Is it true (as I saw here recently) that there are four EC HST diagrams a day which are entirely under the wires?
Yes: Diagrams EC002, EC003, EC007 and EC008 are all HSTs running entirely under the wires Monday-Friday, as are EC002 and EC009 on a Saturday:
http://www.125group.org.uk/diagrams-NXEC.pdf
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So shake up the diagrams and have some loco exchanges at Waverley. It's perfectly possible, provided the electric loco is at the south end (meaning the east end at Waverley) so that it is possible to run off into one of the eastern bays without blocking up a second through platform. This takes ten minutes if done smoothly, which does not add a second to the timetabled stop. The only problem is that it makes loco changes at King's Cross a bit tricky. However, you now have five extra diagrams (the Leeds-Aberdeen-Leeds, the Edinburgh-Aberdeen-Edinburgh, both King's Cross-Aberdeen round trips and the Highland Chieftain) electric hauled. Quite a few 67s are currently available, and both 91s and 90s can work fine with MkIVs and MkIIIs.
Where's the additional rolling stock going to come from? East Coast already have 26 out of 30 (Out of 29 at the moment as they go through repaint) 225s in service each day, and I'm not sure it would be possible to tighten up the diagrams sufficiently (presumably mainly by reducing turn around times at the Cross) for the 225s to cover the four HST diagrams entirely under the wires without it affecting timekeeping. Especially with how often the wires are down at the south end of the ECML anyway.
Porterbrook have enough spare loco hauled mark 3s available to make up three 9 carriage rakes (And more than enough DVTs): 21 TSOs, 3 FOs and 3 RFMs (Plus one off lease at Crown Point apparently), but the rest is primarily in the ownership of Cargo-D and (albeit largely unused at the moment, presumably intended for the Chiltern contract) DB. IIRC the original plan for the East Coast Eureka timetable was for five class 90+mark 3 rakes, so presumably if it is still possible for East Coast to source sufficient stock then it is best to concentrate on replacing the four HSTs running entirely under the wires before thinking about the added complexity of switching from electric to diesel at Edinburgh on the services running north of there.
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I do agree that I hope to see Scotrails' 158s moving down to England once the Scottish electrification projects are well advanced. I would love to see solely 158s and 156s operating out of Heaton depot, rather than the current mix of 156s and 142s. A few 156s would have to be transferred from Newton Heath to Heaton to make up the numbers in order to fully replace 142s (Unless there was a greater number of 158s allocated than there are currently 156s), which would be easily done by some of NHs' 156s being displaced by 158s there.
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You know I am in favour of Pacer replacement on the Bletchley line (plus maybe Coventry - Nuneaton) as it'd mean LM could get rid of all their 150/153s.
A tiny fleet of Pacers at LM wouldn't be any worse than a tiny fleet of 150/153s, after all...
The Bletchley line would be perfect - nothing else to crash into there
Offering more seats than a single 153 and a bit less than a 150, but without the need to retain two different classes of Sprinter. And as you say, the route is completely self contained. It's perfect Pacer territory.
I wonder how long it would be before there were calls clamouring for the necessary platform extension works to be done on the route, and for them to actually get done all of a sudden, to accept 172s if a Pacer or two were to be introduced on the route.
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What's the calling pattern likely to be on Machester - Scotland after re-routing to make use of the new wires? If the stops aren't to dense, I think it should be transfered to InterCity WestCoast along with electrification from Crewe to Chester and an order of 7-car or 11-car Pendolinos. If 11-car, they would go on the main routes to cascade the 9-car sets to London - Chester/Holyhead/Bangor (dragged by 57s from Chester) and Birmingham/Manchester - Scotland. If 7-car, they would go directly onto the routes mentioned. That would free up all the ICWC 221s which would go to XC, cascading shorter 220s to Great Western for Paddington - Costswolds (where they would be lengthened to 5-car by adding a pantograph car).
I'd say order a new batch of eleven carriage Pendos, which allows the twenty one remaining nine car units to very neatly replace the twenty one Super Voyagers that Virgin operate. Much better for diagramming units if there are only two lengths of unit to deal with rather than 7, 9 and 11 car Pendolinos. And all the currently Pendolino operated routes would be eleven car, which further simplifies the possible diagramming complications that will arise when the thirty one existing Pendolinos are lengthened.
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There is one possible exception to this, because the 165s have fairly constrained route availability. The following services could perhaps be worked by 165s:
- Newcastle - Chathill (increased to every 3 hours)
- Newcastle - Ashington (every 3 hours)
- Newcastle - Blyth (every 3 hours, hence covering the hourly Morpeth service)
- Darlington - Saltburn (Half-Hourly)
- Darlington - Middlesbrough (Half-Hourly)
- Newcastle - Saltburn (Hourly)
- Sunderland - Saltburn (Hourly)
My estimate is that lot would require 19 165s in service per day. Assuming FGW's Reading - Basingstoke/Redhill/Gatwick services are formed of single 166s, my estimate is that they need 13 units per day.
Great Western would retain:
- 15x 2-car 165s for the unwired Thames valley branches and, if the route can be cheaply made available to them, Bristol - Taunton and perhaps the Severn Beach line (the Cardiff - Bristol bit of Cardiff - Taunton would go over to electric traction) and all 21 166s (allowing some Reading and Thames valley trains to be lengthened)
Chiltern would have:
- All 17 3-car 90mph 165s from Great Western
- Their own 11 3-car 75mph 165s
- 11 of their 2-car 75mph 165s
That would give Northen:
- 17x 2-car 75mph 2-car 165s from Chiltern
- 5x 2-car 90mph 165s from Great Western (primarily for the services via Morpeth)
- They would also need 8 156s in the Newcastle area to run an hourly Bishop Auckland - Darlington shuttle and Carlise - Newcastle. They would also need some more to run Middlesbrough - Whitby/Nunthorpe (I tried to make services from Bishop Auckland run through in place of some of the 165 services but the single line to Whitby threw my timetabling attempts). After those units are added, they probably wouldn't have enough 156s left to run the Newcastle - Hexham services so that would be a pair of Pacers. Still, cutting Pacers in the area from many down to 2 is pretty good going.
I'd say:
Northern: 20 x 2 car 165/1 from FGW, working out of Heaton depot on the North East services.
FGW: Retain the twenty one 166s for the remaining Thames Valley diesel branches (I understand that there may be some platform length issues for three car units on one of the branches though), and 17 x 3 car 165/1 for use in the Bristol area, allowing FGWs eight class 143 Pacers to go to ATW.
If a few 156s have to be retained at Heaton due to lack of 165s and due to the Network Turbos not being cleared for certain branches then so be it, but there'd certainly be no need for any more Pacers at Heaton (Except for the Yorkshire diagrams around Sheffield, which would be much better worked out of Neville Hill).
At a push, to make Heaton depot entirely 165 worked, I'd also transfer Chilterns' eleven 3 car 165s to Heaton, in exchange for Chiltern getting some/all of FGWs three carriage 165/1s, although this would mean that FGW didn't benefit from the Oxford electrification.
(Unless of course you mean in between the carriages, in which case you're correct, none of them are power doors).
