Getting the most out of the new Alstom units for TPE?

[Grimsby town]

Demand forecasting, in terms of methods sanctioned by the Transport Analysis Guidance is a relatively mature science. Yes, forecasts always have errors, and are an art form as much as a science. As an art form, it has proven to be there and thereabouts. Those with access to data have repeated stated that forecasts for schemes like Borders and others have been pretty much on the money, contrary to what some conventional wisdom might have you believe.

TRU is much more incremental and the scope for forecasting errors is even smaller. I trust DfT forecasts over some random vibes of 'should cater for 3x'..

The problem with demand for North Transpennine is that there isn't an accurate baseline of demand to forecast from.

Pre-Covid a lot of trains were 3 car 185s because the 802s and mk5s weren't fully introduced. Even were they had been introduced, it generally takes a few years for passengers to respond to improvements to the quality of service by shifting from car or making more journeys. So it's quite possible that demand could have been suppressed by the length of train and fairly regular overcrowding. Personally, I found it a real chore using TPE in those pre-Covid years.

Then Covid came along and significantly changed travel demand patterns. That had a significant impact on travel demand forecasting. A lot of transport forecasting was built of census travel to work demand pre-covid which became useless during the 2021 census because it was recorded during lockdown. So it's definitely more difficult to get an accurate forecast of demand than it was for the borders line.

Additionally, there's not been a time since 2019 that travel hasn't been significantly impacted by restrictions, either imposed by Covid or because of regular engineering works as part of TRU. So there probably hasn't been an accurate and un-suppressed baseline of travel demand on TP North for over a decade. Sure, this can be mitigated for in demand forecasting, but it will mean there's slightly more uncertainty in forecast than would usually be the case. The decision to me looks like a risk adverse one based on low forecast of increased demand.

 

[Iskra]

The current TPE fast pattern operates something like 20 carriages per hour between Manchester and Leeds.

All available information indicates the post TRU timetable will operate 30 carriages per hour.

This is a 50% capacity increase. This is a big number - it should be celebrated.

There are two sources of passenger growth: factors within the railway’s control and factors outside of it.

Factors within the railway’s control: a 10-minute journey time saving and a modest frequency increase

Factors outside the railway’s control: forecast population and productivity growths are slow, due in a large part to a momentous democratic outcome of 2016. The government’s planning reform and house building targets are making the right noises in the right directions, but one can’t ignore the very real political and resource headwinds and should adjust one’s expectations accordingly.

All things considered, a 50% capacity increase is an incredibly good result, especially under current fiscal circumstances.

It’s an excellent result full stop. Compare it to West Yorkshire-Birmingham and it’s fantastic.

- - - - -

Those complaining about South TP being neglected earlier in the thread: this should allow 6-car 185 operation throughout on that route, which is still a good result and the 185’s are decent trains.

 

[NCT]

I don’t disagree that establishing the base will have been challenging, but it doesn’t automatically follow that adopted forecasts are too pessimistic.

For reasons I’ve outlined upthread, a degree of risk aversion is prudent.

The bottom line is, a 50% capacity increase from current is a good result.

 

[quantinghome]

Its not 2tph currently! The Newcastle-Reading service is currently 1tp2h so on the Newcastle-Sheffield-Birmingham corridor there is currently 3tp2h not 4. Currently, several Reading services still terminate short in York (roughly every other hour).
Leeds isn't served by the Reading service so remains at 1tph to Birmingham. This isn't the frequency that can cope with 4 or 5 carriage trains once an hour. The whole point of running shorter trains was to run them at a higher frequency which still hasn't been restored throughout as of yet!

This is an important point of comparison. Leeds-Birmingham gets 4 carriages per hour (8 if you're lucky), whereas Leeds-Manchester will be 30 once the upgrade is done. AFAICS Transpennine is already the highest capacity intercity route that doesn't serve London, and it's getting a 50%+ capacity increase. Meanwhile poor old XC is left in the doldrums.

