Worst Improvement?

[4SRKT]

The latest generation of Pendolinos introduced last year have larger windows don't they? Not sure how much larger though.

I hope so.

That's not you sitting next to the window on one of these new Pendolinos in your avatar is it? I hope not.

 

[Geezertronic]

If Virgin bought them then it's 100% the fault of Virgin (and by extension Branson) that we have such a crap design running on the rails in this country.

If I were to buy a badly designed car it wouldn't be my fault the car was badly designed, but it'd be my fault that I owned it.

If you bought a badly designed Ford, you wouldn't blame Henry would you?

 

[Zoe]

Virgin wanted 140 mph tilting trains. The Pendolinos with small windows were all that were on offer at the time. If car companies only produced cars with automatic transmission then that's what you'd have even if you wanted a manual.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I hope so.

That's not you sitting next to the window on one of these new Pendolinos in your avatar is it? I hope not.

Ha ha no; in my avatar we are on our way home from honeymoon. That picture was taken at 1,340mph at 56,000ft above the Atlantic - not exactly Pendo territory!

 

[tbtc]

Virgin wanted 140 mph tilting trains. The Pendolinos with small windows were all that were an offer at the time. If car companies only produced cars with automatic transmission then that's what you'd have even if you wanted a manual.

That's it.

In hindsight maybe they should have gone for 125mph trains, and had more choice, but things are always easier in hindsight

 

[4SRKT]

That's it.

In hindsight maybe they should have gone for 125mph trains, and had more choice, but things are always easier in hindsight

Especially when you've bought something as crap as a Pendolino! Still, as we can see on here, even something this cheap and nasty has its defenders and apologists (as opposed to fans, which is something entirely different).

 

[tbtc]

Especially when you've bought something as crap as a Pendolino! Still, as we can see on here, even something this cheap and nasty has its defenders and apologists (as opposed to fans, which is something entirely different).

I just think that we should be realistic about the problems with 390s. The high proportion of First Class is the fault of Virgin. The small windows is something specified by the manufacturer (and, was probably the only train they could realistically get to match their specifications on speed etc). Blame Virgin, but only for the parts which are their fault...

...in the same way I'd only blame Arriva for *their* errors on Cross Country, and not blame them for the Voyager problems which they inherited.

 

[Zoe]

I just think that we should be realistic about the problems with 390s. The high proportion of First Class is the fault of Virgin.

How is it the fault of Virgin if it is a franchise commitment to provide separate catering facilities for First Class?

 

[87015]

How is it the fault of Virgin if it is a franchise commitment to provide separate catering facilities for First Class?

And if it was a Virgin specified franchise commitment, which seems a far more likely outcome? The three class idea was all Virgins, this has all the same train of thought and there is to no signs that the SRA / DfT specified it.
The early franchises were much more blank page, if they hadn't made a mess no doubt the DfT micro-management of the later ones wouldn't have been developed.

 

[tbtc]

How is it the fault of Virgin if it is a franchise commitment to provide separate catering facilities for First Class?

The franchise commitment wasn't for almost half the train to be First Class though
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The early franchises were much more blank page, if they hadn't made a mess no doubt the DfT micro-management of the later ones wouldn't have been developed.

True. The DFT are overcompensating for the fact that the first TOCs were given too much freedom (and not enough incentives)

 

[A0]

Other daft thing from 1958 was the redrawing of the regional boundaries. Hand over everything north of Oxford to the London Midland, and give them an excuse to run a former rival's line into the ground. Look what happened to Snow Hill and Wolves Low Level. With the Great Central, they succeeded. Combine LMS and LNER around Yorkshire, and watch as the mess created there leads to a patchwork of good routes and bad. Pass the South Western from Salisbury onwards to the Western, and watch that get run into the ground (currently, no train comes anywhere near ACE times). They swapped with the line from Yeovil to Weymouth, hardly the most successful in the world. Scotland just about made it work, but we still lost several lines where they crossed over (Forfar for instance). They should have waited for a decade or so (perhaps all the way to 1973 and the corporate image) before trying to sort out the regions, and the South Western ought to have stayed Southern all the way to Exeter. As for the Great Central, Eastern to Leicester, Western from there on. Maybe we'd still have it then.

