Any progress is good progress ....
agree 100% but for a while some members of this forum questioned whether they’d ever see service with SWR at all
The 701's are now delivering at a fairly regular rate. It's been an average of 9 days between introductions for the latest 15 units.
These were installed a few months ago.
Apart from being rectangular rather than square they look exactly as the same as on other units - snap frames which are stuck on.
No, no new diagram next week with the plan being two new diagrams in a few weeks time instead.
Thanks for the update.
Sorry, the plan is still a new 701 diagram the week after next. But then 2 the week after instead of one next week. So 3 new diagrams in 3 weeks, just not 1 a week.
To provide some clarity, I’m pretty sure originally the idea was to display adverts on the small screens by the doors. Whether or not this is still planned is unknown so maybe these frame will only be temporary?
Ah right, thanks for the clarification.
Speculation on my part but logic suggests that they concentrate on getting into service the 15 units they currently have in their possession. That is more than enough to complete the 455 retirements and get the lion’s share of the “borrowed” 450s back on longer mainline services.
Makes sense. It'll be interesting to see where all the 450s go as they've never been allocated entirely to the main line. Part of the total 127 ordered was always meant for and allocated to Windsor Lines services.
This is veering OT, but just to answer your question. Back in SWT days there were plans afoot for a number of additional services based around ABDO (automatic braking etc) in the suburban area, which involved new services using both 455 and 450, the latter for new services from the outer suburban area. The whole scheme involved new signalling AFAIR, and the whole thing was pushed in to the long grass in the end, and as a result there was subsequently a small surplus of units, both 455 and 450 at the time.
Back when there was actually some ambition to improve frequency and infrastructure…
I agree. There does seem to have been a build up of 701s awaiting final acceptance and into service.
SWR seem to be particularly extreme in this respect.
I still think they will keep both a 2C and 2S diagram as desiros for route retention purposes, yes the 5S and 5C services could be an option, but they result in relevant crew being unproductive.
There's a full swr retimetable being worked on at the moment. As for when who knows. Getting all the 701s out and bedded in first, finding out their true potential is probably more important.
Yes. Getting the new fleet settled in first is enough ambition for now. Then real useful changes can be made based on the 701s true capabilities (and what other fleets get moved sideways).
The number of not in passenger service 701/0s at the London end has been relatively consistent. There's 3 at Farnham, unallocated shuffles make it hard to say which ones are there currently. That leaves 12 between Clapham and Wimbledon broadly similar to before, 4 have joined the in service pool this month roughly offsetting the arrivals.
SWR don't look to be in a position to make changes yet. Introducing additional services requires more crew when there are already plenty of crew availability related cancellations. The current operating model makes time savings on 701s at peak time disappear far more than any ADBO saving. As more 701s get introduced capacity can be increased at peak times across the network at relatively low cost.
It is that one, which seems to be 455 more often than not anyway.
It is that one.
