GWR West Fleet IEP Cascade Update

[Mordac]

Good evening everyone.
A few points.
Travelled back today on my latest trip from Castle Cary (CLC) to Ashford International (AFK).
I know HSTs are slow to get going from a standstill but by the time i'd settle my bits we were moving up Bruton bank at a fair rate of knots. Once ubove 70mph an HST seems to really shift as was proved after Reading when due to a track circuit failure we were sent on the slow/relief (please tell me which is right as i know this has caused consternation before as to the correct terminology.)
Once back on the fast after Ruscombe Junction we flew. Went through Slough with people on the down fast platform staring as if they have never seen anything as fast.
Nothing to suggest any overspeeds,(as cannot happen today) just leaving Reading late made running at line speed (once past Twyford) made us only 6 mins late at Paddington. The faces of the people at Slough tell a tale !

They were just reacting to the toilet discharge!

 

[159220]

In conversation the other day with a normally reliable source, I picked up on some aspects of the outline Dec-18 Devon & Cornwall timetable, most of which has featured in press releases etc. A colleague who was with me at the time put the attached outline timetable together following the discussion and shared it with me.

Nothing official whatsoever, but it does give some idea of the level of service that may be on offer with the flexibility of 5-car and 9-car AT-300s. And good it looks too! I hope the attachment has worked - never posted one before.

Thank you for sharing. I am surprised that there seems to be many more Westcountry bound 2 x 5 coach services than back to London. What is most of interest is that the 16:57 and 17:57 are 5 coach services. These currently, as the 17.08 and 18.03 are often full 8 coach HST out of Exeter and it certainly is known more often than not when I travel to be standing by Taunton around the weekend peak.

Okay, I see that they are surrounded by a 2 x 5 coach at 15:57, at 16.05 9 coach (surely more uniform timetable is 16.30), a 5 coach 17.30 and a 9 coach 18.57.

Not to much of a worry for me, because the current 17.08 and 18.03 are full, I take the 19.06 and usually enjoy the Pullman service which I suspect shall continue on the 9 coach AT300 at 18.57.

But one would of thought the peak 16:57 and 17:57 need to be 2 x 5 coach. Unless I mistaken, but would I be correct to understand one of the IEP diagrams is for peak Exeter St Davids via Bristol? This might help, if at 16.30 and 18.30!

If we cannot enlighten ourselves here, I shall ask my GWR contact who shall assist. (or be grumpy such a timetable has been publicly released)

Eitherway, I cannot wait for the full AT300 service down to the Westcountry and how brilliant Paddington to Exeter in 2 hrs!

 

[Xavi]

Thank you for sharing. I am surprised that there seems to be many more Westcountry bound 2 x 5 coach services than back to London. What is most of interest is that the 16:57 and 17:57 are 5 coach services. These currently, as the 17.08 and 18.03 are often full 8 coach HST out of Exeter and it certainly is known more often than not when I travel to be standing by Taunton around the weekend peak.

Okay, I see that they are surrounded by a 2 x 5 coach at 15:57, at 16.05 9 coach (surely more uniform timetable is 16.30), a 5 coach 17.30 and a 9 coach 18.57.

Not to much of a worry for me, because the current 17.08 and 18.03 are full, I take the 19.06 and usually enjoy the Pullman service which I suspect shall continue on the 9 coach AT300 at 18.57.

But one would of thought the peak 16:57 and 17:57 need to be 2 x 5 coach. Unless I mistaken, but would I be correct to understand one of the IEP diagrams is for peak Exeter St Davids via Bristol? This might help, if at 16.30 and 18.30!

If we cannot enlighten ourselves here, I shall ask my GWR contact who shall assist. (or be grumpy such a timetable has been publicly released)

Eitherway, I cannot wait for the full AT300 service down to the Westcountry and how brilliant Paddington to Exeter in 2 hrs!

I'll pass the thanks to my colleague and contact (neither GWR employees). As mentioned, it's nothing official whatsoever, just a possible timetable reflecting the key headlines that are in the public domain (hourly Reading to Taunton fast, bi-hourly Padddington to Exeter semi-fast) and how that may be achievable with the 21 X 5-car and 7 X 9-car AT-300s which will also cover several North Cotswold services.

I suppose 5-car units on up early evening services could be a reality to allow all peak services leaving London to be 2x5 or 1x9 as promised.

 

[jayah]

Demand changes and responses are needed from the industry, but HSTs out of Paddington wasn't really viable 4 years ago, it could have been done but it was going to be a diagramming and timetabling nightmare with all sorts of knock on effects for retaining traction knowledge for drivers and guards, retaining engineering knowledge, using additional depot capacity and ultimately preventing the maximum number of paths per hour from Paddington being made available.

HST taking around twice the time to reach 125mph and not being 140mph capable was unworkable - we all knew the IEP TTS acceleration requirements and how HST is no where near able to keep up with those demands, it was only ever going to suck capacity out of the route.

The industry complained about running HST sets on the GWML for pretty much every day of those 4 years as a result, just as it's complaining about the decision to retain 5 IC225 (6 vehicle) sets for the ECML because nobody has yet managed to reach agreement on 5 additional 5 car IEP sets. That's how fast IEP is on electric - a 4.8MW LHCS trainset can't keep up with IEP with 9 carriages and the DVT, it needs to drop 3 carriages to meet IEP timings on the ECML, and IC225 is significantly faster than HST on the ECML (and always was, even before GNER lengthened the HST sets to 2+9).

To put this into an absolutely crystal clear context, IEP if following an HST on the GWML will be hitting double yellows and yellows, and will be slowing down to follow behind HST sets, IEP sets would be catching up with HST sets immediately, maybe managing 125mph before having to slow down and then match the acceleration profile of the HST set to avoid running into yellow signals.

And your claim that the lessons of Operation Princess haven't been learned are fanciful - the seats IEP and AT300 provide are significantly greater than HST. Full stop. End of.

-----

And the industry hasn't learned from Operation Princess. We're starting with more capacity and adding more capacity through frequency every day. That's the opposite to Operation Princess where the same capacity was split to provide the same number of seats per day on each route.

