Class 745 Stadler FLIRTs

[py_megapixel]

Are there any cases where StanEx units are ending up on Norwich diagrams at the same time as Norwich units end up on the StanEx?

 

[Dave1987]

Are there any cases where StanEx units are ending up on Norwich diagrams at the same time as Norwich units end up on the StanEx?

Yup. Happened quite a lot recently. I have also seen very few people using the buffets on the 745/0's. Remains to be seen what will happen next year in a post-Covid world.

 

[dk1]

Are there any cases where StanEx units are ending up on Norwich diagrams at the same time as Norwich units end up on the StanEx?

Yes plenty of them. They are sometimes swapped during the day if a fault occurs on the Airport service that requires it back to Norwich. They won't just swap them back for catering/first class purposes however.

 

[Alfie1014]

Be interesting to see how availability holds up this week as the Norwichs return to half-hourly (only the Nin90 are missing from what I can work out), though the Stansteds are still only 2 or 3 per hour?

 

[JonathanH]

Be interesting to see how availability holds up this week as the Norwichs return to half-hourly (only the Nin90 are missing from what I can work out), though the Stansteds are still only 2 or 3 per hour?

The Norwich services are still missing some of the half-hourly pattern - no train from Norwich at 0740, 0830, 1230, 1330, 1730, 1830 and no train from Liverpool Street at 1000, 1100, 1500, 1600, 2000 and 2100 - ie only 8 all-day diagrams instead of 10. 0624 Norwich to Liverpool Street and 1810 Liverpool Street to Norwich also missing.

Stansted is half-hourly from Liverpool Street but seems to step up fifteen minutes on each cycle - looks like 5 all-day diagrams.

13 diagrams from 20 units ought to be possible.

 

[StephenHunter]

Very easy to spot the 745/1s when they go past my work by the way; no carriage letters on the side.

 

[trebor79]

It's the movements between Crown Point & Victoria sidings that's causes the wrong turning. Initially there where instructions that sets had to be sent via Crown Point to ensure 1st class was at the front but as most of the day the bypass road has also been under possession by those constructing the new wash plant (this section of track has been out of action since the end of summer) meaning this isn't possible as the 12-car sets would need to shunt onto the Yarmouth/Lowestoft/Sheringham line along with 755s also making depot moves. It will be brought in again very time soon whenever this work is complete.

Almost everything booked to have catering has at the very least a static trolley if not an at seat service. Buffet counters are having screens fitted so staff don't have to wear face coverings all day too.

Unfortunately the use of 754/0 on 745/1 diagrams can only depend on what Stadler release & when & this may continue for some time yet.

Thanks for taking the time to explain all that. I guess as you say it's just what it is for the time being.
I hope the catering provision survives.

 

[supervc-10]

I wonder if the StanEx trains will be reconfigured sometime to have a uniform fleet. It does definitely seem foolish not to have gone for the uniformity.

 

[Class 170101]

The Norwich services are still missing some of the half-hourly pattern - no train from Norwich at 0740, 0830, 1230, 1330, 1730, 1830 and no train from Liverpool Street at 1000, 1100, 1500, 1600, 2000 and 2100 - ie only 8 all-day diagrams instead of 10. 0624 Norwich to Liverpool Street and 1810 Liverpool Street to Norwich also missing.

Stansted is half-hourly from Liverpool Street but seems to step up fifteen minutes on each cycle - looks like 5 all-day diagrams.

13 diagrams from 20 units ought to be possible.

I think you can add the following to your missing list
06:00 Liverpool Street to Norwich
20:30 Norwich to Liverpool Street

 

[dk1]

Be interesting to see how availability holds up this week as the Norwichs return to half-hourly (only the Nin90 are missing from what I can work out), though the Stansteds are still only 2 or 3 per hour?

I thought it was staying as it was. Crew diagrams remain the same so the likes of the 07:40, 12:30 & 13:30 ex-Norwich SX remain cancelled.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Dec 2020 ==

Thanks for taking the time to explain all that. I guess as you say it's just what it is for the time being.
I hope the catering provision survives.