And if people think this isn't enough, then of course there's always room for further expansion thanks to the future-proofing in the Transpennine Route Upgrade. Some forumers upthread have expressed scepticism about whether this would ever happen, noting that promised train lengthening has failed to materialise. But that goes against the observed history of the Transpennine route which has seen continued expansion of capacity since the Class 158s were introduced in the early 1990s. Fair to say it's not exactly been a smooth process but overall we've seen longer trains introduced and higher frequencies.

 

[fishwomp]

I've been seearching for the linespeed profile post-improvement - just couldn't find it on the forum even though I know it's been posted before. After a lot of google, but eventually got it via a PWI presentation that's been on here before (

). This should answer whether >110mph would be used between Manchester and Leeds - with 802 on electric curves for acceleration and braking. If the new stock can beat an 802 off the blocks, there's plenty of room to use that capability!

 

[Grimsby town]

I don’t disagree that establishing the base will have been challenging, but it doesn’t automatically follow that adopted forecasts are too pessimistic.

For reasons I’ve outlined upthread, a degree of risk aversion is prudent.

The bottom line is, a 50% capacity increase from current is a good result.

No it's not possible for us to know for certain what forecast has been used and I could be wrong. There's plenty of history to show that the DfT and particularly the treasury are very risk adverse organisations when it comes to spending, particularly on day to day expenditure.

If 50% capacity was being delivered relatively soon, then I'd maybe a agree it was fine but it's being delivered in 8 years time. Even relatively modest demand growth of 2% would consume nearly half of that capacity increase in that time. Given the scale of improvements TRU is delivering, coupled with the growth being seen in Manchester and Leeds, I'd expect to see significant growth far above 2% per year (with growth being concentrated in later years as TRU works finish).

I don't disagree that 5 car trains are fine for some services such as Scarborough but I'd have definitely liked to see a mixed length order with some 6/7 car trains. Perhaps we'll see the 802s extended or replaced by 7 car trains, in which case I'd probably be less sceptical about capacity constraints. My worry is that the 5 car trains are never extended and we end up with a repeat of ordering trains that are too short fairly quickly but aren't lengthened.

 

[43096]

Oh that all goes to the resistors.

Which used to be known as rheostatic braking, not regen. Regen being for where energy is fed back into the catenary.

Both are covered by the term "dynamic braking"!

 

[quantinghome]

My worry is that the 5 car trains are never extended and we end up with a repeat of ordering trains that are too short fairly quickly but aren't lengthened.

This seems to be a near-permanent worry among some here. So it's worth pointing out that on Transpennine at least, this hasn't happened. We've seen a long history of capacity improvements since the early 1990s, and there's no reason that will stop in 2034.

 

[Grimsby town]

This seems to be a near-permanent worry among some here. So it's worth pointing out that on Transpennine at least, this hasn't happened. We've seen a long history of capacity improvements since the early 1990s, and there's no reason that will stop in 2034.

I think that shows part of the problem though. Yes capacity has been increased but it's been by constantly changing the trains operating the service every decade. That lead to huge complexity in operations, with multiple fleets of trains, and a poor service. Introducing new fleets is disruptive.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Sep 2026 ==

This is an important point of comparison. Leeds-Birmingham gets 4 carriages per hour (8 if you're lucky), whereas Leeds-Manchester will be 30 once the upgrade is done. AFAICS Transpennine is already the highest capacity intercity route that doesn't serve London, and it's getting a 50%+ capacity increase. Meanwhile poor old XC is left in the doldrums.

I completely agree that Leeds to Birmingham is an absolute joke of a service but XC is a little bit different to TPE in that for a lot of the Leeds to Birmingham route, it's complimented by other express services e.g. Northern Leeds to Sheffield, East Midlands Sheffield to Derby. It's also never going to be as busy as TPE because Leeds to Birmingham is always going to be a longer journey than Leeds to Manchester.

 

[Farigiraf]

Note that thanks to the upcoming shift to dynamic pricing on long-distance flows, this 50% extra capacity will be used up fully from day one, which is not promising when you consider this is likely all the additional capacity the Transpennine route is getting for the next 20-30 years. The latent demand for intercity rail between Northern cities is really high if the road journey stats are anything to go by, and an additional 600 seats an hour on the railway has the potential to get up to 400 cars off the road each hour (the other 200 reserved for induced demand).

