Great Western Electrification Progress

[deltic08]

Chance would be a fine thing up Filton Bank or Box.

Box not a problem as it is east of Bath where electrification would finish until Bristol resignalled. Filton Bank would only be a problem up hill as a contributor joked about earlier.

Both now academic if "get-you-home" facility only allows 30mph. I understood it was a higher speed with the ability to restart on the 1 in 70 gradients in Patchway and Severn Tunnels.
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Quite apart from there being no certainty (yet) about electrification west of Cardiff this idea would simply exacerbate the operation of diesels under the wires.

Not at all. Only transient on the GWML but would eliminate HSTs under the wires on ECML now by introducing a dozen bimodes here first.
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For the first service group quite feasible, for the second group less clear. Again gradients come into the equation. HSTs over the South Devon banks are a known quantity but bi-modes have yet to be tested in the various possible failure configurations there. It's an issue that might eventually tip the balance in favour of a Dawlish avoiding line engineered to modern standards instead of Brunel's failed atmospheric concept.

Surely this will be established by early testing of the first bimodes in South Devon.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Why and why not? East Coast has about a dozen HST sets that could be cascaded to GWR to release a dozen sets for Scotrail by early delivery to East Coast first of a dozen bimodes now. How many HST sets work both Cotswold routes and West of England? Probably another dozen. How many sets does Scotrail need?

The IEP contracts won't allow it.
Too many lawyers.

 

[Starmill]

I've seen a picture of a 10 car at Newton Abbot somewhere. I'm pretty sure that kind of testing is underway now.

 

[QueensCurve]

The engines can be removed, simples!

Have they been designed to facilitate that?
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Excuse ignorance. What is E and P please? I could guess but would rather hear it, thanks.

Electrics and Power?
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Why and why not? East Coast has about a dozen HST sets that could be cascaded to GWR to release a dozen sets for Scotrail by early delivery to East Coast first of a dozen bimodes now. How many HST sets work both Cotswold routes and West of England? Probably another dozen. How many sets does Scotrail need?

I thought electrification was going to finish at Thingley?

 

[swt_passenger]

Have they been designed to facilitate that?

Yes, if Hitachi have meant the published speciifcations:

TS1968 It is an essential requirement that a bi-mode train can be readily modified to an electric train at a future date.

 

[jyte]

I've seen a picture of a 10 car at Newton Abbot somewhere. I'm pretty sure that kind of testing is underway now.

Still from a youtube video

 

[D1009]

I've seen a picture of a 10 car at Newton Abbot somewhere. I'm pretty sure that kind of testing is underway now.

I heard the testing involved shutting one set down, stopping on Hemerdon bank, and restarting using one set hauling or pushing the other one dead. I was told the testing was successful. This was before the leaf fall became a significant issue.

 

[HowardGWR]

The IEP contracts won't allow it.
Too many lawyers.

Perhaps Deltic08 is unaware of the nature of the contracts. DFT is, essentially, leasing a timetable, not trains. If these contracts had to be changed further, (and they already have for the extra diesel engines - that'll cost by the way, Deltic08 thinks to save that of course), one can hardly imagine Hitachi not making a few extra bucks (and it will be dollars) as they will have DFT over a barrel at that point.

As LNW-GW_Joint writes, the lawyers won't be cheap either.

 

[coppercapped]

Perhaps Deltic08 is unaware of the nature of the contracts. DFT is, essentially, leasing a timetable, not trains. If these contracts had to be changed further, (and they already have for the extra diesel engines - that'll cost by the way, Deltic08 thinks to save that of course), one can hardly imagine Hitachi not making a few extra bucks (and it will be dollars) as they will have DFT over a barrel at that point.

As LNW-GW_Joint writes, the lawyers won't be cheap either.

It's not so much 'the lawyers' as what the lawyers represent. Hitachi/Agility Trains have funded the design, development and manufacture of the trains with largely borrowed money - look at the lists of financial institutions involved. These will have made their calculations on the basis of their understanding of the various risks involved with the project. If these assumptions are now to be upset all sorts of changes to the financial structure will be needed.

Look at the apparently simple matter of adding diesel engines to the electric IEPs to make bi-modes of all of them. There will need to be changes to the - Agility Trains funded - maintenance depots to allow for all the trains to have diesel engines. This starts with changes to the stores to hold more spares, fuelling points, fuel oil storage, waste disposal, handling equipment for the extra engines and power packs and so on and so forth. These changes have to be funded somehow.

Blaming 'the lawyers' is missing the point.

 

[Taunton]

If these contracts had to be changed further, (and they already have for the extra diesel engines - that'll cost by the way, Deltic08 thinks to save that of course), one can hardly imagine Hitachi not making a few extra bucks (and it will be dollars) as they will have DFT over a barrel at that point.

