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At a stakeholder meeting Northern admitted that they weren't happy using 180s on services between Blackpool/Preston and Manchester/Hazel Grove.  However, they also stated that they will be unhappy at getting the 7 142s back from FGW to fill the gap when the 180s are returned to East Coast.  They said that due to exponential increases in passenger numbers Pacers that were struggling a few years ago on the busier lines are totally unsuitable for them now.

They didn't say what they wanted instead but it sounds like it's a hint to the DfT that they either want the 158s back from ScotRail or that they want more 150s or the 150s that they have been promised quicker.

Did I miss the press release announcing Northern in charge of rolling stock for the DfT?

You mean you didn't hear?  It's going to be one of the biggest changes to the rail industry ever.  Mainline London trains are going to be comprised of 6x142s and 4x143/4s (The 143/4s being First Class.)  Expect delays of up to 60 minutes for each service as the conductor struggles with the doors jamming at every station.

I'd love to see the faces of the London business people if that actually happened.

I believe the DafT are involved and this is part of larger plan to provide relief for those people unable to fly owing to Icelandic Ash. The 142s are to be retained by FGW and operated on regular Penzance - Plymouth - Paddington services (where the top speed of 75 mph is less of a problem) on condition that FGW run their HSTs as boat rains to Fishguard and Weymouth to assist stranded airline passengers. If it is found that heavily loaded 142s struggle on Devon banks the DafT have employed consultants to investigate and install a type of atmospheric railway propulsion system.

In reply to the original thread title: Shame!

good news... i found somewhere for them to go

http://drupal.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/

Tough Titty 8)

Unfortunately for Northern (and fortunately for us down here) it isn't a matter for Northern to decide who gets what units. FGW could have made use of the 14 x Angel Trains 158's that were sent away but they were not on the franchise plan so away they went as  DfT merely told FGW to follow the game plan. Arguably FGW could have made better use of the three car 158's that went to SWT and sent 158863 - 872 there instead to give SWT a single engine type to deal with.

Northen can moan all they like, I still say their best option is to press for some rapid fire fill in electrification and some cascaded EMU's to release their DMU's for other routes. We have capacity problems here too you know, you must have noticed all these loco hauled trains with hired in drivers (all paid for by DfT) rolling round the area to cover for a unit shortage. I seem to remember this forum got started as a general voice for aggieved commuters rammed into short formed DMU's round the Bristol area due to lousy decision making in the past.

It's also worth noting that northen has a couple more units due to the oldham loop conversion to metrolink they probably get the most investment outside of London and Scotland

Seems that Northern have no plans to sub the 180 loss with any loco hauled trains MCV to BPN...must be the obvious solution, and the passengers would love it. ::)

One decision makes a lot of different things happens.

One key decision in rolling stock has been what's happened with TPE.  TPE were supposed to be getting new 3 car trains for all routes, with later on 4th cars to be added.

The first thing that happened was TPE told the order would be cut and they would be getting smaller cascaded Turbostars but should be getting enough to run the busier journeys in multiple.  As a result of this SWT forfeited their 170s and got first digs on cascaded 158s and overall got an increase in their capacity.

Following this doubt was cast over whether TPE would get the 4th carriages and apparently Siemens would now have difficulty in building 4th carriages due to new green legislation, not to mention hugely inflated costs over a few years ago.

The next thing that happened is TPE were told to run the Manchester-Scottish services without getting any extra stock.  Virgin and CrossCountry would benefit from this.  This resulted in less Turbostars operating in multiple and a cutback in capacity between Manchester and Preston, a gap which Northern have since had to fill.


Really?  We're being told that Manchester-Liverpool electrification could be completed in two years yet it could be 2015 before any cascaded EMUs are available.

The Oldham Loop is closed completly at present.  Most of the Oldham Loop passengers are travelling on Calder Vale services so the units released are used to strengthen services on that line.

The conversion consists of overhead DC electrics (on the cheap), cheap replacement of track where it needs it i.e. not done to a high enough level for heavy rail to run on it (parts of the Altrincham and Bury lines are on old BR wooden sleepers), new trams (much cheaper than new trains) and a repaint of stations in to Metrolink colours.  Trams will be built to run at rail platform heights.  Overall a lot cheaper than what happening in London Midland land.

Exactly proving you don't have to spend big!

The ex-Wessex Pacers and 150s do have low capacity seating compared to Northern's and London Midland's units though.

