Intercity/One/National Express discussion

[djw1981]

Yes, but one and FGW are a mixed route with intercity, interurban and suburban routes. FSR is primarily interurban and suburban trains, in fairly segregated groupings.

 

[me123]

That Aberdeen service is Intercity.

I know hwat you mean though, and it is a challenge to run such a diverse company (I would imagine). I'm sure that they could do well, especially since they have FCC, which IIRC does cross over somewhat at Cambridge?

 

[djw1981]

That Aberdeen service is Intercity.

Hmmm hardly... not with those stopping aptterns and the trains used.

 

[me123]

They can go at 100mph (and do just North of Aberdeen IIRC), don't stop too much (2 stops in an hour between Glasgow and Perth if omitting Dunblane, which some do) and, run between 2 cities. ANd they are express, just North of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

I wouldn't call Inverness-Aberdeen IC though.

 

[djw1981]

Of them all only the 170 former hT units with a full buffet as remotely IC units.

Otherwise the Aberdeen services are run using the same inter-urban stock used on the Fife / E&G routes.

It's a moot point - anyways, the routes are not IC in teh sense of the other HST /Pendo / LHCS trains

 

[me123]

Yes, I'll agree with that (although 3 HSTs a day!) , but I'll call it IC, as I will Inverness, and E-G via Falkirk.

 

[djw1981]

How else do you expect them to be paid for?

Farebox - We pay.
Taxation via subsidy - We pay.
Investment in franchise - We pay via farebox.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Yes, I'll agree with that (although 3 HSTs a day!) , but I'll call it IC, as I will Inverness, and E-G via Falkirk.

The HST are not FSR!
E&G is not IC, it is at best interurban - 3 or 4 stops in 48 minutes.....

 

[me123]

Well, still provides a similar service to FSRs at about the same speed. E&G, well, compared to the other option, it is intercity

 

[Tom C]

They boast how many stations and trains they have refurbed buts its all at our expense

And exactly which stations have they refurbished on the line you are talking about?

St Pancra's was furnished using money from TFL, Blackfriars has a few pink benches and there are 4 or 5 revolting pink trains........not much else...........oh yes ticket barriers at Blackfriars and City Thameslink.

Seems to me that most of this investment is going into WAGN, not that familier on the north end of Thameslink but certainly the last time I went through not much had changed, its certainly not the Wimbledon Loop, Central London is pretty much as it was save for St Pancra's and from Blackfriars south to Brighton is other operators.

What was First Great Eastern's performance like before the franchise was merged with Anglia Railways and half of WAGN?

Its funny you should say that but people who live on the old Metro route out of Liverpool Street say that the service was much better under First. From what I can gather, one rewrote the peak timetable which means certain stations get a raw deal. As for Norwich, well give me Anglia anyday simply because the service was reliable, know its getting better but its got a long way to go.

 

[djw1981]

And exactly which stations have they refurbished on the line you are talking about?

St Pancra's was furnished using money from TFL, Blackfriars has a few pink benches and there are 4 or 5 revolting pink trains........not much else...........oh yes ticket barriers at Blackfriars and City Thameslink.

Seems to me that most of this investment is going into WAGN, not that familier on the north end of Thameslink but certainly the last time I went through not much had changed, its certainly not the Wimbledon Loop, Central London is pretty much as it was save for St Pancra's and from Blackfriars south to Brighton is other operators.

Thameslink investment maybe being delayed for teh main thameslink upgrade with longer platforms etc allowing extension and refurb to happen at the same time.

 

[O L Leigh]

As for Norwich, well give me Anglia anyday simply because the service was reliable, know its getting better but its got a long way to go.

Clown Point was recently awarded a "Golden Spanner" for it's IC fleet. Cl90 reliability has improved so much in the last 12 months that they are currently running at twice the MPC than they were at the start of 2007.

one TN

 

[me123]

Clown Point was recently awarded a "Golden Spanner" for it's IC fleet.

That is hard to take seriously!!

Well done to them, though.

 

[Tom C]

Clown Point was recently awarded a "Golden Spanner" for it's IC fleet. Cl90 reliability has improved so much in the last 12 months that they are currently running at twice the MPC than they were at the start of 2007.

one TN

Thats the problem though TN, I have a lot of family in Norfolk and many were driven off the train over the past couple of years thanks to the sometimes woeful performance. OK its started to get better but I just hope its not too little, too late. I have had bad experiences with "one" and I now drive up to Norfolk simply because I had enough of the poor service and the endless replacement bus services. Perhaps its time for me to try the train again but what worries me is that a lot of people just won't bother!.

Does anyone have a comparison between the 86's + MK2's and the 90's + MK3's?

