First Group's option for 30 more Hitachi AT300s

[jimm]

Anyone have any further thoughts on the mention in Hitachi's announcement today of an option for 30 more (train length unspecified) of the souped-up IEPs that now look to be almost nailed on for Paddington-Plymouth-Penzance?

http://www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/hitach...f-new-at300-trains-for-the-south-west-1133384

Hitachi Rail Europe announced today that it has been named by FirstGroup as preferred supplier, subject to contract, for the supply of 29 trains for the new First Great Western franchise.This is subject to approval by the Department for Transport.

The fleet of 29 bi-mode AT300 trains would run primarily from London Paddington to Plymouth and Penzance, replacing 40-year-old High Speed Trains on the key intercity route to the south west. Made up of seven nine-car and 22 five-car trains, with an option for 30 more, the mixed fleet would allow for flexible use, including 10-car formations (two five-cars coupled together) for through-services to/from the capital.

In the GW franchise thread, I have mentioned Hull Trains and First's proposed Edinburgh-London open-access service as possible uses and maybe a fleet boost for FGW, but that many trains being optioned makes it looks like First has something else in mind as well.

Given that Abellio is planning to use 27 HSTs on Scotrail, the thought occurs to me that perhaps First offered bi-mode IEPs to meet the intercity stock requirements in the Scotrail specification.

Which was raised as a possibility in this old thread http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=95586

Take out four or five sets of that 30 for Hull Trains and you have a fleet of much the same size as Abellio's, though this would no doubt this would have come in more expensive than the HST option.

Or is this option a hint at what First will offer on TransPennine Express? Bi-modes able to maintain services off the wires to Scarborough, Middlesbrough etc, pending electrification, then use the wires when they go up?

Discuss...

 

[northwichcat]

More likely Hull Trains. Enough to replace the 180s and get two additional sets.

30 carriages wouldn't stretch every far for TPE, any formations shorter than 5 car wouldn't have much capacity due to the capacity of the driving cars.

It could be the add-on option is for FGW in case passenger numbers grow more than expected.

 

[jimm]

More likely Hull Trains. Enough to replace the 180s and get an additional set.

30 carriages wouldn't stretch every far for TPE, any formations shorter than 5 car wouldn't have much capacity due to the capacity of the driving cars.

The announcement says

Made up of seven nine-car and 22 five-car trains, with an option for 30 more

which I take to be train sets, not coaches. It could just be badly worded but it seems odd when they are so precise with the numbers of trains and the number of cars in the formations in the rest of the paragraph.

 

[The Ham]

More likely Hull Trains. Enough to replace the 180s and get two additional sets.

30 carriages wouldn't stretch every far for TPE, any formations shorter than 5 car wouldn't have much capacity due to the capacity of the driving cars.

It could be the add-on option is for FGW in case passenger numbers grow more than expected.

Depends on whether it is 30 more coaches or 30 more trains, the press release doesn't specify but otherwise only talks about numbers of trains.

 

[northwichcat]

Depends on whether it is 30 more coaches or 30 more trains, the press release doesn't specify but otherwise only talks about numbers of trains.

DfT got the two mixed up on their Twitter feed earlier.

 

[The Ham]

If it were coaches then I would have thought that it could have been to allow FGW to lengthen some of their 9 coach class 801's to 10 coaches (either by using the new coaches or by creating new 9 coach sets to enable them to shorten some existing 9 coach sets to 5 coaches to then lengthen other sets with the spare coaches).

Alliteratively it is so that they can provide extra services if they see the need.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Or is this option a hint at what First will offer on TransPennine Express? Bi-modes able to maintain services off the wires to Scarborough, Middlesbrough etc, pending electrification, then use the wires when they go up?

I'd agree bi-modes for TPE make sense, but 26m end doored vehicles don't really. So probably not.

 

[Haydn1971]

What else are First likely to be bidding for in the next couple of years ?

 

[northwichcat]

What else are First likely to be bidding for in the next couple of years ?

The West Coast and East Midlands franchises should go to tender next year.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

It could be the add-on option is for FGW in case passenger numbers grow more than expected.

Yes, that's my guess, especially given that the core IEP order doesn't appear likely to provide enough capacity on the Cotswold Line at peak time.

