Pacer and Sprinter replacement

[ainsworth74]

Arent there routes where it would take passenger growth of several hundred percent to obtain a reasonable passenger loading on a two carriage 170?

Probably but is anyone proposing procuring brand new rolling stock for lines like that? On many lines that are currently operated by Pacers or 2-car 15xs or have either low frequencies or intermittent services I'm sure there is a lot of suppressed demand that might be released if modern trains with plenty of seats appeared on routes regularly (and some advertising took place).

 

[Nym]

Quite possibly, but start considering the economies of scale, how many such routes are there, and how many units would you need to run all of these national routes...

1) Say that growth sits at a steady 7%/annum on these routes, this would mean that within 10 years demand has doubled, hearby filling the unit twice the size, within 1/3rd of the lifetime of that unit.

2) Lets assume that growth is at a little over 3.5% for any further calculations, I believe this is a reasonable assumption.

Lets say that a 153 runs on a route with a current seated load factor of 50%, on the pessimistic side that means that it will have 36 passengers, on avarage, using the unit. Lets also assume a standard deviation on this figure of 18 passengers, meaning that only 2.5% of the time, some passengers need to stand. (Assuming a Gaussian Distribution)

Now if I where a passenger on this route, I'd be pretty happy with that level of service, but now lets change this for a 1 car 172 style unit, this would have less seats etc. due to DDA requirements so lets say, 54 seats.

Now the probability (without any demand changes) of passengers needing to stand for their journey changes to become 16% of the time. (you may have noticed I'm keeping the numbers easy, mathematicians among you).

Now lets factor some growth into this notional set of figures.

By the time that you end up with half of the services being run with passengers needing to stand, it would require 18 more passengers, on average to travel per service. That would be a 33% increase in demand. Within 10 years (at a convenient level of growth, now an even more conservative estimate of only 3%/annum).

So, within 10 years of this notional change in unit, at 3% growth, 50% of the time, passengers would need to stand for their journey.

Now I'm sure we can all appreciate that if you had to stand for half of your journey each time you'd be pretty annoyed at this and start looking for alternate modes of transport.

So if we don't want to stifle growth, then a 50 seat unit to replace an on average half full 153 will only last for 10 years before hitting a point where it will effect demand on the route adversely.

PS to point 1: If you don't know why 7%pa (Or to be spesific 7.1773462536293164213006325023342%pa growth in 10 years means double demand, read a book...)

Now if we look at replacing a 153 with a 2 car 172. The LM version has 116 seats so lets pick a number close to that.

Now, assuming the same initial requirements, these 36 passengers, would be divided between lets say, 108 seats, some proper luggage space is provided.

That means that if growth remains the same for the previous example, 3%/annum. In 10 years, passengers will only need to stand on 0.15% of journeys.
With the higher levels of predicted growth at 7%/annum, passengers in 10 years will only need to stand for 2.5% of journeys.

If you stick half way between, (5.2% growth) in 30 years at the notional end of life of the stock, passengers will be standing on 16% of journies. Likely to be the peak hour services.

Now factor in economies of scale, the additional cost of developing and maintaining this fleet of 153 look a like units at most approximately 50, compared to adding them on to an order of 172 units. In addition to the fact that in 20 years they may be superfluous to use anyway.

Just think about some of the numbers there...

Not to mention that a shiney new train thats twice as big as the old one will release (as said above by ainsworth74) will reduce a lot of supressed demand on the routes, so growth could go above 10%.

 

[brad465]

Problem is a 2 carriage 172 is too large but a 1 carriage 172 would be too small.

Would it be possible to make a model of the class that has the right size?

 

[Lampshade]

Hang on, in a time with good rail growth that will be accelarated by new stock and more frequent timetables (as virgin has shown) why not over provide for the first few years of service, then more passengers will travel and the provision will be correct, rather than underprovided?

Because we're talking about the Government here, when was the last time they did something for the long term?

 

[Nym]

Well with basic growth just compare the lesser running costs of a 1 car model against the cost of developing this model divided by the number of units to be used and I think you'll find that the 2 car unit wins out in the end. Especially if you take into account human factors.

Read the really long post above for details..

 

[T163R]

Also CSRE have their Pulsar units which they say are an ideal replacement for the pacers

Is UK desperate enough to buy Chinese trains ?

 

[HSTEd]

So, it would appear that DDA regulations are going to make refitting Class 153s a nightmare (accessible toilets and so on in a one carriage unit kill the capacity as has been noted), then it would probably be advisable to collapse them back into Class 155s at the same time as the DDA rebuild.

