Great Western Coffee Shop

Campaigners have said that the planned ^598 million transformation of Birmingham New Street station is "yet another" example of the region's Cinderella railway losing out to other parts of the country (link below.)
http://thisissomerset.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=147472&command=displayContent&sourceNode=243687&home=yes&more_nodeId1=242222&contentPK=19907491

Yet another chronic waste of money by our highly incompetent "government". Wasn't Birmingham NS already "modernised" recently?

What else could ^518 million do for the FGW region? I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to answer this. Portishead, Tavistock and TransWilts, anyone...? Even sorting all those 3 issues wouldn't barely even touch ^500+ million!

Ok- B'ham New Street needs an upgrade! You can't argue!

BUT: This project is a waste of money because it does nothing to the platforms! No more capacity will be put into the station.

That is the problem. Yes, there are too many passengers for the station to cope; but there are too many trains using it!

This will solve nothing. Trains will still be overcrowded! (Half) The money would be better spent on the Bordelsy Curves, allowing Tamworth and Kings Norton trains to run to Moor Street to relieve the capacity at New Street.

And then the rest of the cash- Cotswold Line? ??? Tavistock? Portishead? West of England Main Line?

A shortlist of designers bidding to redevelop Birmingham's New Street Station has been revealed (link below.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7253723.stm

More than 40 bids were submitted from designers in Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the US, as well as the UK.

Six contenders would present their "vision" in April, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) said.

The six teams are CRAB Studio, Foreign Office Architects, IDOM UK Ltd, LAB architecture studio, UNStudio and Rafael Vinoly Architects.

Sorting the TransWilts would, I understand, cost around 110k per year.  So the money to be spent on BNS would cover it until the year 6717.

But would the Pacers last that long!

No, but the prices quoted are for the leasing of stock, so there's not any big capital replacements element to be added to the finance model.   

On the other hand, with traffic growth the 110k per annum is really only needed for a few years.   With fuel for cars at ^20.00 a litre and congestion charging of ^15.00 for driving into Swindon and Salisbury by 2018, and a half hourly TransWilts train service too, the financial model will be very different by that time.  The trains will be 4 coaches, DOO, Emu (see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/acronyms.html (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/acronyms.html)) and charging a market price, so the need for any form of subsidy will have been eliminated anyway  ;)

Grahame, sorry but the trans wilts services couldn't be DOO as any new DOO schemes are banned as they are considered unsafe if there was an accident.

IIRC British Rail Inter-City division had plans for a NEW Birmingham HUB station out in the sticks, a sort of Birmingham Parkway that would have resolved BNS problems of capacity, giving faster Cross country services, and freeing up BNS to have even more local services.

BR being broken up and sold off finished that Idea.

D.O.O can still be introduced, and has been introduced of recent times, e.g. on The London Tilbury and Southend route, and Gatwick Express. Crossrail is most likely to be D.O.O, and there are proposals for former Silverlink services to go D.O.O. now that they are owned by Transport for London. However the likelyhood of D.O.O. being introduced on the route you have in question is more or less zero.

For starters it would require large alterations to signalling, mirrors, cab secure radio and a fair few other requirements that I can't recall now. It's a big undertaking and wouldn't really pay off, especially as the route forms part of far longer routes. D.O.O from Gloucester to Southampton? Of course it's worth noting that any sort of D.O.O. introduction in the SWT area will be thrown out immediately, SWT staff have a long history of opposing it successfully.

Existing sprinter units have had the door controls in the drivers cabs ripped out as part of the refurbishments, so they'd have to be re-wired in again. HST's and any form of loco hauled are a total no no for D.O.O. Although I notice you have mentioned EMU's. I'd assume overhead electrification, that's not likely to happen at all. London (well Airport Junction) to Bristol / Cardiff would have to be wired up before anything else is touched, and I can't see that happening. The Midland Mainline is possibly the most likely place for it to occur, but very very unlikely out west.