The industry hasn't learnt a thing from Op Princess. Princess cut the trains in half and doubled the service on the inner core. It didn't work because demand isn't jam spread through the day and wherever your 220 seats are at 1700 and 0830 they will be like a sardine tin. I suspect some of the core like Birmingham Manchester may also have been at the higher frequency in the peak before Princess.

You have a complete disconnection between operating cost for trains and infrastructure. The variable costs of this frequency hits the infrastructure, yet the TOCs are largely hidden from it behind the government, the franchise agreement and Network Rail.

This timetable is not as bad as Princess as there are a lot of trains and more seats on the long ones. But the lessons haven't been learnt. On some ways it is worse, there are a lot of new trains running 200 miles just to put in daytime frequency at marginal places like Castle Cary without stopping something else.

I suspect that everything is being modelled on peak meaning London business / commuter. 1103 London Plymouth or 1155 the other way are both short trains at a busy leisure time, yet 0903 is the fourth train from London!

I don't accept this single yellows business. AT300 is a tiny time saving on HST. The London Reading times in the PDF are 26mins exactly what we have now. 0633 from London does Tiverton - Exeter in 6 mins otherwise the timings are little better than now. Let's not forget HST is a 2250hp engine in a half empty power car. With a bigger engine and an electric traction package the concept could do far better than today without spending God knows what replacing the whole fleet.

But no doubt the HS2 logic is at play and every hour of a businessmans time is worth £60 or whatever so it is all taxpayers money well spent. I love the way DfT 'authorises' extra train sets - who actually pays for them?

 

[Dave1987]

This thread has marched on considerably since I last looked so will pose one question to Philip. My other half gets seriously annoyed going out of Padddington when they never put enough coaches out in the off peak or at Weekends on the Cotswold line. When it's a full HST set there is always plenty of seats though. When IEP comes in will there always be plenty of seats available on trains out of Padddington during the off peak and weekends? Politicians always concentrate on the peak and commuters because that's where the votes are.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

This thread has marched on considerably since I last looked so will pose one question to Philip. My other half gets seriously annoyed going out of Padddington when they never put enough coaches out in the off peak or at Weekends on the Cotswold line. When it's a full HST set there is always plenty of seats though. When IEP comes in will there always be plenty of seats available on trains out of Padddington during the off peak and weekends? Politicians always concentrate on the peak and commuters because that's where the votes are.

The formations will be matched to demand, so if there's a requirement for 9 car sets, a 9 car set (or 2 x 5) will be used and if a 5 car set is sufficient, a 5 car set will be used. The usual ticketing incentives will apply to fill longer sets and keep passengers off shorter sets.

The use of 2 x 5 car formations will help as it gives GWR the option to detach a unit short of the destination and continue to the destination with a 5 car set, if that's what passenger demand requires.

I can't guarantee you won't get a 5 car set vice a 9 car set, but then I can't guarantee you won't get a cancellation vice an HST today.

 

[Xavi]

The industry hasn't learnt a thing from Op Princess. Princess cut the trains in half and doubled the service on the inner core. It didn't work because demand isn't jam spread through the day and wherever your 220 seats are at 1700 and 0830 they will be like a sardine tin. I suspect some of the core like Birmingham Manchester may also have been at the higher frequency in the peak before Princess.

You have a complete disconnection between operating cost for trains and infrastructure. The variable costs of this frequency hits the infrastructure, yet the TOCs are largely hidden from it behind the government, the franchise agreement and Network Rail.

This timetable is not as bad as Princess as there are a lot of trains and more seats on the long ones. But the lessons haven't been learnt. On some ways it is worse, there are a lot of new trains running 200 miles just to put in daytime frequency at marginal places like Castle Cary without stopping something else.

I suspect that everything is being modelled on peak meaning London business / commuter. 1103 London Plymouth or 1155 the other way are both short trains at a busy leisure time, yet 0903 is the fourth train from London!

I don't accept this single yellows business. AT300 is a tiny time saving on HST. The London Reading times in the PDF are 26mins exactly what we have now. 0633 from London does Tiverton - Exeter in 6 mins otherwise the timings are little better than now. Let's not forget HST is a 2250hp engine in a half empty power car. With a bigger engine and an electric traction package the concept could do far better than today without spending God knows what replacing the whole fleet.

But no doubt the HS2 logic is at play and every hour of a businessmans time is worth £60 or whatever so it is all taxpayers money well spent. I love the way DfT 'authorises' extra train sets - who actually pays for them?

The 6 min Tiv - Exe error proves this is a homemade unofficial attempt to show how all the promises (with a few more details) may be achieved. I recall from the discussion that Reading departure could be ~26 mins after Paddington, so the xx29 at Reading would be departure time.

Most interesting for me is that it gives some idea of how many services are likely to be 5/9/10 car, but we'll have to wait a while yet to see the real detail.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

The industry hasn't learnt a thing from Op Princess. Princess cut the trains in half and doubled the service on the inner core. It didn't work because demand isn't jam spread through the day and wherever your 220 seats are at 1700 and 0830 they will be like a sardine tin. I suspect some of the core like Birmingham Manchester may also have been at the higher frequency in the peak before Princess.

You have a complete disconnection between operating cost for trains and infrastructure. The variable costs of this frequency hits the infrastructure, yet the TOCs are largely hidden from it behind the government, the franchise agreement and Network Rail.

This timetable is not as bad as Princess as there are a lot of trains and more seats on the long ones. But the lessons haven't been learnt. On some ways it is worse, there are a lot of new trains running 200 miles just to put in daytime frequency at marginal places like Castle Cary without stopping something else.

I suspect that everything is being modelled on peak meaning London business / commuter. 1103 London Plymouth or 1155 the other way are both short trains at a busy leisure time, yet 0903 is the fourth train from London!

I don't accept this single yellows business. AT300 is a tiny time saving on HST. The London Reading times in the PDF are 26mins exactly what we have now. 0633 from London does Tiverton - Exeter in 6 mins otherwise the timings are little better than now. Let's not forget HST is a 2250hp engine in a half empty power car. With a bigger engine and an electric traction package the concept could do far better than today without spending God knows what replacing the whole fleet.

