Your persistent obsession and repetition concerning double doors and doors at thirds never ceases to amaze (and somewhat tire) me.
Well, the rail industry's persistent 'suburbanisation' of what should be long-distance services never ceases to tire and annoy me. I think there was a time when I had not realised the implications of suburban bodyshells and would have been happy to see 377s just about anywhere; it may have been the 'no 450' campaign on the Portsmouth direct that made me notice, or maybe it was something else. Regardless of how I came to see the light, as a perfectionist I feel any new train should seek to improve upon (or at least equal) the trains it replaces in every respect. Where there are unavoidable tradeoffs (such as standing vs seating capacity) which cannot realistically both be improved upon then, as a passenger, I consider the overal product to be an improvement in quality if it prioritises passenger comfort. Since I find standing still for any significant length of time uncomfortable (and assume I cannot be alone in this) avoiding the need for passengers to stand at all is one of my priorities and therefore standing capacity as a metric is one which I feel shouldn't be seen as important in most cases (because there should be sufficient carriages to ensure little or no standing anyway).
I have to take issue with the idea that London to Swansea should be fully 9 cars. If this happened then you'd see even fewer 9 car sets on the busier London to Plymouth and Penzance route. In an ideal world , yes everything on Padd to Swansea and Penzance should be a 9, but it keeps being pointed out, GWR is at bottom of the queue for extra coaches so I don't think it'll ever happen.
As there is not enough 9 car class 80X trains, then certainly for the time being you will have two five car class 80x units coupled together, which GWR last I check do seem to have a surplus of in their stock.
Did you both miss that my proposal involves ordering 126 additional vehicles to effectively lengthen a number of 5-car class 800s to 9-car units (converting them to class 803 EMUs at the same time)? This addresses (at least partially) both the surplus of 5-car units and the shortage of 9-car units. I have
not proposed GWR losing
any of their existing 9-car bi-modes so if anything there would more of those available for Plymouth, Cornwall and the Cotswolds (thanks to the 9-car class 803 EMUs taking over Swansea, Cardiff, Bristol and Oxford services) the new AT-300 EMU centre cars (a mix of motor coaches and trailer coaches as appropriate, but no driving vehicles or diesel gensets).
I'm not sure what it achieves. So far the proposal has Carmathen services lost and 9 cars moved away from the South West for minimal benefit to Swansea.
Yes, it comes at the cost of the Carmarthen services, but what it achieves is:
- reduces the problem of double 5-car sets (I can't understand why you think this would be by moving 9-cars away from the South West)
- makes use of the additional electrification by converting some 5-car bi-mode units to 9-car class 803 EMUs
- makes a good number of 8-car bi-modes available for cascade to XC's Edinburgh-Plymouth route, which in turn achieves:
- a potentially-adequate replacement for the outgoing IC125 sets
- potentially, a hugely significant increase in capacity at XC, unless it doesn't happen before 2035 and you take the opportunity to scrap some Voyagers instead of cassading them internally at XC to lengthen other services
- a reduction in XC services burning diesel under the wires, since the ex-GWR 8-car bi-modes would be able to run in electric mode from Scotland to York/Leeds, Bristol Parkway to Bristol Temple Meads and, eventually, Sheffield to Derby even if I limit myself only to schemes which are apparently currently in the pipeline
The biggest benefit here is probably the cascade to XC, and it does all this without increasing the number of diesel gensets (or driving vehicles) across the AT-300 fleet. The number of units GWR loses to XC is exactly equal to the number of GWR units extended from 5-cars to 9-cars. Given that a pair of 5-car 800s has, if I recall correctly, only 3 more seats than a 9-car set (630 vs 627 I think) there shouldn't be a problem unless there are far fewer diagramed pairs of 5-car sets that I guess.
The original IET order is fairly irrelevant. Originally the 9 car electric sets were for South Wales and 5/10 car everywhere else closer than Plymouth. This order failed to account for peak time Cotswold demand
Since I do not know how many diagrams are needed on each of GWR's Intercity routes (and they are probably interworked anyway) the original IET order (and the subsequent order for 7 additional 9-car class 802s to cover Paddington - Oxford fast services when electrification to Oxford was delayed) is what I have used to try and guestimate how many of the existing bi-modes could be replaced by how many 9-car class 803 EMUs when GWEP is finally completed.
The 802s were ordered after the 800 order was changed. Primarily they were for Cornwall (originally proposed 222s) with a few 9 cars for peak time Cotswold services.
Which 802s were ordered after the class 800 order was changed? The first 29 class 802s or the additional 7 class 802s?
