Great British Railways: Potential effects on new trains orders?

[Wolfie]

Good question, and I think the answer is it could be anything from slightly worse to much worse depending on the weather outside, exactly what the interior fit out is and what each individual passenger's priorities are.

For example, in his column in the August 2021 Modern Railways, Alan Williams compares the current 156s and 158s on the Whitby line with the proposed future use of class 600 units (ex-321s). Here are some quotes:

• "the end doors of the Class 156 and 158 units are prized features"
• "an undisturbed central saloon"
• "table seats and lots of windows"
• "open the double doors of a ‘321’ into the saloon on a winter’s day on the Moors and it will feel more like a gale than a breeze!"

Some of that could be addressed by putting internal partition doors in on both sides of the external doorways to create proper vestibules (part of the 'interior fit out') but putting more tables in means less seats (or legroom) overall and it's a similar story with toilets. The wider doors of a 321 or 700 mean less space for passenger comforts, so comfort is going to be at least slightly worse. A 197 has broadly the same number of seats as a 175 but less toilets, tables and legroom - add more tables or an extra toilet to match the 175 in that respect and the introduction of 197s would represent a reduction in seating capacity. Narrower doors (as found on a 444, 175 or 397) might fix that issue even if they were positioned 'at-thirds'.

There also isn't an obvious place to put the small (non-wheelchair) toilets in a unit with pure doors-at-thirds, meaning they are plonked in a corner of the passenger saloon with seats on the opposite side of the aisle. That potentially makes those seats rather unpleasant for anyone using them, and means if you need to use the facility everyone in the coach can see you're going to the loo. The latter doesn't bother me too much, but my grandmother wasn't impressed when I showed her a seat plan of a 170 or 185 to prove to her that units with doors-at-thirds do indeed have toilets sometimes. She feels that that door to the toilet should lead off a vestibule, not the passenger saloon. With these factors in mind, the best thing to do with the small toilets in my view is to have them leading off a vestibule with a cycle space, not seats, across the aisle. This means one of the doors on each coach needs to be either at or near (the length of one small toilet) the vehicle end. The other door on the coach can be wherever you like as long as it doesn't force poor legroom and/or screw up seat alignment with windows.

Don't 350s have 20m bodyshells versus the 23m of a 444? If so, it makes a comparison difficult since the different vehicle length also impacts the capacity of the train.

Your whole post is predicated on the opinions of two people, namely Alan Williams and your gran, being sacrosanct. To be blunt, they aren't.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Your whole post is predicated on the opinions of two people, namely Alan Williams and your gran, being sacrosanct. To be blunt, they aren't.

Not the whole post. Granted, alot of it is based on their opinions, but I did make clear that it depends, among other things, on "what each individual passenger's priorities are". They won't be the only people with those opinions, and there will be other people who don't hold those opinions. Alan Williams' "more like a gale than a breeze" in particular is a concern I've heard from several people (though not in those words).

 

[Wolfie]

Not the whole post. Granted, alot of it is based on their opinions, but I did make clear that it depends, among other things, on "what each individual passenger's priorities are". They won't be the only people with those opinions, and there will be other people who don't hold those opinions. Alan Williams' "more like a gale than a breeze" in particular is a concern I've heard from several people (though not in those words).

That's fair.

 

[HSTEd]

Good question, and I think the answer is it could be anything from slightly worse to much worse depending on the weather outside, exactly what the interior fit out is and what each individual passenger's priorities are.

For example, in his column in the August 2021 Modern Railways, Alan Williams compares the current 156s and 158s on the Whitby line with the proposed future use of class 600 units (ex-321s). Here are some quotes:

• "the end doors of the Class 156 and 158 units are prized features"
• "an undisturbed central saloon"
• "table seats and lots of windows"
• "open the double doors of a ‘321’ into the saloon on a winter’s day on the Moors and it will feel more like a gale than a breeze!"

Some of that could be addressed by putting internal partition doors in on both sides of the external doorways to create proper vestibules (part of the 'interior fit out') but putting more tables in means less seats (or legroom) overall and it's a similar story with toilets. The wider doors of a 321 or 700 mean less space for passenger comforts, so comfort is going to be at least slightly worse. A 197 has broadly the same number of seats as a 175 but less toilets, tables and legroom - add more tables or an extra toilet to match the 175 in that respect and the introduction of 197s would represent a reduction in seating capacity. Narrower doors (as found on a 444, 175 or 397) might fix that issue even if they were positioned 'at-thirds'.

There also isn't an obvious place to put the small (non-wheelchair) toilets in a unit with pure doors-at-thirds, meaning they are plonked in a corner of the passenger saloon with seats on the opposite side of the aisle. That potentially makes those seats rather unpleasant for anyone using them, and means if you need to use the facility everyone in the coach can see you're going to the loo. The latter doesn't bother me too much, but my grandmother wasn't impressed when I showed her a seat plan of a 170 or 185 to prove to her that units with doors-at-thirds do indeed have toilets sometimes. She feels that that door to the toilet should lead off a vestibule, not the passenger saloon. With these factors in mind, the best thing to do with the small toilets in my view is to have them leading off a vestibule with a cycle space, not seats, across the aisle. This means one of the doors on each coach needs to be either at or near (the length of one small toilet) the vehicle end. The other door on the coach can be wherever you like as long as it doesn't force poor legroom and/or screw up seat alignment with windows.

With full width internal gangways, which seem likely to be a standard feature of EMUs going forward - especially if standardisation occurs - then do we even have to have all the door positions actually fitted with doors?

The number of doors fitted to the train has a maximum value (the number of door positions in the bodyshell) but any combination of the possible positions can be fitted with doors as required.
With end doors you end up duplicating doors that are only a small distance apart - is that conceptually different from a single double door for each vehicle?

Vestibules seem unlikely to exist at all apart from at unit-ends.

 

[Wolfie]

Unsure what, if any, the structural implications of that are. Not to mention the impact on possible redeployment/cascade. Also might impact interoperability - software compatibility could be "entertaining"....

With full width internal gangways, which seem likely to be a standard feature of EMUs going forward - especially if standardisation occurs - then do we even have to have all the door positions actually fitted with doors?

The number of doors fitted to the train has a maximum value (the number of door positions in the bodyshell) but any combination of the possible positions can be fitted with doors as required.
With end doors you end up duplicating doors that are only a small distance apart - is that conceptually different from a single double door for each vehicle?

Vestibules seem unlikely to exist at all apart from at unit-ends.

 

[HSTEd]

Unsure what, if any, the structural implications of that are. Not to mention the impact on possible redeployment/cascade. Also might impact interoperability - software compatibility could be "entertaining"....

It would obviously take a proper engineering analysis to be sure, but is a door-like panel that doesn't open structurally different from a door?

I imagine you would set it so that the train appeared to be a regular train with half its doors isolated - or just with interlock always reported for those doors.

 

[172007]

With full width internal gangways, which seem likely to be a standard feature of EMUs going forward - especially if standardisation occurs - then do we even have to have all the door positions actually fitted with doors?

The number of doors fitted to the train has a maximum value (the number of door positions in the bodyshell) but any combination of the possible positions can be fitted with doors as required.
With end doors you end up duplicating doors that are only a small distance apart - is that conceptually different from a single double door for each vehicle?

Vestibules seem unlikely to exist at all apart from at unit-ends.

With end doors yes you duplicate doors which are very close however, for a diesel certainly, they are fire escapes.