Intercity Express Programme (IEP) - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[1st fan]

An interesting post from 'Clarence Yard' on railforums.co.uk, who has been closely involved in testing of the new trains, indicates that an unmuzzled IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) running on diesel power is able to reach 120mph and pretty much match existing HST^▸ (High Speed Train) point-to-point timings - 105mph was reached with one engine isolated, which is still pretty impressive.  Muzzled and the performance was described as anaemic!  Let's hope the DfT authorise unmuzzled working at least until the Cardiff electrification is completed.  Talks are still ongoing apparently.

On my last trip I struck up a conversation with an off duty staff member and we talked about this subject. Talked about testing and doing fast runs to check performance, I bitched about the new 1st seats. They said that the company are desperate not to have the diesel engines running at less than full power. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) apparently get a bad enough press as it is and the media would roast them if the new trains ran slower than the HST. Now this may just be hokum but it sounded good.

[IndustryInsider]

Yes it would certainly be an easy win for the press who would no doubt jump on the story and it would indeed be GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) that would suffer the most in terms of credibility.  This is despite it only being a temporary situation hopefully lasting just over a year until Didcot to Cardiff is wired and the real 'blame' lying with NR^» (Network Rail - home page) and the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about).

[eightf48544]

Yes it would certainly be an easy win for the press who would no doubt jump on the story and it would indeed be GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) that would suffer the most in terms of credibility.  This is despite it only being a temporary situation hopefully lasting just over a year until Didcot to Cardiff is wired and the real 'blame' lying with NR^» (Network Rail - home page) and the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about).

Thingley to Bristol will still be diesel.

Rumours have it that lawyers may become involved. More money down the drain.

[IndustryInsider]

Thingley to Bristol will still be diesel.

Though the nature of that and the other remaining un-electrified routes mean that the effects should be minimal once Cardiff is wired.

[Oberon]

When the closure at Bath Spa for platform widening was in operation there was a lot of stuff on local TV about this. A Network Rail spokesperson was adamant, at the time of broadcast, that Thingley-Bristol would be wired by 2024. You never know just who to believe in these situations. It could simply have been a throwaway line designed to soft soap the public in the light of £ millions already having been spent on track lowering. I'm not a betting man but I'll certainly wager that Temple Meads-Parkway eventually gets wired.

[broadgage]

I forecast that the units will be allowed to run at full power "unmuzzled" and the real arguments will be over how much this will cost and whom is going to pay.
I presume that due to working the engines at a higher power than was originally intended, that some of the reliability risk will be transferred from Hitachi and to the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company).

Since the speed when unmuzzled will be nearly as good as the old trains, I suspect that the same point to point times will be kept, perhaps by removing some of the "charter minutes" from the present timetable.

I expect a lot of hidden fare rises to pay for the extra costs on what were already hugely expensive trains.

[eightf48544]

I forecast that the units will be allowed to run at full power "unmuzzled" and the real arguments will be over how much this will cost and whom is going to pay.
I presume that due to working the engines at a higher power than was originally intended, that some of the reliability risk will be transferred from Hitachi and to the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company).

Hopefully it can be settled without the lawyers!

Poor GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) they are piggy in the middle.

[broadgage]

Don't feel too sorry for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).

They have routinely implied that THEY are funding the new trains, so no harm in them taking some reputational damage now that it is starting to go wrong.

Are they still advertising that the new trains will be faster ? bit optimistic if so ! unmuzzled they will struggle to keep present day HST^▸ (High Speed Train) timings, and muzzled will be significantly slower.

[TonyK]

Which serves yet again to illustrate how short sighted the decision to not electrify the whole line to Bristol is.

[TaplowGreen]

Don't feel too sorry for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).

They have routinely implied that THEY are funding the new trains, so no harm in them taking some reputational damage no that it is starting to go wrong.

Are they still advertising that the new trains will be faster ? bit optimistic if so ! unmuzzled they will struggle to keep present day HST^▸ (High Speed Train) timings, and muzzled will be significantly slower.