Not unless DfT have been particularly inept with the contract, which given the large sums involved they should not have done.

Anyone involved with negotiating contracts understands there are commonly plenty of variations as it proceeds, changes in requirements, changes in legislation, things that don't work out, things not fully designed at signing, drawings errors, sudden discoveries, etc. There are standard approaches in contract terms to handle these, designed specifically to ensure the supplier doesn't have the customer by the short-and-curlies halfway through the project. In one sentence, they normally are charged at net cost (often having to be proved by invoices etc or a predetermined price list), plus a stated add-on percentage for the supplier's overheads and profit. In theory the supplier's profit margin should be the same. Any work already done which has to be scrapped is taken into account.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Blaming 'the lawyers' is missing the point.

I'm not "blaming the lawyers", but there are would be multiple sets of them involved in any major reworking of the IEP/HST contracts (and a lot of resistance in some quarters).

 

[coppercapped]

I'm not "blaming the lawyers", but there are would be multiple sets of them involved in any major reworking of the IEP/HST contracts (and a lot of resistance in some quarters).

Lawyers are advisors, they do not make the final business decisions. If you are dealing with £millions would you not want some advice on the terms and conditions in the contract to reduce the chances of you losing your shirt?

Resistance to change may come from many quarters - I don't understand what you are implying.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Lawyers are advisors, they do not make the final business decisions. If you are dealing with £millions would you not want some advice on the terms and conditions in the contract to reduce the chances of you losing your shirt?
Resistance to change may come from many quarters - I don't understand what you are implying.

Along the lines of why should VTEC go to the trouble of bailing out GWR and Scotrail, dislocating their own business plan in the process?
DfT would have to offer something very juicy in return - franchise extension maybe?

 

[deltic08]

The IEP contracts won't allow it.
Too many lawyers.

Just bloody marvellous. This wouldn't have happened pre privatisation and John Major has the audacity to tell us how to Brexit when he caused mayhem to our railways. No wonder fares are unaffordable and railway infrastructure spend has gone through the roof with complications such as this. Bring back British Rail asap.
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Are the East Coast depots and staff ready for IEP? Are there platform clearance issues?

I don't think so. An 800 has already run down to Kings Cross but not sure from how far north.
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Perhaps Deltic08 is unaware of the nature of the contracts. DFT is, essentially, leasing a timetable, not trains. If these contracts had to be changed further, (and they already have for the extra diesel engines - that'll cost by the way, Deltic08 thinks to save that of course), one can hardly imagine Hitachi not making a few extra bucks (and it will be dollars) as they will have DFT over a barrel at that point.

If he was unaware he isn't now
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I thought electrification was going to finish at Thingley?

My original post on this subject suggested keeping HSTs on routes out of Paddington until each leg was completed and then introducing all electric 800s. This would mean using bimodes on the two Cotswold routes and to the West Country asap to release some HSTs and then onto the ECML early to allow cascade of their HSTs to GWR or direct to Scotrail. Hopefully by then Paddington-Swansea, yes Swansea, would be completed for a tranche of all electrics to be introduced releasing HSTs to Scotrail.

Once Bristol Temple Meads is resignalled and Filton Bank requadrified then complete electrification to Bristol via Parkway introducing more all electric 800s then finish via Bath releasing all HSTs and introducing remaining all electric units.

My suggestion was thwarted by the fact that the "get-you-home" engines are not powerful enough to run to unwired parts such as Carmarthen and Weston super Mare at a reasonable speed and up Filton Bank.

 

[Domh245]

Just bloody marvellous. This wouldn't have happened pre privatisation and John Major has the audacity to tell us how to Brexit when he caused mayhem to our railways. Bring back British Rail asap

Other than the whole "These trains were procured by the Government and then forced on the TOCs, like them or not". Yes - please put these people in charge of more things on the railway!

As for how far up the ECML they've made it, at least as far as Newton Aycliffe (Darlington on the actual ECML), I don't think they've gone any further north than that yet.

 

[deltic08]

Along the lines of why should VTEC go to the trouble of bailing out GWR and Scotrail, dislocating their own business plan in the process?
DfT would have to offer something very juicy in return - franchise extension maybe?

I think East Coast would be delighted to receive a dozen brand new trains early in exchange for HSTs. Gives them a chance to be ready for all electric 800s in 2018/19. Hardly likely to dislocate their business plan when they are converting to 800s anyway.

 

[Hophead]

Just bloody marvellous. This wouldn't have happened pre privatisation and John Major has the audacity to tell us how to Brexit when he caused mayhem to our railways. Bring back British Rail asap.

Why would that help matters? The Government and Civil Service have managed to involve themselves in numerous PFI-style contracts over the last 15 years or so and every one seems to involve guaranteed profit for the contractors and additional long-term cost to the taxpayer.

