Network Rail flagged issues with 319s in the North West in 2011

[northwichcat]

In their supporting documents for their application for the Ordsall Chord Network Rail have submitted a 2011 document where they said the provision of four car EMUs cascaded from the South East on the Bolton corridor may result in insufficient capacity on some services without doubling up trains, while the costs of lengthening platforms to take 8 car units would be too excessive.

As a solution they've suggested Northern would have a few 6 car EMU diagrams on the Bolton corridor if suitable EMUs were made available (with some additional platform lengthening at stations like Blackrod), otherwise the alternative they've suggested is to continue to use 6 car DMUs on some services via Bolton.

The document is secured so I can't copy and paste from it but it's available as a huge 25MB download here: http://www.persona.uk.com/Ordsall/Applicant_docs/SoC.pdf

 

[Adam0984]

Could the 319s be reformed into 3 and 5 cars so you get 5 and 6 car trains at peak times

 

[northwichcat]

Could the 319s be reformed into 3 and 5 cars so you get 5 and 6 car trains at peak times

Porterbrook have looked at 3 car options for 319s but not 5 car options.

 

[BantamMenace]

With only one vehicle per set having motors adding another trailer vehicle into a 4-car set thus making it 5-car would severely hamper their already poor acceleration.

(Not to mention it'd probably take an expensive re-wire)

 

[thealexweb]

Even during off-peak times a six car 185 can easily be approaching full on a Blackpool North to Manchester Airport run. Why are even discussing anything smaller than six coaches? When the East Coast Class 225s become surplus why can't Transpennine routes make use of those. Only two / three stations would require platform lengthening.

 

[northwichcat]

Even during off-peak times a six car 185 can easily be approaching full on a Blackpool North to Manchester Airport run. Why are even discussing anything smaller than six coaches? When the East Coast Class 225s become surplus why can't Transpennine routes make use of those. Only two / three stations would require platform lengthening.

There's 3 car trains and 3 car trains. A pair of 323s (after they are given the new accessible retention toilet) will probably give around 480 seats, while a pair of 185s only gives you 338 seats.