The thing is, dynamic pricing will mean that all of those extra seats will be priced exactly based on that high demand. At least 12 hours a day, those seats will be really valuable through the main 'Northern Powerhouse' corridor. While the yield will be high for GBR-run TPE, that'll be directly through the fares going right up, which means that many of those potential travellers currently driving all the way will continue to drive, as they'll be priced off by the growing business traveller and leisure travel (e.g. tourist) market which is prepared to pay the high fares.

That 50% capacity growth will in practice not make a difference at all to the tens of thousands of drivers, for whom the railway is still unaffordable. Spending £1 billion to ultimately achieve negligible levels of mode shift doesn't seem like a good investment, and the argument that a high-revenue railway reduces subsidy doesn't really hold up as you can't achieve mode shift through lowered taxes. Purchasing the trains is still better than not purchasing them, but the pricing policy that Hendy et al have planned for TPE means that the societal benefits the TRU could've brought are being constrained.

Though if you had to increase capacity to make a societal (& environmental) difference and not just match the slow growth of the high-yield long-distance traveller market, you'd need a lot more capacity than +600 seats over a 40 year period, which costs money - giving you an idea why they went for the option they did. Nonetheless I don't see the intercity railway beating the 'rich person's toy' allegations anytime soon.

What I don't really understand is why they went for reduced seating and increased standing space. 5 coach intercity trains with high fares (due to high demand) where a significant proportion of travellers stand the whole way? Sounds a lot like current XC operations which is probably the worst bit of PR for the UK railway at the moment.

 

[lowe1409]

What I don't really understand is why they went for reduced seating and increased standing space.

Has anything actually been officially stated about standing space? I'd imagine some of the loss in seating will also be an increase in luggage space which is definitely needed on certain services (redcar-airport being the best example) where less seats/standing space will be taken up/blocked by luggage. TPE is now primarily a leisure market TOC and should be designing it's trains to fit that market

 

[D6700]

I'm at a loss how a thread, that started with the official announcement of a new train fleet, has been repurposed and shifted into Speculative Discussion! It took me ages to find the thread again...

But since we are now "being speculative", I wonder how the 90 mile battery range will cope when the units spend all day on York to Scarborough shuttles, which will inevitably occur at various times due to engineering work or disruption. With just 2 platforms apparently being made available to charge the batteries in Scarborough - and, effectively, none in York, presumably this will require some very inefficient diagrams and platform usage.

On the day of the announcement, I saw a piece on BBC Look North. The CGI video showed a quite reasonable interior and 2+1 First Class seating. However, Chris Jackson was interviewed in a horrific looking Standard Class mockup. A second mockup, which the reporter pointed to and stated was First Class, had 2+2 seating. This was all very different to the video clips shown.

 

[NCT]

No it's not possible for us to know for certain what forecast has been used and I could be wrong. There's plenty of history to show that the DfT and particularly the treasury are very risk adverse organisations when it comes to spending, particularly on day to day expenditure.

If 50% capacity was being delivered relatively soon, then I'd maybe a agree it was fine but it's being delivered in 8 years time. Even relatively modest demand growth of 2% would consume nearly half of that capacity increase in that time. Given the scale of improvements TRU is delivering, coupled with the growth being seen in Manchester and Leeds, I'd expect to see significant growth far above 2% per year (with growth being concentrated in later years as TRU works finish).

I don't disagree that 5 car trains are fine for some services such as Scarborough but I'd have definitely liked to see a mixed length order with some 6/7 car trains. Perhaps we'll see the 802s extended or replaced by 7 car trains, in which case I'd probably be less sceptical about capacity constraints. My worry is that the 5 car trains are never extended and we end up with a repeat of ordering trains that are too short fairly quickly but aren't lengthened.

