Future of the Intercity 125s

[tbtc]

I must admit I was suprised to see just how many trains in Germany and Austria when I was over there earlier this year were loco hauled. Whilst there were units too it seems the British are disproportionately obsessed with multiple units.

I wouldn't call it an obsession, just a realistic way of dealing with a small number of route miles, increasing passenger numbers and little spare capacity, therefore not allowing the UK the luxury of space/ spare resources required to run loco hauled services.

 

[Phil6219]

I wouldn't call it an obsession, just a realistic way of dealing with a small number of route miles, increasing passenger numbers and little spare capacity, therefore not allowing the UK the luxury of space/ spare resources required to run loco hauled services.

Which wouldn't have been such a problem had there not been near scandalous cutbacks, Manchester Victoria for instance, it had plenty of room and through roads to boot but now has no space, has sod all paths available (and constantly delays freight) and is now going to be "expanded". What about the lines north of Bolton where they removed the quad tracks and went down to double track, now it's a problem with bottle necks at Lostock Hall Jn. We could go one further and look at the lines that even cease to exist, if most of those lines were left as they were there would be less road traffic congestion (thinking of the Wigan-Tyldesley-Monton-Manchester line here) but now I'm really steering away from the subject at hand.

Not wanting to sound like someone harping on about the "good ole days" I honestly believe that Loco hauled offers much more flexibility (increase or decrease capacity by adding/removing vehicles and running on electrified or non electrified lines) where the biggest constraints would be platform lengths. Sadly it seems nobody in charge is interested and wants more and more units which offer sod all in that respect.

Phil

 

[RAGNARØKR]

I honestly believe that Loco hauled offers much more flexibility (increase or decrease capacity by adding/removing vehicles and running on electrified or non electrified lines) where the biggest constraints would be platform lengths. Sadly it seems nobody in charge is interested and wants more and more units which offer sod all in that respect.

Phil

You will get punished on this forum for saying that. All sorts of reasons can be wheeled out against loco haulage. There are voices within the industry who agree with the principle, such as Ian Walmsely, Chief Engineer of Porterbrook Leasing, who has written extensively on the subject. It will crop up again because of things like ERTMS which require very expensive and space-consuming boxes of electronics which cannot go under the floor.

Push-pull operation with locomotives is widespread on the continent on routes which would be MU here. Not the least of the benefits is that it enables the use of old, amortised hauled vehicles for low-cost "peak lopping".

Unfortunately the DfT has gone down the most costly of all bi-mode route and the UK public will pay the price one way or another. Either old stock will have to be kept in use or there will be a chronic shortage and chronic overcrowding. At 2.7 million per vehicle, the seats have to be crammed in and yield management is critical to make their operation profitable. So don't expect comfortable spacious trains and affordable walk on fares.

You can always visit Denmark and take a trip on the trains there if that is what you want. Swedish trains are spacious but getting a bit down-at-heel just now and they have tight yield management too due to the shortage of rolling stock and capacity problems.
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I wouldn't call it an obsession, just a realistic way of dealing with a small number of route miles, increasing passenger numbers and little spare capacity, therefore not allowing the UK the luxury of space/ spare resources required to run loco hauled services.

Perhaps, but push pull working has most of the advantages of MU and flexibility as to traction. I blame Virgin, who opted for DMU for long routes and promptly came a cropper as Operation Princess failed to work as planned. They should have bought locos and new hauled vehicles, put their mark 2 fleet through another refurb and planned their services around that. That would have limited some of their routes to 110 mph but then some of their routes are limited to 110 mph by the infrastructure or the nature of the service.

Voyagers were a mistake. IEP will turn out to be another.

 

[RobShipway]

Voyagers were a mistake. IEP will turn out to be another.

The principal idea of Voyagers was good, it is just how they are used in practice and also the cost of making them into proper DEMU trains that can go anywhere is at a price almost where you could buy a hybrid IEP for the same money....

Both Voyager and for that matter IEP are based on the same ideas as HST, Pendolino's and for that matter the ill-fated APT trains.

Just imagine if APT had been successful, you would have Electric, Gas Turbine and maybe a mixture of both by now with the UK leading the technology of the world in trains.

 

[LE Greys]

The principal idea of Voyagers was good, it is just how they are used in practice and also the cost of making them into proper DEMU trains that can go anywhere is at a price almost where you could buy a hybrid IEP for the same money....

