LNER 225 Shortening/Overnight Testing

[gabrielhj07]

I wonder how much time they’ll lose at stations waiting for the same number of people to sardine themselves into a shorter train?

I’m sure the odd 30 second saving will be more than enough…

 

[Railperf]

Even at 7+DVT, they can't quite keep the same timings - there are sections where even the E330 timings are 0.5 mins slower than the Azumas.

Consequently it appears some station times are adjusted in the Working Timetable so that the public timetable remains more consistent

A Class 801 starting from rest reaches 4 miles in under 3 min and is doing over 120mph. A Class 91 with standard 9-coach set and DVT is almost a minute and a half slower to 4 miles and is only doing around 100mph at that point - with the 801 romping further into the distance. I don't see how the removal of 2 trailers improves performance anywhere near an 801.
Bearing in mind that the 91 and HSTs performed almost identically to around 100mph. Even a 2+4 HST ( four trailers removed) can not touch a Class 801 acceleration. I'd like to time a 2+3 HST but they are limited to 75mph.
I'm reliably told that not even two back to back HST power cars can deliver the same acceleration as a Class 801.

 

[hexagon789]

A Class 801 starting from rest reaches 4 miles in under 3 min and is doing over 120mph. A Class 91 with standard 9-coach set and DVT is almost a minute and a half slower to 4 miles and is only doing around 100mph at that point - with the 801 romping further into the distance. I don't see how the removal of 2 trailers improves performance anywhere near an 801.
Bearing in mind that the 91 and HSTs performed almost identically to around 100mph. Even a 2+4 HST ( four trailers removed) can not touch a Class 801 acceleration. I'd like to time a 2+3 HST but they are limited to 75mph.
I'm reliably told that not even two back to back HST power cars can deliver the same acceleration as a Class 801.

No logs of early 91 + 7 Mk4 + DVT sets in the archives, to compare?

I know some 225 sets ran as 7s initially, due to the delays in Mk4 delivery, though perhaps that would also have been before the traction cards in the microprocessors were modified to reduce the motor current ramp-up rate below 60mph.

 

[Royston Vasey]

No logs of early 91 + 7 Mk4 + DVT sets in the archives, to compare?

I know some 225 sets ran as 7s initially, due to the delays in Mk4 delivery, though perhaps that would also have been before the traction cards in the microprocessors were modified to reduce the motor current ramp-up rate below 60mph.

Presumably that was what said test programme sought to establish. I somehow can't help thinking that taking away a few tonnes of Mk 4 isn't going to make a blind bit of difference, but I doubt they'll publish the data.

We'll soon find out in December if the new TT is unachievable. It wouldn't be the first new TT to fail due to overoptimism.

 

[Cach17]

As it turns out, we're going up to Leeds from 14th to 17th December for my sister's graduation.

Looks like I'll potentially be having first hand experience of pure chaos.

 

[Royston Vasey]

What FGW did when they shortened HSTs for performance and capacity reasons (the first time, long before Castles) might have been a better option, which is to remove the buffet car (which is also the heaviest). They also made some composite trailers from TFs IIRC. Not many seats being taken away from Standard at all, in fact the high density sets had more.

However, LNER do have a far superior catering offering than latter day FGW, and proudly market it, so although a trolley might suffice for standard, they'd have to substantially reduce the catering offering in First Class and advertise it accordingly. I guess that was unpalatable (like an LNER panini!). It's not like the sets are exclusively relegated to secondary routes. Leeds is a core route.

At least having no hot catering would reduce demand for their newly slashed First Class capacity!

 

[Railperf]

No logs of early 91 + 7 Mk4 + DVT sets in the archives, to compare?

I know some 225 sets ran as 7s initially, due to the delays in Mk4 delivery, though perhaps that would also have been before the traction cards in the microprocessors were modified to reduce the motor current ramp-up rate below 60mph.

I haven't managed to look in the archive yet.
But from what I have gleaned, I'm not sure that even the class 91 attached to the eight-car HST sets where the HST power car was providing additional traction power was as quick as a class 801.
The new timetable is not going to require a flat out run from start to end and there will be sectional running times that allow slightly slower running coupled to engineering and performance allowances.
Where a shortened Class 91 set cannot match the outright performance of an 800, i guess the hope is that on most days there won't be too many TSR's, and the 91 can eat into those allowances.

 

[35B]

As it turns out, we're going up to Leeds from 14th to 17th December for my sister's graduation.

Looks like I'll potentially be having first hand experience of pure chaos.

I don’t mind* the shortening for a timetable that is allegedly designed with shorter formations in mind. It’s when it’s done early that I’ve the issue.

At least the week of the 14th you’ll be on that revised timetable - though there may be other issues

 

[xotGD]

I think trying to cram Leeds passengers on seven carriage trains at busy times will be a hiding to nowhere.