If we are to assume that DDA would lead to the scrapping of all 14x and 20m Sprinters (ie. Class 150) then that leaves us with having to replace:

• 114 2 carriage Cl150s
• 16 3 carriage Cl150s
• 94 2 carriage Cl142s
• 23 2 carriage Cl143s
• 13 2 carriage Cl144s
• 11 3 carriage Cl144s
• 35 1 carriage Cl153s lost to Cl155 restoration

For a total of:

• 114 2 carriage Sprinters
• 16 3 carriage Sprinters
• 130 2 carriage Pacers
• 11 3 carriage Pacers
• 35 1 carriage Sprinters

Now if we assume that the Thameslink cascade will lead to Cl323s being displaced to the Valley Lines to replace the entire fleet of 30 2 carriage Pacers, the Class 121 they have and the Class 150 fleet they have that reduces us to:

• 104 2 carriage Sprinters
• 16 3 carriage Sprinters
• 100 2 carriage Pacers
• 11 3 carriage Pacers
• 35 1 carriage Sprinters

Unfortunately it would appear that the FGW electrification will mostly release 165s that will probably be handed over to Chiltern and used to strengthen services there ratehr than to replace older units as there isn't much else that can be done with them due to the width restrictions, these are thus excluded from the count.
Likewise the majority of the displaced Thameslink stock will likely be used to strengthen existing EMU services rather than to replace DMUs, hence my not accounting for additional displacements even though over a hundred units will be cascaded from Thameslink.

My proposal is as follows:

• Replace all 1 carriage sprinters with two carriage Turbostars,
• Replace all 2 carriage Sprinters with three carriage Turbostars
• Replace all 3 carriage Sprinters with four carriage two-class Turbostars
• Replace all Pacers with equal length Turbostars

This gives a major boost in capacity, and the resulting cascade of 158s, 156s and 155s should drastically improve services across the board, with the 4 carriage Turbostars being used to displace the Class 158s currently in use on atleast one major cross country route (Liverpool Norwich).

This will require a total of 679 vehicles by my count.

But it would never happen as this would require joined up thinking.

 

[Kneedown]

By the time the Sprinters will be replaced the class 172 will be old news and something more up to date will be ordered.

I'm of the opinion that there should be no more DMU's of any variety ordered. We should be electrifying lines, mainline and local, on a rolling basis, gradually replacing Sprinters with electric's as we go along.
Cue someone commenting that it will not be economically viable. Wrong, it will always be economically viable to electrify, it may take longer on some routes to return a profit, but sooner or later the economic benefits will show, and the performance benefits will be apparent immediately.
If we order more DMU's en-masse then it's just an excuse not to electrify many routes for another 40 years or so.

 

[HSTEd]

By the time the Sprinters will be replaced the class 172 will be old news and something more up to date will be ordered.

I'm of the opinion that there should be no more DMU's of any variety ordered. We should be electrifying lines, mainline and local, on a rolling basis, gradually replacing Sprinters with electric's as we go along.
Cue someone commenting that it will not be economically viable. Wrong, it will always be economically viable to electrify, it may take longer on some routes to return a profit, but sooner or later the economic benefits will show, and the performance benefits will be apparent immediately.
If we order more DMU's en-masse then it's just an excuse not to electrify many routes for another 40 years or so.

Thameslink and Crossrail are releasing hundreds of EMU carriages which more than match this "en-masse order", 679 vehicles is rather smaller than the IEP order will eventually have to be to displace all the vehicles on the ECML, MML and GWML.

You arent going to get Swiss style electrification in this country, the political framework and current structure of the industry does not support it, and as for it "being an excuse to not electrify", we wont get the electrification either way and the DMUs will just soldier on to be as old as the HSTs are.

 

[JohnCarlson]

Probably but is anyone proposing procuring brand new rolling stock for lines like that? On many lines that are currently operated by Pacers or 2-car 15xs or have either low frequencies or intermittent services I'm sure there is a lot of suppressed demand that might be released if modern trains with plenty of seats appeared on routes regularly (and some advertising took place).

I am sure there is loads. Here up north we have the harrogate loop and Manchester services which surely have a lot of pent up demand and in fact other than the Whitby line just about anything could do with extra carrages.

John

 

[HSTEd]

Well on rural lines you might even be able to run a trolley service by having the guard double trained.... although I bet the union would hate that....