Both Voyager and for that matter IEP are based on the same ideas as HST, Pendolino's and for that matter the ill-fated APT trains.

Just imagine if APT had been successful, you would have Electric, Gas Turbine and maybe a mixture of both by now with the UK leading the technology of the world in trains.

Voyagers were victims of their own success as much as anything. Their biggest problem is overcrowding, and that was caused in part by higher-than-predicted passenger growth. The same thing happened with GWR express diesel railcars, although unfortunately VXC couldn't scrape together a Hall and six coaches to replace them. It will probably happen again whenever they replace a long, heavy, slow train with a shorter, lighter, faster train, everybody will start using it. Even they HSTs had to be extended to 2+8 in many places, but BREL simply kept the MkIII factory open for longer than expected.

 

[AndyLandy]

It will probably happen again whenever they replace a long, heavy, slow train with a shorter, lighter, faster train, everybody will start using it.

Can you say "Five-car IEP"? I can't help but be incredibly skeptical of the value of ordering in short-formation IEP sets, unless they're going to be regularly used for portion working.

 

[The Ham]

Can you say "Five-car IEP"? I can't help but be incredibly skeptical of the value of ordering in short-formation IEP sets, unless they're going to be regularly used for portion working.

At least the order also includes 9 car sets as well.

 

[tbtc]

Which wouldn't have been such a problem had there not been near scandalous cutbacks, Manchester Victoria for instance, it had plenty of room and through roads to boot but now has no space, has sod all paths available (and constantly delays freight) and is now going to be "expanded". What about the lines north of Bolton where they removed the quad tracks and went down to double track, now it's a problem with bottle necks at Lostock Hall Jn. We could go one further and look at the lines that even cease to exist, if most of those lines were left as they were there would be less road traffic congestion (thinking of the Wigan-Tyldesley-Monton-Manchester line here) but now I'm really steering away from the subject at hand.

Not wanting to sound like someone harping on about the "good ole days" I honestly believe that Loco hauled offers much more flexibility (increase or decrease capacity by adding/removing vehicles and running on electrified or non electrified lines) where the biggest constraints would be platform lengths. Sadly it seems nobody in charge is interested and wants more and more units which offer sod all in that respect.

Phil

Ideally we'd still have all of these extra lines and all of the sidings/ loops/ yards/ middle-roads etc nowadays. There are plenty examples of "rationalisation" that have come back to haunt us (making chords single track, getting rid of loops etc). But as we don't have all of that spare track, multiple units are the best way of dealing with where we are today.

In theory loco hauled offers flexibility by allowing coaches to join/split, but how much of that has there been on daytime trains in the UK in recent years? The Sleepers do this, but for all the supposed benefit of this flexibility in theory, I'm struggling to think of daytime examples. Meanwhile DMUs and EMUs regularly split/ join - there was a thread a day or two ago on here about services which split into three - plenty split into two.

As for the other arguments about loco hauled, like the perrenial "old stock can be kept in use as a cheap way of dealing with peak capacity", they can be easily answered (by pointing out that old DMUs/ EMUs can equally be kept around for that purpose, there's nothing inherant in loco hauled stock that gives a benefit in that respect)...
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Can you say "Five-car IEP"? I can't help but be incredibly skeptical of the value of ordering in short-formation IEP sets, unless they're going to be regularly used for portion working.

5x26m is still a reasonable length (especially considering that the extra three metres of coach can be used just for seating), if these are intended to be used as doubled up trains on the core (e.g. London to Oxford/ Bristol) and single units at the far end (e.g. Bristol to Weston, Oxford to Hereford).

 

[sprinterguy]

At 2.7 million per vehicle, the seats have to be crammed in and yield management is critical to make their operation profitable. So don't expect comfortable spacious trains and affordable walk on fares.

The seats don't appear to be being "crammed in": The intermediate carriages of the IEP trains will seat exactly the same number of people as would have the 26 metre carriages of BR's "Intercity 250" proposal of the early nineties.

 

[Yew]

I wouldn't call it an obsession, just a realistic way of dealing with a small number of route miles, increasing passenger numbers and little spare capacity, therefore not allowing the UK the luxury of space/ spare resources required to run loco hauled services.