But no doubt the HS2 logic is at play and every hour of a businessmans time is worth £60 or whatever so it is all taxpayers money well spent. I love the way DfT 'authorises' extra train sets - who actually pays for them?

IEP isn't just about spreading additional capacity throughout the day though, the diagrams IEP will operate are significantly different to those CrossCountry operate.

The diagrams IEP will operate will result in the most capacity possible being available to operate into Paddington during the morning peak, it will split off to various destinations during the day and will all arrive back at Paddington ready for the evening peak. It's planned as it is to ensure that instead of having 220 seats (or 315 for a 5 car IEP unit) during the peak, there will be mainly 627 or 630 seats (9 or 10 car formations).

As ever, we're also forgetting the commuter EMU services which will operate on the GWML - GWR are getting 45 x 4 car 110mph Class 387 multiple units and on Crossrail there are 2 tph to Reading and 4tph to Maidenhead which will be attractive to a number of commuters, removing some intermediate station demand from long distance services. This will allow early evening West Country departures to be formed from 5 car services as the passenger demand modelling suggests passengers for intermediate stations will be on FGW commuter and Crossrail services.

I don't really agree that there's a complete disconnection between operating costs for trains and for infrastructure. There's the track access charging framework and we're forgetting that an HST in 2+8 formation, whilst being relatively kind on track, is still two heavy power cars on Bo-Bo bogies with 17.5 tonne axle loading. IEP in bi-mode configuration is around 10 tonnes depending on fit out and vehicle type. The electric only sets will be lighter.

Axle loadings are important - track forces and wear aren't in a linear relationship, heavier stock does much more damage, causes much more wear on the track. Energy use is also important - HST when it stops puts all that momentum into the braking system, IEP will put it back into the OLE when it's running on electric, thanks to regenerative braking. The energy usage per seat values for IEP is really good and the mass per seat is really really good, particularly for the bi-mode units.

HST isn't terrible far away from being life expired - to fit a larger engine into the same bodyshell, you hit axle loading issues, bogie design issues, fatigue life issues and packaging issues. It's also things which have been looked at for much of HST's 40 years (BR toyed with the use of the 16RP200L Valenta and uprating the alternator, they decided against it). You would lose the route availability currently enjoyed and will be using the extra power and acceleration to compensate for new speed restrictions on the routes, the sort of speed restrictions that apply to Class 67 and Class 68 locomotives, because with new engines, new alternators, uprated traction motors and additional safety equipment including new cabs, possibly new bogies too, you'll be looking at a data panel which says 80 or 85 tonnes, not 70 tonnes as it is today. Remember what I said about track wear - the access charges for super HST will shoot up too and the economics nose dive. It was all looked at when IEP was still HST2 and it was still going to be using power cars.

 

[irish_rail]

I know this timetable isn't set in stone, but the 11.03 off Padd and 15.55 return from Plymouth most definitely should not be 5 cars, both trains are almost always very busy.

 

[Harbornite]

IEP isn't just about spreading additional capacity throughout the day though, the diagrams IEP will operate are significantly different to those CrossCountry operate.

The diagrams IEP will operate will result in the most capacity possible being available to operate into Paddington during the morning peak, it will split off to various destinations during the day and will all arrive back at Paddington ready for the evening peak. It's planned as it is to ensure that instead of having 220 seats (or 315 for a 5 car IEP unit) during the peak, there will be mainly 627 or 630 seats (9 or 10 car formations).

As ever, we're also forgetting the commuter EMU services which will operate on the GWML - GWR are getting 45 x 4 car 110mph Class 387 multiple units and on Crossrail there are 2 tph to Reading and 4tph to Maidenhead which will be attractive to a number of commuters, removing some intermediate station demand from long distance services. This will allow early evening West Country departures to be formed from 5 car services as the passenger demand modelling suggests passengers for intermediate stations will be on FGW commuter and Crossrail services.

I don't really agree that there's a complete disconnection between operating costs for trains and for infrastructure. There's the track access charging framework and we're forgetting that an HST in 2+8 formation, whilst being relatively kind on track, is still two heavy power cars on Bo-Bo bogies with 17.5 tonne axle loading. IEP in bi-mode configuration is around 10 tonnes depending on fit out and vehicle type. The electric only sets will be lighter.

Axle loadings are important - track forces and wear aren't in a linear relationship, heavier stock does much more damage, causes much more wear on the track. Energy use is also important - HST when it stops puts all that momentum into the braking system, IEP will put it back into the OLE when it's running on electric, thanks to regenerative braking. The energy usage per seat values for IEP is really good and the mass per seat is really really good, particularly for the bi-mode units.

HST isn't terrible far away from being life expired - to fit a larger engine into the same bodyshell, you hit axle loading issues, bogie design issues, fatigue life issues and packaging issues. It's also things which have been looked at for much of HST's 40 years (BR toyed with the use of the 16RP200L Valenta and uprating the alternator, they decided against it). You would lose the route availability currently enjoyed and will be using the extra power and acceleration to compensate for new speed restrictions on the routes, the sort of speed restrictions that apply to Class 67 and Class 68 locomotives, because with new engines, new alternators, uprated traction motors and additional safety equipment including new cabs, possibly new bogies too, you'll be looking at a data panel which says 80 or 85 tonnes, not 70 tonnes as it is today. Remember what I said about track wear - the access charges for super HST will shoot up too and the economics nose dive. It was all looked at when IEP was still HST2 and it was still going to be using power cars.

Another informative post, as always.

 

[Clarence Yard]

I know this timetable isn't set in stone, but the 11.03 off Padd and 15.55 return from Plymouth most definitely should not be 5 cars, both trains are almost always very busy.

They aren't going to be. These two services are currently planned to be 9 car with the 1555 returning earlier.

The timetable that has been posted is an unofficial one with some good guesses in it but varies from what is actually being planned for the revised DA, especially on the Up.

 

[The Planner]

The IEP timetable is still being performance modeled, I would still expect tweaks.

