Work required to make Turbos compatible?

[pompeyfan]

In relation to GWR, what work would be required to make their 166/165 fleet compatible with their “west” fleet of 150s and 158s and would it be worthy of the time and therefore money to do so?

 

[RobShipway]

In relation to GWR, what work would be required to make their 166/165 fleet compatible with their “west” fleet of 150s and 158s and would it be worthy of the time and therefore money to do so?

Why do you need to make them compatible?

My theory, that it is very likely that some point in the future the class 150's will be withdrawn and the class 158's will take over doing the services that the class 150's are currently doing. You will then have the Turbo's doing the services that 158's are doing as the majority of turbo's move from being based at Reading to being based St Philips Marsh.

Once the class 769 fleet has been put into service, these will replace turbos on the Thames Valley and North Downs routes. I must confess I am not sure how many turbos are still based at Reading, but for arguments sake let's say that there is 25 units. You have the 19 class 769's replacing the majority of those, so that they can move to St Philips Marsh which then replaces any class 158's based there. The class 158's move from being based at St Philips Marsh to being based at Exeter.

The remaining turbo's at Reading will be serving routes such as Slough - Windsor, Twyford - Henley on Thames and Maidenhead - Marlow.

Oxford - Didcot Parkway, Reading - Basingstoke and Gatwick/Redhill - Reading routes would be served by class 769 units.

 

[pompeyfan]

158s would be unsuitable for a lot of the Devon and Cornwall metro/branches services due to required high turnovers. Would it be reasonable to gauge clear turbos on the Cornish branch lines?

the idea behind making 158s and turbos operationally work in multi would be solely based on perceived operationally convenience

 

[Grecian 1998]

158s would be unsuitable for a lot of the Devon and Cornwall metro/branches services due to required high turnovers. Would it be reasonable to gauge clear turbos on the Cornish branch lines?

the idea behind making 158s and turbos operationally work in multi would be solely based on perceived operationally convenience

Indeed - 158s usually lose time on Exmouth-Paignton services compared to 150s due to the end door configuration not being suitable for the high turnover of passengers across the route. I can't imagine they would be great performers on the Falmouth or St Ives branches either (albeit the latter is only really a problem for 3-4 months a year).

There has always been limited suitable rolling stock to work the Looe and Gunnislake and Newquay branches due to the tight curves on all of them, with Bere Alston - Gunnislake being the trickiest of the lot. This is what led to the Pacers being sent away from the south-west to the north in the late 1980s. 150s have been the best fit for many years. Not sure how the wider and longer Turbos would cope with these.

If GWR can get approval to change the 166s to 2+2 seating and change the air con to the air cooling system on 165s which actually works, I can't really see that there is a need for Turbos to work in multiple with Sprinters. AIUI GWR wanted to make these changes to 166s but the seating proposal was refused by the DfT. The idea behind it is that you can have 5 car Portsmouth-Cardiff services (and Gloucester - Weymouth services where demand requires it in the summer) with 2+2 seating and seat reservations in 166s for longer distance passengers, and 2+3 seating without reservation for short distance passengers in 165s, giving a compromise between number of seats and comfort. This is why 166s are A-C and 165s are D+E. However this hasn't been approved to date.

If GWR can get approval then it takes care of a major source of complaint on the Portsmouth-Cardiff services I suspect the time and effort of making two sets of 30 year old trains compatible with each other probably isn't going to be proportionate.

 

[swt_passenger]

158s would be unsuitable for a lot of the Devon and Cornwall metro/branches services due to required high turnovers. Would it be reasonable to gauge clear turbos on the Cornish branch lines?

Plymouth to Penzance and the Gunnislake and St Ives branches made it into the enhancements plan early in CP5, so it seems to have been considered that far at least. So I’d be surprised if it’s impossible.