It was a competitive dialog all the options provided by Keolis Amey would have been made with complete agreement of TfW\WG executives. Is the proper functioning of the operation purely down to James Price turning up at your local station to see the problem for himself? His Borderlands video was ridiculous 'Im going to ask the fitters at Birkenhead what the problem is'?
And? It's now recognised that many of the procurement decisions were mistakes. The Welsh Government are not experts in rolling stock design (neither are the DfT who specified the IETs with a light grey, flat cloth on the seats). They can only rely on the advice given, and are also subject to political pressure.
Sometimes it takes someone senior to actually see things first hand before changes happen. I've seen it happen at various employers.
Journeycheck says it's due to a shortage of train drivers.
WMT regularly couple up 2 car 196s to make up 4 car units, in fact all of the 196 Hereford runs are done by 2x2 car, and some Shrewsbury runs too.
Interesting. But they do have a core fleet of four car 196s rather than relying exclusively on pairs of small units.
pretty certain they are 2 or 3 car sets
That's 197s, where the 197/0s are 2 cars, and the 197/1s are 3 cars. The 196s for WMT, are 2 and 4 cars, with the 196/0s being 2 cars, and the 196/1s being 4 cars.
In that case that's yet another reason why the class 197s are not fit for purpose - portion working with 158s is fundamental to the operation on the Cambrian and is useful elsewhere for providing through services either from congested place to multiple destinations (as is the case with TfW out of Birmingham potentially with an hourly Aberystwyth service with portions for Pwllheli in one hour and Chester via Wrexham in the other) or where demand drops off significantly (as it does with through trains between Cardiff and Pembrokeshire, at least if you run via Swansea). While TfW may turn out to have got it wrong by planning just 2 coaches on practically all their workings west of Swansea, I think running a 5-car DMU all the way to Fishguard, Milford Haven or Pembroke Dock would be wasting a lot of fuel and putting just 2 or 3 coaches on a service out of Cardiff that's heading for Swansea is asking for standees.
Yes, in the summer the Cambrian Coast could do with being at least 3-cars in summer, and Aberystwyth (at least on workings that don't join up with a coast portion at Machynlleth once the hourly service is in place) all year round. However, in the winter many Cambrian Coast portions could probably still be 2-cars without issue.
I wonder how they ended up with the catering cupboard on every unit, rather than just part of the fleet (I can see them wanting something a bit more than the normal trolley on the 5-car Manchester-Swansea services, but having two of them is really crazy so fitting the cupboard to either the 3-car units (perhaps even only those with 1st class) or the non-ETCS 2-car ones would have made it a bit less crazy).
Yes, a fleet of 51x 3-car and 26x 2-car units might have been nearer the mark, but 197s are nowhere near what was needed anyway.
What does light-footed mean in this context? Is it they have difficultly getting the power down and therefore poor acceleration? If so, that surprises me as I thought the 195/196/197 had a similar drivetrain/gearbox as a class 172 which in turn was supposed to be a resolution to the poor acceleration that class 170s supposedly have (I'm not rail staff, so am just going on what I've read on this and other forums).
I stand corrected
I find that infuriating as well. Not 197's yet but several services in the South are randomly removed from the timetable particularly the 1105 Swansea-Cardiff. Also yesterday I noticed 1630 from Manchester showing as running to Cardiff not Swansea, as if it going to Swansea isn't part of the timetable. It really should show as cancelled or part cancelled when this happens so people know what's happening. It doesnt make it any better for a passenger who planned to catch the service but they shouldn't just pretend it never existed!
What's even more crazy is that the cupboard will be at the opposite end of the unit to First Class.
Slippery. On a good rail they do accelerate really well, but I've had some slippy starts out of Colwyn Bay and drivers have mentioned a few issues at different locations on the Conwy Valley.
I was on that shuttle yesterday and again last week. Full and standing both times so 3 car will be useful for some runs.
Not when Avanti has cut Chester/North Wales services to the bone.
Completely agree.
I'm fine with the presence of bi-lingual announcements and I can live with the Welsh announcements being made first.
What a ridiculous waste.
Well, having travelled on the line twice in the last week when the 2 car unit was full as far as Betws y Coed, I think it may be useful on some of the trips.
I've read elsewhere that Canton drivers sometimes have to wander round looking for a unit that's actually fuelled and ready to go, regardless of what's booked/allocated. Perhaps Chester is just as disorganised?
I agree, as well as the excessive wordiness of announcements. The Swiss manage to get announcements in three languages (including informing passengers that the next station is a request stop) in less time than the 197 gets out the announcement in one language (failing to tell the passengers about the request stop).
Plenty of four car sets on the coast. A few twos, granted, but far more capacity than used to be provided.
I've read somewhere that the Earth is flat
So once again, contrary to certain posters all too hasty conclusions, there are actually good sound reasons behind unit allocation and TfW aren't just throwing units at the dart board? Who'd have thought.