 

[Batman]

Quite possibly, but start considering the economies of scale, how many such routes are there, and how many units would you need to run all of these national routes...

1) Say that growth sits at a steady 7%/annum on these routes, this would mean that within 10 years demand has doubled, hearby filling the unit twice the size, within 1/3rd of the lifetime of that unit.

2) Lets assume that growth is at a little over 3.5% for any further calculations, I believe this is a reasonable assumption.

Lets say that a 153 runs on a route with a current seated load factor of 50%, on the pessimistic side that means that it will have 36 passengers, on avarage, using the unit. Lets also assume a standard deviation on this figure of 18 passengers, meaning that only 2.5% of the time, some passengers need to stand. (Assuming a Gaussian Distribution)

Now if I where a passenger on this route, I'd be pretty happy with that level of service, but now lets change this for a 1 car 172 style unit, this would have less seats etc. due to DDA requirements so lets say, 54 seats.

Now the probability (without any demand changes) of passengers needing to stand for their journey changes to become 16% of the time. (you may have noticed I'm keeping the numbers easy, mathematicians among you).

Now lets factor some growth into this notional set of figures.

By the time that you end up with half of the services being run with passengers needing to stand, it would require 18 more passengers, on average to travel per service. That would be a 33% increase in demand. Within 10 years (at a convenient level of growth, now an even more conservative estimate of only 3%/annum).

So, within 10 years of this notional change in unit, at 3% growth, 50% of the time, passengers would need to stand for their journey.

Now I'm sure we can all appreciate that if you had to stand for half of your journey each time you'd be pretty annoyed at this and start looking for alternate modes of transport.

So if we don't want to stifle growth, then a 50 seat unit to replace an on average half full 153 will only last for 10 years before hitting a point where it will effect demand on the route adversely.

PS to point 1: If you don't know why 7%pa (Or to be spesific 7.1773462536293164213006325023342%pa growth in 10 years means double demand, read a book...)

Now if we look at replacing a 153 with a 2 car 172. The LM version has 116 seats so lets pick a number close to that.

Now, assuming the same initial requirements, these 36 passengers, would be divided between lets say, 108 seats, some proper luggage space is provided.

That means that if growth remains the same for the previous example, 3%/annum. In 10 years, passengers will only need to stand on 0.15% of journeys.
With the higher levels of predicted growth at 7%/annum, passengers in 10 years will only need to stand for 2.5% of journeys.

If you stick half way between, (5.2% growth) in 30 years at the notional end of life of the stock, passengers will be standing on 16% of journies. Likely to be the peak hour services.

Now factor in economies of scale, the additional cost of developing and maintaining this fleet of 153 look a like units at most approximately 50, compared to adding them on to an order of 172 units. In addition to the fact that in 20 years they may be superfluous to use anyway.

Just think about some of the numbers there...

Not to mention that a shiney new train thats twice as big as the old one will release (as said above by ainsworth74) will reduce a lot of supressed demand on the routes, so growth could go above 10%.

Thats convinced me that 2 car 172's are the best replacement for 153's.

But only 153's that opperate as induvidual units.

If a 153 spends all it's life couples to a 156 to turn it into a 3 car unit, then that 153/156 combi should be regarded as a single unit for the purpose of rolling stock procurement and should be replaced by a single 3 car 172.

Does anyone have any idea out of the 70 153's, how many of them work on their own, and how many are used to strengthen other units?

 

[Lampshade]

Thats convinced me that 2 car 172's are the best replacement for 153's.

I still fail to see how a 172 would be in any way suitable for Preston - Ormskirk or Lancaster - Morecambe.

 

[Buttsy]

I still fail to see how a 172 would be in any way suitable for Preston - Ormskirk or Lancaster - Morecambe.

Best answer with those 2 is to extend 3rd Rail from Ormskirk to Preston and wire Morecambe branch (Heysham can be worked by the odd Leeds-Morecambe DMU). Morecambe then can be added into/replace Manchester-Barrow once the northern triangle gets wired, assuming Windermere is done at the same time.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Best answer with those 2 is to extend 3rd Rail from Ormskirk to Preston and wire Morecambe branch (Heysham can be worked by the odd Leeds-Morecambe DMU).

With regard to the Ormskirk to Preston 3rd rail extension, this would be a similar system extension that occurred when the Merseyrail 3rd rail system was extended to Chester. However, the extension to Preston will have part of its route where the WCML electrified line is situated, from Farrington Curve Junction northwards to Preston station. Do you see any problems occurring on that stretch of line ?

