Short intercity trains should be hurled into the sun

quantinghome · Monday at 13:45

There is nothing good about 4-5 carriage intercity trains. It's a ridiculous idea which has caused problems wherever it's been implemented. I don't know where the obsession has come from but it needs to stop immediately.

The Voyagers were a fiasco from the start. Even now, when they have finally got a bit more rolling stock to run doubled up trains they have to run half the train out of service because they don't have the staff to have both units in operation.
LNER and GWR frequently turn out single 5 car trains for services intended to be a 10 car doubled up formation.
EMR's new trains have been an absolute fiasco because someone decided it was necessary to have 5-car trains which could be doubled up, thus requiring Hitachi to redesign their train. Ordering standard length 9-car Class 80X trains would have saved a whole world of pain.

Having done a fair bit of rail travel this summer, it's interesting to compare equivalent services in Europe. They seem happy to run long trains (14 carriages or more) and seem unconcerned that this means they are fairly empty for a considerable amount of the day.

EMR, Cross country and Transpennine intercity networks all need more stock. We should stop faffing around with bespoke this and that. GBR will command considerable economies of scale. Bang in a big order for off the shelf full length trains. Pile the seats high and sell 'em cheap. What's not to like?

RailUK Forums

43096 · Monday at 13:54

quantinghome said:
EMR, Cross country and Transpennine intercity networks all need more stock. We should stop faffing around with bespoke this and that. GBR will command considerable economies of scale. Bang in a big order for off the shelf full length trains. Pile the seats high and sell 'em cheap. What's not to like?

British trains will always, in effect, be bespoke. You can't just take, say, a DB ICE design and build some for Britain.

Haywain · Monday at 13:56

quantinghome said:
Ordering standard length 9-car Class 80X trains would have saved a whole world of pain.

As long as you aren't trying to fit all the services into the three available platforms at St Pancras.

Bald Rick · Monday at 14:06

quantinghome said:
Ordering standard length 9-car Class 80X trains would have saved a whole world of pain.

Would it? Where would they all have been maintained and stabled?

quantinghome · Monday at 14:16

Haywain said:
As long as you aren't trying to fit all the services into the tree available platforms at St Pancras.

The service is 6 trains per hour. I believe there are four platforms which is perfectly fine for that level of service.

Or did you mean platform length? 9-car 26m carriage trains would fit fine in the 240m long platforms at St. Pancras. It was the insistence that dual five-car units were needed which meant the standard 26m carriage length wouldn't fit, and required Hitachi to develop a bespoke design.

Bald Rick said:
Would it? Where would they all have been maintained and stabled?

Where they are now? If that's too small, use another depot or build something new. It's very much a solvable problem that shouldn't determine fleet composition. The tail shouldn't wag the dog.

Haywain · Monday at 14:37

quantinghome said:
The service is 6 trains per hour. I believe there are four platforms which is perfectly fine for that level of service.

It's not as simple as that though. It's 6 arrivals and 6 departures each hour, and at times that have to fit in with the wider south MML timetable. The fact is that EMR's inter city operation is severely constrained by the space they've been given at St Pancras and it's no good solving the rolling stock problem without looking at the bigger picture.

quantinghome · Monday at 14:45

Haywain said:
It's not as simple as that though. It's 6 arrivals and 6 departures each hour, and at times that have to fit in with the wider south MML timetable. The fact is that EMR's inter city operation is severely constrained by the space they've been given at St Pancras and it's no good solving the rolling stock problem without looking at the bigger picture.

I'm not suggesting EMR do anything more than run the full timetable they would be running now if it wasn't for their rolling stock problems. Except instead of only running full length trains at peak hours, run them all the time.

Presumably combining 2 5-car trains for busy services, then splitting them for quieter periods requires additional runs to and from the sidings which is going to take up more slots on the south MML.

