Class 458/5

[Goldfish62]

8534 was shunting around the Park today, complete with testers and fitters onboard.

I saw the roof of it behind other 458s.

 

[Chris125]

The Railway Centre have a photo of it in daylight passing through Southampton I believe.

Chris

 

[nlogax]

The Railway Centre have a photo of it in daylight passing through Southampton I believe.

Chris

That looks great!

 

[Electrostar]

I like that the roof has been painted. I think this was a feature of the 442s when they were repainted into revised SWT livery.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The Railway Centre have a photo of it in daylight passing through Southampton I believe.

Chris

It certainly looks much nicer in it's natural environment than it did in the earlier photos!

I still wonder if SWT's livery team have come up with a fix for the hybrid sets (where the 458/0 cars have conventional glazing rather than the flush-glazing of the 460 cars) though...

 

[asylumxl]

Certainly looks better than the previous photos, but not sure whether I prefer it over a 460 front end.

 

[cjmillsnun]

It certainly looks much nicer in it's natural environment than it did in the earlier photos!

I still wonder if SWT's livery team have come up with a fix for the hybrid sets (where the 458/0 cars have conventional glazing rather than the flush-glazing of the 460 cars) though...

I suspect the areas around the glass will be finished in satin black or if SWT and Wabtec do this properly, the coaches reglazed.

 

[455driver]

I suspect the areas around the glass will be finished in satin black or if SWT and Wabtec do this properly, the coaches reglazed.

Why the hell waste money fitting new windows when a bit of black paint willhave the same visual effect?

FFS everyone moans about how expensive the railways are and people are advocating changing hundreds of window to make an ugly train look 1% better!
Did they bother changing anything on the ex 508 coaches when they were put into the 455/7s, you know like a false roof so they looked similar to the 455 coaches? No they didnt because it is a train and its sole purpose is to transport 1000s of people (who couldnt give 2 shakes of a rats arse what the train looks like as long as the damn thing turns up on time) from A to B reliably.

 

[Electrostar]

I posted in another thread thinking it was this one that in 30 years time a preservation trust will be raising funds to convert a 458/5 back to a 460.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I suspect the areas around the glass will be finished in satin black or if SWT and Wabtec do this properly, the coaches reglazed.

That was my thinking...

Why the hell waste money fitting new windows when a bit of black paint will have the same visual effect?

FFS everyone moans about how expensive the railways are and people are advocating changing hundreds of window to make an ugly train look 1% better!
Did they bother changing anything on the ex 508 coaches when they were put into the 455/7s, you know like a false roof so they looked similar to the 455 coaches? No they didnt because it is a train and its sole purpose is to transport 1000s of people (who couldnt give 2 shakes of a rats arse what the train looks like as long as the damn thing turns up on time) from A to B reliably.

I imagine that during the design process for the conversion project, some thought will have been given to the appearance the ex-460 vehicles in the 'original' 458 sets. They may just leave them pretty much as built, bar a thorough refurb, like the 455/7s. To be honest that might look better than a botch-job with black paint could end up!

 

[Electrostar]

Am I the only one who thinks it strange that two non-identical versions of the 458/5s will be grouped under the same sub-class?

 

[starrymarkb]

I'm pretty sure there are a couple of ICE-T sets with a mixture of ribbon glaving and paint around the windows. The first batch had ribbon glazing with the second batch having standard windows with black paint surrounds. As there have been a few vehicles written off in accidents I suspect that any replacements will be to "batch 2 spec"

(and German Wikipedia shows that there are a couple of hybrid Batch 1&2 sets out there

 

[507 001]

Why the hell waste money fitting new windows when a bit of black paint willhave the same visual effect?

FFS everyone moans about how expensive the railways are and people are advocating changing hundreds of window to make an ugly train look 1% better!
Did they bother changing anything on the ex 508 coaches when they were put into the 455/7s, you know like a false roof so they looked similar to the 455 coaches? No they didnt because it is a train and its sole purpose is to transport 1000s of people (who couldnt give 2 shakes of a rats arse what the train looks like as long as the damn thing turns up on time) from A to B reliably.

:roll:
Why are the HST power cars still considered to be a timeless design?
Why is the same said about concorde?
Why is Intercity swallow still considered to be one of the best liveries ever designed?
Because some thought was put into them, thats why.

