There is a thread on itAh; I didn't realise that there was work ongoing on the roof at Bristol Temple Meads. I assume from your wording that this work has at least started though
In their heyday, the 175s were more reliable than most sprinter fleets. I can't be bothered to dig out back issues of Modern Railways but my recollection is that they had an MTIN of over 15000 for several years whilst 150/153/158 struggle to reach 10000, SWR excepted of course. I agree they need a dedicated depot to look after them and that knows all the little quirks.Professionally speaking, you would have to pay me to take 175’s. The Coradia design is great for the punter but a maintainers nightmare and if you want to design out all the bad features, you would probably scrap them and build new - it would be cheaper.
They are more suited to a route or routes where they can do journeys cycling around a depot with a load of out and back workings - Chiltern is a better bet for them than GWR where they would reduce the Pompey-Cardiff service to an unreliable mess within a very short space of time.
The Pompey-Cardiff relies on having a reliable unit that you can outstable and fire up again in the morning without having to worry too much about it going either bang or fizz-bang-spizzle. In the short term that means 15x or 16x. Just need enough of them to make 4 or 5 cars on each of the circuits.
Remember that when Severn Tunnel is closed, all South Wales-Paddington services are diverted via Gloucester. As Severn Tunnel Junction-Gloucester-Swindon is unwired, then 80X units have to retain their generator sets and cannot become all electricAh; I didn't realise that there was work ongoing on the roof at Bristol Temple Meads. I assume from your wording that this work has at least started though - one reason I left Swansea until after Bristol was that I think there is a need for capacity enhancements between Cardiff and Bridgend - work which probably isn't even on the drawing board yet. Also, Swansea has only 1tph to Paddington for most of the day which would require a micro-fleet of InterCity EMUs to operate if it was the only route done. Apart from being able to run 'rugex' specials between Port Talbot and Cardiff using class 387s there therefore wouldn't be much opportunity for EMUs to be used until Oxford and Bristol are also wired unless TfW do something. It really needs Oxford, Bristol and Swansea all wired before GWR can contemplate taking the gensets out of 80x to make them into straight EMUs.
Don't you mean class 756?
Two points:Transport Focus have got involved with GWR shortages, seems Cotswold line is worst with over 10% of booked seats not being operated.
The Cardiff-Portsmouth service is 7.6% short of booked seats and 0.54% below DfT absolute minimum seats too.
Overall just 99.21% meet DfT contractual minimum (which is about 5% below booked service level)
Probably, if you say so.Don't you mean class 756?
Good point; I've said elesewhere that the decision to cancel electrification between Cardiff and Swansea (and pause that to Oxford and Bristol Temple Meads) had a silver lining in that GWR got some 9-car full bi-modes out of IEP (the plan before GWEP went wrong was for all the full bi-modes to be 5-car (the 36 class 800/0 units) with what became the class 800/3 units instead being class 801s - of course, doing the wiring and having a much-larger proportion of 9-car units in the fleet (including some bi-modes) would have been even better - far too many 5-car sets were ordered).Remember that when Severn Tunnel is closed, all South Wales-Paddington services are diverted via Gloucester. As Severn Tunnel Junction-Gloucester-Swindon is unwired, then 80X units have to retain their generator sets and cannot become all electric
This is one route that needs electrifying then Gloucester-Paddington trains can run on electric and Cardiff-Gloucester/Cheltenham proposed bimode 765 Flirt services can also run on electric.
As far as I'm aware, there are no firm plans for a class 7anything to run services to Gloucester/Cheltenham at present. The TfW FLIRTs are class 756 (tri-mode Metro version with pantographs, batteries, a diesel engine and extra doors for Rhymney and Vale Of Glamorgan) and class 231 (for Maesteg, Ebbw Vale and Cheltenham services). The latter are currently DEMUs, not bi-modes; although hopefully it would be easy to add a pantograph and turn them into bi-modes the differences between them and class 756s would probably mean a new class number in that event).Don't you mean class 756?This is one route that needs electrifying then Gloucester-Paddington trains can run on electric and Cardiff-Gloucester/Cheltenham proposed bimode 765 Flirt services can also run on electric.