LNW-GW Joint · Monday at 15:04

quantinghome said:
EMR, Cross country and Transpennine intercity networks all need more stock. We should stop faffing around with bespoke this and that. GBR will command considerable economies of scale. Bang in a big order for off the shelf full length trains. Pile the seats high and sell 'em cheap. What's not to like?

Euston-Chester/Holyhead and Paddington-Oxford/Worcester/Hereford are two services that seem to work well with 5-car trains, doubled up in the peaks from Chester/Oxford.

There's not the money to replace all the 5-car trains with 9/10-cars instead.
Foreign experience isn't valid when their business models are so different.
Every modern vehicle has had to earn its keep in the UK for decades, and utilisation of long-distance stock is probably well superior to that on the continent.

quantinghome · Monday at 15:22

LNW-GW Joint said:
Foreign experience isn't valid when their business models are so different.

How different is it, at the end of the day? You have the costs of procuring and maintaining the rolling stock on the one hand, and the fare income on the other. How does Switzerland justify running very long double decker trains all over the place at all times of the day?

LNW-GW Joint said:
Every modern vehicle has had to earn its keep in the UK for decades, and utilisation of long-distance stock is probably well superior to that on the continent.

Aiming for high utilisation seems laudable, but becomes a false economy when it has required an entirely bespoke fleet to be built which is running three years late, or means half the train is locked out of service, or only half the train turns up.

xcooler123 · Monday at 15:51

quantinghome said:
There is nothing good about 4-5 carriage intercity trains. It's a ridiculous idea which has caused problems wherever it's been implemented. I don't know where the obsession has come from but it needs to stop immediately.

The Voyagers were a fiasco from the start. Even now, when they have finally got a bit more rolling stock to run doubled up trains they have to run half the train out of service because they don't have the staff to have both units in operation.
LNER and GWR frequently turn out single 5 car trains for services intended to be a 10 car doubled up formation.
EMR's new trains have been an absolute fiasco because someone decided it was necessary to have 5-car trains which could be doubled up, thus requiring Hitachi to redesign their train. Ordering standard length 9-car Class 80X trains would have saved a whole world of pain.

Having done a fair bit of rail travel this summer, it's interesting to compare equivalent services in Europe. They seem happy to run long trains (14 carriages or more) and seem unconcerned that this means they are fairly empty for a considerable amount of the day.

EMR, Cross country and Transpennine intercity networks all need more stock. We should stop faffing around with bespoke this and that. GBR will command considerable economies of scale. Bang in a big order for off the shelf full length trains. Pile the seats high and sell 'em cheap. What's not to like?

The main problem on the MML with that plan is the depot space - Etches Park simply isn't built for 234m long trains (both in terms of sidings and shed space) and there isn't the capacity elsewhere to store the 20-25 trains required to run the current service as 9x26m trains. So either you demolish Etches Park and start again (costly and very disruptive) or build a brand new depot somewhere (also costly). I would be surprised if these options weren't considered when they were originally bid for and likely discounted due to the cons outweighing the pros

HamworthyGoods · Monday at 15:54

quantinghome said:
There is nothing good about 4-5 carriage intercity trains. It's a ridiculous idea which has caused problems wherever it's been implemented. I don't know where the obsession has come from but it needs to stop immediately.

It’s nothing new; a 5 car 80x will give you 131 metres worth of train, a 7-coach set of mk2s which was the most common formation on Cross Country for many years was 140 metres of train.

quantinghome · Monday at 16:22

HamworthyGoods said:
It’s nothing new; a 5 car 80x will give you 131 metres worth of train, a 7-coach set of mk2s which was the most common formation on Cross Country for many years was 140 metres of train.

Passenger numbers have more than doubled in that time and cross country's capacity hasn't. They need longer trains just to cope with the passengers willing to crowd onto XC's packed trains, let alone the repressed demand which for XC will be significant.

styles · Monday at 16:30

Providing platforms can accommodate it, sure.