 

[jimm]

This thread has marched on considerably since I last looked so will pose one question to Philip. My other half gets seriously annoyed going out of Padddington when they never put enough coaches out in the off peak or at Weekends on the Cotswold line. When it's a full HST set there is always plenty of seats though. When IEP comes in will there always be plenty of seats available on trains out of Padddington during the off peak and weekends? Politicians always concentrate on the peak and commuters because that's where the votes are.

Given that there are definitely going to be 28 nine-car 800 and 802 sets in the GWR fleet - with the possibility of another seven being ordered - rather a lot of off-peak trains out of Paddington are guaranteed to have 600+ seats, day in, day out, for years to come.

Hardly suggestive of a fiendish plot by GWR to make your travel experience a living hell. Though they will, of course, still have the option to split every 2x5 formation the instant it gets into Paddington of a morning and dispatch one set from each formation to the sidings at North Pole to sit on its backside doing nothing and earning no money most of the day - despite the incredibly expensive cost of these trains...:roll:

As opposed, as Philip notes in post 246, to matching stock to demand and using ticketing incentives as appropriate to guide passenger behaviour.

Despite not getting any extra rolling stock since 2012, GWR has managed to squeeze out extra work from HSTs, 180s and Turbos at recent timetable changes to both beef up the Cotswold Line timetable and - only a few weeks ago - provide more HST and 180-worked off-peak Oxford fasts instead of 166s. All of which suggests that the people doing the diagramming do know their stuff.

Right now, 180s cover seven weekday off-peak trains running Paddington-Oxford (five going on into the Cotswolds) and 11 in the other direction (six off the Cotswold Line). I have yet to see one of these services appear in a list of Britain's most overcrowded trains.

A five-car 800 will offer an instant boost of 40 seats per train over a 180, plus the ability to add or drop a set in Oxford - the latter capability would certainly help on the 08.26 from Worcester (10.01 from Oxford) at the busiest times of the year.

In the particular case of the Cotswold Line at weekends, I assume your other half's beef is with the current widespread use of Turbos.

A five-car 800 is pretty clearly going to be a considerable improvement on a 166, with 70 more seats available on a train designed for longer journeys - and better seats at that, rather than mostly 3+2 intended for commuter journeys. And an end to the risk of a 165 being used instead of a 166, meaning no 2+2 with tables at all in standard and no first class.

So you will have five-car 800s on most services west of Oxford, with nine-car sets on the busiest services, which get HSTs now. Plus there will be an hourly service all day, with the last two-hour gaps on Saturday afternoons removed to help spread out loadings.

And the option to drop/add another five-car at Oxford - just as lots of Turbo services have dropped and added an extra set for more than 20 years now - allowing a rather more sensible size of train to be operated west of Oxford on the off-peak runs to Hereford and back, both on weekdays and Saturdays.

How many more times do we need to go over these sort of things?

 

[Rich McLean]

That planned timetable doesn't take into account that at least 1tp2h will run through to Cornwall during the day, to run in between the 1tp2hr Cardiff to Penzance diagrams together with 1tph 150/2s giving a 2tph frequency between Plymouth and Penzance.

With 3 hour gaps, that isn't achievable.

6 minutes between Tiverton Parkway and Exeter St David's is not possible for starters

 

[swt_passenger]

That planned timetable doesn't take into account that at least 1tp2h will run through to Cornwall during the day, to run in between the 1tp2hr Cardiff to Penzance diagrams together with 1tph 150/2s giving a 2tph frequency between Plymouth and Penzance.

The Direct Award stakeholder brief did mention that XC are included in the overall service provision through Cornwall, so is it possible that some gaps align with existing XC services?

 

[43074]

Another informative post, as always.

Indeed, although initially a sceptic about the project Philip Phlopp's postings on this thread are making me feel slightly more positive about the whole thing, although as ever I'll reserve judgement until it's all in action.

 

[Harbornite]

Indeed, although initially a sceptic about the project Philip Phlopp's postings on this thread are making me feel slightly more positive about the whole thing, although as ever I'll reserve judgement until it's all in action.

I can see why you'd be sceptic, but Phlopp's well-informed posts "from the inside" have been a useful resource on the matter.

 

[Xavi]

That planned timetable doesn't take into account that at least 1tp2h will run through to Cornwall during the day, to run in between the 1tp2hr Cardiff to Penzance diagrams together with 1tph 150/2s giving a 2tph frequency between Plymouth and Penzance.

With 3 hour gaps, that isn't achievable.

6 minutes between Tiverton Parkway and Exeter St David's is not possible for starters

As mentioned above the 6 min Tiv - Exe is a homemade error. The Plymouth - Penzance gaps will be plugged by the 4-car HSTs, a few 150/2 and XC to give the 2tph but it's not practical to have a rigid bi-hourly IEP to Penzance and also have the promised peak-hour capacity out of Paddington. Also, there will not be a bi-hourly Cardiff- Penzance from what I heard, just some early morning, late evening trips.

 

[Rich McLean]

As mentioned above the 6 min Tiv - Exe is a homemade error. The Plymouth - Penzance gaps will be plugged by the 4-car HSTs, a few 150/2 and XC to give the 2tph but it's not practical to have a rigid bi-hourly IEP to Penzance and also have the promised peak-hour capacity out of Paddington. Also, there will not be a bi-hourly Cardiff- Penzance from what I heard, just some early morning, late evening trips.

Status Quo as of now then for the Cardiff - Penzance Corridor

There's been conflicting information

 

[jayah]

IEP isn't just about spreading additional capacity throughout the day though, the diagrams IEP will operate are significantly different to those CrossCountry operate.

The diagrams IEP will operate will result in the most capacity possible being available to operate into Paddington during the morning peak, it will split off to various destinations during the day and will all arrive back at Paddington ready for the evening peak. It's planned as it is to ensure that instead of having 220 seats (or 315 for a 5 car IEP unit) during the peak, there will be mainly 627 or 630 seats (9 or 10 car formations).

As ever, we're also forgetting the commuter EMU services which will operate on the GWML - GWR are getting 45 x 4 car 110mph Class 387 multiple units and on Crossrail there are 2 tph to Reading and 4tph to Maidenhead which will be attractive to a number of commuters, removing some intermediate station demand from long distance services. This will allow early evening West Country departures to be formed from 5 car services as the passenger demand modelling suggests passengers for intermediate stations will be on FGW commuter and Crossrail services.