I'd go further - Nationalisation was in many ways the worst thing to happen to the railways.

Nationalisation removed competition which was seen between the big 4 and delayed progress on electrification and dieselisation.

I suspect if the railways hadn't been nationalised the following would have happened:

LNER electrification of Sheffield - London (GCR, probably 1,500V dc), Shenfield - Colchester again 1,500V dc.

LMS would have dieselised (the twins would have proved their worth) in the mid 1950s.

Chances are far fewer steam locos would have been built - certainly not the scale which BR built.

Also, whilst some closures would have inevitably happened, I strongly suspect that the GCR would have survived as would the GWR to Birkenhead, the Waverley line and the Midland to Manchester and the Southern to Plymouth.

 

[LE Greys]

I'd go further - Nationalisation was in many ways the worst thing to happen to the railways.

Nationalisation removed competition which was seen between the big 4 and delayed progress on electrification and dieselisation.

I suspect if the railways hadn't been nationalised the following would have happened:

LNER electrification of Sheffield - London (GCR, probably 1,500V dc), Shenfield - Colchester again 1,500V dc.

LMS would have dieselised (the twins would have proved their worth) in the mid 1950s.

Chances are far fewer steam locos would have been built - certainly not the scale which BR built.

Also, whilst some closures would have inevitably happened, I strongly suspect that the GCR would have survived as would the GWR to Birkenhead, the Waverley line and the Midland to Manchester and the Southern to Plymouth.

It's my understanding that, after the war, the railways required a lot of fixing, and it would have taken a lot of investment to get them to anything like their pre-war state. That essentially means government cash, and a Labour government would only ever have given them that by nationalisation. If the Conservatives had sold them off in 1953, then we might be living in a very different world today. It's quite possible that we might have gone down a much more American route, lots of freight traffic, but virtually no passengers. I think that's unlikely, probably wouldn't be all that much different, "EM11s" on the ECML (25kV electrics capable of 125/140 mph), "Diesel Class 7s" (2,580 hp built by Brush) still in evidence on the LMS, perhaps Cathedral-class HSTs (gas turbine maybe) on the GWR, "4-ERBs" (Bombardier design EMUs) now in service on the Southern and hundreds of EMD freight locos all over the country.

Still, without BR, would we have had anything like the HST? That was a big, national project to produce a train for all regions (yes, including SR). Would we have seen Sprinters, Pacers, MGRs, Freightliner, Intercity or any railways at all for that matter? Perhaps the Big Four would have clubbed together on some big projects (like the LMS & LNER on the Rugby testing plant). Still, BR gave us some good things, things that we saw nationwide.

 

[A0]

It's my understanding that, after the war, the railways required a lot of fixing, and it would have taken a lot of investment to get them to anything like their pre-war state. That essentially means government cash, and a Labour government would only ever have given them that by nationalisation. If the Conservatives had sold them off in 1953, then we might be living in a very different world today. It's quite possible that we might have gone down a much more American route, lots of freight traffic, but virtually no passengers. I think that's unlikely, probably wouldn't be all that much different, "EM11s" on the ECML (25kV electrics capable of 125/140 mph), "Diesel Class 7s" (2,580 hp built by Brush) still in evidence on the LMS, perhaps Cathedral-class HSTs (gas turbine maybe) on the GWR, "4-ERBs" (Bombardier design EMUs) now in service on the Southern and hundreds of EMD freight locos all over the country.

Still, without BR, would we have had anything like the HST? That was a big, national project to produce a train for all regions (yes, including SR). Would we have seen Sprinters, Pacers, MGRs, Freightliner, Intercity or any railways at all for that matter? Perhaps the Big Four would have clubbed together on some big projects (like the LMS & LNER on the Rugby testing plant). Still, BR gave us some good things, things that we saw nationwide.

It's true that a lot of fixing was needed post-war as both WW1 and WW2 had taken their toll on the railways, when they were effectively government run - but the government never really paid the bills.

Would you have seen an 'HST' if nationalisation had never happened? We don't know, but I suspect you might have seen something similar 10 years earlier - don't forget the big 4 were always trying to outdo each other. Don't forget the EM2s were good for 90mph and that was in 1954. Had the GC been electrified - given its gentle gradients and smooth curves, that speed could easily have been usable. As technology improved there's little reason that a 125mph electric loco may have been produced within 10 years of that.

