IEP Construction Progress

[tbtc]

This is going to happen on a much bigger scale. At the moment trains are strengthened during the peak from depots. You are talking about two car trains splitting going to two separate destinations and then joining up the return trip everytime. If one is late, you are either going to have to delay the onward service or leave a portion sat in the platform when it finally arrives with no path and no crew

Right so what happens when one portion is delayed? What happens when they turn up in the wrong order for the diagrams they are booked on?

Look at Southern.

Or ATW.

Or ScotRail.

Or EMT.

Or Cross Country.

Or Virgin.

Or SWT.

Or London Midland.

Or SouthEastern...

They all seem to cope pretty well with portion working - even portion working between different classes of unit - why do people think that it can't work on the GWML or ECML with identical IEP coupling together?

 

[Dave1987]

That's what I asked earlier! You raised that issue, I pointed out that they seem to cope elsewhere with the many trains that do it day in and day out and asked 'What happens currently?'. Only for you to come back and ask me the same question I posed earlier in the thread!

So basically we've just gone around in a huge flipping circle

Are you sure? I haven't raised this point yet as far as I can remember at least. I think portion working is a bad idea unless there is a severe amount of padding built in at the attachment station to cope with delays.

 

[HSTEd]

I am not sure why delaying a train to wait for a late running portion is a major issue?

If the trains ran independently the train would still trigger delays and this way uses less paths.

 

[transmanche]

Right so what happens when one portion is delayed? What happens when they turn up in the wrong order for the diagrams they are booked on?

Surely this is a bit of a red herring? Splitting/joining of services happens regularly, every day, all over the network.

I've an inkling that there are still services from Charing Cross to Ramsgate which split at Ashford Intl - with one portion continuing via Canterbury and the other via Folkestone and Dover.

And it all seems to work just fine.

 

[Dave1987]

I am not sure why delaying a train to wait for a late running portion is a major issue?

If the trains ran independently the train would still trigger delays and this way uses less paths.

But if the one is late you either delay the whole service or have to short form from joining station and then have a portion stranded with no crew or path. Seems the KISS principle doesn't apply to train planning.

 

[HSTEd]

But if the one is late you either delay the whole service or have to short form from joining station and then have a portion stranded with no crew or path. Seems the KISS principle doesn't apply to train planning.

I am pretty sure KISS went out the window a long time ago on British Railways, thanks to our timetables being very heavily optimised for least stock required.

 

[TheGrew]

I am pretty sure KISS went out the window a long time ago on British Railways, thanks to our timetables being very heavily optimised for least stock required.

Agreed, portion working is standard practice all over the place to optimise paths and stock. Yes it slows some services down to allow the attach and detach but in the grand scheme of a 2+ hour journey what is 5 or 10 minutes?

 

[Dave1987]

I am pretty sure KISS went out the window a long time ago on British Railways, thanks to our timetables being very heavily optimised for least stock required.

And we wonder why delays are prevalent on the network.....

 

[TheGrew]

And we wonder why delays are prevalent on the network.....

I would actually put that down to intense working on a highly complex aging infrastructure that suffered years of under investment. Our network is probably most comparable to the Japanese network is many ways. What is their advantage? Decades learning from our mistakes, sensible amounts of investment and grade separation.

 

[The Ham]

And we wonder why delays are prevalent on the network.....

... and yet when a new line which would reduce the risk of such delays happening that too gets shoot down by some.

The fundamental problem is we don't have enough track to not split and join services and if we did it would cost a lot more to maintain (regardless of the massive construction costs to get to that point). Also, even if the network could cope, how would you stop a 3 coach DMU getting overcrowded coming out of London, yet is all that is needed west of Salisbury without all the stations West of Salisbury loosing their direct services?

As such splitting and joining services is the least worst option, and is likely to be a feature for a long time. As such the stock just needs to be able to cope with it.

 

[tbtc]

splitting and joining services is the least worst option, and is likely to be a feature for a long time

Agreed.

TBH, I'm not sure why we are even arguing about whether portion working could work when it clearly does work on at least half of the TOCs in 2014 (some do it more than others, but most do it to some degree).

How many services end up with a portion stranded with no crew or path? Given how enthusiats like to see trends (e.g. "ANOTHER 442 failure", "ANOTHER Level Crossing Accident" - even when it may be months between such issues) you'd think this Forum would be full of threads complaining about stranded portions if it happened with any regularity.

 

[Xavi]

... and yet when a new line which would reduce the risk of such delays happening that too gets shoot down by some.

The fundamental problem is we don't have enough track to not split and join services and if we did it would cost a lot more to maintain (regardless of the massive construction costs to get to that point). Also, even if the network could cope, how would you stop a 3 coach DMU getting overcrowded coming out of London, yet is all that is needed west of Salisbury without all the stations West of Salisbury loosing their direct services?

As such splitting and joining services is the least worst option, and is likely to be a feature for a long time. As such the stock just needs to be able to cope with it.

Plenty of services west of Salisbury have 6 carriages and need them. SWT gets the diagramming pretty good though running 3 carriages when adequate.

