Other than not liking Fainsa Sophias that much, which is a personal preference, I'm not sure these DMUs won't basically achieve the same thing.

175s are decent enough (in particular the seat design is very clever and maximises legroom in a way that suits the muscular-legged gentleman must better than the FISA LEAN) but they do have some very big design flaws, most notably the useless overhead rack and the fact that the aisle is that little bit too narrow for me to walk down it without turning sideways.