Given that SWR hope to get 55 701s diagrammed by "late summer" (currently 39 diagrams ) and if SWR decide to displace the 458s before sending the 450s to strengthen mainline services (the latter of which was the plan at least until a month or so ago) then that would seem feasible.
Waterloo to Reading, Windsor, Weybridge and Hounslow loop.
Worth noting that they can only get to Weybridge via Staines and Chertsey in passenger service.
The externally published target is 50 701 diagrams. The number of required 701 diagrams to cover the 458s with the mainline strengthening in the current timetable long term plans is 52. That includes a stabled pair of 450s at Wimbledon Park meaning 51 would probably do. I'd expect the internal goal is more ambitious than the external one. If after this week a new 701 diagram is added each week that would hit 52 at the end of June. (Edited to reduce required counts by 1)
Thanks. When I last quoted 50 I was "corrected" and told it was 55!
The 50 is from the bottom of this press release. That figure is probably a pessimistic scenario on the basis of 701/5s not being ready and some 701/0s needing serious work to get into service.
And they don't need the 458/4s.
Given the 458 refurb was a replacement of the 442s after their pointless refurb, I don't hold much hope for what technically replaces the 458s.
450s
Last Sunday they also reached Kingston on a shuttle to Barnes. (Maintenance work in the Putney area was preventing a completen loop service working, and the Windsor and Reading srevics were diverted via Wimbledon) Unlike the 701s, they fit in the bay at Kingston.
That's the thing. Passenger numbers haven't recovered and probably never will within the remaining useful life of the 458s. Plus they're non-standard and troublesome so if anything is surplus to requirements it's them.
Passenger numbers are kept down by SWR still running a half-baked Covid "emergency" timetable. Either the missing trains should be reinstated, or the timetable rewritten to suit the reduced numbers of services (and thereby wiping out most or all of the improvements that SWT eventually achieved).
We are getting to the point now with no TOC franchises, where short term leases will be replaced by longer term leases.
At least 20 years for 350/2, I’d have thought, going by the expected 35-40 yr life of a modern EMU.
As has been said countless times, the physical space on the ground at both ends of the route (let alone the astronomical costs that would ensue to modify same) prevent meaningful adjustments being made to provide adequate resilience within the overall plan, including, critically, during disruption, particularly if infrastructure failure at either terminal is the route cause of said problems. The cost of such alterations is beyond reason, given the current Desiro fleet can cover the service more than adequately in both fleet size and infrastructure usage flexibility.
The bigger question perhaps is who proposed/sanctioned the refurb on either ill founded information or purely on an assumption, that 12 car 458 would work?
I'd like to know this..is it another blot on the First/ MTR copybook or some genius pen pusher at the DfT?
I can't imagine a civil servant being the person who would have signed off that there were no platform length / signal sighting issues....
You do wonder on NR involvement - presumably they would have needed to know the exact train length before saying yes or no, so we're they even consulted or were they given incorrect info?
They’re only “troublesome” because SWR see them in that way. SWT didn’t have the same attitude problem back in the day…