It irked me that Lumo (east coast) started with 5-car sets, which have an incredibly high occupancy %. They met the minimum number of seats the ORR required of them, but then they've been immensely popular, yet their space in the timetables could be used for longer trains.

London Trains · Monday at 16:36

Haywain said:
As long as you aren't trying to fit all the services into the three available platforms at St Pancras.

Its been debunked many times on the forum that this is not an issue.

HamworthyGoods · Monday at 16:36

styles said:
Providing platforms can accommodate it, sure.

It irked me that Lumo (east coast) started with 5-car sets, which have an incredibly high occupancy %. They met the minimum number of seats the ORR required of them, but then they've been immensely popular, yet their space in the timetables could be used for longer trains.

Which is why they have ordered additional trains to lengthen the services.

Several operators on the ECML have additional trains on order. But none of the ECML Intercity operators presently have trains spare to use the space in the timetable you mention with longer trains.

All the Intercity operators on the ECML have 5 car workings currently.

styles · Monday at 16:47

HamworthyGoods said:
Which is why they have ordered additional trains to lengthen the services.

Several operators on the ECML have additional trains on order.

Yes indeed, it just seems a shame that we seem to regularly take a somewhat pessimistic approach to passenger numbers when building out new services, stations, or whole routes. As opposed to a, "build it and they will come", approach.

I remember being up for the Edinburgh Fringe last year and hopped on a Borders Railway train, and it was absolutely rammed. It's the same at rush hour and I suspect some simply don't take the train in these situations because it's cramped standing room only, exceptionally hot and humid, and even smelly sometimes. But the thing is, they're running 3 car services at rush hour, when the platforms can hold 6. The line is just what, 10 years old? Underestimating passenger demand may be one thing, but a decade later and the situation is the same. Not to mention making it single line with not enough passing loops to expand the number of services as an alternative.

Transport for Wales running 2-coach services on the north Wales coast line is similar. Rammed at rush hour, and in the summer holidays the only way to get on sometimes is by shouting down the carriage asking people to keep moving down, like a London Underground announcer.

It makes the travel experience off-putting and then people decide to drive these routes instead. There are some west coast mainline services which I'll drive rather than take the train because I know that that service will be overflowing and uncomfortable. And I'm somebody who advocates public transport to friends and family.

quantinghome · Monday at 17:03

43096 said:
British trains will always, in effect, be bespoke. You can't just take, say, a DB ICE design and build some for Britain.

The UK has never been able to use European designs, for obvious reasons. I was referring to microfleets or train designs that have had to be heavily modified, and particularly the Auroras, as opposed to large uniform fleets like the IC125 or Hitachi 80X series (excluding the Auroras).

Bald Rick · Monday at 17:08

quantinghome said:
The tail shouldn't wag the dog.

Quite. That’s why EMR have bought the units necessary for the service (which is a significant increase in existing capacity), and not a much larger fleet that would be overcapacity and therefore lots of expense for no reason.

quantinghome · Monday at 17:09

styles said:
Yes indeed, it just seems a shame that we seem to regularly take a somewhat pessimistic approach to passenger numbers when building out new services, stations, or whole routes. As opposed to a, "build it and they will come", approach.

I remember being up for the Edinburgh Fringe last year and hopped on a Borders Railway train, and it was absolutely rammed. It's the same at rush hour and I suspect some simply don't take the train in these situations because it's cramped standing room only, exceptionally hot and humid, and even smelly sometimes. But the thing is, they're running 3 car services at rush hour, when the platforms can hold 6. The line is just what, 10 years old? Underestimating passenger demand may be one thing, but a decade later and the situation is the same. Not to mention making it single line with not enough passing loops to expand the number of services as an alternative.

Transport for Wales running 2-coach services on the north Wales coast line is similar. Rammed at rush hour, and in the summer holidays the only way to get on sometimes is by shouting down the carriage asking people to keep moving down, like a London Underground announcer.

