Using a timetable to work out unit requirements

[Rhydgaled]

I'm working on a suggestion for service enhancments to submit to the Welsh Assembly. I'm trying to work out how many extra units would be required to increase the Portsmouth - Cardiff workings to 4-car (2x class 158) with one unit spliting at Cardiff and contiuning further west. I already know that 9 trains (plus a spare) are needed for Portsmouth - Cardiff. If I ignore the Portsmouth - Cardiff section and work out the unit requirement of the Cardiff - West Wales aspect of the service then add that number to the sets required for Portsmouth - Cardiff would I get the right answer? or would I need to work it out for the whole run (which gets very confusing with all the spliting at Cardiff!)

 

[tbtc]

At the moment some of the Cardiff - Portsmouth services are three coach, so you'd need to add on additional units to extend these to four coach

 

[Rhydgaled]

At the moment some of the Cardiff - Portsmouth services are three coach, so you'd need to add on additional units to extend these to four coach

Yeah, as I say I know what is required to do the Portsmouth - Cardiff bit (4 more units, to make most sets 4-car). So I just need to know if I can work this out the simple way.

 

[tbtc]

Yeah, as I say I know what is required to do the Portsmouth - Cardiff bit (4 more units, to make most sets 4-car)

Right, okay

I just need to know if I can work this out the simple way.

In that case all you should need to do is work out the "cost" of the West Wales extension as if it were a "stand alone" service (bearing in mind that the timings will need to "fit" at Cardiff so that the incoming Portsmouth service has sufficient time before the next "outgoing" one - to avoid the eastbound service from West Wales setting off from Cardiff without the additional two coaches).

It's the same as the EMT plan to do something similar on the Liverpool - Norwich service - four coaches on some parts but two on others.

 

[MCR247]

All Portsmouth - Cardiff trains are booked for 3 car 158s though

 

[Gareth Marston]

I'm working on a suggestion for service enhancments to submit to the Welsh Assembly. I'm trying to work out how many extra units would be required to increase the Portsmouth - Cardiff workings to 4-car (2x class 158) with one unit spliting at Cardiff and contiuning further west. I already know that 9 trains (plus a spare) are needed for Portsmouth - Cardiff. If I ignore the Portsmouth - Cardiff section and work out the unit requirement of the Cardiff - West Wales aspect of the service then add that number to the sets required for Portsmouth - Cardiff would I get the right answer? or would I need to work it out for the whole run (which gets very confusing with all the spliting at Cardiff!)

Right first of all
Where do all these 158's come from?
Are these additional trains to the 175 operated hrly service between Cdf and Carmarthan/ 2 hrly to Milford Haven or replacing them?

No matter how hard you try your not going to get anything else out of whats already there without impacting on someone else- rob Peter to pay Paul unless new rolling stock is ordered.

 

[Rhydgaled]

In that case all you should need to do is work out the "cost" of the West Wales extension as if it were a "stand alone" service (bearing in mind that the timings will need to "fit" at Cardiff so that the incoming Portsmouth service has sufficient time before the next "outgoing" one - to avoid the eastbound service from West Wales setting off from Cardiff without the additional two coaches).

Thanks, that's all I needed to know. I think a 2-hourly Cardiff - Fishguard service would require 3 units, however the round trip takes an odd number of hours, meaning the unit returns to Cardiff in the wrong hour requiring the extension west to be hourly. I think doing this (with the unit only going as far as Carmarthen in the hours it doesn't go to Fishguard) would require 2 more units.

Right first of all
Where do all these 158's come from?
Are these additional trains to the 175 operated hrly service between Cdf and Carmarthan/ 2 hrly to Milford Haven or replacing them?

No matter how hard you try your not going to get anything else out of whats already there without impacting on someone else- rob Peter to pay Paul unless new rolling stock is ordered.

The idea is to introduce new services via the Swansea District line, the existing services (save the daytime Fishguard, which would be replaced by the new service) would remain. I had an idea to free up 6 158s (I've another thread where I'm asking how much it would cost) which involves fitting TDM to class 57s and purchasing the 6 mrk2 DBSOs to run with them. Two 57s and DBSOs would be used on WAG express trains (possiblly releasing some 175s) and 3 57+DBSO sets would replace 4-car 158s on the Birmingham - Holyhead trains. The last DBSO would be part of a spare set. However, now that I've calculated the number of units required, I realise my plan will need modification. The options I'm looking at now are using some mrk3 DVTs as well as the DBSOs or only having the Fishguard - Cardiff aspect of the proposals (thus only requiring 3 158s, allowing the other 3 released by the loco-hauled sets to be used on HOWL, Shrewsbury - Wrexham - Manchester or Holyhead - Llandudno services).

The proposals are based somewhat on the one in the SARPA Media information(budget cuts) thread I contacted you about before, with the new Valleys DMUs replaced with electrification and the pacemaker DMUs replaced with the 3 57+DBSO sets. I'm really hoping the cost of the TDM 57s and the DBSOs will be under £73,310,000 as I'm trying to make the scheme possible within the £600million cost of the heads of the valleys road and, with the information you supplied me with, I estimate the cost of electrification and 15 3-car 377s at £526,690,000. The Newport - Swansea section of electrification comes out as £201,810,000, so if the DFT decide to fund it that could be removed from the cost of my scheme.

 

[MCR247]

You do realise, that it might not be possible to run 5 car 158s to some stations?

And that the 4 car 158s on the Holyhead - Birmingham line share diagrams with the cambrian ones?

 

[Rhydgaled]

You do realise, that it might not be possible to run 5 car 158s to some stations?

And that the 4 car 158s on the Holyhead - Birmingham line share diagrams with the cambrian ones?

