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West highland line rolling stock solution (short term)
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bramling
Veteran Member
Can anything be done to address the heating issues on the class 156 fleet? I agree it isn’t ideal, however the line is a basket case and has operational constraints, so I can see how it might be hard to justify something better. The class 156 does at least have ample luggage space.
Glasgowbusguy
On Moderation
- Joined
- 21 Feb 2019
- Messages
- 546
The line doesn't make money it actually loses money hand over fist, so it won't get custom stock. Personally the heating issue is usually resolved by around noon I suspect the issue is that the train than overnights in Oban and mallaig are frozen due to the weather and exposed nature of the stations , one solution to this would be shore power which does exist at Oban just in a much bigger form for the cal Mac boats but surely something could be set up to heat the carriages.
Highlander1
Member
I'm not sure why you're getting angry at the people in this forum. They're not in charge of what rolling stock is on the WHL. It's Transport Scotland that control the purse strings. It's a speculative discussion on a short term solution. If you read through the comments on here you'll understand there isn't one. There's a UK wide shortage of DMUs. 15X trains are in use all over the country including other rural routes, it's not a problem unique to the West Highlands.
Personally, it really winds me up when people live in incredibly remote places and then complain they don't have the services of a large population centre. I hear it day in and day out. There's no magic money pot and Scotland has to live within it's means. There has to be value for tax payer money. The WHL hemorrhages cash, especially in the winter. Why would Transport Scotland spend millions on new rolling stock for a tiny percentage of the population when that spend in bigger population areas has a much bigger impact.
I agree the 156 is not the most suitable stock for the route but there isn't a viable alternative in the short term.
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Your argument is completely premature given that no route outside Edinburgh to Glasgow via Falkirk High makes a profit. Yet custom stock has been procured for other services.
Furthermore, the Sleeper being the heaviest subsidised service in Scotland receiving brand new custom built stock, shows that commercial sustainability isn’t always at the forefront of the Scottish Government when deciding whether or not a rolling stock procurement is bespoke or not.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
With 15x it's just waste engine heat, as per most ICE cars, so if it's freezing and they've been sat all night it'll take a while to warm up. I suppose retrofitting a Webasto diesel heater to preheat the coolant could be investigated, but it's a fair bit of cost on units which don't have much of a future. Finding a way to get some 158s over there is probably the best bet - how many are needed?
At a guess, 8 to 10 to allow guaranteed operations even if a few are out of action at once. From what I can see there's 4-5 sets out each day, not including a few 153s that are chucked on the back of a 156.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
24 at Transport for Wales (or maybe 23 if the accident damaged one isn't repaired?) all of which should become available in the next couple of years, and they have a good quality interior similar to the Inverness sets. Would 10 to ScotRail and 13/14 to Northern be sufficient to solve this issue and to allow Northern to bin off the 769s? Keep the 153s for the pushbikes and for when it's really busy, but there shouldn't be much need to use them in winter when the heating is an issue.
If that's too tight for Northern, maybe send them the released 156s?
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HighlandStorm
Member
Where all the 15x units are used is pretty irrelevant.
It’s specifically about 156s being used on journey times that go from over 3 hours to approaching 5 1/2 hours. Expecting to not get hypothermia on a train and be able to access a toilet on that length of journey is hardly expecting the transport connectivity of a major capital city.
The ScotRail document laying out subsidy per passenger for each route that has often been referred to here, shows WHL subsidy per passenger journey is less than half that of NE commuter routes either side of Aberdeen. It’s far from the worst line on that financial metric.
That 158s are on the Far North Line, is a tacit acceptance that 156s should never have been there either. 158s won’t on their own address the capacity issue, but vs a WHL 156, I’ve never been near frozen to death on a 158, never had to queue over 15 minutes for a toilet on a 158, nor found no functioning toilet an hour away from my destination on a 158.
As for value for tax payers, overcrowding for a decent chunk of the year, year round poor passenger experience, that is completely unacceptable in winter suppresses demand and thus revenue. Oh in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s tax payers along the WHL too.
Per capita transport spend in London is significantly higher than any other part of the UK. I emphasis per capita!
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According to wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_156#Fleet_details (I'm not sure how up to date it is) ScotRail have 42 156s and Northern have 67. That seems unlikely to me but happy to be corrected.
No clue how many Northern need.
ScotRail could take 10 just to cover WHL operations, and maybe a few extra on Glasgow-Aberdeen while the 222s are coming in.