You seem to be under the illusion that the South West is making these capacity issues up. You try boarding any peak time service and expect a seat out of Bristol/Cardiff/Exeter/Southampton etc. Heaven forbid if you get a 2 car 142 bouncing into Exeter Central at half 5...

There is of course also the fact that the newest unit that First Great Western (west) operates is 1992 (ish), meanwhile in the North you have the 332 (?) EMUs in Leeds, 185s, 170s. But alas, the South always gets the new stock!!  8)

I'm trying to think of a more scandalous waste of 125 mph intercity-standard rolling stock than having 5-car 180s pottering around between Manchester and Blackpool but having trouble.

Anyone think of any other contenders?

to be fair the hst's were reconfigured to provide more seating... so why was the same not done to some of the 150's and 2+3 seating put in?... i dont want this more units would be better but umm yeh... what a smart system we have for the allocation of rolling stock

The overcrowding issues in the North are seen as if you can get on the train and be squashed in the doorway at a weekday peak time or on a Saturday then the train isn't overcrowded, if people are left on the platform then it's overcrowded.


Not a fair comparison.

The Northern area covers all local services (except Merseyrail) in three UK parliamentary regions and also extends in to a further two regions.  

If you compare the North West based units with South West based units (both one parliamentary area) then Northern has around 60x142s, 40x150s, around 30x156s, 3x180s and 17x323s.  With the exception of the 180s they were all built between 1984 and 1991.  Merseyrail operate a fleet of trains built between 1978 and 1979.

The 185s may be fairly new but they are inferior to 170s and Voyagers that CrossCountry use on similar services in the Midlands and certainly not designed for 4 hours journeys.  People doing 4 hours on them complain of a very sore bottom afterwards.

170s only run Manchester-Hull once an hour, so only make a brief appearance in the North West.

When most people in the North refer to the South getting all the new trains they are usually referring to the South East, but more recently the West Midlands as well.

I've just checked average speed of the Hazel Grove to Preston and it's 30mph, so no it's not a good service to use them on, but then Northern only have them because DfT have sent some of their other stock elsewhere and there wasn't anything else available.

I also checked the average speed of Penzance to Bristol and found it's 45mph under CrossCountry and slower under FGW.  So you could argue HSTs and Voyagers shouldn't be going West of Bristol and should stick to Bristol to London and WCML and ECML use.

ive lived in both areas and i think its silly to argue with eachother... northen does have more investment and does have priority over fgw however this is for a reason add up the population of the area served by northen, and compair to fgw ....ok we have london in there, manchester to preston i have been on this train at peak times and it has been packed and i mean face pushed up against doors packed and this was 10 years ago on a double class 156 i can only imagine how bad it is now! however it seems to me that the dmu's used by fgw including the pacers would be better utilised by fgw and northen should have a loco renaisance, they still have alot of the infrastructure in place they defo have the numbers to make locos pay, they also have the advantage of electrics

Not really - firstly a trip from Paddington to Penzance will take very roughly 5 hours, as opposed to maybe 90 minutes Manchester to Blackpool. Secondly, those trains will travel over sections of track en route where the line speed is 125.

Use whatever perverse logic you like, but the 180s could be far better utilized by an intercity operator on an intercity service.

You can make the argument re: speed from say Starcross to Penzance, but as soon as you hit the approach to Exeter and up to Bristol you're looking at 100-110 most of the way.

Perhaps you should join some of the many Northerners/Londoners/Others who use FGW/XC to travel to the SouthWest on holiday weekends through the summer & various other holiday times of the year and then tell me a HST/Voyager is wasted West of Bristol  :)

 It's a sad state of affairs, companies arguing about who gets what units.

 Having spent the last week travelling around the South - East, you really start to realise how far down the pecking order
 the South-West is.
 
 Why not put the 142's on the Reading - Basingstoke branch, it's only a 25 minute journey, no hills.
 Turbo's on the Exmouth - Paignton.

I think 142s on the Basingstoke shuttle would be rammed at peak times!, far less standing room than a 2 car 165. Plus - Reading depot only has to deal with the Turbo fleet so maintenance would be really different.

I reckon a pair of 142's on the Falmouth branch would be perfect  ;)  Would free up two (or three including the Truro spare) class 153's to strengthen other services....