Acceleration. For some reason the government thinks that on services that may have 5 stops between london and scotland, acceleration is a priority. In some ways it doesnt help that all our LHCS is 20 years old, and the MU's are brand new. if we had some 10 year old ICMU's and some 10 year old IC LHCS then things might be a bt different. (Imagine if princess had had coaches instead of 220's, there would be a fiarer comparison to see what the passanger likes, a few mins off a journey time, or not sitting on top of a Cummins diesel for 4 hours.

 

[HSTEd]

Changing the length of a loco hauled formation requires rather large numbers of additional moves across station throats.

Either you withdraw the entire set (or maybe the locomotive) to the depot which means two extra moves, or you have to send in a shunter to remove the DVT to the depot to have additional coaches attached to it and then send the shunter back in to push the DVT back onto the train and withdraw again, making four extra moves.

This is just not practical.

And what is the marginal cost of hauling another carriage? It is the energy cost of the train being ~10% heavier and the extra access charges for the new coach.
These are small in comparison to other costs.

This means fixed formation always wins, especially when you consider the cost of maintaining a huge fleet of shunters and the extra platforms and track work required to support all these superfluous moves.

Once you have fixed formation trainsets the "flexibility" "advantages" of Loco hauled formations dissapear and they cannot hope to compete with multiple unit trains.

There is a reason that all loco hauled IC trains in Germany are to be withdrawn and replaced with new multiple unit trainsets.

 

[87015]

There is a reason that all loco hauled IC trains in Germany are to be withdrawn and replaced with new multiple unit trainsets.

Really? You better tell DB who have ordered a batch of brand new IC 146s and stock which are just beginning pre-service testing...
http://www.railcolor.net/index.php?nav=1000006&file=bomb_146552_52&action=image

 

[HSTEd]

Really? You better tell DB who have ordered a batch of brand new IC 146s and stock which are just beginning pre-service testing...
http://www.railcolor.net/index.php?nav=1000006&file=bomb_146552_52&action=image

DBAG Class 146s are limited to 99mph, hardly first line "InterCity".... certainly not by British standards.

Meanwhile it appears that all >100mph loco hauled trains, or almost all, will be withdrawn and replaced with ICx trainsets, prior to later builds of the same type replacing ICE1 and ICE2 trainsets, which are also 'loco' hauled.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

Changing the length of a loco hauled formation requires rather large numbers of additional moves across station throats.

Either you withdraw the entire set (or maybe the locomotive) to the depot which means two extra moves, or you have to send in a shunter to remove the DVT to the depot to have additional coaches attached to it and then send the shunter back in to push the DVT back onto the train and withdraw again, making four extra moves.

This is just not practical.

And what is the marginal cost of hauling another carriage? It is the energy cost of the train being ~10% heavier and the extra access charges for the new coach.
These are small in comparison to other costs.

This means fixed formation always wins, especially when you consider the cost of maintaining a huge fleet of shunters and the extra platforms and track work required to support all these superfluous moves.

You don't alter train lengths in stations except simple splits and portion workings, when all you need is a spur for a locomotive to stand in, as at Rickmansworth when it was a change-over point. Otherwise you suit the train lengths to the diagrams and the trains are made up before it takes up its diagram for the day. SJ works the X2000 trains like that. They run in different lengths. There is not a huge fleet of shunters. Just the one that every depot must have. But there is a shortage of X2000 rolling stock which is why the train sold to China has been purchased back.

Fixed formation trains are not a matter of running empty carriages. The effect is overcrowding and a complex pricing structure to fine-tune the yield management. That is the price the passengers have to pay.
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The seats don't appear to be being "crammed in": The intermediate carriages of the IEP trains will seat exactly the same number of people as would have the 26 metre carriages of BR's "Intercity 250" proposal of the early nineties.

If the seating pitch is less than 90cm and more than half the seats are airlines, then they are crammed in. By the early 1990s the BR designs were not exactly a model of space and comfort. Compare IEP with the seating density of any comparable UK train put into service between 1923 and 1980.
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Voyagers were victims of their own success as much as anything.

Voyagers were designed for a particular service pattern, Operation Princess, which people warned would not work, and it didn't.

 

[HSTEd]

You don't alter train lengths in stations except simple splits and portion workings, when all you need is a spur for a locomotive to stand in, as at Rickmansworth when it was a change-over point. Otherwise you suit the train lengths to the diagrams and the trains are made up before it takes up its diagram for the day. SJ works the X2000 trains like that. They run in different lengths. There is not a huge fleet of shunters. Just the one that every depot must have. But there is a shortage of X2000 rolling stock which is why the train sold to China has been purchased back.