 

[MCR247]

Are the options actually for First Group though or just the DfT?

What I mean is the 387/2 order for GX units had options for more, but clearly these weren't Govia's to use as they wanted as "optional" units are now being built but for FGW.

I may be missing something of course

 

[CP165]

Are the options actually for First Group though or just the DfT?

What I mean is the 387/2 order for GX units had options for more, but clearly these weren't Govia's to use as they wanted as "optional" units are now being built but for FGW.

I may be missing something of course

No you could be right.

Remember the DfT effectively used Southern as an agent for procuring the 387/1s (I think)

 

[jimm]

Yes, that's my guess, especially given that the core IEP order doesn't appear likely to provide enough capacity on the Cotswold Line at peak time.

And your basis for this assertion is what? Have you seen the timetable and diagram plans for 2017 and 2018?

We have all manner of back of fagpacket claims about how there aren't enough trains and/or coaches ever since the IEP order was placed, not unlike those in the GW franchise thread today about how five-car trains couldn't possibly be used in Cornwall.

Are the options actually for First Group though or just the DfT?

What I mean is the 387/2 order for GX units had options for more, but clearly these weren't Govia's to use as they wanted as "optional" units are now being built but for FGW.

I may be missing something of course

Hitachi seem quite clear about who is is they are dealing with over this. This is the headline from the announcement linked to above:

Hitachi Rail Europe named as FirstGroup’s preferred supplier to provide fleet of new AT300 trains for the South West

 

[MCR247]

I still don't think its that simple

 

[jimm]

I still don't think its that simple

Why? When the 387 procurement took place, the DfT announced very clearly that it had asked Southern to act as its agent in that case.

 

[cjmillsnun]

The West Coast and East Midlands franchises should go to tender next year.

I don't see IEP on the West coast, but it would suit the EM franchise very well.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

And your basis for this assertion is what? Have you seen the timetable and diagram plans for 2017 and 2018?

We have all manner of back of fagpacket claims about how there aren't enough trains and/or coaches ever since the IEP order was placed, not unlike those in the GW franchise thread today about how five-car trains couldn't possibly be used in Cornwall.

Oh, you do have such a delightfully combative posting style... I could recognise you a mile off.

It was not an confident "assertion". It was "my guess" about something that in my view "doesn't appear likely". I am not being quoted for a newspaper here and will therefore happily indulge in speculation.

The not-even-embryonic-more-like-an-unfertilised-egg IEP diagrams which have been reasonably widely circulated, and which were clearly flawed in many regards (such as putting two trains on the same stretch of Cotswold single line), showed a ~50% loss of seats in the morning peak. You read the FGW Coffee Shop, even if you don't post to it, and I'm sure you've seen those diagrams there.

I raised this with an FGW manager and his reaction was "bear in mind that this is only the proposed IEP timetable... there will be other trains as well as these". I took "other trains" to mean things like the Turbo halts service and a possible residual HST service. It isn't inconceivable that these new AT300s could also perform that role. It is also entirely plausible, likely even, that FGW have found another solution which will delight us all. A speculative "isn't inconceivable" is as much as I am venturing and was the spirit in which my post was made.

 

[Stonesourscotty]

Could Iep replace the Voyagers which are then Cascaded to CrossCountry?

 

[Rapidash]

Western Boring News article with the image in

Have to admit, that does look pretty smart.

 

[D365]

Could Iep replace the Voyagers which are then Cascaded to CrossCountry?

Which Voyagers? The West Coast 221s make use of their tilt ability; though there were apparent proposals to replace the fleet anyway, this would come with a new franchise...

 

[jimm]

Oh, you do have such a delightfully combative posting style... I could recognise you a mile off.

It was not an confident "assertion". It was "my guess" about something that in my view "doesn't appear likely". I am not being quoted for a newspaper here and will therefore happily indulge in speculation.

The not-even-embryonic-more-like-an-unfertilised-egg IEP diagrams which have been reasonably widely circulated, and which were clearly flawed in many regards (such as putting two trains on the same stretch of Cotswold single line), showed a ~50% loss of seats in the morning peak. You read the FGW Coffee Shop, even if you don't post to it, and I'm sure you've seen those diagrams there.

