HST replacement

[Mitchell Hurd]

Honestly, to me, this seems like forum hysteria.

Firstly, other than a little bit of flapping by aslef and a knee-jerk media response - there isn't any serious suggestion that they'll be removed imminently or within the short-medium term due to crash performance. Infact, the wording in the Carmont report goes as far as to say the mk3s performed reasonably well (para 491).

Secondly, the HSTs are very fit for purpose and deliver exactly what customers want - it's in nobodies interest to rush them out of service in favour of smaller DMUs - perhaps except to reduce fuel bills.

Third, if we are suggesting HSTs need removing for safety reasons, it begs the question of what will replace them. Lets consider how a lighter class 156 (being suggested by some as a viable replacement or cascade leader), based on a similar design, would perform in the same 75mph crash. All things being equal; the leading class 43 plummeted some 7m, from a viaduct, to collide nose first with the ground. Is anyone here seriously suggesting they would rather be in the leading passenger vehicle of a 156 performing the same maneuver, than in the leading passenger vehicle of a HST? And that's before we even start to think about the fuel tanks strapped to the bottom of a DMU (I'm aware this comparison makes a fair few assumptions about vehicle behaviour in a crash - its more for illustrative purposes).

There's no issue with HSTs fundamentally. I would happily support some modifications (as highlighted in my post in the Carmont topic, specifically and foremostly around lifeguards), but to suggest a full fleet replacement, on the basis of one accident, that in itself brought together a heck of a lot of very unlucky coincidences, just seems to be quite unnecessarily feeding the hysteria of other media outlets.

Thank you !

 

[ashkeba]

As far as passenger experience goes, Voyagers are OK to travel on if they're not overcrowded. In the same way that the M25 is an OK drive if it's not busy.

But yes, an incredibly wasteful train. I'd like to see what the running costs per seat are like compared to other train designs.

Only if the M25 ran by a sewage farm it's whole length. Unless they've solved that on Voyagers during the pandemic.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

• Please don’t knee-jerk and immediately withdraw all HSTs
• Speed up electrification and simultaneously build some bimodes and introduce all built to modern crashworthiness standards
• Progressively electrify and renew drains, steep embankment slopes etc at the same time
• When a line is fully electrified, new all electric trains and cascade the bimodes
• Rinse and repeat

 

[bluesfromagun]

In light of the Carmont report, if political will forced the ScotRail HSTs into being replaced before new built net zero stock is procured, then the solution is a straight forward one.

Keep the 156s after Barrhead/EK electrification and cancel plans to displace them on GSWR/WHL by ~2023/24 (presumably by 158s).

Any remaining gaps, if at all, get plugged in by absorbing 156s through the Borders, Fife, or Anniesland centralised around linear routes from depots which still sign them (Edinburgh and Queen Street), and the 158s/170s blanket cover everything else as per pre Abellio.

No 22Xs, no Mk5s, and no 175s. Extend the leases, take a short term 2018-style capacity hit, and make do and mend from then on in until 2030 knowing that the past 7 years has been a catastrophic write-off.

Edinburgh don't sign 156s anymore. Just Queen St and Stirling on the 'network side', as there's no booked 156s into Waverley at all these days.
That said, the conversion course for 158 to 156 would be minimal (two days I think?), so not a big undertaking to retrain Edinburgh, or even Perth and Dundee if they wanted to use them on some Fife locals.
Certainly a lot less training than HSTs (three weeks) or anything else that's new to the fleet.

 

[Davester50]

Speculatively, my money (based on zero evidence or fact) is that SR opt for 385's or similar when the time comes.

If we are lucky they may even have a carpet and soft seats for those of us in Inverness/Aberdeen who have 2+ hour journeys.

I can see more of these too, but they're really not well fitted out in their current form.
Fit an LNER style interior with comfier seats and a wider aisle and it would be fine.

Now, if it were my call I would "drag" us back to Loco Hauled so that SR could (no laughing at the back) add coaches for match days (Round and Egg ball's).

If they did have to get rid of 170s with the 2015 franchise, I'd have hoped for rather than ageing HSTs, something similar to TPE but with the diesel locos going off lease as electrification covered more of the network.
Coupling up units to bolster services from outside the central belt for events (which First actually did) seems easier than breaking in to sets of locos and coaches though.
Another reason I believe that opting against 170s was a fundamental flaw in the Abellio bid, and TS for allowing it.

I'm sure the resident HST coach fanbois will tell me I'm wrong however

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

I can see more of these too, but they're really not well fitted out in their current form.
Fit an LNER style interior with comfier seats and a wider aisle and it would be fine.



If they did have to get rid of 170s with the 2015 franchise, I'd have hoped for rather than ageing HSTs, something similar to TPE but with the diesel locos going off lease as electrification covered more of the network.
Coupling up units to bolster services from outside the central belt for events (which First actually did) seems easier than breaking in to sets of locos and coaches though.
Another reason I believe that opting against 170s was a fundamental flaw in the Abellio bid, and TS for allowing it.

I'm sure the resident HST coach fanbois will tell me I'm wrong however

I never thought I'd say this but actually you're not wrong.

More 158's or 170's or a mixture of both would have been much much easier to use than all this trouble getting the ScotRail HST's into service.

CrossCountry at the time would have been way better getting some of them (not now of course). After all they ran them regularly at the time - then again the DfT thought they knew best.

In fact, GWR would have been better off with a lot more Castle sets, that way the 158's could have been sent to ScotRail.

We may have had 3-coach HST's on the Barnstaple line then.

 

[skyhigh]

In fact, GWR would have been better off with a lot more Castle sets, that way the 158's could have been sent to ScotRail.

Given the pretty huge conversion and ongoing running costs of a HST vs 158 I can't agree with that at all.

 

[computerSaysNo]

Given the pretty huge conversion and ongoing running costs of a HST vs 158 I can't agree with that at all.

Only from the perspective of GWR
From the perspective of ScotRail it would have been ideal (as GWR already had the expertise with the HSTs, and ScotRail already had the expertise with the 170s and 158s).