Is this good news

[whole diary]

[eightf48544]

I think it's a bit much to berate the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page), MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) or anyone else for being confused about all this when DafT is a model of vagueness and spin over the whole thing.

British-led? Not unless Hitachi has suddenly become British it ain't. Though I was very impressed by the straight face Geoff Hoon was able to keep when talking on TV about the Britishness of the whole thing.

Remember, it's the train no-one in the industry appears to want, the train that in bi-mode form, if one is to believe people who know about these things, simply can't deliver the performance on diesel power being claimed for it and the train that, if it ever appears, will probably look nothing like what they have been talking about today.

Exactly what Roger Ford has been saying for months. See February Modern Railways.

Certainly in diesel mode the trains cannot meet the DaFT^» (Department for Transport - critical sounding abbreviation I discourage - about) spec distributed power or not. In bi mode it likely the diesel engine will be required to aid acceleration and maintain top speed on electrified lines. On diesel alone there is no way it can have the performance of an HST^▸ (High Speed Train).

Also as Ian Walmsey said in the same issue 26 m coaches, because the infrastructure only allows fewer coaches per train, doesn't give you any more seating capacity than  trains with more shorter coaches. Thus shorter articulated coaches  in 6 coach sets will give more capacity than 9/10 26 m.

[RailCornwall]

Railway Gazette International's take on it

Agility Trains to supply Super Express fleet

UK^▸ (United Kingdom): Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon announced on February 12 that the Agility Trains consortium of Hitachi, John Laing and Barclays has been selected as preferred bidder for the supply of ^up to 1 400^ vehicles as part of the government-led Intercity Express Programme.

Under the ^5bn train service provision contract, for which the financing is due to be put in place by the end of this year, the consortium will introduce a fleet of 200 km/h Super Express trains for inter-city services on the East Coast Main Line from 2013 to replace existing IC125 and IC225 trainsets. The trains would subsequently be introduced on the Great Western Main Line between London, Bristol and South Wales, with widespread operation expected from 2015. The IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) design is also expected to be used on medium-distance commuter services from London to the Thames Valley and Cambridge. Options within the contract would see the trains introduced on the London - Exeter - Penzance route and on the West Coast Main Line.

..... continues (click link)

[Tim]

I don^t believe it will be a ^new^ train as such, more of Hitachi selling an updated Javelin concept, already capable of 140mph, with the addition of the Hayabusa technology for the diesel variant. In engineering terms not a huge leap forward from what is already tried and tested.

tried and tested is good in my book.  Although won't it have been good to wait to see how good the  Javelin's actually are first

[Btline]

".....on the west coast mainline"

No thanks. We have 140 mph tilting trains already. Let's not take a step back and EXTEND journey times.

And I wish they would not be so cryptic about "Thames Valley." Do they mean to Oxford (Cotswold perhaps?), to Cheltenham? Both of these routes follow the Thames for a part, or all of the way.

And what about Cross Country? We NEED more capacity NOW! I'd rather the IC225s carried on for another 10 years, and the IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) went to XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)).

[Electric train]

And what about Cross Country? We NEED more capacity NOW! I'd rather the IC225s carried on for another 10 years, and the IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) went to XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)).

My guess is the IC225 will be cascaded to the MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) when that is electrified, the MML would be electrified before the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line)

[r james]

Is there any serious reason though why none of these could be produced for XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise))? Im sure a few could be used to supplement the fleet? 

[IndustryInsider]

Is there any serious reason though why none of these could be produced for XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise))? Im sure a few could be used to supplement the fleet? 

Only the fact that their Voyager fleet is less than 10 years old, and Arriva seem blissfully content with the view that a dozen or so extra seats in a refurb and the odd HST^▸ (High Speed Train) will make all the difference.

[Electric train]

Is there any serious reason though why none of these could be produced for XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise))? Im sure a few could be used to supplement the fleet? 

Only the fact that their Voyager fleet is less than 10 years old, and Arriva seem blissfully content with the view that a dozen or so extra seats in a refurb and the odd HST^▸ (High Speed Train) will make all the difference.

Also the long term plans of DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) for HS3 which is a Midlands to the SW route

[inspector_blakey]

Only the fact that their Voyager fleet is less than 10 years old, and Arriva seem blissfully content with the view that a dozen or so extra seats in a refurb and the odd HST^▸ (High Speed Train) will make all the difference.

Another tactic they seem to be using is either withdrawing advance purchase tickets or massively reducing the quotas (although this is only an observation from personal experience, I don't know if it's policy). A few times recently I've looked at journeys from Oxford at off-peak times, several weeks ahead of my journey; whilst I've been able to get some really good advance purchase deals using FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and NXEC^▸ (National Express East Coast) via London, cheap advance purchase XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) tickets seem to be almost non-existent for the equivalent journeys via Birmingham. Still, suits me as the journey via London doesn't take any longer and I can use proper trains rather than vomit comets.

[devon_metro]

I believe it is policy for Advance Purchase tickets to have awful availablity on XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) before 1030 am.

All very well for easing the morning peak, but the evening peak is likely to have more APers if the journey is of considerable length.

[Don]

Perhaps.....

1. They will leave some of the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) with FGW^▸ (First Great Western) for other services like Cotswold & Cheltenham services

2. They will cascade some FGW HST to Xc to replace their crap Voyagers.

Oh, I can dream...
Like I can dream that these trains will actually be better than Mk3 coaches and HST power cars....

I can just see that this is going to be another great disaster.  For FGW it looks like having one low powered diesel engine (with no failure redundancy), giving slow acceleration and low top speed.

[Btline]

And once they start running diesel trains, I expect that the electrification plans will be "postponed."

Let's face it - electrification never going to happen!

And as for London to Aberdeen dragging a diesel all the way to Edinburgh, and then dragging an electric to Aberdeen, it would be far better (cheaper and quicker) just to run a diesel all the way.

These plans are simple awful, and should be axed before any more money is wasted.

[Don]

And I'd love to see how these trains are going to shave 10 or 15 minutes off journey times. 

Longer trains = less doors per seat = slower passenger unload / load times

The East Coast Main Line already has power operated doors.

[r james]

Is there any serious reason though why none of these could be produced for XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise))? Im sure a few could be used to supplement the fleet? 

Only the fact that their Voyager fleet is less than 10 years old, and Arriva seem blissfully content with the view that a dozen or so extra seats in a refurb and the odd HST^▸ (High Speed Train) will make all the difference.

Surely they will need something to replace their HSTs though!  Unless of course, all the MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) Meridians go to XC,as would make sence, evem if they are different trains before anyone states this. Then the MML could have a uniform fleet of the IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) units. 

[Zoe]

It's a bit of a concern that the Paddington to Plymouth/Penzance route is only an optional extra and not part of the main order as this leaves the possibility that we could end up with Voyager style underfloor engine DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) on that route.