Really? And here was me with all my plans for the extra 6 minutes I'd be gaining on runs down to Plymouth!!! 

[John R]

Which serves yet again to illustrate how short sighted the decision to not electrify the whole line to Bristol is.

Once the lines to Parkway and Thingley are electrified any performance issues on the remaining sections will be very marginal, even muzzled.  For me, the disappointment over the deferral (he says, optimistically) of wiring to Temple Meads is that none of the local services will be able to go electric.  Splitting the Cardiff - Taunton services at Bristol would be worth it to have 4 car electric services into Wales (and they could have been extended to Bath using the proposed turnback there, improving capacity on that route too).

I'm hopeful that once Bristol East is remodelled, the marginal cost of wiring from Parkway will be minimal. I'm sure both there (and in the work being done four-tracking) will be done very mindful of where the piles will need to go.  So it should be a relatively straightforward job, apart from Temple Meads itself.

 

[grahame]

Really? And here was me with all my plans for the extra 6 minutes I'd be gaining on runs down to Plymouth!!! 

I know that was written tongue in cheek .... but I look back at early HST^▸ (High Speed Train) timetables as while there were some fast runs, there were also big gaps.  For my own journeys, I typically need to be at [ Paddington / Plymouth / Swindon / Cambridge ] at a  particular time, and trains that's 10 minutes faster but dumps me there 10 minute earlier is no gain.

I would rather have a train every 30 minutes that takes an hour and 15 (so average is to leave my starting station 90 minutes before my required time) than a train every 60 minutes that takes an hour and 5 (so average is to leave my starting station 95 minutes before my required time).

Noting gaps from Chippenham as long as 2 hours in this timetable, and some skipping Swindon too. 

Othere benefit of more trains (even a bit slower) is that the previous train - if taken for an important appointment - isn't quite so previous!

[JayMac]

At least these new trains are definitely entering service. Here's what the future at Swindon once looked like:


(Photo from a second-hand book I picked up at Minehead Station)

Imagine if the gas turbine concept was perfected and the cost came down.

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

[grahame]

At least these new trains are definitely entering service.

I am reminded never to count my chickens ... remembering the case of the IC4.  Scheduled to enter service from 2003, final unit did enter service in 2014 ... however ...

Concerns about reliability remain, however, especially after the failure of an IC4 trainset in the Great Belt tunnel on February 24, 2014 and the consequent evacuation of 191 passengers to another train set.

In September 2014 an investigation by the Danish department of transport was launched to find whether it was more economical to have the delivered trains scrapped or have them rebuilt for slower regional traffic. Scrapping the trains could lead to DSB filing for bankruptcy.

It was announced on 15 December 2016 that the troubled fleet would be phased out from 2024

I have no reason at all to think there will be IC4 size problems with 800 to 802 - just a reminder that you can never be sure.

On the brighter side,  a certain branch line was due to close in 2 weeks time during 1966 - but it's still with us some 51 years later!

[stuving]

I have no reason at all to think there will be IC4 size problems with 800 to 802 - just a reminder that you can never be sure.

Maybe some trepidation is appropriate. The same AnsaldoBreda plant at Pistoia that made the IC4 will be building the 802s (and some other variants), having been bought by Hitachi in 2015. They also made the V250, that other nightmare train procurement exercise, for the Fyra high-speed services from Belgium to Amsterdam. And looking at Wikipedia, I find there have been others, such as a Gothenburg tram order.

I guess that this history will have made the place pretty cheap to buy. I have no idea what kind of deal was cut over liability and support for trains being built or already delivered, though that will have entered into the pricing.

Those problems relate to AnsaldoBreda's preformance in both design and build. For the 802s, the design is Hitachi's, and the build will depend on their ability to make heir Italian workforce build Hitachi's designs to Japanses standards of quality. Other Japanese Companies do seem to be able to do that, at least in greenfield sites - I'm thinking of the car-makers in Britain. But for a take-over ... we'll see, won't we?