I don't really agree that there's a complete disconnection between operating costs for trains and for infrastructure. There's the track access charging framework and we're forgetting that an HST in 2+8 formation, whilst being relatively kind on track, is still two heavy power cars on Bo-Bo bogies with 17.5 tonne axle loading. IEP in bi-mode configuration is around 10 tonnes depending on fit out and vehicle type. The electric only sets will be lighter.

Axle loadings are important - track forces and wear aren't in a linear relationship, heavier stock does much more damage, causes much more wear on the track. Energy use is also important - HST when it stops puts all that momentum into the braking system, IEP will put it back into the OLE when it's running on electric, thanks to regenerative braking. The energy usage per seat values for IEP is really good and the mass per seat is really really good, particularly for the bi-mode units.

HST isn't terrible far away from being life expired - to fit a larger engine into the same bodyshell, you hit axle loading issues, bogie design issues, fatigue life issues and packaging issues. It's also things which have been looked at for much of HST's 40 years (BR toyed with the use of the 16RP200L Valenta and uprating the alternator, they decided against it). You would lose the route availability currently enjoyed and will be using the extra power and acceleration to compensate for new speed restrictions on the routes, the sort of speed restrictions that apply to Class 67 and Class 68 locomotives, because with new engines, new alternators, uprated traction motors and additional safety equipment including new cabs, possibly new bogies too, you'll be looking at a data panel which says 80 or 85 tonnes, not 70 tonnes as it is today. Remember what I said about track wear - the access charges for super HST will shoot up too and the economics nose dive. It was all looked at when IEP was still HST2 and it was still going to be using power cars.

I am afraid I am largely unconvinced.

Both IEP and AT300 timetables are about a huge ramp up of services in the relatively quiet middle of the daytime period. As others with real life experience of the route suggest there will be real problems with the commuting peaks outside London as well as the leisure type times I highlighted. This is again the same problem as Princess but slightly different as London is a much bigger market than all of the others. I presume 315 seats for the 5 car is total and will be about 275 in Standard, less than a 4 car 158?

HST is a concept although there are of the order of 160 of the low density trailers already out there as well as the current power cars. Life expired is a very overused term by people wanting to blow other peoples money on big projects - what does it actually mean?

There are lots of options to improve the performance of the HST that would not involve replacing the trailers but these don't get a look in despite the colossal sums involved.

Yes there is a track access regime etc...but it is fundamentally broken. This is the whole Princess problem, I would call it a disease that afflicts the whole industry. You make money by running big long trains with lots of people and to a timetable that fills them, yet the industry does almost the opposite, even buying 5 car trains and coupling them together for most of the day, two cabs for the price of four. After Network Grant the subsidy per pax mile for East Coast is 1.1p and for West Coast 7.6p - the cost of the new fleet and running all those empty midday trains at 3tph is crippling.

By train miles, axle miles etc.. there is a huge increase with this sort of timetable which might suit the TOC if it has a new fleet to try and pay for, but wait until Network Rail start asking the taxpayer via the regulator for more money for maintenance, closure of crossings, flyovers etc... which comes after. PPM is slipping Sir? Network Rail would draw your attention to the fact you are running 30% more trains on the same infrastructure. The variable charges don't touch it.

 

[Domh245]

Life expired is a very overused term by people wanting to blow other peoples money on big projects - what does it actually mean?

Usually one or more of the following:

Train's structure is starting to reach critical levels of strength, either due to corrosion or fatigue.

Parts are starting to come into short supply and are no longer made/available to purchase.

Costs are starting to rise as larger items come up for replacement (like bogies, engines, etc), or as mods are needed to make it compliant with modern standards

No longer fit for purpose (eg if you want to go to a higher frequency service but are stuck with trains whose performance wouldn't allow for this)


In much the same way that running a car from 1978 as a daily driver is very expensive and impractical, so is running a train from that era.

 

[Dave1987]

The formations will be matched to demand, so if there's a requirement for 9 car sets, a 9 car set (or 2 x 5) will be used and if a 5 car set is sufficient, a 5 car set will be used. The usual ticketing incentives will apply to fill longer sets and keep passengers off shorter sets.

The use of 2 x 5 car formations will help as it gives GWR the option to detach a unit short of the destination and continue to the destination with a 5 car set, if that's what passenger demand requires.

I can't guarantee you won't get a 5 car set vice a 9 car set, but then I can't guarantee you won't get a cancellation vice an HST today.

Well I would sincerely hope that they are all doubled up from Padddington even if one portion is split off at Oxford.
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Given that there are definitely going to be 28 nine-car 800 and 802 sets in the GWR fleet - with the possibility of another seven being ordered - rather a lot of off-peak trains out of Paddington are guaranteed to have 600+ seats, day in, day out, for years to come.

Hardly suggestive of a fiendish plot by GWR to make your travel experience a living hell. Though they will, of course, still have the option to split every 2x5 formation the instant it gets into Paddington of a morning and dispatch one set from each formation to the sidings at North Pole to sit on its backside doing nothing and earning no money most of the day - despite the incredibly expensive cost of these trains...:roll:

As opposed, as Philip notes in post 246, to matching stock to demand and using ticketing incentives as appropriate to guide passenger behaviour.

Despite not getting any extra rolling stock since 2012, GWR has managed to squeeze out extra work from HSTs, 180s and Turbos at recent timetable changes to both beef up the Cotswold Line timetable and - only a few weeks ago - provide more HST and 180-worked off-peak Oxford fasts instead of 166s. All of which suggests that the people doing the diagramming do know their stuff.

Right now, 180s cover seven weekday off-peak trains running Paddington-Oxford (five going on into the Cotswolds) and 11 in the other direction (six off the Cotswold Line). I have yet to see one of these services appear in a list of Britain's most overcrowded trains.

A five-car 800 will offer an instant boost of 40 seats per train over a 180, plus the ability to add or drop a set in Oxford - the latter capability would certainly help on the 08.26 from Worcester (10.01 from Oxford) at the busiest times of the year.