Government spending has to follow consistent methodologies. Growth forecasts are based on OBR forecasts which take inputs like adopted spatial plans. These are established methods and can't just be changed willy nilly. If government spending decisions go from method based to 'vibe' based then the bond markets will want to have a word. When handling taxpayers money, risk averse isn't necessarily wrong. Otherwise you end up being like Woking Council.

What I don't really understand is why they went for reduced seating and increased standing space. 5 coach intercity trains with high fares (due to high demand) where a significant proportion of travellers stand the whole way? Sounds a lot like current XC operations which is probably the worst bit of PR for the UK railway at the moment.

The official comms deliberately use the words 'long-distance regional' and not 'intercity' and I think that is very deliberate. TPE has a typical stop spacing of about 15-20 minutes, and a substantial proportion of peak journeys are expected to be of lengths similar to St Albans / Stevenage / Three Bridges to London, where standing is routinely expected.

Given that TPE's journey profile isn't all that different to Thameslink, pivoting it towards a standing railway is entirely appropriate. The interior layout looks more comfortable than the Class 700s. TPE earns 16p per passenger km vs 20p on TSGN, so actually there is room for yield to grow. With lower standing expectation and a lower yield than Thameslink, TPE passengers have it pretty good.

 

[lowe1409]

Given that TPE's journey profile isn't all that different to Thameslink, pivoting it towards a standing railway is entirely appropriate. The interior layout looks more comfortable than the Class 700s. TPE earns 16p per passenger km vs 20p on TSGN, so actually there is room for yield to grow. With lower standing expectation and a lower yield than Thameslink, TPE passengers have it pretty good.

I think the difference is passenger types too. Solo commuters are much more likely to be happy standing/having just a single seat next to a stranger than a family of 4 going for a day out from Manchester to York needing to stand for an hour with young kids or be spaced out across the train where parents might not be as comfortable. That's not to mention the north is not as wealthy a place and hence, fares can't be as high as they are for London and South East.

 

[eldomtom2]

Government spending has to follow consistent methodologies. Growth forecasts are based on OBR forecasts which take inputs like adopted spatial plans. These are established methods and can't just be changed willy nilly. If government spending decisions go from method based to 'vibe' based then the bond markets will want to have a word. When handling taxpayers money, risk averse isn't necessarily wrong. Otherwise you end up being like Woking Council.

I think in practice this is an overly idealistic view of government. In practice, there are other factors beyond pure cost-benefit analyses that take place when the government makes decisions, and the bond markets are less interested in minor individual decisions like rolling stock expenditure as opposed to total income and expenditure figures and policies that will have a large impact on them such as tax cuts or pension raises.

 

[NCT]

Families all over the country have days out, including on Thameslink and on the Tube.

The beauty of a service with lots of churn is you can progressively and strategically find and change seats throughout the journey.

It’s an art form perfected in London and the South East.

 

[lowe1409]

Families all over the country have days out, including on Thameslink and on the Tube.

The beauty of a service with lots of churn is you can progressively and strategically find and change seats throughout the journey.

It’s an art form perfected in London and the South East.

Which these trains are unlikely to have such a high churn over the larger stop spacing TPE has in its core over commuter services such as Thameslink. On a local stopper, sure you might not mind moving around a bit, but when your doing a 2-3 hour regional journey with limited stops, you want to be able to get a place yous can all sit together, especially if your planning to eat on the train which you might not do on a 40 minute hop on the tube.

My point is, TPE and Thameslink are two fundamentally different networks, so shouldn't be compared to each other. A better comparison might be a TOC such as Crosscountry also serving intercity and regional routes that don't touch London, and centred round an equally sized city to Manchester, as well as sharing much of their route between Leeds and Scotland, and having a similar stop spacing.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My point is, TPE and Thameslink are two fundamentally different networks, so shouldn't be compared to each other. A better comparison might be a TOC such as Crosscountry also serving intercity and regional routes that don't touch London, and centred round an equally sized city to Manchester, as well as sharing much of their route between Leeds and Scotland, and having a similar stop spacing.

XC is a reasonable comparison, but with more of the "XC lite" regional services and fewer of the core XC services i.e. just the Liverpool-Newcastle fasts really.

