Great Western Coffee Shop

Roger Ford reports in February's Modern Railways that Chiltern are introducing refurbished Mk3 coaches (hauled by Class 67 locomotives with DVTs) for their new Oxford service with power doors and retention toilets - construction of the prototype carriage is about to start.

I'm a little surprised Chiltern is using these on the Oxford services rather than the longer Birmingham route though.

A change of plan. Originally, the loco + coaches was to go on B'ham runs with the Clubmans doing Oxford.

I posted this on Rail UK Forums and peak hour services from 2012 to Birmingham Snow Hill is the plan, according to the resident expert there!

Roger has just corrected his article with a post in uk.railway.  Definitely 67/Mk3s to Birmingham.

Paul

Do we know how many sets we are talking about?

What about the Kidderminster trains - the first Kiddy one is a major peak London train, and the others are major peak B'ham trains, and so deserve the high quality service.

Only thing is that Stourbridge may not have the facilities to store them properly = Clubmans.

I suspect storage / servicing will be the deciding factor.....

Roger Ford does get so much wrong.....I'm not surprised he posted a correction - but will it appear in print?

Errr, I would say that Captain Deltic is one of the most respected and well informed railway journalists, particularly on the technical side. He's admitted it was a slip as he was hurrying to meet the deadline, rather than actually having the wrong information.

 

Doesn't change that he gets things wrong, regularly....

Amongst some TOC management, that reputation doesn't hold, that's for sure.

He usually does! The other error was referring to Water Orton rather than Water Eaton. Despite these minor glitches, I look forward to reading RC's articles more than any other journalist.

Mr Ford assures me there'll be more on Evergreen 3 in next month's Modern Railways, including a challenge to readers from Mr Shooter himself!

Not too many, I suspect. But if the point of the exercise is to provide peak-hour, high-capacity queue-busters from and back to Birmingham, freeing up a few 168s to provide six-car trains for Oxford peak workings, which would then revert to running as two three-car sets to cover off-peak runs to both Oxford and Birmingham, they may not want that many Mk3s anyway.

If someone wants to try to work out the possibilities, this looks like the place to try http://abrail.co.uk/lhcspassdetail.htm to find the codes for owners and operators see the menu here http://www.abrail.co.uk/

A quick scan suggests there may be about 20 TSOs in store that aren't allocated to anyone. DB Regio certainly owns several spare DVTs and appears to own 10 or so FOs, though one or two of those are shown running with W&S. With W&S now running four-coach rakes (plus a DVT), not sure there's much scope for getting any coaches from that source.

W&S did say in 2008 that DB Regio owned enough Mk3s for it to operate five four-coach sets if needed, so maybe that makes one short set available for Chiltern plus whatever they can get running from the others DB owns, plus some of those in store - presumably subject to the prototype conversion proving a cost-effective exercise.

What a good idea to do a proper refurb with power doors etc.

I can't wait for this project - all they need to do to make it perfect is install Phil Sayer at Marylebone. (like they have at A Vale P'way)

I would reserve judgment on the Mk3s until the concept is proved by the prototype. There have been schemes in the past for converting spare Mk3 sleepers into coaching stock which came to grief, apparently because they would have compromised the body structure.

It may be more straightforward starting with a TSO/FO body in the first place, so you only need to worry about the door area but even so, I expect they want to be absolutely sure it will work as planned and be cost-effective. Hence the prototype. The Class 442 and Irish Mk3 bodies were purpose-built to incorporate the power doors, plus the associated kit, and satisfy structural integrity requirements.

There was to be one set coming in last December TT change - but the drop in passengers owing to the recession made this unnecessary. I understood that Chiltern had access to Mk3s in double figures, but I may be wrong.

Re Mr Ford, surely he is aware of the proposed lenghth of the new Oxford platforms - in which case, wouldn't in be rather waste to occupy two coach lengths with vehicles that don't carry passengers? Seems a waste of a platform lengthening to me.....sufficient to realise that I weas spouting rubbish....

I gather if you look at the ownership of Mark 3  "DB" is the key, I gather there are a fair number.

I also gather Roger Ford was wrong about Mark 3s to Oxford. Definitely to Birmingham to attempt to compete with Virgin on time.

Hence dropping of High Wycombe stops on fast Birminghams, which has been mentioned under the Evergreen 3 posts.

Errr - there aren't any Wycombe stops in 'fast' Birminghams as they're 'fast' to Bicester North off-peak, and Banbury in the peak.

I think what he meant was that, generally speaking, currently, one of the two Clubman services per hour stop at High Wycombe (the ones that take a whopping 10 minutes longer than the ones that skip Wycombe).