In the particular case of the Cotswold Line at weekends, I assume your other half's beef is with the current widespread use of Turbos.

A five-car 800 is pretty clearly going to be a considerable improvement on a 166, with 70 more seats available on a train designed for longer journeys - and better seats at that, rather than mostly 3+2 intended for commuter journeys. And an end to the risk of a 165 being used instead of a 166, meaning no 2+2 with tables at all in standard and no first class.

So you will have five-car 800s on most services west of Oxford, with nine-car sets on the busiest services, which get HSTs now. Plus there will be an hourly service all day, with the last two-hour gaps on Saturday afternoons removed to help spread out loadings.

And the option to drop/add another five-car at Oxford - just as lots of Turbo services have dropped and added an extra set for more than 20 years now - allowing a rather more sensible size of train to be operated west of Oxford on the off-peak runs to Hereford and back, both on weekdays and Saturdays.

How many more times do we need to go over these sort of things?

Er I don't seem to remember asking your opinion. As far as I'm concerned you are totally biased and won't hear a single word said against the project even though there are flaws. Philip on the other hand seems totally happy to discuss good and bad points.

 

[tbtc]

You do have good point there, both options have their disadvantages. My response to that is providing longer trains will always benifit passengers, although as you rightly point out it is expensive and potentially unjustifyable. On the other hand, the single engine on the 'electric' IEP sets (although GW now isn't getting any of those, so it matters less) provides no benifit to anyone at all most of the time (indeed in an ideal world will never be needed at all).

Running nine coaches all the way to Hereford (etc) at all times means ordering extra carriages/ extra units, as well as the cost of fuel/ track access charges etc - it's going to be of negligible "benefit" to passengers if that volume of passengers can be accommodated on a five coach train.

Single engines will be very useful when the wires come down or when depots aren't fully wired or when diverted - they won't do 100mph but they'll be able to get a train out of trouble. By the same token you could argue that a safety critical guard won't be a necessity on most journeys (or a fire extinguisher on board or CCTV etc), but many people believe that this is a resilience worth having for when things do go wrong.

But, yes, all options have disadvantages - I just think that IEP has fewer disadvantages. It's not perfect, but there's no one simple solution.

I seem to recall Ian W's 'Pan Up' column in modern railways stating one of the bidder's early proposals for what became IEP was a loco-hauled solution, before they were told to offer a multiple unit instead. The way the column put it, he thought that would have been a good idea. In hindsight however, given where we are now with electrification delays, my own opinion is that the bi-mode concept for class 800/802 is starting to look like a good idea (a loco-hauled solution might not have been convertible to bi-mode at the last minute as the GW-801 order has been). However, as I've made clear above I think the mix of train lengths is perhaps not optimal and I still feel the plan for Intercity services prior to the current direct award (keeping IC125s for PAD-PLY/PNZ services, and IEP elsewhere) was the better option. I also think the full IC225 fleet should have been retained, somewhere where they can do at least 125mph if not 140mph (which now the mark 4T retro-fit is off the table means GWML or ECML).

You keep coming back to find a problem for which the solution is "225s to south Wales".

Having a "common" stock will make things a lot easier in future - e.g. some London - Bristol services could go down to five coach operation on certain summer days to ensure that all London - Cornwall services are nine/ten coaches long. It'll also ensure exactly the same timings can be kept in the Thames Valley.

Operation Princess was a product of the time, when the thinking was managed decline of routes and Amtrak style niche services on others. Their idiotic layout was from the aborted plan to have a three class layout. The scary thing is Operation Princess would have worked, if passengers deserted the railways.

We're now as far from that time and that thinking as it's possible to get. We're managing growth, demand and service frequency. We know really quite well how passenger behaviour changed with Operation Princess, and can work out reasonably accurately how many additional 4 and 5 car units CrossCountry would need to meet demand and upgrade capacity in the right direction.

That has fed into planning and calculations for IEP and the particular style of operation we're going to see out of Paddington, it certainly has led to the correct number and length of units being ordered to met projected demand.

And yes, I do think another 12 or 18 9 car Voyagers would have been enormously helpful. The entire EMT Meridian fleet going to CrossCountry in 2022-2023 (or earlier, if extra bi-mode IEP units can move things around on the MML) will be necessary, though whether it can be afforded is less clear cut.

It's also worth remembering that 8 car IEP units were on the drawing board at one point, they were axed too so that 2 x 5 car and 1 x 9 car have comparable capacity and one in lieu of the other doesn't cause overcrowding. There has been (and almost certainly will be) changes to IEP to ensure capacity, pathing and frequency demands can be met.

Total agreement.

I remember the move to "Princess" - it was at a time when we had two coach 170s running from Barnsley/ Nottingham - London, we had three coach 170s running from Hull to London (and Lowestoft etc to London), we had five coach 180s running from Cardiff to London - all fitting into the "increased frequency but shorter stock" pigeon hole.

So Operation Princess wasn't out of kilter with the rest of the industry (heck, BR had been introducing shorter trains with improved frequencies for many years - e.g. two coach Sprinters every hour to replace longer irregular loco hauled sets).

The difference was that the other services mentioned above were able to see longer trains (e.g. Midland Mainline upgrading from two coach 170s to three coach 170s to four coach 222s).

Meanwhile for various reasons (inc, presumably, the fact that Virgin had ordered such unique stock from a manufacturer not known for their flexibility) XC wasn't able to increase seats to keep up with demand.

Princess wasn't a fatal error. Failing to adapt to the increased passenger numbers post-Princess was the error.

Another informative post, as always.

Indeed, although initially a sceptic about the project Philip Phlopp's postings on this thread are making me feel slightly more positive about the whole thing, although as ever I'll reserve judgement until it's all in action.

I can see why you'd be sceptic, but Phlopp's well-informed posts "from the inside" have been a useful resource on the matter.

I do enjoy reading the very knowledgeable people on these threads patiently explaining *facts* about IEP.

The problem is that in a day or two someone else will be along with the "Voyager clone"/ "poo train" stuff and we'll be back to square one...

