IETs into passenger service from 16 Oct 2017 and subsequent performance issues

[whole diary]

[jamestheredengine]

If I thought it couldn't get any worse after yesterday, I was wrong. Some genius in Paddington decided to short-form 1B46 1445 Paddington to Swansea (1648 at Cardiff), which thanks to hour-long gaps to Swansea both sides is by some considerable way the busiest South Wales train of the afternoon. Was door-hanging and got a seat right next to the kitchen; so I still luckily got to eat. But I was alone in that privelege. What a fiasco. It would be better to cancel a short turn than do this. Someone at Paddington is seriously incompetent to choose to do this to this particular train. I would support giving the Welsh Government the power to impose fines on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) so that they at least have some incentive to prioritise their resources.

[IndustryInsider]

Whilst appreciating your frustrations, decisions such as that are not made at Paddington.  They are made at Swindon Control in conjunction with HRE - and not always just due to incompetence as many factors come into play.

[TaplowGreen]

Whilst appreciating your frustrations, decisions such as that are not made at Paddington.  They are made at Swindon Control in conjunction with HRE - and not always just due to incompetence as many factors come into play.

"Not always just due to incompetence" - I believe that is known as being damned with faint praise! 

[Sixty3Closure]

My trip to Carmarthen last night had no seat reservations in first (and it was busy), no food available and of course arrived late. And this has all happened before.

Not sure any of this encourages me to continue paying £140 for a ticket. If its going to be such a poor experience I might as well save money and do multiple changes and use local services.

On the plus it was the scheduled 5+5.

[jamestheredengine]

Whilst appreciating your frustrations, decisions such as that are not made at Paddington.  They are made at Swindon Control in conjunction with HRE - and not always just due to incompetence as many factors come into play.

No factors can excuse putting 10 cars on the 1415 to Cardiff then 5 on the 1445 to Swansea. This genius did it again tonight. If it's not incompetence, it's misconduct. Either way they should be dismissed. Do you have their name or job title so I can report them? I

[broadgage]

Do I understand that you do not fully appreciate the flexible train length ?

[TaplowGreen]

Whilst appreciating your frustrations, decisions such as that are not made at Paddington.  They are made at Swindon Control in conjunction with HRE - and not always just due to incompetence as many factors come into play.

No factors can excuse putting 10 cars on the 1415 to Cardiff then 5 on the 1445 to Swansea. This genius did it again tonight. If it's not incompetence, it's misconduct. Either way they should be dismissed. Do you have their name or job title so I can report them? I

I'm sure that'd help 

[IndustryInsider]

No factors can excuse putting 10 cars on the 1415 to Cardiff then 5 on the 1445 to Swansea. This genius did it again tonight. If it's not incompetence, it's misconduct. Either way they should be dismissed. Do you have their name or job title so I can report them? I

Perhaps 'Incider' can comment further?

But a couple of potential factors:

The 14:15 Cardiff sets then form the 16:56 Cardiff to Paddington which I would imagine is also quite busy, but, more importantly, those sets then form the 19:30 Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare.  That's the first super off-peak train from Paddington to places like Bath and Bristol and is also a very busy train.  I expect the many hundreds of passengers wanting that train would congratulate the decision to form that diagram with 10-cars instead of 5-cars rather than think someone should be dismissed.  The Swansea set works a much later train out of Paddington as its final run of the day.

Also, if you were to swap the 10-car train onto the 14:45 to Swansea, then your set for the 14:15 to Cardiff would be formed off of a train arriving at 14:14.  Even with that train arriving 5 minutes early today, you would then be looking at a late start.

I can only trust what the Managing Director has said which is that there is much less maintenance after the December timetable so availability should be a lot better.  If it isn't and we do get significant numbers of shortforms on busy trains from then onwards, I will soon be taking the side of those who have said 5-car trains were not the right decision.

Finally, on a slight tangent, we're in the middle of the leaf fall period, yet the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) are proving pretty good at dealing with that - so much so that I don't think the leaf fall season has been mentioned on here this year yet.  By now in previous years we'd no doubt have been dealing with HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) getting stuck up Dainton/Rattery/Hemerdon and Campden Banks, or losing loads of time, and no doubt there would have been many more cancellations as a result of that.  A shortform is better than no train at all.

[phile]

Also,  to change over sets without causing delay they have to be in the right place at the same time

[Incider]

No factors can excuse putting 10 cars on the 1415 to Cardiff then 5 on the 1445 to Swansea. This genius did it again tonight. If it's not incompetence, it's misconduct. Either way they should be dismissed. Do you have their name or job title so I can report them? I

Perhaps 'Incider' can comment further?