 

[The Ham]

Plenty of services west of Salisbury have 6 carriages and need them. SWT gets the diagramming pretty good though running 3 carriages when adequate.

The point still stands whether it's 3 or 6 coaches, such a train leaving London would likely be over loaded, unless there was a simple way of ensuring that the majority of passengers for stations up to the current split point didn't use that service. Even if there were enough paths for something now, it might not take too long before splitting was then required again as passenger numbers grew.

 

[HSTEd]

Although as I have argued before, the benfits of splitting in terms of vehicles saved may be overstated due to the reduced capacity of a formation of three identical units compared to a unit train.

This is especially true with IEP and it makes me wonder if the marginal savings are worth the additional workload, increased journey times and so on (in the case where the second set has no seperate destination and merely turns back early).
Hence my concepts regarding 400m Captive HS2 sets.

 

[dosxuk]

Although as I have argued before, the benfits of splitting in terms of vehicles saved may be overstated due to the reduced capacity of a formation of three identical units compared to a unit train.

This is especially true with IEP and it makes me wonder if the marginal savings are worth the additional workload, increased journey times and so on (in the case where the second set has no seperate destination and merely turns back early).

I would suggest the main benefit of splitting / joining on the ECML is not to size the stock to loadings, but to allow multiple destinations to be served without using multiple paths on the congested southern stretches.

 

[Minstral25]

Look at Southern.

Or ATW.

Or ScotRail.

Or EMT.

Or Cross Country.

Or Virgin.

Or SWT.

Or London Midland.

Or SouthEastern...

They all seem to cope pretty well with portion working - even portion working between different classes of unit - why do people think that it can't work on the GWML or ECML with identical IEP coupling together?

Southern do an appalling job of it. My normal morning train is almost never on time, daily into Victoria at least 5 minutes late often more like 15 or 20 minutes - probably on time 3 or 4 times a month. Because a portion has been late or difficulties coupling up. Sometimes only one part arrives which results in massive overcrowding (once or twice a month). Coming home the numbers of delays caused because a unit won't split in the platform ahead of us, must be at least two or three times a month.

Not a good idea

 

[Dave1987]

Southern do an appalling job of it. My normal morning train is almost never on time, daily into Victoria at least 5 minutes late often more like 15 or 20 minutes - probably on time 3 or 4 times a month. Because a portion has been late or difficulties coupling up. Sometimes only one part arrives which results in massive overcrowding (once or twice a month). Coming home the numbers of delays caused because a unit won't split in the platform ahead of us, must be at least two or three times a month.

Not a good idea

Thank you my point entirely!!!

 

[The Ham]

Southern do an appalling job of it. My normal morning train is almost never on time, daily into Victoria at least 5 minutes late often more like 15 or 20 minutes - probably on time 3 or 4 times a month. Because a portion has been late or difficulties coupling up. Sometimes only one part arrives which results in massive overcrowding (once or twice a month). Coming home the numbers of delays caused because a unit won't split in the platform ahead of us, must be at least two or three times a month.

Not a good idea

Would you rather have your train run more on time but with half the frequently?

 

[JamesRowden]

Southern do an appalling job of it. My normal morning train is almost never on time, daily into Victoria at least 5 minutes late often more like 15 or 20 minutes - probably on time 3 or 4 times a month. Because a portion has been late or difficulties coupling up. Sometimes only one part arrives which results in massive overcrowding (once or twice a month). Coming home the numbers of delays caused because a unit won't split in the platform ahead of us, must be at least two or three times a month.

Not a good idea

Would you rather have your train run more on time but with half the frequently?

It looks to me that the problems at Redhill accumulate so badly because of how congested it is during the peak and the fact that trains have corridor sections. Between 7:30 and 8:30 there are 7tph to London of which 3 are joiners and all of the joiners use platform 2 and share it with another 3 through services. The problems look like they are ultimatley due to the combination of Redhill having just 3 through platforms with one of them needing to be used by terminating and reversing North Downs services. New platform '0' is going to be built there and hopefully that will solve the problems.

I do not think that this will be the case with the IEPs on Great Western where they will not have corridor sections and I do not think that the splitting and joining will take place under such congestion. At Oxford it will not be the situation of two trains with two separate origins joining (Cotswalds), it will be a train lengthening which should be more reliable.

 

[Rhydgaled]

I do not think that the splitting and joining will take place under such congestion. At Oxford it will not be the situation of two trains with two separate origins joining (Cotswalds), it will be a train lengthening which should be more reliable.

Personally, I expect the GWML between PAD and Reading will still be quite congested. Also, I think the strongest of my many arguments against the 5-car sets is the crowding when one is working alone (eg. beyond Oxford or between PAD and Reading becuase they don't have enough to double everything up) and 6, 7 or 8 coach loads of passengers want to use it.

 

[tbtc]

Personally, I expect the GWML between PAD and Reading will still be quite congested. Also, I think the strongest of my many arguments against the 5-car sets is the crowding when one is working alone (eg. beyond Oxford or between PAD and Reading becuase they don't have enough to double everything up) and 6, 7 or 8 coach loads of passengers want to use it.