You are most welcome mate. Even with the washer road & bypass out of use daytimes the depot itself is still a building site restricting 745s access into the shed.

 

[Bikeman78]

The Norwich services are still missing some of the half-hourly pattern - no train from Norwich at 0740, 0830, 1230, 1330, 1730, 1830 and no train from Liverpool Street at 1000, 1100, 1500, 1600, 2000 and 2100 - ie only 8 all-day diagrams instead of 10. 0624 Norwich to Liverpool Street and 1810 Liverpool Street to Norwich also missing.

Stansted is half-hourly from Liverpool Street but seems to step up fifteen minutes on each cycle - looks like 5 all-day diagrams.

13 diagrams from 20 units ought to be possible.

Availability and reliability has improved recently. It's been a while since a 317 has turned out on Stansted Express. I think there is usually a spare 745 at Orient Way now. Previously a failure would mean 317s or 379s covering a diagram for the rest of the day and quite often the following day too.

 

[AverageTD]

The Norwich services are still missing some of the half-hourly pattern - no train from Norwich at 0740, 0830, 1230, 1330, 1730, 1830 and no train from Liverpool Street at 1000, 1100, 1500, 1600, 2000 and 2100 - ie only 8 all-day diagrams instead of 10. 0624 Norwich to Liverpool Street and 1810 Liverpool Street to Norwich also missing.

Stansted is half-hourly from Liverpool Street but seems to step up fifteen minutes on each cycle - looks like 5 all-day diagrams.

13 diagrams from 20 units ought to be possible.

How many units would be required on a full "back to normal" timetable?

 

[306024]

How many units would be required on a full "back to normal" timetable?

9 on the Stansted service, 10 on the core Norwich service, plus one for the additional peak service and another for N90 trains. So if all Norwich and Stansted services were class 745s the current timetable would require 21 units from a fleet of 20. (Not including the 17.02 from LST).

Students of mathematics may have spotted the problem

The peak service as 720s, and a timetable rewrite to reduce the core Norwich circuits to 9 diagrams is in the pipeline. 2x4 car 755s (once cleared) could work the less busy trains too. All of which makes holding a first class season ticket (if any such passengers still exist) a bit of a lottery.

COVID really has got GA out of jail over the 745 fleet introduction. Had these been normal times it wouldn’t have been pretty.

 

[py_megapixel]

Why was such as small quantity of units ordered in the first place?
Surely someone must have looked at the proposed timetable and the proposed stock orders, and realised that there were too few units to cover all the diagrams?

Diagramming this tight is what is to be expected from an ageing fleet with replacements on order where units are being permanently withdrawn because of faults or exam failures which would be uneconomical to fix given the expected time left in service. Not from a load of brand new trains which will be in use for several decades!

 

[JonathanH]

Why was such as small quantity of units ordered in the first place?
Surely someone must have looked at the proposed timetable and the proposed stock orders, and realised that there were too few units to cover all the diagrams?

If Liverpool Street to Norwich was sped up to 100 minutes with a 20 minute turnaround at each end, only 8 745s would be needed for the core service. At the moment it is about 110-120 minutes with a 30-40 minute turnaround. Liverpool Street to Stansted is 50-55 minutes so I am not sure how that can be got down to 8 units reliably.

 

[chubs]

Why was such as small quantity of units ordered in the first place?
Surely someone must have looked at the proposed timetable and the proposed stock orders, and realised that there were too few units to cover all the diagrams?

Diagramming this tight is what is to be expected from an ageing fleet with replacements on order where units are being permanently withdrawn because of faults or exam failures which would be uneconomical to fix given the expected time left in service. Not from a load of brand new trains which will be in use for several decades!

There was also supposed to be a full timetable recast now IIRC.