And some other services will only be 5 car Azumas.

Rubbish.

 

[Jturner98]

Surely it would have been easier to keep them as 9 carriage trains and run them on the Edinburgh fasts, keeping the Azumas for Leeds/York etc. As far as I know that was the original plan.

 

[gabrielhj07]

Surely it would have been easier to keep them as 9 carriage trains and run them on the Edinburgh fasts, keeping the Azumas for Leeds/York etc. As far as I know that was the original plan.

At least they wouldn’t be losing as much time during acceleration as they do on the all stops to York, but being based at Neville Hill doesn’t suit that arrangement.

 

[hexagon789]

Surely it would have been easier to keep them as 9 carriage trains and run them on the Edinburgh fasts, keeping the Azumas for Leeds/York etc. As far as I know that was the original plan.

That was the VTEC plan, and still included shortening them, things have changed significantly since then.

Asides from that, they don't have enough capacity for Newcastle/Edinburgh really, particularly shortened.

 

[swt_passenger]

Surely it would have been easier to keep them as 9 carriage trains and run them on the Edinburgh fasts, keeping the Azumas for Leeds/York etc. As far as I know that was the original plan.

The original 2016 plan to use them on Edinburgh fasts still included the need for them to be shortened though, to match 80x timings.

 

[Railperf]

Surely it would have been easier to keep them as 9 carriage trains and run them on the Edinburgh fasts, keeping the Azumas for Leeds/York etc. As far as I know that was the original plan.

If the catenary were able to supply enough power, replacing the DVT with another 91 - creating a top n tail 9-car set could have been interesting performance wise!

 

[rmHawk765]

The original 2016 plan to use them on Edinburgh fasts still included the need for them to be shortened though, to match 80x timings.

But surely with less stops it is not as huge of a deal?

 

[D365]

Yes, we need fewer short trains on the ECML, not more.

This does look like a case of doing things for the convenience of the railway rather than the passengers. No doubt it's far easier to timetable if the Mk4 sets can keep to 80x timings.

I find myself incredibly perplexed by postings like this. Isn’t the whole purpose of the December 2025 timetable to bring in further passenger revenue/growth? Given that the replacement stock is not yet available - retention of suitably altered IC225 sets has to be the least worst option.

 

[rmHawk765]

I'm not faulting the timetablers but it would be great to actually see some performance and timing comparisons - as mentioned removing 2 trailers doesn't sound promising.

 

[Yorkshire09876]

I find myself incredibly perplexed by postings like this. Isn’t the whole purpose of the December 2025 timetable to bring in further passenger revenue/growth? Given that the replacement stock is not yet available - retention of suitably altered IC225 sets has to be the least worst option.

You are incredibly perplexed as to why trying to fit 9 carriages' worth of passengers into 7 might be a problem?

It's clearly not going to be an improvement for people travelling on those trains, is it? If they don't have suitable stock to make major timetable changes without significant compromises, might be better to wait until they do.

 

[43 302]

Unsurprisingly timetable planning have had absolutely no involvement with the decision to shorten the sets.

The bigger issue is the prevalence of five car units on Leeds trains... 16.40 ex LDS will be interesting for e.g.

 

[Yorkshire09876]

Unsurprisingly timetable planning have had absolutely no involvement with the decision to shorten the sets.

The bigger issue is the prevalence of five car units on Leeds trains... 16.40 ex LDS will be interesting for e.g.

Weren't they keen to stress when 5 car units were ordered that they would always be used in pairs on busy services?

Who could ever have guessed what might happen?!

This looks like further evidence that they don't have sufficient suitable stock to operate the new timetable without significant compromises.

 

[swt_passenger]

But surely with less stops it is not as huge of a deal?

I think that was the idea back then, but they’re no longer being primarily used on that route, and I believe that they’re not going north of Newcastle now.

In any case the possibility of shortening sets has been known about for nearly 10 years, and here we are discussing it yet again.

 

[yorksrob]

I find myself incredibly perplexed by postings like this. Isn’t the whole purpose of the December 2025 timetable to bring in further passenger revenue/growth? Given that the replacement stock is not yet available - retention of suitably altered IC225 sets has to be the least worst option.

Weren't they keen to stress when 5 car units were ordered that they would always be used in pairs on busy services?

Who could ever have guessed what might happen?!

This looks like further evidence that they don't have sufficient suitable stock to operate the new timetable without significant compromises.

It's hard to see where the quid pro quo is going to be for West Yorks passengers if we're going to be lumbered with both short 225's and five carriage Azumas for busy services

 

[Railperf]

As it stands, I can see some sectional running times for the shortened 225 sets from December TT change are slower than 80X timings.

 

[notadriver]

Also is it not true the class 91s were software limited in terms of acceleration so the traction motors didn’t overheat and/or the wheels didn’t slip ? I’m guessing they only develop that 6000 hp above 60 mph.