Thameslink investment maybe being delayed for teh main thameslink upgrade with longer platforms etc allowing extension and refurb to happen at the same time.

The Thameslink upgrade won't see any real benefits for over 5 years. Sure FCC will be running to Sevenoaks from November 08 but there will be no significant changes for a while yet.

Perhaps the train refurbishment program might speed up a bit now there are a couple of extra units although they are ment to be boosting the service.

 

[djw1981]

That is hard to take seriously!!

Well done to them, though.

Which is hard to take seriously? The Golden Spanner report (in the current (Jan) Modern railways is very well produced as ever.


Or the fact that Norfolk engineers at Crown point could win the award?

 

[Jord]

Well, still provides a similar service to FSRs at about the same speed. E&G, well, compared to the other option, it is intercity

The NXEC HST's run at faster linespeed to FSR, if you look at speed limit signs you will see for example 70 over 80 (set out like a fraction) and the HSTs can do the faster linespeeds (bottom of fraction) as shorter stopping distance or something like that i guess.

 

[djw1981]

E&G via Carstairs is IC - 2 stops in 1hr, mostly 125 max linespeed
E&G via Falkirk is Interurban - 4 stops in 48min, mostly 100mph max linespeed
E&G via Shotts is Suburban - 17? stops in 90 minutes, mostly 80mph max linespeed
E&G via A&B will be Suburban

yes i know option 1 is also used by the Norhberwick - Glasgow trains.,....

 

[O L Leigh]

Performance on 'one' mainline may appear to be as bad as before, but the fact is that most of the delays on that service are caused by infrastructure failures and not issues affecting the rolling stock. This isn't helped by the GEML being only a two track railway for almost it's entire length, which makes service recovery much harder to achieve when things do go wrong. Consequently even a small incident can wreak untold disruption out of all proportion to the cause.

The bottom line is that East Anglia badly needs major investment in order to cope with the traffic it sees. Both the GEML and the WA route need to be increased to 4 track for a significant distance beyond London and a full renewal programme for assets like the OLE at key locations like Ingatestone rather than the "patch and repair" approach we seem to be suffering. Programmes like the W10 gauging in Ipswich Tunnel and the recent blockade at Liv St to replace an overbridge are just so much fiddling around the edges and do not actually improve capacity or network reliability.

Unfortunately, the region has been seen as the poor relation for decades. 'one' genuinely does seem to be having a fair crack at providing a decent rail service, but without investment in the network there is only so much that a TOC (any TOC) can do.

one TN

 

[me123]

The name's just a bit silly sounding RE Golden Spanner. I'm not surprised at them getting it.

Forgot about Carstairs (surprising really, it's the route I takem most often).

 

[mrcheek]

I have only travelled on "one" services on one occasion (well, two if you count the return journey), going from London Liverpool Street to Norwich. and even though I was in first class, they wouldnt even give me any free coffee!
so **** em. give the franchise to anybody else, it would be an improvement.

 

[Mojo]

Anglia never gave away freebies in First class either IIRC.

 

[AlexS]

Clown Point was recently awarded a "Golden Spanner" for it's IC fleet. Cl90 reliability has improved so much in the last 12 months that they are currently running at twice the MPC than they were at the start of 2007.

one TN

Ain't that as much to do with EWS helping them out as anything though?

 

[O L Leigh]

In what way?

Sure they've been using up to two EWS "Skodas" at any time, but who's been looking after them on a day to day basis? Besides, the majority of the fleet are still 'one's own.

one TN

 

[ChrisCooper]

The main reason they have nearly always had to hire in 90s from EWS is that the 15 they were allocated was never really enough. IIRC (from last time I worked it out, which was not long after the franchise started) 12 locos are needed in service each day, which only leaves 3 spair, and oviously at any one time, one of them is likely to be in for service, so there isn't a lot of leaway for failures etc. The reason for the current hire is that one loco is off at any time for reliability mods. As always, the TOC has very little say in train allocation, one would have liked to have kept at least one 86 on as a spair if they could not be allocated more 90s, but this was blocked due to the franchise commitment to totally replace the 86s.

 

[Nick W]

It's a shame no one could give Clown Point a proper set of tools, in fact perhaps additional staff.

Today, National Express East Coast's very own liveried set was being hauled by EWS's 90020. Doesn't say much for them does it, and I'd suggest that National Express didn't paint any more trains to keep their reputation.

The performance of the class 90s, is obviously better than the class 86s when they do run. In fact when they were first introduced i noticed an improvement of 3 minutes.