 

[dk1]

If Liverpool Street to Norwich was sped up to 100 minutes with a 20 minute turnaround at each end, only 8 745s would be needed for the core service. At the moment it is about 110-120 minutes with a 30-40 minute turnaround. Liverpool Street to Stansted is 50-55 minutes so I am not sure how that can be got down to 8 units reliably.

From the proposed timetable release for next December Norwich services are expected to be 105-110 minutes.

 

[Alfie1014]

The Norwich services are still missing some of the half-hourly pattern - no train from Norwich at 0740, 0830, 1230, 1330, 1730, 1830 and no train from Liverpool Street at 1000, 1100, 1500, 1600, 2000 and 2100 - ie only 8 all-day diagrams instead of 10. 0624 Norwich to Liverpool Street and 1810 Liverpool Street to Norwich also missing.

Stansted is half-hourly from Liverpool Street but seems to step up fifteen minutes on each cycle - looks like 5 all-day diagrams.

13 diagrams from 20 units ought to be possible.

I hadn’t realised so many were missing I thought when I checked early last week there were more.

 

[py_megapixel]

If Liverpool Street to Norwich was sped up to 100 minutes with a 20 minute turnaround at each end, only 8 745s would be needed for the core service. At the moment it is about 110-120 minutes with a 30-40 minute turnaround. Liverpool Street to Stansted is 50-55 minutes so I am not sure how that can be got down to 8 units reliably.

GA might have dodged a bullet there; I suspect Airport demand will be low enough due to Covid over the next few years that they can get away with a small frequency reduction to reduce the diagrams required.

 

[Railperf]

From the proposed timetable release for next December Norwich services are expected to be 105-110 minutes.

We know running times for the xx. 30 total 90 mins. Add 7 to 10 mins for dwells. 100 min perfectly possible.. But everything south of Colchester is timed more slowly to fit in the freight and stoppers. So 5 to 10 mins additional time is added to the schedules for that. Cannot speed up south of Colchester until it is all reliably switched to Class 720s.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Surely one fleet, with first class (declassified on StanEx), proper tables and with a trolley service for refreshments on the Norwich route would have been the blindingly obvious answer. There is absolutely no need for a full buffet service on a sub 2 hour (in time, 90 minute) train journey.

Critically, if the buffet service can’t be relied upon to be available, there’s no point having it. The first time a passenger boards at Norwich, counting on refreshment from the buffet only to find themselves on a StanEx unit, will be the last time that passenger doesn’t buy a sandwich at the station before boarding.

Many years ago myself and a friend boarded an intercity service Manchester to Euston. Before Pendolinos. We were early and we were hungry. On the departure boards at Piccadilly a buffet service was indicated so we decided to eat on board. After the Stockport stop it was announced there would be no buffet service. If food had not been advertised 30 minutes before departure we would have had time to buy a pizza or sandwiches before boarding. Ever since then I never waste my money on the railway buffet and I take food on the train instead. Bringing your own food is cheaper and far far more reliable.

The sort of person who spends out extra on food is going to expect reliability. I will not be looking out for the buffet and I suspect many others will learn not to.

So, in my book, all GA are doing is making sure there will be not enough future demand for a buffet and first class.

 

[306024]

We know running times for the xx. 30 total 90 mins. Add 7 to 10 mins for dwells. 100 min perfectly possible.. But everything south of Colchester is timed more slowly to fit in the freight and stoppers. So 5 to 10 mins additional time is added to the schedules for that. Cannot speed up south of Colchester until it is all reliably switched to Class 720s.

Those troublesome trucks will still be there though. There is also recovery time for temporary speed restrictions. On the Norwich main line that totals 6 minutes, which may seem excessive for 115 miles but reflects the pounding the track takes and the foundation (Essex clay) a lot of it sits upon. Under the current performance regimes huge money would be involved if you suggested to NR to reduce it. May be wrong but can’t see NR immediately agreeing to that.

I‘ll agree 100 minutes is perfectly possible when I’ve seen a timetable for the whole GEML that takes in all considerations such as freight, even intervals to important stations such as Chelmsford, connections, resilience, and not just the performance characteristics of the class 745 units.