 

[bramling]

It's hard to see where the quid pro quo is going to be for West Yorks passengers if we're going to be lumbered with both short 225's and five carriage Azumas for busy services

I can see little if any benefit for the West Riding, the only tangible positive change being a few extra extensions to Bradford.

What this timetable does is essentially take the same amount of capacity, but redistribute it towards Newcastle and Edinburgh. This leaves the West Riding, and also the York stopping services, with a significant number of shorter trains, and on top of that reducing the capacity of the remaining 225s in order to make it all work.

Given the importance of the West Riding services I’m not convinced this is a great outcome.

This isn’t the only mess. In order to make it all work, the GTR service at the London end of the route is also now quite messy. Stopping patterns have become quite messy between peak and off-peak, such that for certain destinations it will be necessary to be quite careful in checking the timetable first. For example Baldock being missed out of certain stopping services in order to make the timetable work, Knebworth having peak fasts in the up direction being formed from Peterborough-Horsham services, and in the down direction by KX-Cambridge services, and one peak KX-Cambridge service calling at Stevenage instead of Hitchin, etc. Here there was the complication of Cambridge South opening, which probably couldn’t be made to work with the existing timetable.

Performance is already abysmal at the London end of the route, we wait to see what is going to happen next month…

 

[xotGD]

It's hard to see where the quid pro quo is going to be for West Yorks passengers if we're going to be lumbered with both short 225's and five carriage Azumas for busy services

Plus all of the Airedale connections being broken, resulting in longer overall journey times as well as more crowded trains.

Progress!

 

[yorksrob]

I can see little if any benefit for the West Riding, the only tangible positive change being a few extra extensions to Bradford.

What this timetable does is essentially take the same amount of capacity, but redistribute it towards Newcastle and Edinburgh. This leaves the West Riding, and also the York stopping services, with a significant number of shorter trains, and on top of that reducing the capacity of the remaining 225s in order to make it all work.

Given the importance of the West Riding services I’m not convinced this is a great outcome.

This isn’t the only mess. In order to make it all work, the GTR service at the London end of the route is also now quite messy. Stopping patterns have become quite messy between peak and off-peak, such that for certain destinations it will be necessary to be quite careful in checking the timetable first. For example Baldock being missed out of certain stopping services in order to make the timetable work, Knebworth having peak fasts in the up direction being formed from Peterborough-Horsham services, and in the down direction by KX-Cambridge services, and one peak KX-Cambridge service calling at Stevenage instead of Hitchin, etc. Here there was the complication of Cambridge South opening, which probably couldn’t be made to work with the existing timetable.

Performance is already abysmal at the London end of the route, we wait to see what is going to happen next month…

Plus all of the Airedale connections being broken, resulting in longer overall journey times as well as more crowded trains.

Progress!

It's certainly not a pretty picture for Yorkshire to London services.

Having had the Midland Mainline service to Sheffield ruined with short trains five years ago, the same looks to be planned for the ECML.

 

[bramling]

It's certainly not a pretty picture for Yorkshire to London services.

Having had the Midland Mainline service to Sheffield ruined with short trains five years ago, the same looks to be planned for the ECML.

Without having had the time or willpower to analyse everything in detail, I’m a bit unclear why, even with the current timetable, there’s so many short trains floating around.

When the IETs came along, the general view was that the 9-car 800s were the HST replacements, enough 9-car 801s were ordered to replace the IC225s, and the 5-cars were essentially over and above. Then on top of that there’s the IC225s. So in theory the only 5-cars should be a handful of services at the extremes of the day when there’s genuinely low demand. What we have in practice is a completely different picture, and all the more so from December. Is the IET availability really so bad?

 

[FrontSideBus]

Also is it not true the class 91s were software limited in terms of acceleration so the traction motors didn’t overheat and/or the wheels didn’t slip ? I’m guessing they only develop that 6000 hp above 60 mph.

That is one advantage of an EMU over a locomotive. You're not trying to put thousands of horsepower into just 4 axels.

 

[800001]

Imagine if the improved acceleration turned out to be exactly cancelled out by the reduced retardation...

They've tested all this many many times. I'm sure they have it all worked out.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Nov 2025 ==

Without having had the time or willpower to analyse everything in detail, I’m a bit unclear why, even with the current timetable, there’s so many short trains floating around.

When the IETs came along, the general view was that the 9-car 800s were the HST replacements, enough 9-car 801s were ordered to replace the IC225s, and the 5-cars were essentially over and above. Then on top of that there’s the IC225s. So in theory the only 5-cars should be a handful of services at the extremes of the day when there’s genuinely low demand. What we have in practice is a completely different picture, and all the more so from December. Is the IET availability really so bad?

Nothing to do with availability, it's due to the many more services operating than previous.