Greater Anglia potential fleet changes and uses for surplus stock

[py_megapixel]

This thread is to discuss possible changes Greater Anglia could make to their fleet (or the way it is used). I'm replying to a post from this thread to avoid that getting too speculative.

The context is that Greater Anglia currently has a large fleet of Aventras (with some being surplus to requirements) and three different types of Stadler FLIRT - 745/1 for Stansted Express services (12 car EMU, no first class, no tables, catering trolley), 745/0 for Norwich services (with first class, tables and buffet counter) and 755 for regional services (3 or 4 car bi-mode, no first class, no catering but with tables). But there aren't quite enough 745/0s for the Norwich services, and this - combined with the fact that all 745s including the Stansted ones are serviced in Norwich - leads to some Norwich services being formed of Stansted 745s or several 755s in multiple.

It's frequently suggested that this could be solved by putting the surplus 720s on Stansted services and reconfiguring the 745/1s to be the same as the 745/0s to give consistency on the Norwich services. This would leave some surplus 755s, and the quote below is referring to what would happen to these surplus 755s in that case.

The 755s though are far more useful to the national network than the 720s, seeing that there are loads of spare EMUs. I imagine they were quite an expensive train too.

I can't imagine anywhere wanting a small fleet of them though unless TfW needs more capacity. Much as I think FLIRTs are excellent trains, they're non-standard in the UK, and they'd be non-standard among FLIRTs on the continent too.

Unless they could be shortened sufficiently to run on Marston Vale?!?

 

[samuelmorris]

How many surplus 720s actually are there, or will there be? A few peak services are still short-formed in the timetable...

 

[Adrian1980uk]

Need to remember when we say surplus 755s, we are talking 6 units I believe so could potentially be wanted by GA anyway to beef up timetables in the near future.

 

[gc4946]

Convert a batch of 720s for Stansted Airport use, assign 745s for all Liv Street-Norwich services.
Spare 755s could be useful for longer and/or relief Norwich-Great Yarmouth services and if Ipswich-Peterborough becomes hourly (currently 2-hourly)

 

[SENTRAM]

My idea is to do what @gc4946 said + As both EMR and Greater Anglia were part of Transport UK Group, I would replace the 158 on the Liverpool - Norwich service with a mix of 4 cars 755 and 3 cars 170 operating instead.
p.s. : I know that's not how railway works in the UK

 

[Magdalia]

Convert a batch of 720s for Stansted Airport use

That would require ripping out the entire interior and starting again.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

That would require ripping out the entire interior and starting again.

This is why I keep saying unless there is a lot money spent on refurb, it makes no sense as it's it's just making one service slightly better at the expense of another

 

[3RDGEN]

In the July Modern Railways there's a short bit on the c2c 720's and that mentions they had looked at the option of taking on some GA 720's to replace some 357's. A pair of 720's could replace three 357's.

 

[30907]

I agree that the 7552s are the most useful, but doubt there are enough spare once you've allocated 2 to Ipswich-Peterborough.
If there were, however, I would add an hourly Peterborough-Cambridge or Stansted and run the Liverpools via the Ely West Curve.
With a significant surplus, I would take over Norwich-Nottingham from EMR (possibly -Sheffield or Derby), but that requires +/-7 diagrams so unlikely.