 

[Chiltern006]

why didn't GA just have a uniform fleet of FLIRTs on all services, and have 3+2 on commuter routes?

 

[Bletchleyite]

why didn't GA just have a uniform fleet of FLIRTs on all services, and have 3+2 on commuter routes?

Goodness knows.

 

[Railperf]

why didn't GA just have a uniform fleet of FLIRTs on all services, and have 3+2 on commuter routes?

Wasn't it because Stadler could not fulfill such a large order?

 

[Domh245]

why didn't GA just have a uniform fleet of FLIRTs on all services, and have 3+2 on commuter routes?

1. 3+2 wouldn't work on a UK FLIRT, at least not to the same scale that is achieved on the Aventras. They're 5cm narrower for starters which would turn 'barely acceptable' gangway width into impassable, and because of the mixed floor heights over the bogies you'd not be able to put any 3+2 seating in those vehicle ends
2. It'd be massively expensive - the FLIRT order was about 1.7x more expensive per metre of train than the Aventra
3. (admittedly moot point now) Stadler is a lower volume manufacture, there's no way they'd have conceivably built and delivered an additional 16km of train by September 2020 (the original scheduled last delivery for the 720s)

 

[Energy]

2. It'd be massively expensive - the FLIRT order was about 1.7x more expensive per metre of train than the Aventra

Stadler make arguably better trains but they are known to be expensive, one of the contributing factors is high labour costs of being based in Switzerland. To be fair the FLIRT order had more cabs and had the powerpacks in some trains which increases the cost.

3. (admittedly moot point now) Stadler is a lower volume manufacture, there's no way they'd have conceivably built and delivered an additional 16km of train by September 2020 (the original scheduled last delivery for the 720s)

Indeed, Stadler are very good at more specialised trains in small volumes which has allowed them to get the GA FLIRT, TfW FLIRT & Citylink, Merseyrail Class 777, T&W Metro and Glasgow Metro orders all recently compared to a few years ago when they had very few in the UK. These are small orders which are specialised whereas the large EMU orders have gone to Bombardier, Hitachi and Siemens which can provide a lower price as they are standard EMUs with nothing too special.

 

[Domh245]

one of the contributing factors is high labour costs of being based in Switzerland.

True, but plenty of the manufacturing can (and indeed was) done in other countries, including those bastions of high labour costs: Poland, Hungary and Romania.

To be fair the FLIRT order had more cabs and had the powerpacks in some trains which increases the cost.

The Flirt order has about half the number of cabs of the original Aventra order (116 to 222) although the power packs are a fair point. If you include them in the total number of vehicles in the order (which I didn't before) it will drop it down slightly. But even at a best case 1.5x the cost per vehicle, it turns a £869 million order into a £1.3 billion one, which is going to hurt. And that's before even considering running costs - I can't find track access charges/mile for the stadlers, but a 240m long 720 works out at 81p/mile - I struggle to imagine a FLIRT being cheaper with their higher axle loadings

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair, I thought the original post meant "a single set of identical long FLIRTs covering all IC and StanEx diagrams, a single set of identical short FLIRTs covering all regional diagrams (rather than 3s and 4s) and a single set of identical Aventras covering all commuter diagrams" - that's what I would suggest. Or even use Aventras on StanEx if that would save a quid or three.

 

[Domh245]

To be fair, I thought the original post meant "a single set of identical long FLIRTs covering all IC and StanEx diagrams, a single set of identical short FLIRTs covering all regional diagrams (rather than 3s and 4s) and a single set of identical Aventras covering all commuter diagrams" - that's what I would suggest. Or even use Aventras on StanEx if that would save a quid or three.

Not exactly a "uniform fleet of FLIRTs on all services" if most of the trains are Aventras! Wasn't it suggested that the StanEx units (and indeed the whole 745s) were somewhat of a bit of a carrot to make the 755s worth stadlers time?