Unfortunately the new timetable, coming in just after the Ipswich Tunnel works were complete, was a disaster. The intercity trains not only make additional stops, but stop for up to 5 minutes in stations. Average speeds on intercity services are around 55 to 60 MPH. I can't imagine what this does to the line's capacity. I don't know what input National Express had in this but it isn't right.

The Ipswich tunnel works were the worst thing that happened to the railway, as the service frequency halved. More-so some idiot at National Express or DaFT decided to run 3 coach turdostars from Ipswich to London.

The line is falling apart in places and does indeed need the investment OneTN mentioned. One such idea is the better alternative to Crossrail, Superlink, which would effectively see 6 tracks from London - Shenfield. In fact I happily oppose Crossfail on the grounds that the GEML hasn't got enough capacity. Four tracking, evening a short section between kelvedon and witham, would be great as it would provide a large enough window to allow expresses to overtake stoppers reliably.

 

[paulo]

And exactly which stations have they refurbished on the line you are talking about?

St Pancra's was furnished using money from TFL, Blackfriars has a few pink benches and there are 4 or 5 revolting pink trains........not much else...........oh yes ticket barriers at Blackfriars and City Thameslink.

Seems to me that most of this investment is going into WAGN, not that familier on the north end of Thameslink but certainly the last time I went through not much had changed, its certainly not the Wimbledon Loop, Central London is pretty much as it was save for St Pancra's and from Blackfriars south to Brighton is other operators.

I happen to live on the north end of the route and as you say it appears most of the stations have or are in the process of being refurbed, but apart from the " new fancy" destination boards I cant see that a few tins of PINK paint justify the constant rises in fares.

 

[ah-media]

St Pancra's was furnished using money from TFL, Blackfriars has a few pink benches and there are 4 or 5 revolting pink trains........not much else...........oh yes ticket barriers at Blackfriars and City Thameslink.

It is not far off 2 years since FCC took over the franchise and I would guess there are as many as half of the 319's running down to Brighton that aren't even re-branded let alone re-furbished. Every week I would say that no more than 2 days a week will I get a nice clean bright train.

Now Southern is a different matter ....

 

[Mintona]

Actually, I think FCC and one operate about the same amount of services - however, why change something that works?

 

[yorkie]

They can go at 100mph (and do just North of Aberdeen IIRC), don't stop too much (2 stops in an hour between Glasgow and Perth if omitting Dunblane, which some do) and, run between 2 cities. ANd they are express, just North of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

I wouldn't call Inverness-Aberdeen IC though.

By that logic, FCC's King's Cross to Peterborough calling at St Neots & Huntingdon only is "InterCity"

IMO any train with 2 wide doors near the centre (rather than at the coach ends) such as a Class 170, cannot be classed as "InterCity".

I'd say SWT's 'Wessex Electrics' (442s) are the closest thing toward the end of the BR days you could get to being "InterCity" without being branded as such, but that was more because of the strength of NSE than anything else, and the general policy that anything staying within (or mostly within) the NSE area would be NSE branded (with obvious exceptions e.g. Gatwick Express, which made sense because they had different pricing policies etc).

InterCity doesn't, and never has, simply meant a train that goes from one city to another, otherwise York to Leeds via Harrogate would count

 

[Max]

I guess you could compare it to Germany, where there are many different types of trains: S-Bahn Trains (stoppers within urban areas), Regional trains, Inter-regional trains (slow trains between different states), Regional and Inter-regional Express, Intercity and ICE. I guess our equvilents would be something like:

S-Bahn - NSE stopping services within the greater London area, or Northern services within greater Manchester (eg. Man Piccadilly-Rose Hill Marple) etc.

Regional Trains - Stopping services within more rural areas eg. East Midlands Trains Nottingham-Worksop line, Northern Hull-Doncaster stoppers etc.

Inter-Regional Trains - More long distance stoppers eg. Stranraer/Carlisle-Newcastle, East Midlands Trains London St Pancras-Nottingham stoppers etc.

Regional/Inter-regional Express - Faster trains with more amenities, but still not 'intercity' as such eg. TPE York/Hull-Manchester, EMT Liverpool-Norwich etc.

Intercity/ICE - Long distance trains with few stops and amenities such as proper first class and buffet car eg. NX East Coast, Virgin West Coast, Cross Country etc.

 

[Mojo]

S-Bahn - NSE stopping services within the greater London area, or Northern services within greater Manchester (eg. Man Piccadilly-Rose Hill Marple) etc.

S-Bahn services tend to be a lot more frequent than many local services in the former Metropolitan Counties though.

Due to the dense population of the UK though I'd say there are a lot more regional services which pass through a large number of urban areas in a short period of time. Take Nottingham to Birmingham, for example.