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Does the railway really want people swinging surfboards around on the platform?
How many people own a surfboard but not a car/camper - you won’t get much choice of beach if you are carrying the thing and relying on public transport, and there are loads to rent in Newquay anyway.
If you’ve ever used a rental board, you’ll understand why those who surf won’t hire one and will prefer to take their own. As for swinging it around on a platform, what’s different to those who take Ski’s on the train, or indeed bikes? Boards will always be carried around in padded bags - we don’t want to damage our boards, just as much as someone doesn’t want to catch themselves on it (even if they are made of glass fibre!).
But as mentioned above, the Surfboard thing is rather niche, but relevant to the West Country. First Great Western wouldn’t have been adding extra Mk3s to their HSTs to Newquay each summer if there wasn’t a market for the beach going trains!
They did okay with spray (which is the word the specification used) but got upset at being drenched is my recollection but I'm sure some of our more local members will be able to advise!
Oh, let's put it all in the too difficult category - so very, very 21st century railway.
Let's forget that FGW used to insert an additional TGS into HST sets on a Friday night so they could provide additional luggage capacity on the Saturday morning Newquay turn.
Luggage space is one thing. Luggage space specifically for very niche hobbies is a waste of everyone’s money.
bikes are enough of a pain, folk trying to get a surfboard through a busy station and onto a crowded train is just dangerous.
The civil servants may not have specified the specific grade of aluminium but Hitachi chose that grade as part of their attempts to meet weight and performance criteria set out in the contract.
Another issue as commented on in this space is the end of car vestibules with their out of sight luggage\multi use space. The vestibules are like that because to get the 26m coaches to fit the network the doors and bogies have to be nearer the centre of the carriage at similar to Mk3\Mk4 spacing, this leaves empty space at the ends of each car which the toilets and luggae space has been moved into.
The IEPs are classic design by committee there are lots of competing 'good' ideas but the outcome of the required compromises betrays the lack of knowledge\leadership of the Civil Servants
Since when should everyone's leisure requirements, regardless of cost, be accommodated on the railway? Certainly, pre-COVID when these trains were specified, people getting seats was prioritised. I doubt that most people would disagree with that choice
Re surfboards, I can honestly say that in HST days I only ever recall once seeing a surfboard at a station. Could be my mind playing tricks , but I'm not convinced the whole surfing thing is relevant. Its actually extremely niche. Cornwall is far more about the beach, the fishing villages, celticity, etc etc than people coming down specifically to surf. Perhaps boardmasters could be the exception the rule.
Were I to pick one thing above all others that is/was wrong with IEP procurement it's that we started with 26m-long vehicles. I just don't see the point, apart from the extra seating. If we'd started with the Midland Main Line and the requirement for shorter trains to fit the platforms at St Pancras, we'd probably never have had them!
Were I to pick one thing above all others that is/was wrong with IEP procurement it's that we started with 26m-long vehicles. I just don't see the point, apart from the extra seating. If we'd started with the Midland Main Line and the requirement for shorter trains to fit the platforms at St Pancras, we'd probably never have had them!
You can use the narrow vehicle ends for stuff like toilets and doors, meaning you have a longer passenger saloon and it's cheaper as you need one fewer vehicle for a maxed-out length IC train.
I do see the point that 24m is probably the optimum for UK purposes, though, and 24m does give you 200m in a round number of vehicles, that being the standard for high speed operation, so e.g. Eurostar E320s and HS2 trains will be 24m vehicles. (DB went for 28.5m vehicles for the ICE to do a 200m train with 7 vehicles, but such vehicles would be impossibly narrow here).
You can use the narrow vehicle ends for stuff like toilets and doors, meaning you have a longer passenger saloon and it's cheaper as you need one fewer vehicle for a maxed-out length IC train.
I do see the point that 24m is probably the optimum for UK purposes, though, and 24m does give you 200m in a round number of vehicles, that being the standard for high speed operation, so e.g. Eurostar E320s and HS2 trains will be 24m vehicles. (DB went for 28.5m vehicles for the ICE to do a 200m train with 7 vehicles, but such vehicles would be impossibly narrow here).
But a 10-car train with 23m-long carriages would be shorter than a 9-car at 26m, use almost the same amount of metal, carry (probably) the same amout of seats and fit the profile of existing stock. The people who said "we want longer coaches" are probably the same people who said "we want our high speed line to be faster than the French ones, and hang the expense!" - I think it was a poor decision, among many made. Still travel on them though!
Everything about the entire process was flawed. Just never let civil servants specify trains: badly specified, badly designed, badly built, financed in just about the worst way possible and all wrapped up in an appalling contract.