  Given just how far down the pecking order the southwest is and the financial problems facing the country generally,I suspect there is an uncertain future ahead for some rail services here and some painful decisions lie ahead as the "rich get richer and the poor poorer" rail wise as it were.Certainly west of Newton Abbot maximum sustainable line speeds of about 60mph do not do the railway any favours and will ultimately have a decision on what rolling stock can be justified in the future in the far west.The trend certainly west of Exeter now seems to be downwards.No more SWT 159s,or FGW 158s,Bristol/Exeter/Plymouth/Penzance stoppers are often overcrowded single 153s instead of 150s and so on.Given the constraints of rolling stock and infrastructure FGW do remarkably well but you cant make a silk purse from a pigs ear as it were,although the Dft think you can.

That's why pax numbers are falling then!!

I'm fairly certain Turbos couldn't work the Exmouth-Paignton route, for the simple reason that they have a chunkier build than most units - BR designed them to be used on the former GWR and GCR which have wider loading gauges than most lines. The Exmouth and Barnstaple routes are ex LSWR and so unsuitable, whilst the Paignton branch was originally single track and all the tunnels between Dawlish and Teignmouth were broad gauge single bores. They were doubled for standard gauge trains at the turn of the century, which is why they have an asymmetrical appearance.

As such I could be wrong (and correct me if I am), but I think there's zero chance of them appearing in Devon unless the DFT have a rush of blood to the head and build clearances to suit them. So it isn't going to happen.

I thought the plan was eventually for the Turbos to arrive in Exeter area, assuming Crossrail etc happens?  That might have just been messroom rumour though!

Can't really think of much stopping them, apart from Dawlish and Torre tunnels.

Read elswhere on the forum that on FGW all the former West routes are doing well but that Thames and HST were "flagging".Any truth in this?

Some big increases in pax numbers on the West Branches - mainly because of the increased capacity that's been built in over the last couple of years - effectively subsidised by local councils. HST and Thames keeping their end up just about.

I was using the quicker CrossCountry time of approximately 240 minutes on the 180 miles between Bristol and Penzance.  This equates to a train running for 4 hours at an average speed of 45mph.  I haven't looked at the full timetable but  the 07:39 Penzance to Paddington service takes 4 hours 20 to reach Bristol so is has an avergage speed of just above 40mph on that section.

You seem to be under the impression that I think 180s are the right trains to use on the services Northern use them on.  I don't.  I think they'd be better with TPE for Manchester Airport-Newcastle services or Manchester Airport-Edinburgh/Glasgow services, on which 185s are limited to 100mph on track with a 125mph speed limit and 125mph stock would give faster journey times.

I gave timings and speed for Hazel Grove to Preston, rather than Manchester Victoria to Blackpool North.  Hazel Grove to Preston involves using the heavily congested Stockport-Manchester line, the speed limit may not be 125mph but it's part of the WCML and 75mph 142s and 150s can hold up an express on that line if they are just a couple of minutes late.  90mph 323s don't cause the same problems.  This gives a reason for Northern using one on that service, rather than having 180s in the first place.

And people seem to be overlooking the fact that 2x156s has more seats than a 180 even if a 180 has more standing space.  Northern would rather have 6x156s than 3x180s but obviously DfT make the decisions and decided Northern should provide an extra Manchester-Preston service to fill the gap left by Voyagers no longer running Manchester-Scotland and the only stock available was 180s.

This can also be a disadvantage as well.  Northern's 323s have more seats than a pair of 142s and at off-peak times in school holidays some 323s are running around half empty while 142s can be leaving passengers behind and they can't be switched.

FGW did receive a grant from the government due to falling numbers on London services but then National Express had worse problems on the East Coast.

Just the same as you could take a trip up to Blackpool, The Lake District or Scarborough and wonder why you're travelling on nothing better than a 185.

I don't disagree, and I am not isolated enough to know that the situation is the same/worse for other areas of the country, i'm just making the point that HSTs and Voyagers are suitable west of Exeter, due to the holiday destinations they serve, even though the average linespeed is poor from around Dawlish through to Penzance.

The reason I brought that up in the first place was because one of the previous posts was making it sound like the Northern 180 routes are one of the worst routes that 125mph trains are used on.  With average speeds of below 60mph you can't say that trains are being used to their full potential with regards to speed, but that isn't always the most important thing.  The point about capacity also applies to the Northern 180 services.

If there were proper connecting trains then possibly it could be an idea for Voyagers to not run west of Bristol and a connecting DMU (156/158) or HST service to take passengers westwards.  This would allow for more carriages in the Summer (8?) and less in the Winter (4?) and there wouldn't be the need to send any extra capacity to Scotland or Manchester and back.