I raised this with an FGW manager and his reaction was "bear in mind that this is only the proposed IEP timetable... there will be other trains as well as these". I took "other trains" to mean things like the Turbo halts service and a residual HST service. It isn't inconceivable that these new AT300s could also perform that role. It is also entirely plausible, likely even, that FGW have found another solution which will delight us all. A speculative "isn't inconceivable" is as much as I am venturing and was the spirit in which my post was made.

Ah yes, the back of a fagpacket diagrams from the DfT, which, as you quite rightly point out, were widely ridiculed for various reasons at the time they appeared, though this did not stop people subsequently citing them as though they were set in stone as the future timetable in many of the back of a fagpacket postings about IEP services/capacity on assorted forums.

There might not be enough IEPs on the way to provide a like-for-like equivalence to what is running on the Cotswold Line now, with 10-car IEP formations supplanting all the HST-worked trains in the current timetable, but how many of those trains actually need 500-plus seats (or 600-plus with IEP) west of Oxford?

The 04.50 from Hereford and 05.11 from Worcester could probably cope okay running as five-cars and bumping on to a sister set at Oxford - unless you've just sent out a fast emu formation towards London a couple of minutes ahead of it so no need for 600 more seats right behind it. The 17.50 from Paddington does not need 500 seats west of Oxford, though the 15.51 from Paddington does need more seats than the current 180 can offer, but perhaps only to Moreton-in-Marsh, so if they use 2x5cars to there, the second set can uncouple and head back towards Oxford and London.

We need to be honest about these variations in demand, not just work on the basis of 'it's worked with a big train now, so it should be in future, end of story', and to think flexibly - as flexibility is one of the reasons the five-car sets have been ordered.

Also, as things stand, the structure of the Cotswold Line timetable is still largely dictated by the patterns established back in December 2006 and the link with London-Oxford fast services. But 2017-18 means that can change, hopefully to allow better use to be made of the double track, rather than trains still having to meet much of the time at Evesham, at or near Charlbury, and at Norton and Wolvercot junctions, so there could indeed be some Turbos in the mix, which could help soak up passengers only going into and out of Oxford and ease pressure on the London trains, which have to be jacks of all trades at the moment, or you could potentially path another five-car train in there somewhere too, spreading out the load that way.

Naturally, all of the above can also be characterised as a guess.

PS: I almost forgot, though it is perhaps most important of all, the Oxford-London commuters can be provided with their own 12-car Class 387 megatrain, leaving on the dot of 7.30am, seating almost 700 of them and sparing them from slumming it on a service already busy with the oiks from the Cotswolds...

 

[freetoview33]

That is a good point, it does say Oxford getting 2 more tph from fgw as well. And along with Chilterns service. 5 cars should be plenty West of Oxford.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I am also hoping that the IEPs will be in 10 car and 2x5 car formations as I think that would give a great deal of flexibility.

Also I would imagine First have something in mind if they get tpe and I think East Midlands (would be more beneficial to them) as the IEP's could fit in well, and they could interwork some services. (Liverpool/Norwich)?

 

[The Ham]

Also with the new trains for Cornwall, it does mean that there will be no pressure on the IEP ordered fleet to run services along the B&H.

 

[northwichcat]

Which Voyagers? The West Coast 221s make use of their tilt ability; though there were apparent proposals to replace the fleet anyway, this would come with a new franchise...

Note that First proposed using CAF built Intercity trains without tilt on Birmingham-Scotland services (so would be limited to 110mph) and Voyagers on services out of Euston going to non-electrified destinations. Obviously they didn't propose joining up services at Birmingham like Virgin have done.

No-one objected to their bid based on what trains they'd use between Birmingham and Scotland and in reality could anyone considering LM use 350s being Birmingham and Liverpool, while TPE use 350s between Manchester and Scotland via Wigan?

 

[Doctor Fegg]

PS: I almost forgot, though it is perhaps most important of all, the Oxford-London commuters can be provided with their own 12-car Class 387 megatrain, leaving on the dot of 7.30am, seating almost 700 of them and sparing them from slumming it on a service already busy with the oiks from the Cotswolds...

