nothing is changing over next week from what I can see.
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Class 701 'Aventra' trains for South Western Railway: progress updates
- Thread starter WWTownEnth
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TT-ONR-NRN
Veteran Member
They need that now
OneTrackMinded
Member
Was hoping for at least one new diagram a week tbh
Goldfish62
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Same here, but maybe it'll be a couple at a time every 2-3 weeks...
Class15
Established Member
That would be a very rapid introduction compared to previous new fleets!
TT-ONR-NRN
Veteran Member
The things have been around since 2020, the last thing their introduction will ever be is rapid.
Class15
Established Member
That is of course true. I meant from now.
THC
Member
One of the funniest comments I've read on here in years. Chapeau sirIt's been a spectacularly tantric introduction into service, hasn't it?
THC
I think one per fortnight is more realistic.
WWTownEnth
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That would give us approx 20 diagrams by year end when I thought the internal target was 34.
Goldfish62
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And 20 would surely be incredibly slow.
As more and more crew are trained the pool of usable crew increases, expect to see the initial increase start slow but ramp up over time. It becomes almost exponential in growth once the pool is large enough. I use the word almost. Not actually...
Goldfish62
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Yes, I recall the 450s. Started with a slow trickle then suddenly became a flood and it seemed they were everywhere overnight.
Many diagrams won't start and finish at the same place requiring alterations to the diagrams and/or multiple to be brought in at once. Those sort of alterations are easier to do less frequently, particularly as week to week won't be massive change in driver availability. Fortnightly changes have been common on rollouts elsewhere.
That's what has been running, as well as fewer diagrams many run differently to the longer term plan. This post on the diagrams thread has the current diagrams based on what was running earlier this week. 2V53 is on a different diagram in the long term plan, but is used to shorten or balance another diagram.
This approach reduces number of non-701 diagrams, though to introduce some of the additional diagrams the existing ones will need to run a few more services.
OneTrackMinded
Member
701's reliability has gone up quite a bit since last December with the miles per major failure now sitting at 9k compared to 4k.
Goldfish62
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Sorry to disappoint anyone who might have thought this was something newThe latest cover of Modern Railways magazine has a panel about the 701s, and a rather worrying bullet point that states "455 life extension plans"
This doesn't make much sense considering the positive news recently and the plan to get 30-ish in by Christmas, which would cover most of the 455s with the remaining being operated by 450s and 458s.
Has something else gone wrong?
but it's not. It's reporting on the revised training programme, with the briefest of mentions about the Class 455 corrosion repairs.
OneTrackMinded
Member
It says "life extension to 2030" which I found a bit of a strange detail. Obviously they're not going to last that long..Sorry to disappoint anyone who might have thought this was something new
Goldfish62
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Presumably the corrosion repair work is guaranteed for five years.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Very impressive if it's maintained, but as Roger Ford has pointed out previously the average tends to fluctuate a lot with such a small operational fleet. Nevertheless, to date they've been at least as good as other Aventra fleets in the early days of introduction.
alanc
Member
701055
HTH
Many thanks Alanc: I see that another is due from Bicester on 27/05, via the same arrangements.
The discussion about GBR branded units is now here:
www.railforums.co.uk
GBR branded rolling stock
For those who haven’t seen, this is the new GBR “branding” on 701046. It’ll begin running services on Sunday. Caption: The transport secretary standing in front of a Class 701 in SWR livery, with a vinyl over the usual place where the logo would go, staying instead “Great British Railways -...
www.railforums.co.uk
43096
On Moderation
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Still a way off the contracted 45k target, though, and even further off the 458/0s (and indeed the slammers) at their peak.
OneTrackMinded
Member
Deleted.
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Article in today’s Financial Times - mentions DfT - First Group ‘dispute’ re. the 701s: https://on.ft.com/4kzAfDq
OneTrackMinded
Member
Dispute over £1bn train fleet sours Labour’s first rail nationalisation
Only around five of South Western Railway’s flagship new trains will be able to run after years of delay in their rollout
www.ft.com
Looks like SWR didn't let the DfT know about the negotiations with unions in January.
swt_passenger
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Only 5 available? Didn't we have 7 diagrams reported a few days ago?
birchesgreen
Established Member
In happier 701 news i did manage to travel on one yesterday (043) from Epsom to Stoneleigh. Pretty nice.
Yes 7 diagrams in passenger service at once, 9 units have been in passenger service over the last week.
PG
Established Member
Wonder when the DfT actually found out?