It makes the travel experience off-putting and then people decide to drive these routes instead. There are some west coast mainline services which I'll drive rather than take the train because I know that that service will be overflowing and uncomfortable. And I'm somebody who advocates public transport to friends and family.

Exactly right. We seem to be allergic to building rolling stock in the quantities needed to encourage increases in rail traffic. Having a single type of intercity train that we can just keep on rolling out would create massive economies of scale. Instead we go from famine to feast. And with infrastructure constraining capacity running short trains is such a waste of limited resources.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 17:15 ==

Bald Rick said:
Quite. That’s why EMR have bought the units necessary for the service (which is a significant increase in existing capacity), and not a much larger fleet that would be overcapacity and therefore lots of expense for no reason.

There have been huge delays with the Aurora programme, major reliability problems once they've started running, and even with functioning rolling stock other operators have had significant operational problems running doubled up units. It does make me wonder whether an order of longer units using an existing design would have been a better idea.

JamesT · Monday at 17:15

styles said:
Yes indeed, it just seems a shame that we seem to regularly take a somewhat pessimistic approach to passenger numbers when building out new services, stations, or whole routes. As opposed to a, "build it and they will come", approach.

I remember being up for the Edinburgh Fringe last year and hopped on a Borders Railway train, and it was absolutely rammed. It's the same at rush hour and I suspect some simply don't take the train in these situations because it's cramped standing room only, exceptionally hot and humid, and even smelly sometimes. But the thing is, they're running 3 car services at rush hour, when the platforms can hold 6. The line is just what, 10 years old? Underestimating passenger demand may be one thing, but a decade later and the situation is the same. Not to mention making it single line with not enough passing loops to expand the number of services as an alternative.

Transport for Wales running 2-coach services on the north Wales coast line is similar. Rammed at rush hour, and in the summer holidays the only way to get on sometimes is by shouting down the carriage asking people to keep moving down, like a London Underground announcer.

It makes the travel experience off-putting and then people decide to drive these routes instead. There are some west coast mainline services which I'll drive rather than take the train because I know that that service will be overflowing and uncomfortable. And I'm somebody who advocates public transport to friends and family.

How much does new rolling stock cost? £1-2m per carriage? That quickly gets rather expensive to over provision your initial purchase to cope with future growth. The problem being government’s failure to respond when that growth does arrive.

Topological · Monday at 17:17

I agree that there are problems, but surely the bigger issue is just that there are not enough short trains. In GWR land it makes sense only sending 5 of the carriages to Carmarthen and allowing places on that line a train to London every 2 hours (and a longer train to Cardiff every 2 hours) is really a bonus. GWR just do not have enough 5-car 80x for their daily use.

I think the same applies on the ECML as well.

The Midland Mainline situation is a bit different because there is no splitting and joining, just a lower demand during the day. I can see that a shorter train might have seemed a better idea than reduced frequency (and associated extra journey time compared to the faster service where the retained service in an off peak hour is the stopper).

The MML should have been electrified and made like London to Norwich with EMUs rather than being a IET line. Those could have been fixed formation 8/9 car.

TfW (since they got brought into it) need a bigger depot to maintain 197s and then they need more 197s so that fewer end up at 2-car because of the number queueing to get maintenance in a depot that previously serviced less than half the number of trains.

Bald Rick · Monday at 17:25

quantinghome said:
There have been huge delays with the Aurora programme, major reliability problems once they've started running, and even with functioning rolling stock other operators have had significant operational problems running doubled up units. It does make me wonder whether an order of longer units using an existing design would have been a better idea.

With 20:20 foresight, then a different decision might have been made.

However given Hitachi are getting quite a battering in their wallet, the 810s (assuming they do eventually have their issues ironed out) will turn out to be remarkably good value.

quantinghome · Monday at 17:33

Topological said:
The MML should have been electrified and made like London to Norwich with EMUs rather than being a IET line. Those could have been fixed formation 8/9 car.