No clue how many Northern need.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Northern just need any 15x, really, 150s would do though supposedly the Welsh ones are in very poor condition so will just be scrapped. I doubt they would be willing to give their existing 158s up, but 10 158s to Scotland from TfW, the released 156s to Northern and the balance of TfW's 158s also to Northern would work fine. 156s are dated, but they're OK for short, quiet regional services like Ormskirk, Cumbrian Coast (particularly Whitehaven in the event that it being worked as two branch lines becomes permanent), Blackpool South and the likes, and Northern has plenty of that type of service. Even with the heating issue people who are only on for 20 minutes can just keep their big coat on, it's nothing like how utterly freezing to the core you get on an unheated train in winter for three hours.
156s aren't ideal for some Northern journeys since single leaf doors don't really lend themselves to short distance routes, but 158s aren't a lot better either.
Slightly offtopic but are 158s cleared down the Esk Valley? 2 car 156s tend to be overcrowded in the summer.
(Single leaf doors are doors where there's only one door, usually at the very end of the carriage, rather than a set of double doors - they are seen most prominently on 80x stock)
Slightly offtopic but are 158s cleared down the Esk Valley? 2 car 156s tend to be overcrowded in the summer.
(Single leaf doors are doors where there's only one door, usually at the very end of the carriage, rather than a set of double doors - they are seen most prominently on 80x stock)
Highlander1
Member
Nobody, including me, has said 156 are the most suitable rolling stock for the route.
The subsidy for Aberdeen to Montrose commuter services WAS the 2nd highest of Scotrail services. The latest public data on that is from 2019/2020 before there was a significant reduction in Aberdeen commuter services. There's no specific data for Aberdeen in Inverurie commuter services as it falls under Aberdeen to Inverness.
I'm well aware there are tax payers along the WHL, just not enough, so they get more than they pay out in terms of taxation Vs government expenditure. I am of course speaking in general terms, not specifically the railway.
As someone who regularly travels on 158s, if you think this is the cure to issues with overcrowding, toilets and heating you're mistaken. The capacity isn't significantly different and toilet and heating issues are a common problem on these units. They also have a smaller cycle capacity (a big issue on this route) and are worse for accessible travel.
What happens in London is irrelevant. It's a Scottish government matter.
You have several people in the comments who have given the answers that are clearly experts. Perhaps another mode of transport would work better for you.
To be blunt I've had enough of the aggressive and argumentative tone of your replies so I'll bow out of this conversation.
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HighlandStorm
Member
I explicitly said just swapping 158s won’t solve the capacity issue. But they would help with some of the other specific problems!
A 6 coach 158 leaving Queen Street would have 6 toilets vs 3 for a 156. The automatic vestibule doors at the end of the passenger salon on 158s make a significant difference.
The spend on the sleepers is justified by the economic activity and inbound tourism the service generates. A similar approach is required for day time trains on the WHL and potentially the North of Inverness lines too.
Ultimately, some sort of bespoke train is going to be required for the North Highland routes, the Stranraer line and the WHL.
stevieinselby
Established Member
Yes, 158s can and sometimes do run to Whitby – but more crucially, Northern do usually double up the Esk Valley to 156+156 during high season, at least on trains that are likely to be busy. Not guaranteed, not by any means, but more often than not.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I don't think it would need to be *bespoke*, if GBR are going to do a large order of self powered regional trains to replace 15x on Northern, GWR, EMR etc (plus potentially the SWR 158s and 159s) then they could easily join that and benefit from economies of scale. Not that they necessarily will of course, Scotland and Wales do rather like doing their own thing. The 158 is suitable for all these sorts of routes, and their replacement probably will be too.
HighlandStorm
Member
Oh the irony!
But yes other modes of transport are now used much more for trips into Glasgow, I make much less use of the WHL than I used to. I’m not alone. That’s lost revenue for ScotRail, equals more subsidy needed, and more cars on the road.
If you think telling people who have frozen on the WHL to use other transport is a solution, you are part of the problem.
Other than the sleeper which is somewhat of a unique edge case, what custom stock has been procured by Scotrail? the 153?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
None. The sleeper is a special case because off the shelf options don't exist.
What has London got to do with it? Rail is a devolved matter.