I suspect that rather than spending alot of time & money developing the 'standards' and then trialling lots of different diesel types, the big 4 would have quickly standardised on a couple of diesel designs and a high-speed DMU may well have been on the scene by 1970.

Some may say not seeing Sprinters and Pacers would be a good thing

BRs problem was complacency, led by the fact it had nothing / nobody to compete against. Add to the mix indifferent management and intransigent trade unions, that it actually achieved anything is probably remarkable.

 

[Geezertronic]

Especially when you've bought something as crap as a Pendolino! Still, as we can see on here, even something this cheap and nasty has its defenders and apologists (as opposed to fans, which is something entirely different).

I'm still to hear anything from you as to why the 390s are not fit for the service they provide?

 

[4SRKT]

I'm still to hear anything from you as to why the 390s are not fit for the service they provide?

The problem is small windows. That's it. Have you not been reading the thread?

The point is not whether they are fit or not, merely that they aren't as comfortable as mk IIIs, and therefore not, in this respect at least, an improvement on what went before. The thread is called 'worst improvement', not 'what trains are unfit for service?'. I was unaware that on a thread with such a title that I would be expected to say why something was 'not fit for the service they provide'.

Doh!

 

[Zoe]

The franchise commitment wasn't for almost half the train to be First Class though

However if you are going to proved 3 coaches of First Class plus catering, that will be 3.5 coaches and I doubt having standard class seating in the First Class catering coach was ever going to be popular, so 4 coahces of First Class.

 

[sprinterguy]

However if you are going to proved 3 coaches of First Class plus catering, that will be 3.5 coaches and I doubt having standard class seating in the First Class catering coach was ever going to be popular, so 4 coahces of First Class.

Yes, but was there ever any need to specify three carriages of first class plus the catering carriage in the first place? What would have been the problem with having 2.5 carriages of first class like many traditional Intercity formations?

 

[Lampshade]

Yes, but was there ever any need to specify three carriages of first class plus the catering carriage in the first place? What would have been the problem with having 2.5 carriages of first class like many traditional Intercity formations?

More people will upgrade to get a seat, more £££

 

[Geezertronic]

The problem is small windows. That's it. Have you not been reading the thread?

The point is not whether they are fit or not, merely that they aren't as comfortable as mk IIIs, and therefore not, in this respect at least, an improvement on what went before. The thread is called 'worst improvement', not 'what trains are unfit for service?'.

Well in my opinion you cannot class the 390 as a "Worst Improvement" since the improvements they have made to WCML services and journey times is better than what you would have got out of the older stock. From that perspective, they are a better improvement. That at the end of the day is all that matters to me and as a (semi) regular 390 traveller, the windows, comfort and even the bog smell "issues" are not as prominent as some would like you to believe.

I was unaware that on a thread with such a title that I would be expected to say why something was 'not fit for the service they provide'.

Doh!

There's no reason why you shouldn't back up what you say is there?

 

[4SRKT]

There's no reason why you shouldn't back up what you say is there?

Of course not, except that I didn't say they weren't fit. I said they have small windows. Which they do. And which isn't an improvement. The improved service (try telling this to the people of Nuneaton) they provide has nothing to do with this, and could have been provided by trains with proper windows (and no, I don't mean loco-hauled mk IIIs).

Do you honestly believe that if someone says that A is worse than B that this means he thinks A is unfit for purpose.....??

 

[Geezertronic]

Do you honestly believe that if someone says that A is worse than B that this means he thinks A is unfit for purpose.....??

It's open to interpretation unless otherwise stated to be honest

 

[4SRKT]

It's open to interpretation unless otherwise stated to be honest

No it isn't. Otherwise there could only be two types of things. Things that are the best, and everything else, which would be unfit for purpose. In the real world there are shades of grey. To say otherwise is the same as saying that a 158 is better than a 150 on a branch line, and therefore the 150 is unfit.

For the record, the non-improvement on Pendos is all about the small windows and the seats not lining up with them. Otherwise they are good trains. This really isn't hard to follow.