The Inter-City Express Program is wholly driven by DfT and I see no reason to believe that a fully-nationalised structure would have thrown up anything different. At a tangent, if privatisation hadn't taken the form it did, it's almost certain that we'd have ended up with something equally convoluted and consultant-friendly as the powers that be tried to come up with some "better" organisation (see also NHS, Education etc etc).

 

[Clarence Yard]

It's not just electrification that affects deployment of the 80x fleet.

The North and South Cotswolds need platform and signalling works before they can accept the units. The South West route needs the units to be run at full bifters to keep to time so that rules the IEP units out as the Agility contract would have to be significantly altered to get those units changed or maintained at other depots and that isn't going to happen!

Any HST operating on GWR needs ATP otherwise it will be blacked so using someone else's stock is out.

The challenge that GWR is trying to meet is to introduce new stock on only the routes that will be ready for them in time, releasing enough HST units for Scotland and the GTi conversions, while trying to lessen the impact of the slower journey times, the limited fuel range and the less time available for traffic, all as compared to an HST.

All whilst complying with the rather restrictive clauses in the IEP TARA.

 

[deltic08]

Why would that help matters? The Government and Civil Service have managed to involve themselves in numerous PFI-style contracts over the last 15 years or so and every one seems to involve guaranteed profit for the contractors and additional long-term cost to the taxpayer.

The Inter-City Express Program is wholly driven by DfT and I see no reason to believe that a fully-nationalised structure would have thrown up anything different. At a tangent, if privatisation hadn't taken the form it did, it's almost certain that we'd have ended up with something equally convoluted and consultant-friendly as the powers that be tried to come up with some "better" organisation (see also NHS, Education etc etc).

Because we would still have had experienced, knowledgeable, career railwaymen that would have put the so called rail civil servants in their place and we would still have had a British owned rail vehicle engineering workshop with designers, builders and expertise to produce trains for the job as we did for 50 years.

 

[HSTEd]

Live by the free meerkat - die by the free meerkat

 

[deltic08]

It's not just electrification that affects deployment of the 80x fleet.

The North and South Cotswolds need platform and signalling works before they can accept the units. The South West route needs the units to be run at full bifters to keep to time so that rules the IEP units out as the Agility contract would have to be significantly altered to get those units changed or maintained at other depots and that isn't going to happen!

Any HST operating on GWR needs ATP otherwise it will be blacked so using someone else's stock is out.

The challenge that GWR is trying to meet is to introduce new stock on only the routes that will be ready for them in time, releasing enough HST units for Scotland and the GTi conversions, while trying to lessen the impact of the slower journey times, the limited fuel range and the less time available for traffic, all as compared to an HST.

All whilst complying with the rather restrictive clauses in the IEP TARA.

So, are the 802 West Country bimodes not part of Agility? I thought they are uprated to run at full bifter?
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It's not just electrification that affects deployment of the 80x fleet.

The North and South Cotswolds need platform and signalling works before they can accept the units. The South West route needs the units to be run at full bifters to keep to time so that rules the IEP units out as the Agility contract would have to be significantly altered to get those units changed or maintained at other depots and that isn't going to happen!

Why does signalling and platforms have to be altered for bimodes? How are they different to HSTs?

 

[Clarence Yard]

Both the 5 and 9 car 802 sets are leased by GWR from a ROSCO on a near conventional basis and are not part of the Agility contract.

Only the 36 (32 for traffic) bi mode 5 car and 21 (was 18, now 17 for traffic) bi mode 9 car 800 sets are the GWR part of the Agility contract.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Because we would still have had experienced, knowledgeable, career railwaymen that would have put the so called rail civil servants in their place and we would still have had a British owned rail vehicle engineering workshop with designers, builders and expertise to produce trains for the job as we did for 50 years.

Oh if only!! Perhaps you have forgotten about the BRB Investment Panel. All projects which were likely to cost above a certain amount had to be submitted to the Panel for approval before going to the Treasury for final approval. For example at the time electrification of the ECML was being considered it was known roughly how much the Treasury would be willing to spend. BR realised that the scheme it wanted would only be affordable if wiring went only as far north as Newcastle. In the event it redesigned the scheme to make Edinburgh affordable but at the cost of overhead structures which have proven time and again to be less resilient in adverse weather conditions than those used on the WCML and elsewhere.

Similarly BR's HST and Sprinter family fleets were smaller than it wanted leading to worn out locomotives and DMUs remaining in unreliable service for much longer than intended.

Essentially history is simply repeating itself. Except the shortcomings are as much with the railway (Network Rail costings) as with the civil servants.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Why does signalling and platforms have to be altered for bimodes? How are they different to HSTs?

9 and 10 car IEP sets don't have grandfather rights on the network so platforms have to be extended.

