Good acceleration is very important in newly designed modern trains, the Desiros are great and have fantastic acceleration.
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Apart from the IEP project being hellishly expensive, I have no issue with the full electric IEP. My source is very much involved in the creation of the timetable for IEP on the great western line. I don't really care whether you believe it is "hearsay" or not as most of you seem to only get you info from the press, so only hear what the people in power want you to hear. I believe a guy was once shot down on this forum for disclosing something his dad heard and no gave him credence until they heard it from an official source. You can argue all you want about bi-modes being the best thing since sliced bread etc etc and shoot down anyone who dares to disagree with you. My source who like I said is a very well respected person in the railway world has told me that the bi-modes acceleration above 30 mph is rubbish and there will be no time gains off the wires. This in my opinion calls into question why have bi-modes at all considering the high floors, waste of energy under the wires etc etc especially when the are going to be no quicker and are costing huge amounts of money.
Since you raise the "guy who was shot down", I assume you mean the thread about Chiltern leasing Class 68s. I'm not sure that's the best thing to raise again, given that someone swore blind in that thread that a lease for 11 DRS 68s for Chiltern and ATW had been signed and, when challenged by me, posted the following
I assure you my contact is the highest grade of official
Number of Class 68s currently sub-leased to Chiltern - six. Number leased to ATW - zero.
Now your contact might be an even higher, better grade of official but with zero information that anyone else can look at, it is still no better than hearsay. And since testing of the first train has barely started, how your contact is so certain about the train's performance is something of a mystery.
And we all know your opinion about bi-modes, but at no point, whenever you have been challenged about the only obvious alternative - building an expensive, bespoke class of diesel locomotives that would spend much of the day hauling around featherweight five-coach trains that would clearly be better provided by some sort of self-propelled multiple-unit, and locomotives that may well be redundant in a few years if wires spread as we all hope, plus providing all the supporting infrastructure that such machines would require - have you ever deigned to explain why this alternative is so much better. You just ignore anyone who dares to seek an explanation, as I'm sure you will yet again on this occasion.
Of course, we could just have a battery IEP instead, couldn't we? Though you seem to have gone quiet on that idea very quickly. And the technology is clearly nowhere near the point that it is capable of meeting the needs of the sections of IEP routes beyond the wires.
I have never said the bi-mode is the best thing since sliced bread, simply that, in current circumstances, it is, to my mind, the best way of ensuring that through services are maintained to places like the Cotswolds, Worcester, Gloucester, Cheltenham, etc, where wiring is still a way off.
RE Hereford service, there is no doubt that cutting dwell times will make a huge difference to timings. The comparison now between Cotswold Line journeys on an HST and a 180 is stark, due to the sheer amount of time spent sat in stations while train managers walk the length of the platforms checking the slam doors on the HSTs are shut - 140 minutes may be pushing it, I'd say 165 might be more like it, but if bi-mode performance is as bad as Dave 1987's source appears to suggest, then it will probably be 240 minutes...