But a couple of potential factors:

The 14:15 Cardiff sets then form the 16:56 Cardiff to Paddington which I would imagine is also quite busy, but, more importantly, those sets then form the 19:30 Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare.  That's the first super off-peak train from Paddington to places like Bath and Bristol and is also a very busy train.  I expect the many hundreds of passengers wanting that train would congratulate the decision to form that diagram with 10-cars instead of 5-cars rather than think someone should be dismissed.  The Swansea set works a much later train out of Paddington as its final run of the day.

Also, if you were to swap the 10-car train onto the 14:45 to Swansea, then your set for the 14:15 to Cardiff would be formed off of a train arriving at 14:14.  Even with that train arriving 5 minutes early today, you would then be looking at a late start.

I can only trust what the Managing Director has said which is that there is much less maintenance after the December timetable so availability should be a lot better.  If it isn't and we do get significant numbers of shortforms on busy trains from then onwards, I will soon be taking the side of those who have said 5-car trains were not the right decision.

Finally, on a slight tangent, we're in the middle of the leaf fall period, yet the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) are proving pretty good at dealing with that - so much so that I don't think the leaf fall season has been mentioned on here this year yet.  By now in previous years we'd no doubt have been dealing with HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) getting stuck up Dainton/Rattery/Hemerdon and Campden Banks, or losing loads of time, and no doubt there would have been many more cancellations as a result of that.  A shortform is better than no train at all.

Not sure I can add much more, Hitachi and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) confer during the night to allocate units to diagrams, just as when it was GWR allocating their own units the  GWR TSC’s (who have the intimate diagram knowledge) will say what goes uncovered or shortformed (as they always have done), whether that means swaps in the day or altering the depot departures in the morning.  The only thing that might alter that is units that need to stop for exams and have mileage limitations.  Even that is usually mitigated with swaps in the daytime.

The reasoning given for diagramming short on one service to benefit others is well explained above and I can add nothing.

The 800/802 is suffering far less from wheel slip and slide than the HST fleet did, I’m sure those who travel on them regularly will notice the improvement in wheel flats, the HST’s were pretty noisy at times.  The improved tractive and braking grip will give Drivers confidence, improve timings and safety.  The number of gotchas HST v 800 is significantly less, in favour of HST’s.

[broadgage]

Of course if we had "Japanese levels of reliability"  and if "all trains that need to be full length, will be" then we would not be debating which services would be less bad to short form.

All looking very voyager like.
Or perhaps comparable to the Waterloo to Exeter route being downgraded to 3 car DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit). Many services on that line ARE now full length, but it took about 20 years of overcrowded shorter trains before this was achieved.
Or perhaps comparable to Networkers replacing slam door EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) on services to South East London and Kent, that was many years ago, but 6 car networkers are still running on routes previously served by 8 car slam door units.

[IndustryInsider]

Regarding the performance in leaf fall season, the new trains are undoubtedly much better at dealing with slippery rails than the old ones, but it’s only fair to recognise a general improvement in vegetation management from Network Rail over the last two or three years.  There are far fewer jungles within the boundary fences nowadays.

[Incider]

Of course if we had "Japanese levels of reliability" 

Maybe if the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) had asked the Japanese to build and supply a train, without so many conditions, we might have.  There are approx two hundred different suppliers of parts from all over Europe,  some of which, like ATP^▸ (Automatic Train Protection), don’t aid reliability.

[a-driver]

Regarding the performance in leaf fall season, the new trains are undoubtedly much better at dealing with slippery rails than the old ones, but it’s only fair to recognise a general improvement in vegetation management from Network Rail over the last two or three years.  There are far fewer jungles within the boundary fences nowadays.

I’m not entirely convinced the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) are better dealing with slippery rails than the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train).  This Autumn hasn’t been that bad at all with only a few reports of adhesion problems coming from the West Country which is normally the hardest hit.  The Castle HSTs and IETs don’t seem to be running around with any wheel flats, even the Pacers still have round wheels!

[IndustryInsider]

They’re much better - especially when accelerating which was always a big negative in Autumn with HST^▸ (High Speed Train)’s as simply too much power was going to the driven wheels even in the lower power notches.  2+4 would likely be less of a problem than 2+8 of course.

As I said though, better vegetation management has also improved things, as has the slack in the timetable on many of the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) services still operating to HST schedules.