Great Western Coffee Shop

"Railway eye - the railway blog" site  http://railwayeye.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/confirmed-iep-twice-as-expensive-as.html and I quote word for word,

that according to the latest issue of Rail Business Intelligence (No 425, 1st November 2012).

Under the headline "IEP will cost twice as much as a Pendolino" it reports:

"Before the lengthening programme and delivery of the four new trains, Alstom was covering 48 Pendolino diagrams from 52 sets. On this basis the cost per diagrammed vehicle per month was ^37,000.

"Based on the total cost in the written answer (Earl Attlee on 15th October) IEP will cost twice as much per diagrammed vehicle as the Class 390."

A table in the article gave the cost per diagrammed IEP vehicle per month as ^74,500.

'You cannot be serious!' indeed."End of Quote.

Well I would like to hope someone picks up on this and we have very big new headlines which haults it in its tracks.

IPE is nothing but a sham to me and I have heard the thameslink order is still having problems so  we could be waiting for a while before we see any class 319's operating around Reading and perhaps around Bristol

I go with Ian Walmsey of Porerbrook ideas. Loco and coaches with a TRAXX elctric loco ( a unniversal Euro loco which could be scaled to UK loading gauge) ,with "last mile diesel engine" to get it out of trouble if the wires are down and the new 4 engined TRAXX diesl loc BDB class 245 for nonewired bits. 140 mph electric and 100 mph diesel.

If you were really clever you could have an intemdiate cab in the train to allow only a portion to work forward or maybe even two portions to work to different destions. Edinburgh (or Perth) Inverness and Aberdeen. Now where did happen before? Or in FGW land fast and slow Penznaces from Plymouth.

Excellent points but it seems Seimens have also come up with a locomotive similar to Traxx which also has a last mile diesel engine and I believe they have stated it could also be modifed to fit the uk loading guage.

In the article about Ino-trains in the latest Modern Railways it mention some members from the DFT were spotted having a nose around the Traxx loco but didnt state who they were.

I would really like to hope the current Transport secretary will have the balls to hault IEP and take a good hard look at the numbers.

Besides Hitachi are buying into the nuclear industry

Not much chance of halting IEP. Contracts were signed in July last year. It will create 900 jobs, and safeguard thousands more in employment blackspots the north east. Rail,co (http://www.rail.co/2012/07/26/new-iep-factory-could-be-used-for-crossrail-trains/) also suggested that theNewton Aycliffe factory could also produce Crossrail's trains, although Hitachi is only one of 4 shortlisted bidders.

IEP will have a "last mile" diesel generator to get it home, made by MTU (http://www.mtu-online.com/benelux/press/detail/news_smode/images/cHash/2d7f017b5ffe60b6c9ba3adde6762e42/?tx_ttnews%5Bdownload_mode%5D=single&tx_ttnews%5Bdownload_id%5D=11719). These are 750 KV diesels. There will be one, or possibly two, per electric set, and five or seven in the bi-modes.

I'm glad Hitachi are buying into the nuclear industry in Britain. They are not johnny-come-lately, and will need reliable sources of electricity to run the trains. Three new reactors at Oldbury will give us more certainty in supply.

No guarantee of those jobs in the long term though. Hitachi have also promised a factory in Germany should they win an order there. There aren't going to be enough train orders in the long term to maintain two European Hitachi train-building factories. And a German factory is always going to have benefits over an English factory because it will be connected to the European-gauge network. If Hitachi build any European-gauge trains at Newton Aycliffe they've then got the slight problem of getting them to mainland Europe. HS1 is our only line which could take European-gauge trains. The North East's gain is Derby's loss in terms of jobs, as the work at Bombardier is drying up. The jobs at Newton Aycliffe are only going to be flat-pack assembly type jobs, all the high-value equipment will be shipped in from Japan. More work for Alstom would mean more work producing the high-value electric packages in Preston. The proposed Voyager bi-mode project which now seems to have taken a back burner could well have protected jobs at Alstom who could have produced the electric packages for the new Voyager carriages.