If you are going to run fixed formation trains during the day, why do they have to be loco hauled?
Loco hauled has absolutely no advantage in this case.

Fixed formation trains are not a matter of running empty carriages. The effect is overcrowding and a complex pricing structure to fine-tune the yield management. That is the price the passengers have to pay.

The actual effect of fixed formation trains is that all trains are run at the longest possible formation whenever possible.
Overcrowding is a result of not enough carriages being ordered for use at peak time, which would hamstring loco hauled operations that changed train lengths just as much.

 

[RobShipway]

I believe in the 1940's, 1950' and probably in the 1960's as well that when trains where loco hauled in some places within the timetable, where there was places that had extra carriages there was enough dwell time to add those carriages to the train.

The timetables for trains since the 1970's have been such that they are having to run more trains between destinations which at times does not allow for that much in the way of dwell time, which is where fixed formation multiple units come into their own.

However, as HSTEd has pointed out, the problem comes if in those fixed formations there is not enough carriages to meet the demand so then hence you have overcrowding.

For example, if you travel on the London Waterloo - Reading service, the trains certainly during the evening rush hour are either full with overcrowding as far as Staines or Ascot depending on the service time, but are not so full by the time that they reach Reading.

 

[ainsworth74]

If you are going to run fixed formation trains during the day, why do they have to be loco hauled?
Loco hauled has absolutely no advantage in this case.

And of course if we're not looking at varying the length of the formation during a service it's perfectly possible to fiddle with MU lengths on the depot over night.

 

[tbtc]

You don't alter train lengths in stations except simple splits and portion workings, when all you need is a spur for a locomotive to stand in

It's amazing that we still hear the "loco hauled allows train length to be varied" considering that there's been no daytime loco hauled services that join/ split portions for many years (the sleeper doing it in the middle of the night is a bit of an exception, given the fact that there are no other trains around).

Of course with the regularly splitting EMU/ DMU services (which almost every TOC does daily) there's no siding required, no spurs required, no shunters required... simple.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

It's amazing that we still hear the "loco hauled allows train length to be varied" considering that there's been no daytime loco hauled services that join/ split portions for many years (the sleeper doing it in the middle of the night is a bit of an exception, given the fact that there are no other trains around).

Of course with the regularly splitting EMU/ DMU services (which almost every TOC does daily) there's no siding required, no spurs required, no shunters required... simple.

Getting rid of locos and elderly but serviceable rolling stock is a British fad, believe me. Just been from Gothenburg to Stockholm for the weekend. Outward journey was in modernised 1960s stock with an new loco. Back was in a double-set X2000 train ie a pair of loco-hauled push-pull units. They change the formations around in the depot before putting them into service for the day, depending on the traffic. They usually run as single sets loco plus 4, 5 or six.

Uppsala to Stockholm is a shuttle service with a loco at each end and eight trailers in the middle. In theory it is a classic EMU route but it is an inexpensive interim solution. The same RC type locos will haul freight or between three and around 12 passenger cars, though the fleet has been distributed to separate operators with a partial privatisation.

They are not constantly shunting stock to add things on and take them off. Swedish loco-hauled trains are a mixture of vehicles, 1960s to late 1980s, some from abroad. The capital cost of this stuff is next to nothing and that can be passed on to the passengers. New trains are additional to, not replacements for things that have got years of useful life in them. The locos are 1970s too, so that is a similar story.

What you gain with locomotives and hauled stock is long-term flexibility.
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And of course if we're not looking at varying the length of the formation during a service it's perfectly possible to fiddle with MU lengths on the depot over night.

Or even leave surplus vehicles in terminus platforms, southern style. A long walk up the platform to the bit of the platform that is not occupied by parked vehicles!
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Acceleration. For some reason the government thinks that on services that may have 5 stops between london and scotland, acceleration is a priority. In some ways it doesnt help that all our LHCS is 20 years old, and the MU's are brand new. if we had some 10 year old ICMU's and some 10 year old IC LHCS then things might be a bt different. (Imagine if princess had had coaches instead of 220's, there would be a fiarer comparison to see what the passanger likes, a few mins off a journey time, or not sitting on top of a Cummins diesel for 4 hours.