Currently 13 of the through London to Birmingham trains do stop at Wycombe, and 18 miss it out.  The ones that miss it out often have some sort of connection at Bicester North from Wycombe (and places like Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield). 

With the proposed Phase 2 of Evergreen 3 this changes to 28 not stopping and only 3 stopping, all at the extremities of the day.  Crucially the connections at Bicester are virtually eliminated too as the phase 2 trains will stop at Bicester Town, not Bicester North, and more of the Birmingham trains fly straight through Bicester too.

That gives more flesh on my argument as to why one of the two Birmingham trains per hour should call at High Wycombe from Phase 2.

So you're saying he meant the 'slow' Birmingham trains then, and not the fast?!


That's my worry too - that in the off-peak, Bicester North will become a ghost station, with very little of any use actually stopping there (maybe an hourly terminator, but nothing actually going anywhere beyond, except the 5-a-day Stratfords?) - and the vast majority of trains serving Bicester Town....

I'm not sure I'm with you on any Birmingham's stopping at Wycombe - but a conectional service is definitely required twice an hour somewhere - and Bicester or Banbury would be a sensible change, with turnback facilities.

I guess I'm saying that there really isn't a fast or a slow service, perhaps two semi-fast's one of which is 10 minutes (or 7%) slower.


Yes, either of those would be acceptable, achievable* on an hourly basis with either the xx:36 service to Bicester being extended to Banbury, or swapping the xx:06 Aylesbury and xx:36 Bicester/Stratford services around, or (possibly the easiest) stopping the xx:00 service from London at Bicester rather than the xx:30. Though to achieve that on a twice hourly basis would involve much more of a re-cast.

* Based on the proposed Phase 2 timetable, which I know was only a proposal and is subject to significant change.

Actually, there's generally a 15 minute difference - 1h59 as opposed to 2h14.....
To differentiate between the two, they *are* generally referred to as the 'fast' and 'slow(er)' trains, even by Chiltern themselves!

Your comparing Moor Street, I'm comparing Snow Hill - though I'll concede it's usually 11 minutes - though as little as 6 minutes if you're comparing the 10:50 and 11:24! I guess Moor Street suits your argument and Snow Hill suits mine...  ;)  The important thing is we both agree (as does virtually everybody I've spoken to) that Phase 2 needs better connections from some of the intermediate stations.

Sorry for stirring up the definitions, What I should have said is through trains from Wycombe to Birmingham.

Which as Chris B says drop from 13 to 3.

There are already begginning to be mumblings of discontent from the Wycombe area as the news leaks out. Beconsfield could also lose out I've travelled on several occasions on a train at about 7:30 changed at Wycombe and got to Birmingaham before a meeting at 10:00.

Also agree that Bicester Town could lose out badly becoming like Bedwyn in that you can only go one way South and not North.

The reason I picked Moor Street is to lose all the added 'recovery minutes' that Chiltern always add in to the last stop on their trains....makes comparison more realistic!

That was IndustryInsider!


I said Bicester *North* will be losing out....

Opps meant North.

Although come to think of it at Town you will only be able to go West and not directly East to Bletchley!

However, even my typos still can't desguise the fact that intermediate stations like Beconsfield, Wycombe and Bicester North will lose out to Birmingham with the new timetable under Evergreen 3 and the push for faster London Birmingham times to compete with Virgin.

As I say rumblings are starting in the area.

Good - they need to.....

That'll probably be the tunnel boring machines for the new Bicester Underground.  :o  Frequent high speed connections between the two stations...

;D

Paul

Fair enough. Bit odd as it highlights that although both faster and slower trains go through to Snow Hill (for the moment) the faster ones generally have 11 minutes allowed from Moor Street to Snow Hill and the slower trains only 8. Can't think of any reason for the discrepancy - are the faster ones worse timekeepers or is there some kind of platform issue at Snow Hill?

The phase 3 timetable allows just four minutes for the trip for those that would continue to go through to Snow Hill - probably based on the working timetable and much more like the actual journey time!

If anyone is interested, there is an article in the December issue of Modern Railways describing Wabtec's work on a prototype for a plug sliding door for Chiltern's Mk3s. Involves pretty extensive work, with a wide door, and the door lock system taking over part of the toilet area but Chiltern plan to redesign the vestibules anyway and have only one toilet per coach, so fitting everything in is not seen as a problem. System is going to be marketed to anyone looking to do life-extension of Mk3s

Press release on Chilterns website. Mainline delayed until September.

See also http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=7250.msg85447#msg85447  ;)