Early morning train service boost for Devon and Cornwall business (Dec 2010)

[whole diary]

[woody]

This was mentioned in the duplicate thread...

"I personally think that xc should use there hst's and give fgw some 221's to run a penzance-exeter service with tilt enabled"

Didn't XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) disable all their 'tilts'

Thats right to save on maintenance costs I think.Also I remember reading that Virgin when they ran XC wanted the route from Taunton to Plymouth tilt enabled around the time that part of the Banbury route was.

[IndustryInsider]

Thats right to save on maintenance costs I think.Also I remember reading that Virgin when they ran XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) wanted the route from Taunton to Plymouth tilt enabled around the time that part of the Banbury route was.

As far as I know, the Oxford to Banbury section was only ever tilt enabled to allow the testing of the equipment back when the Class 221 fleet was being delivered - a good choice given that it's tight curve after tight curve between Tackley and Heyford.  Even if it did remain tilt enabled after the test period, there was no increase in the permissible speed over and above the normal HST^▸ (High Speed Train) speed for the route.

It is a shame that tilt enabled trains have now had their equipment removed.  I wonder what kind of journey time reductions could have been achieved west of Exeter had the system ever been fully exploited?

[willc]

I don't think the tilt equipment has been removed on XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) 221s - it's integral to the bogies - merely isolated out of use because XC saw no point paying for it to be kept serviceable when it wasn't needed on the routes they operate.

As for magicing up HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train), not difficult to do when several have been removed from Cotswold and Oxford diagrams over the past year or so to save money and been replaced by Turbos.

[smokey]

Am I right in thinking that Class 221's (AKA^▸ (also known as) Vomet Comets) only tilt where Track side equipment has been installed to tell the train to tilt?
 

[woody]

Am I right in thinking that Class 221's (AKA^▸ (also known as) Vomet Comets) only tilt where Track side equipment has been installed to tell the train to tilt?
 

Correct,the tilt mechanisms can be disabled by an on-board system called Tilt Authorisation and Speed Supervision (TASS). TASS beacons, spaced about every five miles apart, transmit data to the train which stops them tilting on stretches where bridges and tunnels would get in the way of this manoeuvre. It also relays the maximum speeds for corners.

[willc]

Virgin's Pendolinos also use TASS.

[woody]

With regards to tilt between Plymouth and Taunton,according to the Network Rail 2007 business plan redeployment of Class 221 fleet was the reason Virgin did not pusue this.
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse%20documents/BusinessPlan2007/PDF/Route%2012%20Reading%20to%20Penzance.pdf
Figure 19  Page 19
"Taunton ^ Plymouth (12.02 &12.03)Maximise tilt train capability Improved journey times  No longer under consideration by Virgin Cross Country due to redeployment of Class 221 fleet"

[Btline]

All the Voyagers should have had tilt enabled, and all these slow XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) routes could have been sped up one by one.

How short sighted! And now the IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) (if it isn't axed) doesn't even have tilt despite the huge benefits Virgin have proved it can bring...

[willc]

Weight of a four-car Voyager without tilt 185.6 tonnes
Weight of a four-car Super Voyager with tilt 227 tonnes

So you would have them lug all that extra metal up and down mile after mile just so they could achieve marginal journey time reductions in Devon?

Name one place between Derby and Bristol where tilt would do anything significant to speed up journey times. Railtrack and Network Rail have cleared long stretches of this route for 100-mph-plus running for Voyagers, following the example of the work done long ago on the track on the ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) and GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) for HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) (and ECML Deltics before them).

IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) wasn't meant to tilt because any slight time improvements would have been cancelled out by the cost of fitting and maintaining tilt equipment on the trains and trackside. It is cost-effective on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) because there are many places along the route where tilt is the only way to achieve higher speed without breaking the bank to create cut-offs - if you are going to spend that kind of money, you might just as well build an HSL.

[IndustryInsider]

An ex-Virgin Cross Country driver told me that the journey time saving between Birmingham and Manchester via the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) route was probably only two minutes.  Will's right in so much as there is precious few areas between Derby and Bristol, though I would argue that quite substantial journey time reductions could potentially be achieved in Devon and Cornwall with a fully functioning TASS system - the reasons that it's a non-starter are, in my opinion, two-fold;

1) It's not just a question of bunging a few TASS transponders on the tracks and then adding 15mph to the speed of the route - there are other factors, namely distances between signals and structural clearances that can be very costly in their own right to alter.  The Oxford-Banbury test route saw many of the signal locations altered to ensure there was adequate braking distances between them.

2) The GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) west of Exeter, whilst a main line, doesn't have the amount of tilt compatible trains (even post IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) if they were to have been designed with a tilt system) or the important population centres of the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) route.

The weight comparisons are interesting, but it's worth saying that all that extra metal is being lugged mile after mile as the system has only been isolated and not removed (as Will rightly corrected me on a while ago) - though I believe a small amount of unnecessary wiring has been removed, the reason for the majority of the added weight is to do with the bogies.

[chrisoates]

Non tilt Voyagers have bogies that look like BMX bikes, the titling stock has bogies similar to an HST^▸ (High Speed Train).
 

[willc]

Just to clarify, my point about lugging the metal around was that two thirds of the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) fleet, the Class 220s, are not carting extra weight around, which they would be if the entire Voyager fleet had been built to tilt. Given the routes XC currently operates, tilt west of Taunton or Exeter would be an extravagance for one train an hour out of a fleet that size venturing into the West Country. Same would apply to any Great Western train fleet, given the number of workings that go nowhere near that part of the system.