There is also the issue of industrial action. If you think it's bad now, wait till you see what D.O.O. will do. Like it or not, guards are going to fight to protect their jobs, and drivers certainly won't want the added responsiblity of being nursemaids to drunken or aggressive prats. Unless you are lucky to have a ticket inspector on board, forget any sort of customer service on D.O.O. If an accident occurs then rather than having two men on the train to deal with it, you are down to one, and if that one is incapacitated, then you're largely shafted until the emergency services turn up.

Long term I suspect any traction would be some sort of turbostar variant. And there will still be guards, and rightly so.

What about ticket buying on a train which is DOO?

Anyway, how is DOO legal? Surely you need a driver and a guard ( / train manager/conductor) to operate a train (except on Metros like LU)?

Goodness - I wish I could put tone of voice into a post ... I was speculating "out of the box" and commenting that we really don't know where we'll be in 10 years.  It's interesting how people have picked up comments about halving the staff which - were I to put it forward as a serious option WOULD loose me loads of friends, and a change of traction - yet seem quite unabashed at my suggestion of 20 fold inflation on petrol.

Yes, I agree that electrification of the TransWilts is unlikely in the foreseeable future.  DOO won't happen in the foreseeable future - but then look back 100 years and who would have foreseen the reductions at the front of the train from 2 (driver and fireman) to 1, or the radical change that the internet has brought! 

I'm sorry if I caused any upset if anyone thought I was seriously proposing these changes within the timescales that anyone's currently looking at - I was not as I appreciate the cost model (electrification) and the work and safety issues (DOO). But I'm glad to have brought the issues up and created a very interesting discussion which filled me (and I suspect many others too) in on far more details that I was aware of. Thank you Dr GC, Dogbox, Qprrule and others.

In order to have DOO there must be either CSR or GSM-R working in the area that you wish to operate in driver only operation. Additionally, there must be sufficient viewing equipment at each car stop marker (where trains that are DOO are going to stop) - this can be either CCTV monitors or mirrors for straight platforms. If the CCTV monitors are defective trains may not stop at that platform - unless a dispatcher is provided, or, trains can stop and require the driver to get out the cab and close each carriage manually...  ;D

Tickets can come from machines or ticket offices on stations or on train from RPI's / Travelling Ticket Inspectors.

D.O.O. is perfectly legal as long as certain criteria are met, basically track circuiting, secure radio systems (CSR) where the signaller can effectively communicate with the passengers, mirrors or CCTV cameras on platforms, and various other conditions of which I cannot remember offhand. Most D.O.O. operations are generally fairly intensive metro type routes (the Bedwyn and Oxford services excepted on Great Western).

My understanding is that if the driver is aware of an emergency situation occuring, he whacks the red emergency button on the CSR radio and the signaller will automatically set all signals to danger automatically and make emergency broadcasts to any trains in the area. In addition I believe the radios allow the signaller to communicate with the passengers, so that information can provided, through the PA system.

Problems in incidents (assuming the driver is incapacitated) would arise if PA's are defective or when trains are split and whatnot, and there is no one passengers can take instructions from, and no one to physically help with evacuations. Basically they're on their own until the emergency services arrive. In the Paddington crash, there were two drivers riding in the back cab of the turbo, who helped co-ordinate evacuation out of the train, but they wouldn't normally be there. There are loads of lineside hazards, also overhead wires can theoretically still have residual current in them, even if switched off.

There are also a fair few occasions where various minor train defects occur, it is still possible to run a train in service with a guard. With D.O.O. unless there is another driver travelling onboard, the service would most likely be cancelled.

Additionally when fault finding, everything takes twice as long under D.O.O. as where as a guard can rectify or check for certain faults, and notify the driver, the driver would have to do it himself. If a circuit breaker tripped in the rear cab, the guard could reset it for example. With no guard, the driver would have to walk to the back to do it. Which can take a while on longish trains, especially if there are two or more units with no gangways!

D.O.O is not unsafe as such day to day, but in my opinion becomes far far less safe land less flexible than having a guard on board when things go wrong. It may benefit the shareholders of a company to introduce it, but the savings in the guards wages won't be used to lower fares, nor make the company (and hence the service) more efficient!

No doubt there may be some Turbo drivers on here who can explain the system and procedures far more accurately and in far more detail than I can!

No upset or offence taken!