Great Western Coffee Shop

I've noticed a few times over the last few days that there seem to be some 7 coach HST's about again.

The ones I saw yesterday (Fri 21/3) seemed to have a Standard Class carriage missing.

Is this because of the Dawlish problems?

I guess it's not to do with the conversion of First Class carriages to Standard, as you'd expect the former to be missing if that was the case.

I think it is more to do with Dawlish than conversions.

I have seen one 2+6 in use and also a 2+7 with no Coach E and the Coach F with a mini buffet turned round so the buffet was next to coach D, meaning anyone in First - and the Customer Host with the trolley - had to go through the standard class section of F to reach the buffet.

There's also an 8+2 set running around with TWO standard mini buffets in the formation!

Some good news for the HST fleet. The first of 5 newly converted ex-buffet carriages was reported as being in service today, and the second has also been delivered to Laira Depot.

Given all the sets are (when up to strength) already 2+8, IIRC, I'm not clear on why extra vehicles are needed.  I didn't think the "first to standard" conversion required any additional vehicles.

Maybe for two reasons.  Firstly to keep sets up to strength as the conversions take place while in the longer term give additional opportunities to release coaches for maintenance.   It has already been noted on here how many seem to be running, or rather thumping, around with wheelflats.

As far as I know the extra coaches are to provide some extra slack in the fleet, which given the number of short formations reported seems like a good idea.

I saw the shortest HST possible the other day run through Maidenhead - was a 2+0 (i.e.. an engine+engine!) Was quite funny to look at :) It was heading towards Reading but I don't know where it ended up.

It is possible to go even shorter and it has happened!  ;D

The shortest HST formation ever to run in passenger service (http://www.luxsoft.demon.co.uk/village/hst.html)

Haha! Excellent, bet that looked funny when it went past :-)

The Cathedrals Express last Tuesday (18th March) was 2+6. Had to stand all the way from Kingham to Paddington. Never had that before.

I'm fairly sure someone on here once corrected me, a long while ago now, by saying that an HST couldn't run without a Coach A.

Well, here's an HST running around without a Coach A ...

(http://i.imgur.com/1ifb54F.jpg?1)

 ;) :D ;D

It has to have a Coach A (a Trailer Guard Standard) to work in passenger service. 

A HST doesn't need to have a TGS to operate in passenger service, but it is desirable, if there is no TGS then the emergency equipment needs to be relocated, usually to the buffet area and the driver-guard buzzer will not be operational, so the train will need to be despatched with flags. The central locking system will, however, still work.

Great answer, thanks rts! (and a-d and cfn too of course)

I knew I hadn't been dreaming it when I saw that unit running around without a coach A long ago :)

Out of interest, does it have to be flags or can the RA indicators - where available - be used?

Guard would still need to use a green flag to indicate to the platform staff to hit the RA plunger.  I cannot imagine we'd send a HST out without a TGS into passenger service.

I've never seen or heard of it on FGW, but Grand Central HSTs always run without a TGS, as they don't have any TGS vehicles in their fleet.

When the HSTs were first introduced on the Western, as 7 coach sets in 1976, none of them had a TGS. The guard travelled in one of the power cars.

As originally built the western sets had as few as 4 x 72 = 288 (ish) standard class seats. With the latest changes, some sets will have around 6 x 80 = 480 (less a few in the TGS).