Not sure about 168s, but alot of the work 170s are currently on should be undertaken by a propper regional express unit like a class 158 or 175, but sadly we don't have nearly enough of those. I probably wouldn't scrap the 170s, they'd be nicer than Pacers and 150s for stopping services so that is where I'd put them. But if the acceleration's as bad as some seem to suggest some passengers might end up asking for the Pacers/150s back as the 170s might not be able to keep time as well.
The expected lifespan of an electric locomotive is 40 years, not 30 (that's diesel stock).
2-5 years. IEPs will enter service from 2017 to 2019. CP6 is 2020 to 2024. If some of the later units are running on a line that is electrified in the first year of CP6 they will only have been in service for two years. Even the first batch will only have been going five years if OHLE is enabled on lines they are using two years into CP6.
Oh, I can grasp the idea alright. I sounds perfectly sensible. But this is DaFT we are talking about, rather than the electrics having 26m vehicles and the bi-modes fitting the existing loading guage the whole IEP fleet has 26m vehicles. That means no cascades without guage clearing other routes. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
I would hardly call 2-hourly (or roughly that) high-frequency. I think the HOWL might even be able to take that without additional loops. I think all five current passing loops, plus Ammanford and Builth Road, warrant a 2-hourly service (ideally one that is quite a bit faster than today's trains). It is the other intermediate stations, rather than sections of the route, which don't really justify a higher frequency than the current 4 trains per day.
The ideal stock for HOWL would really be class 156s. I only suggest 175s as an alternative given that the 2-car sets are a bit short for mainline work given that the lack of corridor cabs frustrates multiple working. Even then, I only brought it up because somebody suggested using 175s for Fort William / Oban services, which I suspect is a low-speed route not unlike HOWL. If the choice is between the Fort William/Oban line and HOWL then I would suggest the HOWL is the better choice since there is no requirement for multiple working on the HOWL so there would be no need to fit corridor cabs.
Hang on, you tell us that the 170s can't accelerate, now you say they should be on stopping services - where you need acceleration. And that they shouldn't be on inter-regional services. So that, like I said, means they must be utterly useless for the things they do.
And why aren't you sure about 168s? They do fast runs, they do semi-fast stoppers, same as 170s - apart from the couplings and the cab front on the first batch, they are 170s.
If the lifespan of an electric locomotive is 40 years, why did BR scrap all its early electrics after less than 30? Virgin withdrew the 87s after less than 30 years' service - only going to Bulgaria has saved some from the cutter's torch, which is what happened to a dozen of them - 30 years is good rule of thumb working life for trains, of whatever variety.
And the 91s are going to be 30 by the time the EC IEPs arrive and are, as I said, a small fleet, of unusual design - their owners have done a lot of work looking at replacing them with brand new European-built locos. Why do you suppose that is? Simple - the cost of getting another decade of life out of the 91s does not look attractive.
As for IEP, what are you on about? What exactly are the odds that any route and IEP starts working on in 2017 is going to be electrified in 2020? Or have you seen some secret DfT plan?
Because the logic of how things pan out suggests that the next port of call for the wiring trains will be XC routes and perhaps the Chiltern Line (where the franchise ends in 2021) after that (both freeing up a lot of diesel units with life left in them) and there's quite a bit of those routes to go at, so they won't be getting to the core places bi-modes are going to be in use day in, day out, such as the Cotswold Line or Swindon-Gloucester-Cheltenham, for some time after that and even if for some reason they did set to work there in 2020, then those bi-modes could go straight to the West Country, where there is not going to be any great rush to install wires, or to XC to bridge non-electrified gaps. So those diesel engines will be staying right where they are for quite some time.
Are you turning into Ragnarokr? Not this stuff about 26m coaches again. He went on and on and on and on about how they were going to knock lumps out of places all along the GWML - but actually they weren't. And I think you might be surprised about clearances at a lot of places far away from the GW system too. BR nearly ordered the Mk4s as 26m stock.
For somewhere with the population of Mid Wales, a two-hourly train certainly would be high frequency, and as for the 'ideal train', most of the time a 153 is more than ideal between Llandovery and Craven Arms. How on earth that line survived when others of far greater value, that served far more people, got closed still baffles me to this day, even allowing for the less than fantastic roads in the area.
Faster trains? Have you actually travelled the full length of that line? Have you seen the infamous farm crossing at Heyope Crossing, with a 10mph limit in the middle of a 1 in 60 bank, with zero visibility? No-one is ever going to authorise the cost of fitting automated barrier equipment at the level crossings over roads at places like Dolau, Ffairfach, Llanwrda and Bucknell, so you can forget about running faster.