You call them civil servants, but I believe the team leading the specification was drawn from highly experienced rolling stock specialists from Roscos/TOCs/consultancies, on secondment to DfT.
You make it sound like paper-pushers had a hand in IEP design.
Undoubtedly they had to work to central government processes and rules about public procurement (then framed by the EU), probably with a political slant.
That goes back over several governments to Labour and its control-freakery (Darling/Adonis).
Apart from the various reviews which could have cancelled the project or changed the spec/process, my main beef was the way the DfT was so determined to buy from Hitachi that it would not let the ICEC electric fleet renewal go out to open tender, so Hitachi got the order without any competition from Alstom and the rest.
Once Hitachi opened Newton Aycliffe, the DfT had to find some way of keeping them and Bombardier Derby fed with orders, so H got all the intercity business and B got most of the commuter stuff (Aventras).
How long that will last into the future in today's financial climate is anyone's guess.
The HS2 fleet is clearly going to be derived in part from the IEP experience.
But a 10-car train with 23m-long carriages would be shorter than a 9-car at 26m, use almost the same amount of metal, carry (probably) the same amout of seats and fit the profile of existing stock. The people who said "we want longer coaches" are probably the same people who said "we want our high speed line to be faster than the French ones, and hang the expense!" - I think it was a poor decision, among many made. Still travel on them though!
Except they already knew what was going to happen due to the 180s also being too short. It wasn't the only problem with them, of course, but someone should have taken notes about it for the IET program.
Never mind 180s, they should have learned the lessons from Op Princess. 4 car 220s replacing 7 car LHCS anyone? Yes, they were more frequent but that just makes the problem worse because the service is more attractive.
Bi-Modes allow for power changeover on the move though, which push pull doesn’t. It certainly wouldn’t be possible at Didcot, the services towards Oxford/North Cotswolds don’t generally stop, and the station doesn’t have the capacity to let them, let alone to let them couple.
Similarly many services through Newbury don’t stop, and so would be significantly slower down by doing so.
I don’t really think push pull would be possible on a busy line like the GWML, where typically the changeover stations have maximum one more platform than lines leading into the station. Having to shunt the loco unit the platform, sometimes across both fast lines, before then shunting the train into the platform, then coupling would create huge time penalties.
You wouldn't have done it at Didcot, in an ideal world you should be doing it at Oxford, in reality it would be at Reading which has just been remodelled.
True and I've spotted LNER will do it on occasion as well to keep things going on the "a short train is better than no train" principle. But I'm still not totally sold that, considering the timetable we've ended up with, it justifies all the 5-cars that spend their lives coupled up as 10s for their whole diagram.
Call me old fashioned but I would prefer it if there was sufficient spare cover available that the failure of a 9 car would result in substitution by another 9 car.
Really there's a lot of hyperbole. No doubt the procurement contract is ridiculously expensive and constrained. But from a passenger POV if they had more comfortable seats, a bit better luggage provision and a buffet counter they'd be fine.
The only thing I really dislike about them is the seats with the metal support bar pushing on the back of my thighs.
This reminds me of Monty Python. "So apart from the rock-hard padding, the stain-prone flat cloth, the clinical saloons, the lack of luggage space, the lack of bike spaces, the lack of surfboard space, the lack of hot food, the rough ride, the inability to move from one end of the train to the other in a 10 car, and the use of 5 cars in Cornwall during the summer; what did the 80x not do for passengers?"
Luggage space is one thing. Luggage space specifically for very niche hobbies is a waste of everyone’s money.
bikes are enough of a pain, folk trying to get a surfboard through a busy station and onto a crowded train is just dangerous.
Again call me old-fashioned but if the government wants people to use the trains rather than clogging up the A30, then it needs to provide facilities to match the passengers' needs. FGW used to do it.
I can't understand why articulation hasn't taken off again. The objection in the past used to be that if you had to take one coach out you lost the entire set, but that's no different to any of the fixed-formation multiple units which form the bulk of the modern passenger service.
Having witnessed just last week trains queueing to get into Reading, and having to load in about 30 seconds, with last minute platform changes all over the place, this would never work. If you had to connect locos and get them into place it would take far longer.
Without shunting locos it only take a little disruption for there to be multiple trains from one direction and the ones coming the other delayed, and suddenly you’ve got all you platforms filled with electrics waiting for a diesel loco, or diesel locos waiting for an electric.
That the IET procurement was ridiculously expensive should come as no surprise to anyone . Given it can cost into 7 figures to run a short piece of single track between the Copy Pit line and the westbound Calder, into 8 figures for new stations, take decades and billions to even think about throwing up wires between York and Manchester... Well you get my point.