I've dug up this article from August 2015 regarding the first 29 class 802s, which confirms that there were indeed only going to be 7 nine-car 802s at that stage. When did the class 801 order for GWR (21 nine-car units) get changed to class 800s?
GWRs existing 800s can have their diesel engines removed though this is irrelevant until further electrification is completed.
They were only delayed not cancelled. They could be restarted if funded.
Indeed, the electrification needs to be done before reducing the number of bi-modes. Since the electrification is meerly delayed, it is a question of when it is completed, rather than if.
When it's done though, GWR will need fewer bi-modes and I think the opportunity should then be taken to do all of the following:
- increase the number of 9-car class 80x units
- reduce the number of 5-car class 80x units
- provide XC with a number of class 80x bi-mode units, ideally formed of 8-cars each but at least 7-cars, without ordering any more diesel gensets, since the gensets from the existing GWR class 800s that will no longer be needed as bi-modes can be used
Clearly, given that GWR has a surplus of 5-car class 80x units there should be no need to order additional driving cars, just intermediate motor/trailer cars, to deliver the increase in 9-car units.
You can't have AT300s with an even number of vehicles.
Why not?
I suggested eight-car sets for XC for the following reasons:
- 8-car AT-300 units felt like a useful uplift in capacity compared to their 7-car IC125s and 8-car (pairs of 4-car) Voyagers (while 9-cars might be excessive)
- AT-300 bi-modes (other than the 810s I think) do not have gensets under the driving cars, meaning 3 gensets per 5-car class 800/802 - thus 6 gensets under each pair of 5-car class 800/802 units which if you put them all into one unit gives you 6 genset vehicles plus 2 driving cars = an 8-car unit
- the class 800/802 design with 3 gensets per 5-car set and 4-or-5 gensets per 9-car was considered to offer insufficient performance in diesel mode for EMR, hence the class 810 design has 4 gensets under each 5-car unit (I may be remembering some of this incorrectly) - I therefore decided to try and play it safe performance wise for any class 800s cascaded to XC by not including any trailer cars (other than the two driving cars) and putting a genset under all the intermediate coaches
If there is a good reason that 8-cars cannot be formed up then I guess you could rejig in different ways to give XC either 7-car or 9-car sets, but it's not as easy to work out as 2x5-car set = 1x 8-car and one pair of driving vehicles.
Rather than messing around with 800s Just extend the 802s to 9 car.
Messing around with the 800s would be complicated with the train supply agreement.
I guess it doesn't matter all that much whether it is the 5-car 800s or the 5-car 802s that are 'messed around with' to send to XC. I understand most of the specification differences between them (such as larger fuel tanks on the 802s) have now been eliminated, by upgrading the GWR 800s to the 802 spec, except for one (which I have a feeling might be the design of the brake resistors on the roof?) I did also think that having some Agility units (class 800s) cascade to XC rather than GWR's 802s might actually be a help since Agility has depots at both Bristol Parkway and Doncaster would could provide units for XC, but I suppose that also applies to the class 802s. However, does the train supply agreement also restrict where the class 800s operate? Would there be a problem with them suddenly being used alot more on services to Devon and Cornwall and many fewer services to South Wales (which, summer Saturdays excepted, potentially could be reduced to just one a day to Carmarthen), Oxford and Bristol?
Are you suggesting that those people that are disabled should not travel long distance, even if you are only giving them 1 to 2 services a day?
No, I am not suggesting that. As Bletchleyite has said above, both 800s and 387s are compliant with the relevant disability regulations.
You are not going to need 9 car trains at all times of the day I don't suspect
Perhaps not, but I very much doubt there are many IET services, at any time of day, where a 5-car set would be sufficient at the Paddington end of the route. Yes, there are probably a few (back it the day the forums told me that some of the class 180 diagrams could cope with just the single 5-car class 180, but I think there were only five 180s in FirstGW's fleet at the time) but nowhere near enough to justify as many 5-car units as GWR have. A pair of 5-car units on a diagram which would suit a 7-car or 8-car unit is even more wasteful than putting a 9-car unit on such a diagram.
Carmarthen could take a nine car 80X, it just needs some infrastructure engineering work. Unfortunately, I suspect no one wants to pay for the alterations.
What work would be required, do you know? I imagine it could be fairly significant, as there is pointwork fairly close behind the signal I think.
put together a extremely detailed engineering specification and then getting various manufacturers to bid to build trains that meet this specification, including mandatory requirements for interoperability with vehicles from rival manufacturers.
Isn't that what IEP was to a degree? The specification could have been a lot better than it was though - far too many 'half sets' ordered, uncomfortable seats (but at least that can hopefully be put right by a refurb) and a failure to specify plug doors.