Long IEP sets sit outside certain signals and occupy certain multiple track circuit sections as compared to an HST.

You have to sort out these issues before you are allowed to run, even if you have got the basic route clearance.

 

[jimm]

It's not just electrification that affects deployment of the 80x fleet.

The North and South Cotswolds need platform and signalling works before they can accept the units.

That's not strictly true though, is it? A five-car set will be fine, as will a nine-car, same as 180s and HSTs are fine now using SDO. What cannot be used, due to platform lengths and some current starting signal locations at stations, are 2x5 formations, where part of each set would need to be adjacent to the platform. There can't be that many places where another 14 metres of train would mess up track circuits.

The platform extensions planned between Oxford and Worcester are as much, if not more, to do with speeding up boarding and unloading, by allowing more doors to be opened than is possible at the intermediate stations at the moment.

 

[Clarence Yard]

That's not strictly true though, is it? A five-car set will be fine, as will a nine-car, same as 180s and HSTs are fine now using SDO. What cannot be used, due to platform lengths and some current starting signal locations at stations, are 2x5 formations, where part of each set would need to be adjacent to the platform.

The platform extensions planned between Oxford and Worcester are as much, if not more, to do with speeding up boarding and unloading, by allowing more doors to be opened than is possible at the intermediate stations at the moment.

9 car sets and disabled access is the main problem here. Unless the platforms get extended at a few locations, it looks as if 9 cars is not going to work on current infrastructure. Stonehouse is the stopper on the South Cots and that isn't going to get done until December 2017.

GWR are trying to keep 10 cars off the North and South Cots until December 2018 as a result of all the issues but get the 9 cars on from the middle of 2018, when the (much less) platform and other works for 9 cars should have been done.

Gloucester is a bit of a no go area for 10 cars anyway. They could only use platform 4 and, as a result, at certain times they would wreck the timetable. Hereford and Worcester are the other areas of concern but at the latter work is ongoing with some items, such as moving SH10, going to be done next year.

 

[w1bbl3]

Surely demand is not there currently for 10 car (2x5) units to venture on the south cots lines?
I'd have thought that type of secondary route off the GWML/SWML trunk was the driver behind 5 car unit orders rather than a pure 9 car fleet.

Will the extended stonehouse platforms at 155m allow for 10 car stops, with SDO used to enable only the middle cars of 2x5 to be platformed or will the route be limited only 5 car and 9 car sets?

I have to admit seeing that the platform bridge is going to be rebuilt on the up side less than three years after it's extensive refurbishment does smack of lack of forward planning.

 

[D1009]

Why would that help matters? The Government and Civil Service have managed to involve themselves in numerous PFI-style contracts over the last 15 years or so and every one seems to involve guaranteed profit for the contractors and additional long-term cost to the taxpayer.

The Inter-City Express Program is wholly driven by DfT and I see no reason to believe that a fully-nationalised structure would have thrown up anything different. At a tangent, if privatisation hadn't taken the form it did, it's almost certain that we'd have ended up with something equally convoluted and consultant-friendly as the powers that be tried to come up with some "better" organisation (see also NHS, Education etc etc).

I think what he really meant was "bring back British Rail exactly as it was, including Deltic 8".

 

[furnessvale]

Oh if only!! Perhaps you have forgotten about the BRB Investment Panel. All projects which were likely to cost above a certain amount had to be submitted to the Panel for approval before going to the Treasury for final approval. For example at the time electrification of the ECML was being considered it was known roughly how much the Treasury would be willing to spend. BR realised that the scheme it wanted would only be affordable if wiring went only as far north as Newcastle. In the event it redesigned the scheme to make Edinburgh affordable but at the cost of overhead structures which have proven time and again to be less resilient in adverse weather conditions than those used on the WCML and elsewhere.

Similarly BR's HST and Sprinter family fleets were smaller than it wanted leading to worn out locomotives and DMUs remaining in unreliable service for much longer than intended.

Essentially history is simply repeating itself. Except the shortcomings are as much with the railway (Network Rail costings) as with the civil servants.

Indeed, it was the existence of this panel that enabled the Minister of Transport, when challenged about lack of investment, to claim that he had no applications for investment from the railways on his desk.

He simply told the panel what would, and would not, be approved and they obligingly submitted accordingly, giving the minister a clear conscience.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Indeed, it was the existence of this panel that enabled the Minister of Transport, when challenged about lack of investment, to claim that he had no applications for investment from the railways on his desk.

He simply told the panel what would, and would not, be approved and they obligingly submitted accordingly, giving the minister a clear conscience.

Which is also a significant factor in BR having been forced to run the system on a shoestring. Cheap and nasty wouldn't upset the Minister. To think people actually want to return to that way of financing the railways...