The UK railway industry is a money from this outsider's viewpoint. You can almost hear the sound of air being sucked through teeth every time a new contract is being proposed....
Does the railway really want people swinging surfboards around on the platform?
How many people own a surfboard but not a car/camper - you won’t get much choice of beach if you are carrying the thing and relying on public transport, and there are loads to rent in Newquay anyway.
You call them civil servants, but I believe the team leading the specification was drawn from highly experienced rolling stock specialists from Roscos/TOCs/consultancies, on secondment to DfT.
You make it sound like paper-pushers had a hand in IEP design.
So the specification was written by a team with a humongous conflict of interest?
ROSCO Employees (and hired consultancies are never a good sign) should not have been let anywhere near it, this sort of revolving door from the private sector is a major issue.
And the consultants and experts just proposed an even more expensive PFI than a traditional leasing arrangement.
Again call me old-fashioned but if the government wants people to use the trains rather than clogging up the A30, then it needs to provide facilities to match the passengers' needs. FGW used to do it.
You call them civil servants, but I believe the team leading the specification was drawn from highly experienced rolling stock specialists from Roscos/TOCs/consultancies, on secondment to DfT.
You can believe all you like, but a team of highly experienced rolling stock stock specialists - to use your words - came up with a specification that included re-writing the laws of physics. That is nothing short of gross incompetence, to put it mildly.
Never mind 180s, they should have learned the lessons from Op Princess. 4 car 220s replacing 7 car LHCS anyone? Yes, they were more frequent but that just makes the problem worse because the service is more attractive.
You wouldn't have done it at Didcot, in an ideal world you should be doing it at Oxford, in reality it would be at Reading which has just been remodelled.
Call me old fashioned but I would prefer it if there was sufficient spare cover available that the failure of a 9 car would result in substitution by another 9 car.
This reminds me of Monty Python. "So apart from the rock-hard padding, the stain-prone flat cloth, the clinical saloons, the lack of luggage space, the lack of bike spaces, the lack of surfboard space, the lack of hot food, the rough ride, the inability to move from one end of the train to the other in a 10 car, and the use of 5 cars in Cornwall during the summer; what did the 80x not do for passengers?"
Again call me old-fashioned but if the government wants people to use the trains rather than clogging up the A30, then it needs to provide facilities to match the passengers' needs. FGW used to do it.
And buffets?
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I can't understand why articulation hasn't taken off again. The objection in the past used to be that if you had to take one coach out you lost the entire set, but that's no different to any of the fixed-formation multiple units which form the bulk of the modern passenger service.
Hitachi produce brilliant comfortable rail vehicles in Japan. The difference here is that the DFT specified and controlled the UK contracts. Say no more!!
Hitachi produce brilliant comfortable rail vehicles in Japan. The difference here is that the DFT specified and controlled the UK contracts. Say no more!!
I used to work with someone who had previously been an accountant for Hitachi/Agility and was told first hand. Some other seats were originally proposed by Hitachi and apparently accepted, then DfT had them changed to save pennies.
I agree the Javelin is a comfortable train.
Returning to the original question I see that only passing reference has been made to the two major reports on the Intercity Express Programme, both of which give important background.
Back in the early days of franchising the operators of both the Western and East Coast operators of HSTs started to look at possible successors. As there was no intention at the time of electrifying the Western routes a diesel train, dubbed ‘HST2’ was being studied; the East Coast being largely electrified a different train was on the cards. The studies were being done in conjunction with the ROSCOs who were expected to finance the development of the trains and as the ROSCOs were interested in the widest possible field of application either design would have been as ‘go anywhere’ as possible.
The DfT then decided it would take over the procurement with the aim of simplifying the approvals process - at the time there were horror stories in circulation about the difficulties in getting all the new varieties of trains through the Railtrack/Network Rail approvals processes regarding issues such as gauging and signalling interference.
So the DfT decided it was going to specify and procure the new trains although it had never done anything like this before. From this point it all got...messy.
I wrote to my MP in October 2011 asking that he used in influence to get the IEP in its then current form stopped. I concluded that:
The DfT, even now after a change of Government, is not able to stop micro-managing the railway. It was clear in the presentation made by two senior civil servants[1] to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers on 27th June 2011, which I attended, that the DfT has decided that additional non-stop trains are required between London and Bristol. So it would appear that the next franchisee will get issued with (a) a set of trains for which they have to pay a pre-determined leasing charge and (b) a timetable to operate - Agility Trains showed a simulation of the train rosters designed to ensure that the trains could be returned to a suitable maintenance depot at the end of the day. This does not leave much freedom of action for the franchisee to match his business to passenger demand - which was one of the original purposes of privatisation.