Acceleration is not important for a service where stations are 60 miles apart. It starts to count when stations are fifteen miles an hour or less. Otherwise it is a matter of getting the train up to speed and keeping it rolling. Especially if one is sensible and runs at 159kph. That keeps costs down very nicely.
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If you are going to run fixed formation trains during the day, why do they have to be loco hauled?
Loco hauled has absolutely no advantage in this case.



The actual effect of fixed formation trains is that all trains are run at the longest possible formation whenever possible.
Overcrowding is a result of not enough carriages being ordered for use at peak time, which would hamstring loco hauled operations that changed train lengths just as much.

That is not how it works, has worked and would work. The smart thing is to use older stock for peak lopping in diagram constructed to suit. On electrified routes it used to mean old EMUs only they all got scrapped. Then a further shortage was created by scrapping the mark 2 fleet. At £2.7 million a vehicle it is not economic to order enough carriages to satisfy peak demand. The Voyagers were about £1.5 million at least and that was ten years ago. That is why there is a shortage. That is why old stock needs to be kept if peak traffic is not to be either priced off or subject to overcrowding. And old stock can only mix easily with new if the whole train is loco-hauled.

 

[tbtc]

Getting rid of locos and elderly but serviceable rolling stock is a British fad, believe me

Not sure what you are thinking about - we've got rid of very few serviceable locos/ rolling stock since privatisation - most of what was scrapped was very elderly and was scrapped for a reason.

 

[The Ham]

Getting rid of locos and elderly but serviceable rolling stock is a British fad, believe me.

Not just a British thing, the Indians are getting rid of them, as by doing so it recovers the extra cost of MU after 3 years (leaving another 27 years of cost savings!)

Acceleration is not important for a service where stations are 60 miles apart. It starts to count when stations are fifteen miles an hour or less. Otherwise it is a matter of getting the train up to speed and keeping it rolling. Especially if one is sensible and runs at 159kph. That keeps costs down very nicely.

There are IC routes where there are lengths where the trains run as stopping services at the ends (Cornwall for instance), so acceleration is important to UK IC trains.

Also slowing trains (either acceleration and/or top speed) down only makes sense if the cost cost saving of the fuel is more than the cost of your staff remaining on board for longer and any extra stock you need to retain the same number of services.

For instance Virgin struggled with the number of trains that they had because their timetable was based on faster line speeds, so they needed more trains (which they didn't have) to run the service they had planned when the WCML improvements didn't give them 140mph running.

 

[HSTEd]

The same RC type locos will haul freight or between three and around 12 passenger cars, though the fleet has been distributed to separate operators with a partial privatisation.

Mixed traffic locomotives are inefficient, this implies that you have rakes of coaching stock somewhere that are not in use or maintenance (since the locomotives are the very maintenance intensive thing)..... since the marginal cost of running more trains with existing equipment is almost zero you should be using said equipment.

They are not constantly shunting stock to add things on and take them off. Swedish loco-hauled trains are a mixture of vehicles, 1960s to late 1980s, some from abroad. The capital cost of this stuff is next to nothing and that can be passed on to the passengers. New trains are additional to, not replacements for things that have got years of useful life in them. The locos are 1970s too, so that is a similar story.

What you gain with locomotives and hauled stock is long-term flexibility.

I don't know how you work out that the capital cost of locomotive hauled stock is "next to nothing".... the expensive parts of the train have to be purchased either way.

Or even leave surplus vehicles in terminus platforms, southern style. A long walk up the platform to the bit of the platform that is not occupied by parked vehicles!

This would require internal cabs in the formations, which people often cite as a disadvantage of multiple units compared to loco hauled formations. Otherwise how will you get the DVT out from in front of the detached coaches without expensive additional trackwork?

Acceleration is not important for a service where stations are 60 miles apart. It starts to count when stations are fifteen miles an hour or less. Otherwise it is a matter of getting the train up to speed and keeping it rolling. Especially if one is sensible and runs at 159kph. That keeps costs down very nicely.

So you want to take the UK back to the pre HST era?
Running at under a hundred miles an hour is not going to improve the patronage of the service, infact it is likely to completely destroy it.
You will make driving faster than the train again, especially once you destroy the acceleration of the trains and cost even more time than the low speed limit suggests.

That is not how it works, has worked and would work. The smart thing is to use older stock for peak lopping in diagram constructed to suit. On electrified routes it used to mean old EMUs only they all got scrapped. Then a further shortage was created by scrapping the mark 2 fleet. At £2.7 million a vehicle it is not economic to order enough carriages to satisfy peak demand. The Voyagers were about £1.5 million at least and that was ten years ago. That is why there is a shortage. That is why old stock needs to be kept if peak traffic is not to be either priced off or subject to overcrowding.