Ha - brilliant. The 7.30 crowd who are convinced that Charlbury is the root of all evil will love that. Call it something suitably pompous like the "Isis Flyer" and they'd be eating out of your hand...

Yes, I wouldn't disagree with anything you say there. Recasting the Cotswold peak is going to be challenging to get right, particularly in the morning, and it's going to need much more imagination than the original DfT clockface timetable showed. FGW continue to show a real appetite to grow patronage on the Cotswold Line, and if we consider these AT300s as a "growth build", there would be many worse places to deploy them. But there are certainly plenty of other solutions.

 

[swt_passenger]

I am also hoping that the IEPs will be in 10 car and 2x5 car formations as I think that would give a great deal of flexibility.

Hope away, but no 10 cars have been ordered, either for ECML or GWML.

Perhaps it is realised that the lack of duplication of First, catering and 2 rather than 4 cab ends means that a 9 car has about the same overall capacity as 2 x 5 car already?

 

[jimm]

Ha - brilliant. The 7.30 crowd who are convinced that Charlbury is the root of all evil will love that. Call it something suitably pompous like the "Isis Flyer" and they'd be eating out of your hand...

Yes, I wouldn't disagree with anything you say there. Recasting the Cotswold peak is going to be challenging to get right, particularly in the morning, and it's going to need much more imagination than the original DfT clockface timetable showed. FGW continue to show a real appetite to grow patronage on the Cotswold Line, and if we consider these AT300s as a "growth build", there would be many worse places to deploy them. But there are certainly plenty of other solutions.

I'm just waiting for the reaction when the Oxford passengers pick up on this May's timetable change, when their favourite service will be provided by the 05.28 from Hereford as a result of that train being speeded up, rather than the current Charlbury starter - so even more country folk sitting in 'their' seats.

The Charlbury train instead becomes the 07.09 from Moreton, also creating the "Moreton Flyer', 05.14 from Paddington and non-stop from Oxford to Moreton-in-Marsh in 24 minutes. This is, I think, the first regular non-stop since the changes that gave Charlbury its first ever London trains in the mid-1960s and set it on the way to being the line's busiest intermediate station.

This will require some smart running all round, with three trains at roughly 15-minute intervals towards Oxford and the first London-Worcester to thread through the other way but probably gives an indication of where the timetable planning is going in terms of squeezing every last bit of capacity out of the single line section and improving the train service by squeezing more out of the rolling stock as well.

I expect that process will continue with IEP, especially with better acceleration than an HST, also if the incremental speed improvements that are being looked at for the Cotswold Line and elsewhere can be implemented. Getting to 110-115 between Wolvercot and Charlbury, with reduced running time, could then allow four trains through per hour without such tight margins as now.

 

[HSTEd]

What is the growing obsession with short intercity formations in giant lashups?
They don't save much money over simply doing it properly with full length formations - and it will cause endless problems further down the line when it turns out that we need the extra capacity of the full length formations but the production line has already closed.

Its just pennypinching of the worst sort - meanwhile Network Rail engages in endless feats of colossal largesse - note the pretty pointless Nottingham reconstruction that hasn't really achieved anything for example.

 

[jimm]

What is the growing obsession with short intercity formations in giant lashups?
They don't save much money over simply doing it properly with full length formations - and it will cause endless problems further down the line when it turns out that we need the extra capacity of the full length formations but the production line has already closed.

Its just pennypinching of the worst sort - meanwhile Network Rail engages in endless feats of colossal largesse - note the pretty pointless Nottingham reconstruction that hasn't really achieved anything for example.

As opposed to footing the bill for running 'full-length' trains around with hundreds of empty seats on legs of their journeys where there are never, ever going to be the passengers to fill them.

As discussed above, the Cotswold Line - and Swindon-Gloucester/Cheltenham and Cornwall too, Berks and Hants semi-fasts, many off-peak Oxford fasts, etc - don't need 'full-length' trains for large parts of the day - indeed for many years into the 1970s the Hereford expresses were three or four-coach portions west of Worcester most of the time. As I said in the GW franchise thread, portion working was a feature of Cornish expresses west of Plymouth until HSTs took over there.