In the real world, how many times is that going to happen?

In theory, SWT could suffer from stranded portions without crew, meaning that they have to run a two coach 158 from Waterlook to Salisbury, but unless I am very much mistaken, this doesn't happen (?)

 

[Rhydgaled]

In the real world, how many times is that going to happen?

I was refering to single 5-car units being used deliberately (to save costs or because they simply don't have enough units to double everything that needs to be) on services (or parts of services) which are too busy for a 5-car.

 

[asylumxl]

I was refering to single 5-car units being used deliberately (to save costs or because they simply don't have enough units to double everything that needs to be) on services (or parts of services) which are too busy for a 5-car.

FGW has operated 7 carriage HST sets before which have had adequate seating capacity at all but the busiest times.

While five is evidently less than seven we need to consider that seven MK3s come to 161m in length, while 5 SET carriages come to 130m. For the sake of argument this means that in total length a 5 carriage IEP set is roughly one carriage shorter, but we need to remember that the SET carriages will have more "furnish-able space" (a concept the DfT is currently enamored with), allowing more space to be used within the total length.

I honestly feel that the total furnish-able space of a five carriage SET will not be far off the total furnish-able space of seven MK3 carriages.

 

[HSTEd]

A five carriage IEP will not need 2/3rds of a carriage worth of catering space, which means you are probably going to lose eight metres or more before you even start.

I am not sure how 4.7 26m carriages will match 7 23m carriages.

EDIT:

DfT puts a 5-cars seating capacity at 315. 270 Standard and 45 first.

45 first is one carriage, add a buffet vehicle and that is five standard class carriages to fit 270 (and thats not even counting the seating in the buffet).

270 fits into something like 3 carriages at most once you include the seats in the buffet vehicle.
Giving you two carriages spare

 

[Manchester77]

Regarding first class apparently the seats will recline in their frames however will not be leather, the standard seats look ok the mock up shows they're leather so whether this will mean they'll thin down padding further or not (however I think there will be thinner padding). Thankfully the seats appear to have slots for paper reservations so should the new electronic system fail there is some back up unlike on the 390s and voyagers. Front end looks very similar to the 395s.

 

[transmanche]

I do not think that this will be the case with the IEPs on Great Western where they will not have corridor sections and I do not think that the splitting and joining will take place under such congestion. At Oxford it will not be the situation of two trains with two separate origins joining (Cotswalds), it will be a train lengthening which should be more reliable.

Indeed, I think a fairer comparison would be the situation at Cambridge with 365s on the Kings Cross-Kings Lynn run. A two-unit (8-car) down service will drop one unit on arrival at Cambridge; that unit will wait there until the next up service joins on and the two units work back to Kings Cross.

 

[jimm]

Personally, I expect the GWML between PAD and Reading will still be quite congested. Also, I think the strongest of my many arguments against the 5-car sets is the crowding when one is working alone (eg. beyond Oxford or between PAD and Reading becuase they don't have enough to double everything up) and 6, 7 or 8 coach loads of passengers want to use it.

No, it's not the strongest of your many arguments, which have all been taken apart here many times over anyway. And as well as IEP there will be lots of long, high-capacity emu formations running between Reading and Paddington.

As I keep trying to get through to you, there are duties on the GWML, all the way to and from Paddington, contra-peak and off-peak, where a single class 180 can handle the loads, so a 5-car IEP, with another 40 or 50 standard class seats, should also be able to cope and allow for growth in traffic as well.

Is there some specific reason, other than your hatred for IEP, why you can't grasp this basic information?

 

[The Ham]

Personally, I expect the GWML between PAD and Reading will still be quite congested. Also, I think the strongest of my many arguments against the 5-car sets is the crowding when one is working alone (eg. beyond Oxford or between PAD and Reading becuase they don't have enough to double everything up) and 6, 7 or 8 coach loads of passengers want to use it.

Lets imagine that we get 7 coach sets rather than 5, what use are they during the peak when you get 9 coach loads of passengers turn up? At least with 5 coach sets there is the option to run them paired up to provide that number of seats.

If there's not enough to run them paired up GW will have other EMU's which they could use to run some of the services to Oxford which would otherwise be run by the IEP's. Freeing up a 9 coach electric to run to somewhere where there are wires (but is further, like Swansea) which would otherwise be run by a single or double 5 coach set which can then be used to strengthen one or two services.

 

[Dave1987]

With 2 x 5 cars how do you provide the catering that is currently offered?

 

[The Ham]

With 2 x 5 cars how do you provide the catering that is currently offered?

Depends on what other facilities the TOC want, but on the draft layout I would suggest that first would have full facilities with a trolley in standard. However the trolley would be able to return to the storage point where there was a microwave, which would enable most orders to be provided. The remaining few orders could be radioed through to the first class kitchen which is then brought through to the person who ordered it.

In which case I would suggest that it would be better in that you wouldn't need to walk to get your food/drinks.