Intercity Express Programme (IEP) - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[chrisr_75]

Oh, I just remembered passing North Pole depot on the way out of Paddington one evening last week, and noticed a train inside the sheds there. Is that an IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) hiding in there, or is it something else? Couldn't really see anything other than 'a train'!

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks, chrisr_75 - that's a really useful description! 

[grahame]

Oh, I just remembered passing North Pole depot on the way out of Paddington one evening last week, and noticed a train inside the sheds there. Is that an IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) hiding in there, or is it something else? Couldn't really see anything other than 'a train'!

Yes, there is indeed on IEP in there - not really hiding very well, as it's been documented in certain press quarters such as Rail Magazine

Five-car 800002 has arrived at North Pole depot in West London.

Hitachi Rail Europe will operate the depot, which was last used by Eurostar in 2007, to maintain Intercity Express Programme trains used by Great Western Railway. It is planned that the '800s' will be introduced from 2017.

[chrisr_75]

Thanks, chrisr_75 - that's a really useful description! 

Well, the view inside on a dark night through fairly narrow windows isn't particularly good and I only caught a brief glimpse of the side of a train!

Thanks Graham for clarifying - I don't frequent the rail press, so hadn't picked up on this. I guess it's pretty much marooned in there for the time being?

[Rhydgaled]

Hitachi has worked to a minimum ceiling height of 1.9 metres - obviously in the constrained areas such as gangways.

Sounds compareable to the class 390 Pendolinos then (my head was touching the ceiling when I tried to stand under the pantograph well, I banged my head on one of the overhead racks once as well).

Did I mention the small windows?

How small are they exactly? Not as small as Pendolino ones I hope.

Because of the high floor in all the coaches, except in the end pantograph coaches, Hitachi has worked to a minimum ceiling height of 1.9 metres - obviously in the constrained areas such as gangways. Even so this struck me as being a bit low for many western males.

I thought the high floors were specifically to put these new eco-friendly diesel engines under, so would not appear in 801s. Or is that not the way they have done it?

There's still going to be at least one diesel engine in the 801s. I thought they had decided there were so many engine-equipped cars that it wasn't worth having a third basic design of vehicle (driving vehice, engine car and non-engine intermediate) so just have one design for the driving vehicles and one standard design for all intermediate coaches. It thus supprises me to read that diesel engines can't be retro-fitted to the other intermediate coaches. Not sure about the new diesel engines being 'eco friendly', I thought it was more they are big because they have to output quite a bit of power (although there's also the EU^» (European Union - about) emmissions regs, which seem to be more to do with filtering out stuff that mucks up air quality for pepole at the lineside/roadside rather than greenhouse gas emmissions).

[stuving]

There's still going to be at least one diesel engine in the 801s. I thought they had decided there were so many engine-equipped cars that it wasn't worth having a third basic design of vehicle (driving vehice, engine car and non-engine intermediate) so just have one design for the driving vehicles and one standard design for all intermediate coaches. It thus supprises me to read that diesel engines can't be retro-fitted to the other intermediate coaches. Not sure about the new diesel engines being 'eco friendly', I thought it was more they are big because they have to output quite a bit of power (although there's also the EU^» (European Union - about) emmissions regs, which seem to be more to do with filtering out stuff that mucks up air quality for pepole at the lineside/roadside rather than greenhouse gas emmissions).

Of course, and now I think about it the comments I read earlier were about the 801s (at least) having a varying floor level. But that was probably just someone's speculation.

This is part of what last year's ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies See - here) Rolling Stock Strategy document said about NRMM:

47. It is widely expected that present and future EU legislation regarding emissions from diesel
engines (Directive 97/68/EC and its subsequent amendments, implemented in Great Britain as
the Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Emission of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants) Regulations
1999 and 2013, known as NRMM) will increasingly make it difficult to procure and operate
new DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) having underfloor diesel engines, with an affordable business case.
...
^ It is widely considered that it would be impossible to fit a Stage IIIB compliant engine of
adequate power to any of the existing British DMU types.
...

IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) has NRMM IIIB specified for all traction diesel engines.

[4064ReadingAbbey]

There's still going to be at least one diesel engine in the 801s. I thought they had decided there were so many engine-equipped cars that it wasn't worth having a third basic design of vehicle (driving vehice, engine car and non-engine intermediate) so just have one design for the driving vehicles and one standard design for all intermediate coaches.

Actually there are three designs of vehicles! Working inwards from the end driving/pantograph car the next coach has a 10 deg ramped floor from the vestibule up to the raised floor level which then continues along the train to the corresponding ramp down at the other end.

So there are the pantograph car shell, the ramped floor shell and the high floor shell.

A couple of other points which follow from the high floor. There is apparently no room on the roof for the 25kV vacuum circuit breaker (its usual position on UK^▸ (United Kingdom) rolling stock) so it will be mounted in a box on the underframe. There are two power busbars: a 25kV one along the roof connecting the pantographs and a 2,600v DC^▸ (Direct Current) link to supply hotel power to all the coaches, and traction power for the motor coaches, from the transformer and rectifier coaches.

[Rhydgaled]

Actually there are three designs of vehicles! Working inwards from the end driving/pantograph car the next coach has a 10 deg ramped floor from the vestibule up to the raised floor level which then continues along the train to the corresponding ramp down at the other end.

So there are the pantograph car shell, the ramped floor shell and the high floor shell.

Interesting, I thought all the intermediate (high-floor) coaches would have vestibules floors at the same level as the (low-floor) driving vehicles, with ramps in every intermediate coach (so the step up from platform to vestibule would be the same on every coach).

[Worcester_Passenger]

How much higher are the floors than in existing cocahes?

[4064ReadingAbbey]

How much higher are the floors than in existing cocahes?

I don't have my notes to hand, but if I remember correctly it's about 6 inches.

Interesting, I thought all the intermediate (high-floor) coaches would have vestibules floors at the same level as the (low-floor) driving vehicles, with ramps in every intermediate coach (so the step up from platform to vestibule would be the same on every coach).

That's what I had also thought but a table was shown of the different body type code numbers and a little pictogram of a slope and as far as I could see only two coaches in each rake had these.

If the high floor level does go all the way through it will be quite a step up to get into the intermediate coaches.

I really hope that I misinterpreted the slide...!

[JayMac]

Railway Gazette have had a poke about in North Pole depot. Tweeted some pictures of the Class 800 within:

https://twitter.com/railwaygazette/status/672024453291909120

[Worcester_Passenger]

How much higher are the floors than in existing coaches?

I don't have my notes to hand, but if I remember correctly it's about 6 inches.

I would say that an extra 6" would be unusable at Foregate Street.
A sudden vision of these trains not being allowed to stop there.

[eightf48544]

From a description Roger Ford gave in Modern Railways i believe the floor slopes down to the doors at each end of the carriage.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Ah, the mythical double-deck trains, with passengers on the upper deck and the engines on the lower deck.

[Chris from Nailsea]

How much higher are the floors than in existing coaches?

I don't have my notes to hand, but if I remember correctly it's about 6 inches.

I would say that an extra 6" would be unusable at Foregate Street.
A sudden vision of these trains not being allowed to stop there.

It's probably best that we don't tell Btline about that, then.