Why are you proposing to run intercity trains at 100mph and then using the price for multiple unit stock built to run at 125/140mph? That is very disengenuous, for 100mph running the price is roughly ~£1.5m, since the obvious choice for 100mph running is some form of Turbostar or simple EMU.

And old stock can only mix easily with new if the whole train is loco-hauled.

Fifty years of experience on British Rail says the opposite. Almost all SR units from the first Mark 1 derived stock to the 5WES used standard multiple working equipment.
I am sure I have seen a picture somewhere of a BIG or CIG in formation with a WES.

All Sprinter/Pacer type units can work together as well (these constituting the bulk of the pre privatisation diesel multiple unit fleet).

The breaks in this scheme in the post Mark 1 era arae largely a result of the transition to more modern traction packages and finally to the era of the auto coupler, both of which obviously improved the performance of the railway (I have heard my father talking of trains being delayed for 15 minutes because the platform used for splitting a train was changed at the last minute and the jumpers ended up on the wrong side, neccesitating a third rail isolation and track blocking to get to them).

So no, if you design your trains appropriately, especially in the era of computerised 'adaptors' for control signals being available, there is no particular reason you could not make all multiple units able to work with each other and with a wide range of earlier types. However in the post privatisation era there is no reason to do so.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

Not sure what you are thinking about - we've got rid of very few serviceable locos/ rolling stock since privatisation - most of what was scrapped was very elderly and was scrapped for a reason.

Where did the mark 2 fleet go to (Apart from those that went to NZ)? And the mark 1 fleet - there were plenty of trailer vehicles in reasonable condition would have done very nicely at the outer reaches of the system if there had been diesel locos to haul them in push-pull mode. Not much chance of a high speed smash on the Falmouth branch, is there?

And the class 87 fleet? And why were so few class 47s upgraded?
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Mixed traffic locomotives are inefficient, this implies that you have rakes of coaching stock somewhere that are not in use or maintenance (since the locomotives are the very maintenance intensive thing)..... since the marginal cost of running more trains with existing equipment is almost zero you should be using said equipment.

I don't know how you work out that the capital cost of locomotive hauled stock is "next to nothing".... the expensive parts of the train have to be purchased either way.

Because it is 30+ years old the capital is fully amortised. And there is ample scope for using mixed traffic locomotives for variouis tasks. It demand some planning, that is all.

This would require internal cabs in the formations, which people often cite as a disadvantage of multiple units compared to loco hauled formations. Otherwise how will you get the DVT out from in front of the detached coaches without expensive additional trackwork?

Yes, like a TC

So you want to take the UK back to the pre HST era?

What are you referring to? But HSTs are loco-hauled stock. There is a loco at each end.

Running at under a hundred miles an hour is not going to improve the patronage of the service, infact it is likely to completely destroy it.
You will make driving faster than the train again, especially once you destroy the acceleration of the trains and cost even more time than the low speed limit suggests.

Where is your evidence? Speed is not everything. It comes with a big price tag and that has all sort of knock-on effects. I had a trip from Gothenburg to Stockholm the other day. The company undercuts SJ and has more comfortable carriages than the X2000 stock, dating from the 1960s and tastefully refurbished, with a restaurant car serving cooked meals. All seats were taken despite taking an extra hour due to restricting the speed to 160.

Why are you proposing to run intercity trains at 100mph and then using the price for multiple unit stock built to run at 125/140mph? That is very disengenuous, for 100mph running the price is roughly ~£1.5m, since the obvious choice for 100mph running is some form of Turbostar or simple EMU.

Not really because the obvious choice for 100 mph running would have been mark 2 stock if it had not vanished into thin air, but the opportunity will arise again as mark 3 stock is displaced, having long ago been bought and paid for.

Fifty years of experience on British Rail says the opposite. Almost all SR units from the first Mark 1 derived stock to the 5WES used standard multiple working equipment.
I am sure I have seen a picture somewhere of a BIG or CIG in formation with a WES.

I saw one of a 411+442 running together but not in public service. But modern EMUs cannot run together if they are not running with the same software.

All Sprinter/Pacer type units can work together as well (these constituting the bulk of the pre privatisation diesel multiple unit fleet).