Still no chance of IEP being halted in its tracks, though. The contracts were signed by Justine Greening, who was without balls. Ripping that up could cost up to ^4.5 billion. Patrick McLoughlin has balls (one assumes), but will not change course. It is, in any case, a little disingenuous to complain about the qualities of a train a year before the factory is even built, and 5 years before the first train runs. I admit to great fondness for the IC 125's, and it's likely that they will not be bettered by the IEPs from a passenger point of view, but they can't last forever.

What is the top speed of the IEP after ERTMS is complete ? I've read sections of the GWML are capable of 150mph - 170mph.

As Brunel's design was for a 7' broad guage railway, could it accomodate european guage trains ?

I suspect not.  I think Brunel's trains were wider, but continental trains are taller.  Best I could come up with is Wikipedia, though, with incomplete data:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_gauge
and more at http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=825856

And welcome to the forum, Windsorian!

IEP is being built as just a 125 mph train, irrespective of signalling.   One of the DfT's published technical specifications is that it should be capable of being modified for 140 mph running if required in the future however.  I'd expect if it is based on similar traction technology to the 395 EMUs (Javelins) that should not be much of an issue.

Brunels '7ft gauge' was only significantly wider at track level, it is often pointed out that it did not provide the additional height required for what is sometimes referred to as 'European gauge'. ('European gauge' in the singular is a misnomer though, as is clear from the wiki article linked above - which of the different UIC (now TSI) gauges would you be meaning?)

GWML structures and stations, especially the platforms, have not been maintained at their original widths anyway.

Paul

Agreed, the answer's Hitachi. The question is there any damage limitation that can be done? Changing the design (we haven't reached 'design freeze' yet I believe) to not include any diesel engines would be a huge step in the right direction. Great Western needs some bi-mode sets for PAD - Cotswolds (too many stops for a diesel loco to handle apparently, and too frequent for attaching locos to be particularly implementable) and the same can probably be said for the proposed PAD - Westbury semi-fast service, but I think that's 20 sets maximum (Cotswolds is 8 diagrams I reckon, and from that estimate I guess PAD - Westbury would be the same or slightly fewer, chuck in a couple of spares and you have 20).

The IEP specification asked for a priced option of 140mph capability, but I've suggested Intercity 225s running at 140mph on the GWML on this fourm or another before and was told that health and saftey probably wouldn't allow it through platforms and that because of this there wouldn't be time to get up to 140mph for long outside the stations.

The relevant Railway Group Standard is explicit on this, it just requires that there is no passenger access to platforms if trains are passing at greater than 125 mph:


So you'd probably never do 140 through somewhere like Reading, but many other fast line platforms would just have to be made secure against unplanned access.  This is little different from the situation on certain fast line platforms on parts of the Brighton line.

Paul

Thank you all for your welcome and consideration of my comments; please may I toss 2 other balls in the air ?

1. OK so EU guage trains impratical, but what about refurbished Eurostars (Class 373) on the GWML after Valero D & e320's introduced on HS1 ?

2.  London Underground is already introducing platform edge protection to prevent "incidents"; is there now a similar role for 125+mph lines ?

As well as "how wide" and "how tall", you have "how long".  Eurostars would certainly not fit into Paddington; you may be OK at the double length platforms at Bristol.  The you have "how fast do I accellerate" and "will my carriages go round the corner if I'm diverted to South Wales via Bath and Abbey Wood" ... I'm sure that others will tell me the answer to these questions as I don't know


Oh, please no! (and they're produced by a company that's based in my home town, so I should want to encourage them!)

The 400m rule was a requirement for the Channel tunnel and related to distances between emergency exits.

I assume (perhaps wrongly?) that the refurbished Class 373's will be fitted with ERTMS for use somewhere on the UK network; would the WCML or ECML really be superior to Brunel's masterful GWR ??

I think that yes, you do assume wrongly.  There is no evidence whatsoever that any 373s will be made available.  The Eurostar order is not a replacement, just a small addition to the fleet, indeed the existing fleet are to be refurbished for continuing use on the existing routes.

The completely separate DB order is for additional services to be operated to new (German) destinations - so it too has no bearing on 373 availability.


Platform edge doors were not introduced to 'prevent incidents', but to aid with station ventilation and deal with the 'piston effect' of the trains pushing hot air around the tunnels.  The more obvious safety feature (as far as the layman is concerned) is actually just a beneficial side effect.

Paul