I am afraid I am largely unconvinced.

Both IEP and AT300 timetables are about a huge ramp up of services in the relatively quiet middle of the daytime period. As others with real life experience of the route suggest there will be real problems with the commuting peaks outside London as well as the leisure type times I highlighted. This is again the same problem as Princess but slightly different as London is a much bigger market than all of the others. I presume 315 seats for the 5 car is total and will be about 275 in Standard, less than a 4 car 158?

HST is a concept although there are of the order of 160 of the low density trailers already out there as well as the current power cars. Life expired is a very overused term by people wanting to blow other peoples money on big projects - what does it actually mean?

There are lots of options to improve the performance of the HST that would not involve replacing the trailers but these don't get a look in despite the colossal sums involved.

Yes there is a track access regime etc...but it is fundamentally broken. This is the whole Princess problem, I would call it a disease that afflicts the whole industry. You make money by running big long trains with lots of people and to a timetable that fills them, yet the industry does almost the opposite, even buying 5 car trains and coupling them together for most of the day, two cabs for the price of four. After Network Grant the subsidy per pax mile for East Coast is 1.1p and for West Coast 7.6p - the cost of the new fleet and running all those empty midday trains at 3tph is crippling.

By train miles, axle miles etc.. there is a huge increase with this sort of timetable which might suit the TOC if it has a new fleet to try and pay for, but wait until Network Rail start asking the taxpayer via the regulator for more money for maintenance, closure of crossings, flyovers etc... which comes after. PPM is slipping Sir? Network Rail would draw your attention to the fact you are running 30% more trains on the same infrastructure. The variable charges don't touch it.

You're complaining about the number of long empty trains off-peak and also complaining about IEP giving operators the flexibility to vary the lengths of off peak services?

You can't deny that the increase in off peak frequencies has seen an increase in passenger demand?

Also the "seas on a four coach 158" needs to consider the seats taken out of it for at least two "universal" toilets, since old stock will have to be upgraded in a couple of years to accommodate these larger toilets (and therefore lose a few seats).

 

[jimm]

I am afraid I am largely unconvinced.

Both IEP and AT300 timetables are about a huge ramp up of services in the relatively quiet middle of the daytime period.

What huge ramp-up in the middle of the day? The argument that certain people have been advancing on this forum for years is that there would be next to no extra off-peak trains and that with HSTs being replaced by five-coach sets (never mind all the unsplittable nine-car sets that are also on order), there would be overcrowding all round. But now there is supposed to be a 'huge ramp-up'...:roll:

Perhaps you mean extra off-peak trains to Bristol, which are aimed at spreading out loadings and providing a service from city centre to city centre where people don't need to look at a timetable or journey planner and just turn up and step on to a train that is already waiting in the platform? That is the only route where there will be more than 2tph off-peak - and the 4tph will be split west of Swindon anyway, with two via Bath and two via Parkway.

Or do you mean the Gloucester and Cheltenham service going hourly through to and from London all day rather than passengers being stuck on a dmu to or from Swindon every other hour at present? Or the extra semi-fasts to and from Devon on the Berks & Hants?

Are these changes supposed to be a bad thing? I doubt passengers will think so. And what I have outlined above hardly amounts to a 'huge ramp-up of services in the relatively quiet middle of the daytime period'.

As others with real life experience of the route suggest there will be real problems with the commuting peaks outside London as well as the leisure type times I highlighted. This is again the same problem as Princess but slightly different as London is a much bigger market than all of the others. I presume 315 seats for the 5 car is total and will be about 275 in Standard, less than a 4 car 158?

What do you mean by 'the route'. The GWR network is a large and complex set-up, serving various markets with different needs. I have 'real-life experience' of assorted parts of that network, peak and off-peak, and I simply don't recognise what you are on about.

Alongside the 800 and 802 deliveries, GWR is also planning to move other rolling stock around its system/potentially retain some shortened HSTs to, er, increase capacity for the peaks in places well away from London, like Bristol and around Exeter. Plus all the extra capacity for the Thames Valley noted above.

It is not Operation Princess Mk2 by any stretch of the imagination.
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Er I don't seem to remember asking your opinion. As far as I'm concerned you are totally biased and won't hear a single word said against the project even though there are flaws. Philip on the other hand seems totally happy to discuss good and bad points.

Far as I know, this is an open forum, so I'll feel free to comment on things people post here, should I wish to.

You certainly don't seem to have any problem repeatedly using this forum to proclaim your - inaccurate - opinion that I 'won't hear a word said against the project'.

As for totally biased - that's a pretty fair description of your constant posting against any and every aspect of this project generally, the trains that are now being built, and the way they will be used, whatever anyone else ever says by way of trying to answer or debate points raised in your posts.

Philip answered your question but whenever I, or anyone else, puts questions to you, what do we get? Silence or accusations that we are cheerleaders for IEP, won't hear a bad word against it, etc - and nothing remotely resembling an attempt to discuss anything.

And, of course, if you actually boil down what I said, it amounts to much the same as what Philip said, so does that make him totally biased as well?

 

[Harbornite]

Er I don't seem to remember asking your opinion. As far as I'm concerned you are totally biased and won't hear a single word said against the project even though there are flaws. Philip on the other hand seems totally happy to discuss good and bad points.

He doesn't need to ask for permission before giving his opinion, this is a FORUM at the end of the day. You're just bitter because he bothered to respond to your post with a decent answer. There's nothing wrong with criticising certain aspects of IEP but you shouldn't get stroppy after your criticisms are thoroughly addressed by other forum users.

 

[43096]

HST isn't terrible far away from being life expired - to fit a larger engine into the same bodyshell, you hit axle loading issues, bogie design issues, fatigue life issues and packaging issues.

The engine is not the issue - both the MTU4000 and VP185 are down-rated for the HST to match the 2,250hp. The prohibitive bit is that you need a new electrical system - they tried 2,400hp in the MB190s and set fire to 43169 as a result - and probably a new, bigger cooler group.

As you say it will never happen: it's not required for their envisaged duties going forward and involves major, costly engineering issues.