I agree that both the Morecambe and the Windermere lines should be included in future electrification plans. I am old enough to have travelled on the electric service that once ran from Lancaster Green Ayre, via Scale Hall, onwards to Morecambe, in my much younger days.

 

[Buttsy]

With regard to the Ormskirk to Preston 3rd rail extension, this would be a similar system extension that occurred when the Merseyrail 3rd rail system was extended to Chester. However, the extension to Preston will have part of its route where the WCML electrified line is situated, from Farrington Curve Junction northwards to Preston station. Do you see any problems occurring on that stretch of line ?

Correct me if my memory is wrong, but on the approach to Preston there are 2 lines to the West that seem OOU? If there are problems with WCML, then converting one track to 3rd rail would seem an idea and, if possible, extending this back to Farrington. Also, as there always seem to be plans/ideas to bring back the old RES depot into passenger use, I would suggest this is the place to terminate Merseyrail trains. The other alternative is dual voltage units... 313s are basically 507s & 508s...

 

[northwichcat]

With regard to the Ormskirk to Preston 3rd rail extension, this would be a similar system extension that occurred when the Merseyrail 3rd rail system was extended to Chester. However, the extension to Preston will have part of its route where the WCML electrified line is situated, from Farrington Curve Junction northwards to Preston station. Do you see any problems occurring on that stretch of line ?

Network Rail have decided that electrification in fills are non-economically viable unless the off peak frequency of trains utilising the electric is at least 2tph in each direction. This means unless there are planned increases in frequency on lines like Ormskirk-Preston, Bidston-Wrexham, Oxenholme-Windermere, Hazel Grove-Buxton etc. then they are unlikely to be given funds for electrification.

 

[Nym]

The point remains about economies of scale for routes like Lancaster - Morcome, how many routes will only EVER need a 1 car unit, if it's less than 10 or 15 then I suspect it would be cheaper by economies of scale to simply run them as 2 car units, rather than ordering a small amount of special units. That would also provide very comfortable room for growth, and other benifits of a more homogenous fleet.

As for Merseyrail to Preston, if it where completed up to the Borcough curves, very likely, then re-instating the extra tracks alongside the current ones at Preston, giving a 6 track approach with the new tracks immunized for both DC and AC Signalling would allow the Merseyrail stock to use these to terminate independent of the rest of the PRE approaches.

 

[ainsworth74]

The point remains about economies of scale for routes like Lancaster - Morcome, how many routes will only EVER need a 1 car unit, if it's less than 10 or 15 then I suspect it would be cheaper by economies of scale to simply run them as 2 car units, rather than ordering a small amount of special units.

Even if you ignore economies of scale (which you shouldn't and is something that we seem to be doing a lot these days unfortunately), I'm not convinced it would be practical to build 1 car units in this day and age of DDA. I was looking at a 170 seating plan (XC) last night and a driving vehicle with disabled toilet seats 59 people. If you install a cab at the other end and move the toilet around accordingly I think you're going to get 50-55 seats top. Compared with the 153 and its 72-75 that's a big decrease in capacity. I just don't think it will be practical to build 1 car units that have to have disabled access toilets.

 

[sprinterguy]

Network Rail's plans for CP5 (subject to government funding) are to electrify North TPE (bar York-Scarborough) and cascade down some 185s as Pacer replacement. There would also be Pacers directly replaced by EMUs on local services as a result of that electrification. Also for the Valley Lines to be electrified replacing Pacers and releasing 150s to replace Pacers elsewhere.

The 319s arriving at FGW will probably result in their small 143 fleet being replaced. However, the 319s aren't likely to result in more than a handful of 142s being withdrawn in the North - if indeed any are replaced.

150s aren't due for wholesale replacement until the 2019-2024 CP.

Hooray! Finally, some signs of progress! I dearly hope that the Transpennine and Valley Lines electrification schemes get rubber stamped.

I'd much rather have extensive electrification to replace Pacers than a huge new fleet of DMUs.

 

[WatcherZero]

Oxenholme-Windermere seems to be up for a potential CP5 scheme despite its low frequency. I think its primarily as their financial modelling of a replacement service showed that an hourly Diesel service from Manchester Airport (under the wires almost all the way) still had a better BCR than a simple shuttle service Windermere to Preston. So they must have thought they might as well electrify after all.