And yes, all of the above were or are related to something whose sole purpose was to transport people from a to b and turn up on time.

 

[Eagle]

Am I the only one who thinks it strange that two non-identical versions of the 458/5s will be grouped under the same sub-class?

They're identical enough that it makes no difference at all to the actual running of the units (same number and layout of seats, same electronics, same coupling, and so on).

Better than the 450/5s, which are currently a mixture of high-density and 450/0-style layouts.

 

[455driver]

:roll:
Why are the HST power cars still considered to be a timeless design?
Why is the same said about concorde?
Why is Intercity swallow still considered to be one of the best liveries ever designed?
Because some thought was put into them, thats why.

And yes, all of the above were or are related to something whose sole purpose was to transport people from a to b and turn up on time.

The modifications carried out on the HST are solely to improve reliability/ ability to do the job and are not the 'fluffy' stuff advocated above.

Concorde has now been withdrawn as it was not viable, there is no place in business for sentiment otherwise it would still be flying.

Swallow livery was a very nice livery but it has now gone off the mainline (see sentiment above).

Some thought was put into them at the design and build stage to do the job, if it isnt broke dont fix it, if it is broke then spend on what is needed to make it work better, the accountant rules supreme.

 

[starrymarkb]

Swallow wasn't that great. The logo was nice, the livery was dull though.

A lot of older aircraft types are being retired as the cost of fuel is very high at the moment. The great looking Quad Engined A340s and B744s are being dropped quite quickly now. The B748 was pretty much killed off by it's stablemate the B777X. The B757 is being replaced in most roles by the B739 and A321 which do 95% of the B757s stuff but use half the fuel to do it! Concorde was awesome but it seriously burnt fuel and if Airbus (successor to BAC/Sud Aviation) hadn't withdrawn support for the microfleet the cost of fuel would have killed it off. It's getting to the point where a large widebody burns less fuel then a single Concorde engine! The main benefit of Concorde was forming the model for Airbus's International co-operation and production.

 

[samuelmorris]

I see a tangent growing here, but just briefly:
The A340-300 and 747-400 are getting fairly long in the tooth now, as is the 757-200 (the first examples of which are early 90s, late 80s and early 80s respectively), fuel efficiency is one reason to retire them, simple age of the airframe is another. The A330 always was the more successful aircraft in that class, really the only A340s that should have been successful were the 500 and 600, but by the time they came about there wasn't much interest - everything about the A350 should imply where the future of that market is going. The 747-8 will still be larger so I can see some place for that (plus, you wouldn't believe the following the 747 has from all sorts of groups - a fair amount of it is familiarity and brand trust).

Slightly more on topic, I think swallow suffered the same issue as any livery containing white - it looked good when it was clean, pretty dire when it was coated in muck and brake dust.

More on topic still, I think that picture is surprisingly likeable, it doesn't look half bad like that

 

[cjmillsnun]

Why the hell waste money fitting new windows when a bit of black paint willhave the same visual effect?

FFS everyone moans about how expensive the railways are and people are advocating changing hundreds of window to make an ugly train look 1% better!
Did they bother changing anything on the ex 508 coaches when they were put into the 455/7s, you know like a false roof so they looked similar to the 455 coaches? No they didnt because it is a train and its sole purpose is to transport 1000s of people (who couldnt give 2 shakes of a rats arse what the train looks like as long as the damn thing turns up on time) from A to B reliably.

One could ask why the hell replace all of the slam door stock that worked very well?.

Because people's expectations change.

Nowadays presentation means something. I agree that it is far more likely that it will be satin black paint that is used, however I stated that if the job was done properly then a reglaze would be the way to go.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The modifications carried out on the HST are solely to improve reliability/ ability to do the job and are not the 'fluffy' stuff advocated above.

Concorde has now been withdrawn as it was not viable, there is no place in business for sentiment otherwise it would still be flying.

Swallow livery was a very nice livery but it has now gone off the mainline (see sentiment above).

Some thought was put into them at the design and build stage to do the job, if it isnt broke dont fix it, if it is broke then spend on what is needed to make it work better, the accountant rules supreme.

The look of the HST was done to improve its presentation. A wider class 41 cab would've worked but no that classic shape was used, and it worked. It made little or no difference to reliability or it's ability to do the job. But it looked good and people wanted to use it. That's why with the exception of updating the light clusters, the look and profile hasn't changed.