 

[43074]

I remember the move to "Princess" - it was at a time when we had two coach 170s running from Barnsley/ Nottingham - London, we had three coach 170s running from Hull to London (and Lowestoft etc to London), we had five coach 180s running from Cardiff to London - all fitting into the "increased frequency but shorter stock" pigeon hole.

So Operation Princess wasn't out of kilter with the rest of the industry (heck, BR had been introducing shorter trains with improved frequencies for many years - e.g. two coach Sprinters every hour to replace longer irregular loco hauled sets).

The difference was that the other services mentioned above were able to see longer trains (e.g. Midland Mainline upgrading from two coach 170s to three coach 170s to four coach 222s).

Meanwhile for various reasons (inc, presumably, the fact that Virgin had ordered such unique stock from a manufacturer not known for their flexibility) XC wasn't able to increase seats to keep up with demand.

Princess wasn't a fatal error. Failing to adapt to the increased passenger numbers post-Princess was the error.

Virgin were very keen to lengthen many of their Voyagers to six coaches, and they even had an option to lengthen them, so flexibility with Bombardier wasn't the issue - they were built to be extended. The problem was that ultimately, the SRA blocked the investment in the new coaches despite Princess generating 40% passenger growth in 4 months, which nobody could have predicted in the first place.

I don't think the comparisons with Princess are particularly valid anyway, remember Princess was launched in the aftermath of the Railtrack collapse and passenger numbers had taken a hit after Hatfield - the industry is in a very different, and much better place nowadays, IEP is about catering for additional passenger numbers in the coming years after consistent year on year increase over the past decade, there's no reason for it to be Princess Mark 2.

If anything Princess wasn't a failure, rather a victim of it's own success

 

[Rhydgaled]

You keep coming back to find a problem for which the solution is "225s to south Wales".

Not really, I'm just keen to see the IC225s continue in service somewhere in mainland Britain until around 2030, I don't really care whether that is on the ECML or GWML (or somewhere else, but I don't think there's anywhere else they could be at all suitable).

As for south Wales, it's sort-of my 'home patch' and as such I'm particularly keen to see that services improve, or at least don't deteriorate. As far as I am aware, there's no frequency enhancement planned for the London-Swansea services yet currently they are practically guaranteed to be 8 coaches and in future that is not guaranteed. I would hope therefore that my concern about the 5-car sets is understandable, although I admit that my fears that these will be inadequate may yet prove unfounded (particularly if W&B franchise services are improved or if more of the 9-car IEP sets are used on south Wales services).

for various reasons (inc, presumably, the fact that Virgin had ordered such unique stock from a manufacturer not known for their flexibility) XC wasn't able to increase seats to keep up with demand.

Princess wasn't a fatal error. Failing to adapt to the increased passenger numbers post-Princess was the error.

The question then is how adaptable is the GW IEP fleet? Supposing for a moment that the currently planned fleet proves to be adequate for demand when introduced, what happens if demand increases on services booked for 5-car sets beyond the capacity of a 5-car set? Sure, they could be lengthened to 6-or-7-car, but then they wouldn't be able to run in multiple. That might not be a problem if the fleet hadn't been ordered with multiple working in mind, but that isn't the case. If you could convert driving vehicles to intermediate coaches that wouldn't be an issue, but obviously you can't, it'd be far too difficult to design driving vehicles which could be converted. You'd be left with a number of surplus sets, probably too few to be of use for a cascade (except to another operator already using the same rolling stock and needing additional sets at a similar time).

Also the "seas on a four coach 158" needs to consider the seats taken out of it for at least two "universal" toilets, since old stock will have to be upgraded in a couple of years to accommodate these larger toilets (and therefore lose a few seats).

Unlike 150s, the class 158s were built with an accessible toilet; I seem to recall discussion regarding the recently-released refurbished 158 in GWR livery was that the accessible toilets on the 158 didn't need enlarging to make them complaint, just a number of modifications to the facilities within that space.

 

[Domh245]

The question then is how adaptable is the GW IEP fleet? Supposing for a moment that the currently planned fleet proves to be adequate for demand when introduced, what happens if demand increases on services booked for 5-car sets beyond the capacity of a 5-car set? Sure, they could be lengthened to 6-or-7-car, but then they wouldn't be able to run in multiple. That might not be a problem if the fleet hadn't been ordered with multiple working in mind, but that isn't the case. If you could convert driving vehicles to intermediate coaches that wouldn't be an issue, but obviously you can't, it'd be far too difficult to design driving vehicles which could be converted.

IIRC there are options for the DfT to lengthen all 5 car units to 9 cars. They could also just upgrade the 5 car to a 9 car, and then take that 5 car + another 5 car to make a 10 car to replace the 9. The railway is (despite the evidence to the contrary) run by pretty smart people, I'm sure they'll know what to do.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

IIRC there are options for the DfT to lengthen all 5 car units to 9 cars. They could also just upgrade the 5 car to a 9 car, and then take that 5 car + another 5 car to make a 10 car to replace the 9. The railway is (despite the evidence to the contrary) run by pretty smart people, I'm sure they'll know what to do.

It's possible to reconfigure IEP in a number of ways - it's almost a Swiss army knife in that regard, thanks to the way in which the driving vehicles don't differ from all electric or bi-mode units, only the intermediate vehicles have changes.

The possibilities on offer include

(1) adding additional vehicles to either diesel or electric stock, bearing in mind the new MTU PowerPack meets the very latest emissions standards and will be available in existing configuration for a number of years (guaranteed as part of MTU's contract with Hitachi)

(2) removing diesel engines to convert bi-mode units into all electric units (leaving the one emergency diesel power pack). They can be extended by addition of further powered and unpowered vehicles to give 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 carriages.

(3) 5 car bi-mode units can be reformed with 6 new intermediate all electric vehicles to provide a new 9 car all electric unit (1 diesel engined vehicle remains with the emergency power pack). The two diesel engined vehicles can be reformed into a second 5 car bi-mode, and two new unpowered vehicles added to provide a 9 car bi-mode unit.

(4) Any variation on the theme of (3) with coaches losing engines, swapping carriages, additional electric only and unpowered vehicles being provided.