If they'd been profitable they'd have gone into IC and thus be XC now! Imagine that...

 

[Fokx]

On the day of the announcement, I saw a piece on BBC Look North. The CGI video showed a quite reasonable interior and 2+1 First Class seating. However, Chris Jackson was interviewed in a horrific looking Standard Class mockup. A second mockup, which the reporter pointed to and stated was First Class, had 2+2 seating. This was all very different to the video clips shown.

The mock up was purely to show the new features to stakeholders of the low level boarding and sloping floor interior, alongside the new "square" toilet layout and exploratory wheelchair accessible and family areas (hence why there's a pair of fold up ironing board seats directly facing a non-moveable table).

They aren't representative of the new trains themselves, they're just elements and features that are being considered for the production fleet.

 

[DGH 1]

Damn they are hideous!

Agreed, like most of the modern stuff.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Sep 2026 ==

Surely the 185's will be cascaded to replace Northern 15x units.

I hope so, but goodness knows what they're thinking.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I do think the nose is a bit stubby but presumably that's to maximise the length of the passenger accommodation. I do note that unlike Aventras it doesn't have the tapered end bit with windows going all the way to the end which will also help that.

185s will both stay on South TPE and I suspect also to Liverpool-Nottingham-Norwich, allowing the 158s on that to be cascaded or scrapped. It has never really made sense to have those two services separate, there might even be some stock saving by interworking them at the Liverpool end.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

there might even be some stock saving by interworking them at the Liverpool end.

Both the services only have about a 20 minute turnaround at Liverpool, so if there was any improvement to be made, it would be if that turnaround could be extended to 50 minutes to deal with the delays these services (especially the Norwich) have.

 

[3RDGEN]

I hope so, but goodness knows what they're thinking.

Northern's published plans is to replace the current exBR fleets with new builds, although the 323's appear to be getting replaced by 350's, the reason for this is to reduce the number of fleets Northern operates. At no point have 185's been mentioned for Northern.

Since there's no published plan to replace the EMR 158's it would appear sensible for the 185's cascaded from North TPE routes to EMR allowing the 185's to continue being maintained at Ardwick. The number of 185's expected to be released by TPE is similar to the number of 158 units EMR currently operate.

 

[positron]

There's a rolling stock strategy coming at some point I imagine the 185s future will be explicitly mentioned in that strategy. Unless it's a fairly pointless document that just says "yeah we should buy trains that actually work to move everyone around so should probably be the right height for the UK market"

 

[NCT]

I think in practice this is an overly idealistic view of government. In practice, there are other factors beyond pure cost-benefit analyses that take place when the government makes decisions, and the bond markets are less interested in minor individual decisions like rolling stock expenditure as opposed to total income and expenditure figures and policies that will have a large impact on them such as tax cuts or pension raises.

My observations point to the opposite. It's things like pensions and fuel duties that are 'politically too difficult', causing all the other little things to get the 'computer says no' Treasury treatment. The railway is firmly in the 'all the other little things' category.

Which these trains are unlikely to have such a high churn over the larger stop spacing TPE has in its core over commuter services such as Thameslink. On a local stopper, sure you might not mind moving around a bit, but when your doing a 2-3 hour regional journey with limited stops, you want to be able to get a place yous can all sit together, especially if your planning to eat on the train which you might not do on a 40 minute hop on the tube.

My point is, TPE and Thameslink are two fundamentally different networks, so shouldn't be compared to each other. A better comparison might be a TOC such as Crosscountry also serving intercity and regional routes that don't touch London, and centred round an equally sized city to Manchester, as well as sharing much of their route between Leeds and Scotland, and having a similar stop spacing.

TPE has typical times between stops of 15-20 minutes. Which is very similar to the (12-car operated) Thameslink services on their critical load sections (which I've already listed upthread). Families tend to travel off-peak when standing is unlikely to be required. Yes there are peak holiday seasons. Summer weekend trains to Brighton or Margate can be right bun fights. Sometimes you have to travel through a local peak to get to the airport - you know what you've signed up for and you put up with it.