What are the actually physically available options that don't require a time warp?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
158s from TfW appear to be the only practical option in the short term if there won't be enough 222s to release anything from over that way. I don't think anything else diesel is or will be available, aside from TfW's 150s which are (a) unsuitable, and (b) supposedly in a condition fit only for scrap or I think Northern would be sniffing around them.
153s, to some extent the HSTs with their specification (buffet, realignment of seats for luggage, etc), as well as the 385s being procured as the first in their class (rather than ScotRail going for off the shelf from a proven platform already in existence), and the 380s too (with their airport spec re luggage provision and retractable angled gangways and also being first-in-class).
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
These were a Regional Railways product and were used throughout the UK. They were not specific to ScotRail.
Unless you mean their refurbishment, but that's not custom stock - pretty much all refurbishments are custom to the TOC that contracted the work.
See above
OK, yes, fair point, 385s and 380s are both custom jobs, nobody else has ordered the same thing. The 380 in particular is a Desiro City body with a unique tapered shape (other Desiro City units are square shaped, e.g. 700s) and the electricals from the classic Desiro as ScotRail didn't want the risk of taking a brand new, unproven traction package.
The implication that ScotRail doesn’t customise simply because it doesn’t profit, is still proven incorrect by the extent to which they invest in refurbishing cascades to make them bespoke for them.These were a Regional Railways product and were used throughout the UK. They were not specific to ScotRail.
Unless you mean their refurbishment, but that's not custom stock - pretty much all refurbishments are custom to the TOC that contracted the work.
See above
OK, yes, fair point, 385s and 380s are both custom jobs, nobody else has ordered the same thing. The 380 in particular is a Desiro City body with a unique tapered shape (other Desiro City units are square shaped, e.g. 700s) and the electricals from the classic Desiro as ScotRail didn't want the risk of taking a brand new, unproven traction package.
Now what have the Romans even done for us…?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Every single TOC refurbishment ever has been custom to that TOC.
I think the point was that a completely custom design of brand new unit with e.g. different window aperture sizes and positions for a panoramic type coach would be prohibitive in cost, not whether they would be able to move seats around in a unit that already exists, which really isn't that hard and has been done by a lot of TOCs and just involves an afternoon with a spanner?
As regards panoramic units, there are enough modern designs with very large windows that are basically panoramic anyway, the Aventra is a good example, as is the 170. Even the CAFs aren't bad as long as you don't spec the 196 version on which the windows are small (that's a custom job, but not with very good results in my view!) You don't need the Swiss style curved-round windows for the UK because our mountains aren't as big.
waverley47
Member
- Joined
- 17 Apr 2015
- Messages
- 844
I think this sums up everything said in this thread. Even if new units were ordered today, we'd not have them in squadron service for five years anyway. By that point, you can grab the 158s, which buys you five years, and means you don't have to pay for three new fleets out of pocket in the same budget, which is currently grossly unaffordable.
The ScotRail 156s have Webasto style pre heaters fitted. You can see the blue diesel smoke puff out of the side of the coaches when sitting in platforms if the unit has just been started up. New ones were fitted during the overhauls in 2018, but the heating doesn't seem to be much better.
This thread has prompted all sorts of suggestions, but they didn't seem to address what I understood to be the main stumbling block, namely that all suggested replacements have significantly higher axle loads (but see edit below), and all available newbuilds even more so. My understanding is that this is the main reason why Scotrail has not come up with a replacement strategy for these very old units yet.
Does anyone have any fresh ideas that properly address this constraint?
Could a rebuild/radical refurbishment be an answer, given that body shells and underframes tend not to wear out very quickly? Would repowering with more efficient/cleaner engines be possible, given that a more powerful heating system would be highly desirable if not essential to overcome the "Polar Express" label that the current units have earned?
[Edit: I gather that Class 158 units would be suitable replacements. I understand that Transport for Wales will be releasing several of these units next month. Are they all spoken for, or could Scotrail get its hands on them if it wanted to?]
Does anyone have any fresh ideas that properly address this constraint?
Could a rebuild/radical refurbishment be an answer, given that body shells and underframes tend not to wear out very quickly? Would repowering with more efficient/cleaner engines be possible, given that a more powerful heating system would be highly desirable if not essential to overcome the "Polar Express" label that the current units have earned?
[Edit: I gather that Class 158 units would be suitable replacements. I understand that Transport for Wales will be releasing several of these units next month. Are they all spoken for, or could Scotrail get its hands on them if it wanted to?]
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