Does Bristol need a procession of 630-seat trains per hour to and from London all day? I doubt it, but that's what you would get if you just had 'full-length' trains available. Whereas having a five-car, 320-seat train on a limited stop service via Parkway probably will work pretty well.

It's not as if Virgin's three trains per hour services on the Birmingham and Manchester runs using your favoured 'full-length' trains are exactly noted for overcrowding, six years after the VHF timetable began, are they?

This option for more stock suggests First may well be anticipating a need for some extra capacity and acquiring it while the production line is still running.

 

[HSTEd]

As opposed to footing the bill for running 'full-length' trains around with hundreds of empty seats on legs of their journeys where there are never, ever going to be the passengers to fill them.

As I have shown before the costs from increased numbers of vehicles are actually quite small - since you don't actually need that many extra vehicles.
(A 9-car set matches a 2x5-car lashup).
Once you account for the pain that is attempting to change formation lengths in service it adds a few percent to running costs at most.
Unless you store the extra sets in the platforms at Paddington you will require additional ECS moves too and from stables - however storing in the platform will reduce your station flexibility rather drastically. In disruption you could end up with nine car sets queued and unable to get into platforms because they are half full of stabled trains.
In an approach as congested as the Paddington one will be post-Crossrail it seems like a bad idea to pack in more ECS moves.

Crew savings are likely to wipe that out the extra leasing and mileage costs to a large degree.
Also pretty sure we are at the point where the trains would all be well loaded between Reading and Paddington no matter how long they are.

As discussed above, the Cotswold Line - and Swindon-Gloucester/Cheltenham and Cornwall too, Berks and Hants semi-fasts, many off-peak Oxford fasts, etc - don't need 'full-length' trains for large parts of the day - indeed for many years into the 1970s the Hereford expresses were three or four-coach portions west of Worcester most of the time. As I said in the GW franchise thread, portion working was a feature of Cornish expresses west of Plymouth until HSTs took over there.

Portion working with loco hauled stock is an eminently different thing to doing it with units.
The units will require additional crewing unless you want the dilution of the first class offer or similar, they will reduce capacity per metre of platform length and they won't actually need that many vehicles.

Does Bristol need a procession of 630-seat trains per hour to and from London all day? I doubt it, but that's what you would get if you just had 'full-length' trains available. Whereas having a five-car, 320-seat train on a limited stop service via Parkway probably will work pretty well.

There is not necessarily a requirement to have every train be nine-car. "Full length" would mean that there would not normally be lashups.
You can arrange diagrams such that some sets are nine car and arrange for those diagrams to be the ones working the high peak in the peak direction.
Especially on longer journeys where a train might work a handful of trips per day. (Swansea/Plymouth/Penzance especially).

It's not as if Virgin's three trains per hour services on the Birmingham and Manchester runs using your favoured 'full-length' trains are exactly noted for overcrowding, six years after the VHF timetable began, are they?

Virgins problems are caused by an idiotic peak-offpeak price split and a hard delineator that has people waiting on the platform while half a dozen sets leave the station before all scrumming onto the first off peak one.
The trains would be far more evenly loaded with a saner fares policy. Rather than a bunch of half empty trains and a handful of drastically overloaded ones.

This option for more stock suggests First may well be anticipating a need for some extra capacity and acquiring it while the production line is still running.

And yet it is not ordering IEPs, but yet another incompatible unit that will never be ordered by anyone else in all likelyhood.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
For example:
Let's compare running 9-car trains Paddington-Penzance compared with a ten car train between Paddington and Plymouth and five cars for the rest of the way.

Journey time for PNZ-PAD is 5hr25 each way, which means something like a 12 hour cycle time. 1tp2h means six sets required in service. So seven sets total.
7 x 9 = 63 vehicles.

You would require seven sets of five cars for the Penzance portion)
7 x 5 = 35 vehicles.

Penzance-Plymouth is 3hr18 - which means something like a 7 hour cycle time. So 4 sets required for that portion.
4 x 5 = 20 vehicles.

55 vehicles doing in that way.
So by embracing this glorious double working concept you have saved a grand total of eight vehicles.
That isn't much when you consider all the operational troubles you've bought yourself.