 

[HSTEd]

Surely the easiest thing to do with regards to Ormskirk-Preston would be to add a chord to allow trains for Preston to enter Lostock Hall railway station, then have them switch power and reverse back to go onto the WCML, this only requires dual immunisation of 800m of twin track railway.

Or you could just add two lines onto the WCML to allow third rail trains to be segregated completely, it doesnt appear that the housing around it is very tight against the sides of the right of way.


Adding lines to the Merseyrail system does also have the benefit of giving them somewhere to send the third rail only stock remaining if the south east does somehow manage to obtain mass replacement of third rail.

 

[Spaceflower]

Interesting. Investment will be made where there's most money being generated. Hence the focus of most investment in the South East.
With regards to investment in the North East, I wonder if alot of money simply disappears?

 

[Buttsy]

Surely the easiest thing to do with regards to Ormskirk-Preston would be to add a chord to allow trains for Preston to enter Lostock Hall railway station, then have them switch power and reverse back to go onto the WCML, this only requires dual immunisation of 800m of twin track railway.

Or you could just add two lines onto the WCML to allow third rail trains to be segregated completely, it doesnt appear that the housing around it is very tight against the sides of the right of way.


Adding lines to the Merseyrail system does also have the benefit of giving them somewhere to send the third rail only stock remaining if the south east does somehow manage to obtain mass replacement of third rail.

Alternatively you could use the old Lancs & Yorks route into platform 7 at Preston to reduce dual immunisation, although that would mean digging up some car park, the rest of the route seems reasonably clear on google maps.

 

[Nym]

Or just switch to OHL at Omskirk, Kirby and Southport and set the current limits of 3rd rail as the ultimate limits?

 

[HSTEd]

Or just switch to OHL at Omskirk, Kirby and Southport and set the current limits of 3rd rail as the ultimate limits?

So now you have three changeover points instead of two? The extra immunisation costs probably wipe out any benefits from using overhead wiring, especially since that would require a new fleet of units to be purchased for Merseyrail as it is unlikely that additional services to Ormskirk would be viable once a through electric service to Preston is in operation.
This way they can keep the current fleet of units and only purchase extras for the extended services.

(Wigan Wallgate and just shy of Preston, only one if you can entirely segregate the third rail from the OHL in the Preston approach)

 

[northwichcat]

I'd much rather have extensive electrification to replace Pacers than a huge new fleet of DMUs.

I don't think it rules out some new DMUs being used directly or indirectly as Pacer replacement but it'll be a small fleet rather than a big fleet.

I've thought for a while that some new EMUs should be ordered for the North West routes which are to be electrified, given the delays that have occured with Thameslink. Then the Thameslink EMUs can be used on Thames Valley as well as future electrification schemes e.g. Valley Lines.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Interesting. Investment will be made where there's most money being generated. Hence the focus of most investment in the South East.

You mean money being lost in the South East. Have you not heard of the 2012 Olympics and I imagine Thameslink will go well over budget with all the mess being made of it.

 

[HSTEd]

Well my proposal for 679 DMU carriages is not really enormous and the 23m Sprinters should last long enough to allow them to be replaced by EMUs.
Expecting not to order any more DMUs is insanity, although I do think its rather ridiculous that the Class 319s are being sent to entirely 25kV territory rather than Liverpool to allow some kind of new Manchester-Liverpool via Bolton and Kirkby service to be initiated when the time comes.

Or run services from Liverpool to Scotland via Preston and Southport, take some of the pressure off the WCML pathing for the proposed Liverpool-Scotland services.

 

[northwichcat]

although I do think its rather ridiculous that the Class 319s are being sent to entirely 25kV territory rather than Liverpool to allow some kind of new Manchester-Liverpool via Bolton and Kirkby service to be initiated when the time comes.

The Merseyrail franchise is for a self contained service with Merseytravel as the franchisor until after the 319s are life expired so any talk of Merseyrail being extended to Manchester or the like using 319s is never going to happen.

The only way 319s would use both AC and DC after Thameslink is for them to be utilised in another franchise serving the South East.

 

[Lampshade]

The extra immunisation costs probably wipe out any benefits from using overhead wiring, especially since that would require a new fleet of units to be purchased for Merseyrail as it is unlikely that additional services to Ormskirk would be viable once a through electric service to Preston is in operation.

Won't the 507/8 units need replacing soon anyway? You could wire Preston - Ormskirk to coincide with a new delivery of 378s to take advantage of this.