Just as a reminder we are talking about the Hull/Scarborough/Middlesbrough services here, not the Newcastles. On a typical weekday I'd be surprised if there's any standing east of Selby or North of York. I'd expect only York - Leeds / Huddersfield - Leeds / Huddersfield - Manchester (whichever is the peak direction) to be cozy, and each train is only likely to hit one high peak. If someone is doing a 2-hour journey, it'd be highly unlikely they'd have to stand the whole way.

There's an edict that any operational railway initiative must be subsidy reducing. This edict comes from the very top levels of government.

There are only two ways of reducing the net subsidy per vehicle km - by either upping occupancy density or upping yield. At least one of the two things will need to give. A dogmatic attitude of 'won't stand' and 'won't pay more' isn't going to fly.

 

[lowe1409]

Just as a reminder we are talking about the Hull/Scarborough/Middlesbrough services here, not the Newcastles. On a typical weekday I'd be surprised if there's any standing east of Selby or North of York. I'd expect only York - Leeds / Huddersfield - Leeds / Huddersfield - Manchester (whichever is the peak direction) to be cozy, and each train is only likely to hit one high peak. If someone is doing a 2-hour journey, it'd be highly unlikely they'd have to stand the whole way.

I was thinking primarily Liverpool to York as that's roughly 2 hours and would be a journey these trains will be running (Liverpool-scarbrough I think is the final post-tru plan)

There are only two ways of reducing the net subsidy per vehicle km - by either upping occupancy density or upping yield. At least one of the two things will need to give. A dogmatic attitude of 'won't stand' and 'won't pay more' isn't going to fly.

Option number 3: Reduce running costs. Switching to an electric service over thirsty 185s will create savings. As well, journey time improvements from TRU will mean better stock utilisation, allowing the same service to be ran using fewer diagrams which will also bring savings of its own.

 

[NCT]

I was thinking primarily Liverpool to York as that's roughly 2 hours and would be a journey these trains will be running (Liverpool-scarbrough I think is the final post-tru plan)

A family can arrive at the origin station early to bagsy their favourite seats if they happen to travel at Manchester peak times. Lea Green / Newton-le-Willows boarders will likely fill out the standing space but that's completely fine. There will be a big churn at Manchester Victoria you'd be extremely unlucky to not get seats then.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Sep 2026 ==

Option number 3: Reduce running costs. Switching to an electric service over thirsty 185s will create savings. As well, journey time improvements from TRU will mean better stock utilisation, allowing the same service to be ran using fewer diagrams which will also bring savings of its own.

That would give a one-time help, but once that's 'baked in' Treasury would spot any saving erosions anyone tries to 'sneak in'. There remains a gap in unit subsidy between north and south and I imagine the Treasury wants that equalised. There are gaps both in passenger density and yield and those gaps need closing.

 

[lowe1409]

There remains a gap in unit subsidy between north and south and I imagine the Treasury wants that equalised.

I doubt you ever could. The north is fundamantally a poorer place than the south. This is also reflected in running costs, staff for example are much cheaper up north than down south.

 

[eldomtom2]

My observations point to the opposite. It's things like pensions and fuel duties that are 'politically too difficult', causing all the other little things to get the 'computer says no' Treasury treatment. The railway is firmly in the 'all the other little things' category.

Well, my point was that what "other little things" the government spends money on isn't a pure technocratic exercise of picking the things with the best BCR. There are other concerns involved with the decisionmaking.

 

[NCT]

I doubt you ever could. The north is fundamantally a poorer place than the south. This is also reflected in running costs, staff for example are much cheaper up north than down south.

Obviously it wouldn't be practical to close the gap completely overnight. That's not to say there shouldn't be incremental efforts at closing it over time.

It's rather defeatist to pronounce the north as a fundamentally poor place. There's nothing fundamental about it.

The only way to really have a sustainable expansionary railway is if there's a steady growth of the city centre knowledge sector commuting demographic with associated B2B trips and propensity for leisure travel / willingness to pay. How and how quickly TRU transitions to NPR will depend on how quickly that demographic grows.