Concorde made a handsome profit for BA most of her operating life. It stopped flying because the French found it not viable (mainly because they had destroyed 2 Concordes. - 1 scrapped and the other we all know what happened). There were many efforts by BA to keep her in the air. But without Air France involved, support costs doubled.

Swallow was never going to be kept. Each private company wants to look different to its rivals. The easiest way to do that is to paint the trains a different colour.

 

[edwin_m]

The visual differences between coaches on the 458 will be tiny compared with the batch of 455s that includes a trailer car from a 508.

 

[507 001]

One could ask why the hell replace all of the slam door stock that worked very well?.

Because people's expectations change.

Nowadays presentation means something. I agree that it is far more likely that it will be satin black paint that is used, however I stated that if the job was done properly then a reglaze would be the way to go.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


The look of the HST was done to improve its presentation. A wider class 41 cab would've worked but no that classic shape was used, and it worked. It made little or no difference to reliability or it's ability to do the job. But it looked good and people wanted to use it. That's why with the exception of updating the light clusters, the look and profile hasn't changed.

Concorde made a handsome profit for BA most of her operating life. It stopped flying because the French found it not viable (mainly because they had destroyed 2 Concordes. - 1 scrapped and the other we all know what happened). There were many efforts by BA to keep her in the air. But without Air France involved, support costs doubled.

Swallow was never going to be kept. Each private company wants to look different to its rivals. The easiest way to do that is to paint the trains a different colour.

That was exactly the point I was trying to make, thank you.

 

[swt_passenger]

The Railway Centre have a photo of it in daylight passing through Southampton I believe.

Chris

Good thing it isn't a brand new Bombardier product; if it was they wouldn't have trusted it on the mainline without another unit in multiple for rescue purposes...

 

[Goldfish62]

I wouldn't be surprised if the hopper windows are removed on the 458s. Most of them leak when it's raining and invariably are left locked when the the aircon fails. The aircon is in fact a lot better these days, pretty much obviating the need for emergency hoppers - indeed it's often too cold!

As a by-product, removal of the hoppers would help the ex-460 coach to blend in better.

 

[southern442]

Good thing it isn't a brand new Bombardier product; if it was they wouldn't have trusted it on the mainline without another unit in multiple for rescue purposes...

Yes but it is the next worst thing!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

They're identical enough that it makes no difference at all to the actual running of the units (same number and layout of seats, same electronics, same coupling, and so on).

Exactly, 458531-458536 are actually just heavily refurbished 460's, but for operational purposes they are grouped into one class, that is exactly why the 377's and 375's are not grouped into one class.

 

[455driver]

Yes but it is the next worst thing!

Dont let the fact that the 458/0s are the most reliable EMUs in the Country again get in the way of a good dig will you! :roll:

 

[southern442]

Dont let the fact that the 458/0s are the most reliable EMUs in the Country again get in the way of a good dig will you! :roll:

SWT are murdering the most reliable trains in the UK! I almost forgot!

 

[Monty]

Inserting an extra trailer vehicle and a lick of new paint is hardly murder. Like it, hate it or whatever this was the only plausible solution to 10 Car trains on the Windsor lines at the time without shelling out for brand new stock.

 

[Goldfish62]

Inserting an extra trailer vehicle and a lick of new paint is hardly murder. Like it, hate it or whatever this was the only plausible solution to 10 Car trains on the Windsor lines at the time without shelling out for brand new stock.

I agree. Reliability is bound to decline, at least initially, but who's to stay new rolling stock would be any more reliable. Also, while I don't like the 460s being dumped in leiu of 442s on GatEx, but at least a use is being found for them.

 

[Pumbaa]

I wouldn't be surprised if the hopper windows are removed on the 458s. Most of them leak when it's raining and invariably are left locked when the the aircon fails. The aircon is in fact a lot better these days, pretty much obviating the need for emergency hoppers - indeed it's often too cold!

As a by-product, removal of the hoppers would help the ex-460 coach to blend in better.

Be surprised - I'm *fairly* sure they're staying.

 

[southern442]

Be surprised - I'm *fairly* sure they're staying.

I'm intrigued as to how the original 458's will look with an odd trailer that has different windows and doors.

 

[Pumbaa]

Get a picture of a 460 car, get some pictures of 458 cars, stick it in the middle. Use your imagination to do the paint job and you've got it.