By acquiring the trains using an alternative to the PFI mechanism, it is estimated that some £80 million per year could be saved. This money could be used to much greater effect in increasing the capacity of the railway; over a decade some £800 million would be available. This could certainly buy some additional track and signals for the western route to Heathrow.
My MP forwarded the letter to the DfT and I received a reply. I was told that the train procurement was not a PFI deal since at the end of the contract ownership of the asset would not revert to Government ownership but remain with Hitachi/Agility trains.
No comments were made to any of the other points I raised.
[1] One of these was the Great Cartographer - Stuart Baker.
If you're serving Newquay, then surfing is no "niche". Swiss trains have ski racks, even though you can't ski year round. Generally the racks fold down, so the space becomes a bike space (a bike space in every carriage on the RhB, that's the sort of commitment to active travel we need here). In the same vein, the space occupied by surfboards becomes a bike space for the rest of the year.
GWR services don't just exist for Reading-London commuters, you know. There's a world out there to the west.
If you're serving Newquay, then surfing is no "niche". Swiss trains have ski racks, even though you can't ski year round. Generally the racks fold down, so the space becomes a bike space (a bike space in every carriage on the RhB, that's the sort of commitment to active travel we need here). In the same vein, the space occupied by surfboards becomes a bike space for the rest of the year.
GWR services don't just exist for Reading-London commuters, you know. There's a world out there to the west.
I think one of the issues with the procurement is that it didn't take into account that GWR's IC services come into three groups:
1. Very long distance services to the Westcountry which mostly carry business travellers and holidaymakers
2. Mid-distance IC to/from Cardiff which will be split between daytrippers and people staying over
3. Bristol via Bath services which are almost outersuburban in their usage, similar to the Norwich ICs and the Avanti Birminghams
The needs of passengers on 1 and 3 are very different. The need of group 3 is as many seats as possible with luggage requirements being minimal (the high density HST layout was intended for these). Group 1 need more luggage space and may want to carry surfboards, and would want a lower density layout with more luggage space. Group 2 can probably make do with either.
To be fair, Avanti do use the same rolling stock for all three, but they (well, Virgin) went for a design aimed at (2) - Manchester in their case with (1) - Scotland in their case and (3) - Birmingham being slight compromises. Unfortunately the IET went for a design aimed mainly at (3) with almost no luggage space bar the overheads (which to be fair are quite generous) with the only compromise to the others being good legroom and a reasonable number of tables.
I very much do think, even if you got the odd substitution, that a dedicated fleet for the Cornish IC services would have made more sense. I believe GWR intended to do this with the 802s then were told they couldn't!
Surfing is a niche, even in Newquay the vast majority of those visiting Newquay wont own a surfboard. If they do they will be keen enough to own a car/van so they can get to the decent surfing spots.
All of Switzerland is pretty near the mountains and you can easily carry skis about to the lifts. Newquay is pretty much at the end of the world in GWR terms, and you can't lug a surfboard very far (getting one on a bus would be interesting....)
A tiny proportion of GWR passengers are going to Newquay. Reducing the space for them to accomodate a very niche passenger subset doesn't make sense.
If it is known that space has been made available for surfboards what happens when twenty of them turn up?
Logic, as I said, is that you have the bike spaces set up to carry both. You can then reserve a bike space for a bike or for a surfboard. First come, first served.
I think surfboards are a bit of a diversion here, though, when looking at how the IET design is lacking for long distance services on which most people are not making day trips. Things that would make more difference would be a luggage rack in all four door pocket spaces (possibly plus another one mid-coach), more tables, maybe a family area (all tables, maybe a TV area/play area, accessible toilet with baby change, kid-friendly decoration, maybe board game boards on the tables) and improved catering facilities - if most people are making 4-5 hour journeys you do have scope to sell "proper" food and good quality Italian espresso based coffee - I don't mean fancy restaurants, I mean the more affordable approach DB, SBB etc use.
So as I said the error was in designing one fleet for all of GWR's quite disparate IC operations.
You could similarly make the same argument for a dedicated subfleet for LNER's operations that go north of Edinburgh, i.e. the Chieftain and the Aberdeen one (Aberdonian?) At least they were able to make the case for a proper catering facility.
Sure, it'd mean fewer seats on those trains for Reading/Peterborough commuters, but so what? It's 1tph on GWR and a few a day on LNER. There are plenty of other trains those commuters can choose.
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