The breaks in this scheme in the post Mark 1 era arae largely a result of the transition to more modern traction packages and finally to the era of the auto coupler, both of which obviously improved the performance of the railway (I have heard my father talking of trains being delayed for 15 minutes because the platform used for splitting a train was changed at the last minute and the jumpers ended up on the wrong side, neccesitating a third rail isolation and track blocking to get to them).

So no, if you design your trains appropriately, especially in the era of computerised 'adaptors' for control signals being available, there is no particular reason you could not make all multiple units able to work with each other and with a wide range of earlier types. However in the post privatisation era there is no reason to do so.

There is a very good reason, it is to do with providing a service to the public. The Strategic Rail Authority and the DfT should have banged heads together to make sure that the carriages could be banged together.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Small diesel fleets are a drain on resources, and although I can't speak for all passengers, would probably put quite a few people off travelling. I've often rejected a Voyager in favour of a Pendy.

I think its worth mentioning here that those customers who buy 'advance' tickets don't have that luxury! You have to get on whatever turns up!

 

[tbtc]

Not sure what you are thinking about - we've got rid of very few serviceable locos/ rolling stock since privatisation - most of what was scrapped was very elderly and was scrapped for a reason

Where did the mark 2 fleet go to (Apart from those that went to NZ)? And the mark 1 fleet - there were plenty of trailer vehicles in reasonable condition would have done very nicely at the outer reaches of the system if there had been diesel locos to haul them in push-pull mode. Not much chance of a high speed smash on the Falmouth branch, is there?

And the class 87 fleet? And why were so few class 47s upgraded?

Mk2s were slam door 1960s coaches (Mk1s date back to the 1950s). Are you seriously suggesting that we just buy some gaffer tape and try to patch them together for the modern railway?

Where was there for 87s to go when Virgin got 390s? The 90s moved over to the GEML, but can you suggest a practical home for the 87s?

Much as I like your idea of keeping one (or two?) non-standard trains on a Cornish branchline - was that one of the Cornish branches you wanted to reintroduce steam trains on?

 

[jopsuk]

Correct me if I'm wrong- is RAGNARØKR suggesting that rather than buy new stock, the railways should be bringing back old locomotives and carriages that have been scrapped (and therefore don't exist), as his suggestions of buying new locos and carriages have been demonstrated to be crazy?

 

[tbtc]

Correct me if I'm wrong- is RAGNARØKR suggesting that rather than buy new stock, the railways should be bringing back old locomotives and carriages that have been scrapped (and therefore don't exist), as his suggestions of buying new locos and carriages have been demonstrated to be crazy?

I think so. I don't know whether this is as well as the idea of turning Cornwall into a south-western equivalent of Beamish by going back to just steam trains on the branches though.

 

[AndyLandy]

Personally, I think there may be some mileage to loco-hauling, but spending vast sums on the Mk3 fleet isn't the answer.

Once the traction on the 150s and 156s reaches end-of-life, so long as the Mk3-derived bodyshells have survived as well as the actual Mk3s, they might be suitable for re-purposing as LHCS. The same could potentially also apply to 442s and 455s (or indeed any Mk3-derived Units). These trains already have power doors and should be reasonably easy to modify for DDA. Indeed, many will be DDA-compliant as they're expected to still be in service post-2020. The only question is what would you haul them with?

 

[The Ham]

Personally, I think there may be some mileage to loco-hauling, but spending vast sums on the Mk3 fleet isn't the answer.

Once the traction on the 150s and 156s reaches end-of-life, so long as the Mk3-derived bodyshells have survived as well as the actual Mk3s, they might be suitable for re-purposing as LHCS. The same could potentially also apply to 442s and 455s (or indeed any Mk3-derived Units). These trains already have power doors and should be reasonably easy to modify for DDA. Indeed, many will be DDA-compliant as they're expected to still be in service post-2020. The only question is what would you haul them with?

There is one other question, which may need answering before you answer what do you haul them with, which is where are they going to run?

 

[AndyLandy]

There is one other question, which may need answering before you answer what do you haul them with, which is where are they going to run?

A fair question. To be honest, I didn't have anything specific in mind. Certainly there are likely to be places where increased capacity is needed, or new services are introduced, or just as a stopgap before buying new trains.

I'm not even saying it's necessarily a good idea. Just that it's probably a better one than spending loads of money on power doors for the existing Mk3 trailers.