I was told that the class 165's when they moved from the Thames Valley services they would be used on Cardiff - Taunton/Portmouth Hrbr and Severn Beach services with the class 150's and some class 158's being reformed back into 2 carriage sets and being set to the exeter area to replaced the class 143 pacers.

I know network rail are looking at seing whether or not a class 165 could be able to work between Westbury & Weymouth

The key words in the first paragraph are when they move - at present, there is a problem with 16x on the Bath to Westbury section - Dundas, Avoncliff (?) and Trowbridge.

Westbury to Weymouth.  Now there's an interesting one ... "Olympic Yachting Special"s.  Everyone will be taking the fortnight off work to watch the TV, so the normal TV services will be reduced to minimum length and perhaps a few commuter service pulled completely; you'll then have 3 + 2 16x sets running a Paddington to Weymouth service to get people to / from the various events.  Pure speculation - but you heard it guessed here first!

Maybe not as many spare Turbos as you think for Olympics at Weymouth. Don't forget FGW has to serve the Eton college Gravel Pit for the rowing.

I wish...

I don't think there will be any spare Turbos at all, never mind the rowing event. There is no way London can accommodate all the visitors for the Olympics, so the organisers are relying on people staying far and wide around London, including the places served by FGW's Thames Valley operations, so every 3+2 seat they can provide throughout that fortnight will count.

Forecast to be 123,000 hotel beds in th GLA area by 2012..... is that not sufficient for 16 days of peak demand?

I might also have mentioned the people off on day trips to attend events. There is a reason why all engineering work is banned anywhere near London during that period.

If extra capacity is needed to Weymouth then FGW already know how to do that. Locos and coaches - or even HSTs. With the operational constraints imposed by the single line sections on the Weymouth line it's going to be a question of squeezing as many people as possible into not that many trains and there are better ways of doing that than robbing the Thames Valley of Turbos that it desperately needs. There are estimates up to 30,000 people could be heading to Dorney on some days, which sounds like a lot of extra trains will be needed to me.

Where is this tunnel at Torre then?  :P

As Grecian has already mentioned there are some clearance issues with platform edges and the like with the 16x. These units were built to do a specific job, Thames Valley suburban services and as such were built were to 23 metre length and 2.82 metre width. By comparison a 158 is 2.7 metres wide. There will be several places where clearances will be tight unless the track is slued away from the platform edges or the coping stones cut back due to the excessive throwover on curves with with these long and wide vehicles.

At Bristol TM, when the 16x were previously used on the Oxford - Bristol services, there were limitations as to which platforms at Bristol Temple Meads due to clearance issues. IIRC, Platforms 1, 3/4 & 5/6 were off limits due to the curvature. Platform 13 & 15 did not exist in their current form at that point in time.

The down line towards Bristol at Dundas Aqueduct is limited to 30mph for other than 15x due to tight clearance, a freight train actually struck the aqueduct some time back & the impact marks are still visible in the brickwork. Whether this issue can be solved by excavating the ballast and lowering the track by about three inches for about 100 yards is still open to question.

Fine, big bridge/cutting near the Shiphay Road. Always seems quite restrictive there.

Dartmoor railway have a mile of track passed for 125mph,how much more of this route could be made fit for high speed running as a complimentary through route if the the money and political will was there.But its not of course.

The answer is not a lot. Apart from the four mile ruler straight section between Bow & Fullaford. The line becomes increasingly curvatious beyond Sampford Courtenay station. So we would need to add the words 'physically possible' to the words 'money' and 'polictical will' there I think.

You could of course build a new route straight over the moor to bypass the abandoned section I guess if money is no object, no doubt the conservationists and the Dartmoor National Park might have a few words to say on the matter. Nor do I think the decrease in journey time would generate sufficient extra revenue to even make a stab at defraying the construction cost.

One issue with line speed is that it varies for different stock and if the usual traction type isn't the one that can do the highest speed then it may not be raised.

Examples that come to mind are:
1. Leftwich Viaduct (Northern's Chester to Manchester service) has a 20mph speed limit.  Network Rail tests have found it can be raised to 50mph for non-Pacers but as Pacers are common traction for the line it hasn't been done.
2. Parts of the WCML have speed limits of 110mph for most stock and 125mph for 221s and 390s due to the tilting facility.  I don't know if the same could apply in the West Country where HSTs are more common than 221s.
3. The speed limit on Selby-Hull is lower for 185s than 158s and 170s due to the latter being lighter.

XC's 221s have had the tilt removed and theefore variable speed restrictions would be pointless anywhere south of Birmingham.