That's the case in point really. The Anglia main line trains are massive and there's no way it needs such long formations throughout the day. Yet running 230m long trains there twice an hour, rather than shorter units which are then combined during the peaks, seems to work out OK. Why doesn't the MML with its far larger population get the same treatment?

NCT · Monday at 17:40

quantinghome said:
Exactly right. We seem to be allergic to building rolling stock in the quantities needed to encourage increases in rail traffic. Having a single type of intercity train that we can just keep on rolling out would create massive economies of scale. Instead we go from famine to feast. And with infrastructure constraining capacity running short trains is such a waste of limited resources.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 17:15 ==

There have been huge delays with the Aurora programme, major reliability problems once they've started running, and even with functioning rolling stock other operators have had significant operational problems running doubled up units. It does make me wonder whether an order of longer units using an existing design would have been a better idea.

At the time of ordering the EMR replacement fleet the IET was very much a new train.

Topological · Monday at 17:41

quantinghome said:
That's the case in point really. The Anglia main line trains are massive and there's no way it needs such long formations throughout the day. Yet running 230m long trains there twice an hour, rather than shorter units which are then combined during the peaks, seems to work out OK. Why doesn't the MML with its far larger population get the same treatment?

True, but then my point is that as EMUs they should be cheaper to run than IETs. I do not know hte lengths, but a follow on order on top of the Anglia order would have worked.

quantinghome · Monday at 18:22

NCT said:
At the time of ordering the EMR replacement fleet the IET was very much a new train.

It was recent but by then it was established as the de facto standard 200kph intercity train in Britain. The IET was awarded to Hitachi in 2009, contracts finalised in 2012, manufacturing started in 2014, and entered into service in 2017. Aurora was ordered in 2019 and manufacture started in 2021. A follow-on order to the standard length would have been very easy to accomplish.

NCT · Monday at 18:27

quantinghome said:
It was recent but by then it was established as the de facto standard 200kph intercity train in Britain. The IET was awarded to Hitachi in 2009, contracts finalised in 2012, manufacturing started in 2014, and entered into service in 2017. Aurora was ordered in 2019 and manufacture started in 2021. A follow-on order to the standard length would have been very easy to accomplish.

The IET was still a minority train type against a lot of 23m carriage other intercity train types. It would be irresponsible for anyone to put their faith in a single model for a single supplier.

The Aurora saga suggests it was probably unfortunate Hitachi emerged as the winner of the EM intercity procurement.

Harpo · Monday at 19:02

Topological said:
The MML should have been electrified and made like London to Norwich with EMUs rather than being a IET line. Those could have been fixed formation 8/9 car.

Music to the DfT’s ears. Got away with regional stock on Norwich, so onto Sheffield, then Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol etc. and all bar London to Scotland can follow on.

Such a shame to be wishing away quality even if it’s IET’s interpretation of quality.

py_megapixel · Monday at 21:18

Harpo said:
Music to the DfT’s ears. Got away with regional stock on Norwich, so onto Sheffield, then Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol etc. and all bar London to Scotland can follow on.

The Norwich trains aren't "regional stock". They've got vestibules, first class, a buffet counter, and the same seat design as the 810.

NCT said:
The Aurora saga suggests it was probably unfortunate Hitachi emerged as the winner of the EM intercity procurement.

I don't understand why people keep saying this sort of thing. How can we say any alternative bidder wouldn't have had similar issues?

IIRC Bombardier's bid was a bi-mode Aventra. No such thing has ever been built before, and even the pure electric Aventrae haven't exactly been problem-free.

Harpo · Monday at 21:35

py_megapixel said:
The Norwich trains aren't "regional stock". They've got vestibules, first class, a buffet counter, and the same seat design as the 810.

So add 810 seats, a buffet and some first class and a 150 can be an InterCity train too? (They’ve already got the same ‘vestibules’).

Short intercity trains should be hurled into the sun

Established Member

RailUK Forums

On Moderation

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member