Where did I give the impression there would be 5-car 158s, I need to fix that! The longest train of 158s I mentioned is 4-car I think. As for the diagrams, yes they share at the moment, but what about when the Cambrian goes hourly? With a totalty clockface made-up timetable with no sharing of diagrams I estimate 14 units would be required to run the Cambrian line, plus a couple of spares. Apparently 17 of the 24 158s in Wales are being ERTMS fitted, assuming you have 1 spare at Machynlleth and 1 maybe at Shrewsbury there's no scope for sharing of diagrams anymore. With 15 on Cambrian (14 working, 1 spare) that leaves 9 units. This would leave 2 on Holyhead - Birmingham alongside the loco-hauled sets, 3 on FGH-CDF, 3 on other new services and 1 spare for non-Cambrian failures. The 2nd WAG set, as I said above, could also release a 175 which could be handy.

 

[MCR247]

All PMH - CDF workings are booked 3 car 158s, and you are planning to join a 2 car onto that

 

[Rhydgaled]

All PMH - CDF workings are booked 3 car 158s, and you are planning to join a 2 car onto that

Oh right, that's where you mis-understood.

increase the Portsmouth - Cardiff workings to 4-car (2x class 158)

As you see, I said increase the workings to 4-car. The 3-car units would need to be formed back into 2-car sets, then 2 would work together. Ok, one of First Great Western's 3-car set really is a 3-car set and therefore either that unit would have to run on it's own and not have a portion for further west (which may not work with the timetable), or there would be one 5-car set, or you'd need another extra 2-car set (totalling 5 extra) to make them all 4-car with that fixed 3-car set moved elsewhere.

 

[12CSVT]

Perhaps the best way to introduce a 2-hourly service to Fishguard would be to extend the existing services which currently terminate at Carmarthen, which are also 2-hourly.

 

[Gareth Marston]

The current set up is that a train that arrives at BHM INTL from Holyhead forms the next service to the Cambrian and vice versa. Effectively the New St-INTL_ New St part is an hours layover which gives the timetable its integrity to be on time. The previous arrangement did not have sufficient turn around times to give a reliable 2 hrly interval service.

Are you saying that hrly service should be all the way from Abr to BHM INTL and then the Holyhead trains in addition? If so where are the paths down the Stour Valley to accommodate?

 

[The Planner]

Id like to see that too !! you'll never get them past Wolves.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Perhaps the best way to introduce a 2-hourly service to Fishguard would be to extend the existing services which currently terminate at Carmarthen, which are also 2-hourly.

Those are Manchester services using class 175s, in the other hour the Manchester train continues to Milford Haven. A study looked at extending the other half of the service to Milford Haven (to give Milford Haven an hourly service) and it was decided that using a 158 to displace an extra 175 to allow that would not result in optimum positioning of the 3-car 175s at busy times. In my opinion you could use other stock but the new service I'm proposing (as I might have neglected to mention in this thread) would be routed via the Swansea District Line, reducing journey time between Cardiff and Carmarthen by around 15mins (maybe more) but ommitting Swansea (which is why the Carmarthen terminating service is still needed).

Are you saying that hrly service should be all the way from Abr to BHM INTL and then the Holyhead trains in addition? If so where are the paths down the Stour Valley to accommodate?

Didn't think to check paths. The information I've seen doesn't indicate that there would be any difference between the current and the extra services so I just assumed that, what with the problems they apparently had with terminating at New Street, the additional services would also be Aberystwyth - Birmingham International. I then made up a clockface timetable and counted the number of units required to run it. When this number fitted well with the number of units being ERTMS fitted I assumed that my previous assumption that the extra services could and would run through to Birmingham International was correct. I'd be interested to know the actual plan regarding the hourly service and in any suggestions on how this could all be worked out (perhaps terminating the Holyhead services at Shrewsbury?, or the extra Aber trains (which could mean a reduction in the number of ERTMS fitted units)).

 

[The Planner]

Either terminate the odd hour Cambrians at Shrewsbury or run them up to Crewe.

 

[tbtc]

Are you saying that hrly service should be all the way from Abr to BHM INTL and then the Holyhead trains in addition? If so where are the paths down the Stour Valley to accommodate?

In an ideal world you'd have an hourly service from Birmingham to the Cambrian coast, and the bi-hourly Birmingham - Holyhead service would be replaced by either:

1. Extending some of the "slow" LM BHM - Shrewsbury service to Holyhead

2. Making the Cardiff - Holyhead service hourly - additional capacity is needed on the route through Cwymbran etc

Neither will happen, of course. But they'd mean no more paths required into Birmingham

 

[Rhydgaled]

In an ideal world you'd have an hourly service from Birmingham to the Cambrian coast, and the bi-hourly Birmingham - Holyhead service would be replaced by either:

1. Extending some of the "slow" LM BHM - Shrewsbury service to Holyhead

2. Making the Cardiff - Holyhead service hourly - additional capacity is needed on the route through Cwymbran etc

Neither will happen, of course. But they'd mean no more paths required into Birmingham

Based on option 2, I guess you think it would be better to run all the Cambrians through to Birmingham and terminate the Holyheads at Shrewsbury than allow the Holyheads to continue to Birmingham and truncate the extra Cambrians at Shrewsbury. Am I right?

Option 1 sounds tempting, as it would retain all current through service options. However if the LM services come from no further afield than Birmingham I'd say hand those paths over to the 2-hourly loco+coaches+DBSO Holyhead - Birminghams. As well as the 6 158s that would also release whatever LM uses (Turbostars?). Only problem might be, if by "slow" you mean slower than the current Holyhead - Birmingham trains, an increased set requirment which would mean you wouldn't be able to release so many 158s. Then again the turn-around times may be too tight without the unit sharing with the Cambrian, in that case you'd need an extra set or two anyway.