The Trans Pennine 185s are ill suited to their core routes (Preston / Manchester / Sheffield & Cleethorpes / Leeds, because as they are heavier than 158s and 170s they can't take advantage of higher Sprinter speed limits. However they accelerate quicker and are good for WCML and ECML, as well as having 3 cars and not 2.

The 100mph speed is of advantage on the Newcastle/Scottish routes where speed limits can be 110 or 125.  However, Voyagers would be better on those services that can do the extra 25mph.

The 2 car 170s and 3 car 185s replaced 2 car 175s (on the old FNW routes), 2 and 3 car 158s (on the old ATN routes) and 4 car 220s (on the Scottish route.)  The 3 car 185s have less seating than the 3 car 158s.  They were due to get a fourth car but as has been mentioned hundreds of times DfT cut funding.  TPE are always keen at pointing out that a 185 only has 5 less standard class seats than a 4 car 220, but do have a much smaller 1st class area.

Lawes Road Bridge according to the Wessex Trains route learning pack. I don't think 16x would have a problem there as the curvature isn't that great and 150's (2.82 metres wide) get through there without any problems. Topsham Loop might be more of an issue due to the limited clearances and the slight curvature. No doubt somebody will do a gauging run if   the LTV services go over to EMU operation and the 16x become available.

you seem to of forgotten that the train stops at numerous stations for how ever long,  your quoted averages are based on journey times, not moving times, if you work out minus the stops then the speed is significantly faster, a slower train would take even longer as takes lnger to get between stations!

I wasn't trying to say that a train that does 45mph average speed travels at a low speed all the time.  I was putting in to prospective how Hazel Grove/Manchester to Preston/Blackpool compare to other routes as some people were referring the use of 180s on those routes as 'scanadlous' due to there only being one 125mph section on route and it being a stopping service.  The Hazel Grove services take 5 minutes to do a couple of miles in Manchester due to the number of trains that use the line between Piccadilly and Deansgate. 

I'm 99% sure Northern would happily swap their 180s for 5x156s or 5x158s and the situation of Northern having the 180s is down to FGW not wanting them and Scotrail demanding more 158s, when they could usefully use the 180s.

Ominously the XC HST sets are only lettered for coaches A-F (in the reverse sense to ALL other HST's!) with a TSO having no identity in the middle of a 7 coach (was 8) formation.  That along with the 11 XC HST TSO's (plus a few East Coast ones I counted at Craigentinny yesterday (and the TRUB's?) hiding at Willesden leaves a pile of coaches thet cannot be used with any of the currently available locomotives, and generally unsuitable for fast loading urban and inter-urban services.

One option might be to put a 3 phase convertor for the ETH (more compact than a diesel convertor coach) and use electric locos for push-pull. 

Ex CIE Mk 3's might also be available to swell the pool with regauging of bogies?

Perhaps the quickest and simplest way to release DMU stock could be to use the 3rd rail sleepers already reported to have been used for renewals on Reading-Reigate, and convert this route with infill from Wokingham and Reigate, if necessary in 2 phases.  The poor utilisation of Southern EMU's reversing at Reigate and laying over at Guildford should provide some trains for the stopping service between these points, and the 460's might be appropriate for Reading-Gatwick - without even needing to change the Gatwick Express Branding.   A bit of rehashing SWT diagrams might even produce a few sets or just service changes to run Reading-Guildford stopping services.   

The Iarnrod Eireann Mk3s aren't quite the ready made solution everyone seems to think they are. The BT10's have wider frames due the wheels being 6 & 1/2" further apart and would foul the underbody loading gauge if wheelsets for 4' 8 1/2" were substituted for the 5' 3" ones. New BT10's would be required although some bits could be salvaged off the old ones.

The Side buffers are also about 6 1/2" further apart than BR buffer spacing and the buffers are mounted in large holes in the headstock with the spring units behind. A certain amount of headstock cutting / welding / modification is therefore required.

The ETS is 380v three phase at 50 - 60hz provided by the generator van which is also the guards / luggage van area. Using three phase AC negated the need to provide M/A sets on the coaches, as is the case with HST trailers. An M/A set or preferably a static convertor would be required as well as reconfiguring the heating circuits as these run directly off the ETS lines. 800 - 1000 volts single phase AC or DC might be a bit too much to handle.

All eminently do-able and probably cheaper than new build but don't expect the Iarnrod Eireann Mk3's to run in the UK with new wheelsets and a rub over with a damp cloth. Now all we need is someone with the brains and foresight to bring them back over...