Class 180 Adelantes - discussions, including their return to FGW

[whole diary]

[Tim]

Tim, I would never suggest you have an initial lease over 20 years - you would lease over 10 years with a low residual value then a follow on peppercorn lease for subsequent years. A common practice for high value leases.
Now the 180s are around 10 years old their depreciated value should be far lower than when new hence a commensurate lowering of the lease costs.
Will correctly pointed out that this hasn't worked in the past with stock that is completely written down still having high lease costs. This is one factor the either a) increases fares or b) lowers profits. I don't see any reason why those in charge don't enter the real world the rest of us inhabit.

I agree that your proposal or something similar to it is normal accounting practice and that it OUGHT to apply to the railways.  Reason it doesn't is that there is not a free market in rolling stock (just a pointless phoney capitalism).  Short franchises, DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) specification (having to approve rolling stock orders and telling TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) which stock to use), and our estrictive loading gauge (meaning unused stock can't be sold or leased to the rest of the world) are all factors in this

[northwesterntrains]

180103 has been sent to Woverton for major repairs after an accident at Newton Heath.  If someone picks up on part of that they may wrongly assume that Northern's 180s are getting ready to be transferred.

[Ollie]

Be interesting to see how smoothly it goes for Grand Central and First Hull Trains this weekend - as they are joining the services to combine into one between Doncaster and King's Cross

[inspector_blakey]

Hopefully the HT^▸ (Hull Trains) and GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line) drivers won't be fighting over whose turn it is to blow the horn

[Ollie]

Hopefully the HT^▸ (Hull Trains) and GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line) drivers won't be fighting over whose turn it is to blow the horn

I assume it depends who gets to the front first

[willc]

our restrictive loading gauge (meaning unused stock can't be sold or leased to the rest of the world

On the contrary, our smaller trains can go almost anywhere - eg Class 141s in Iran, Channel Tunnel sleeper stock in Canada. Class 37, 56s, 58s, 66s (and derivatives built for customers in Europe) used in countries across Europe...

[inspector_blakey]

Indeed so. I forget where but I've seen pictures of British-bound rolling stock built in the US looking like toys whilst being tripped to the point of embarkation by locomotives like the GE ES44.

[eightf48544]

Just come back form Veolia territory under the HEX (Harz Elbe Express banner). watching what what I think are true Desiel Desiros (articulated) split and join at Halberstadt nearly every hour. The interesting thing is the trains leave in differnet directions after splitting and join nose to nose. The joning is quite interesting the first train arrives doors open then the second comes in nose to nose and stops short doors open. The first trains drivers I think shuts the doors and then couples up and does a quick pull back. I think this is done with the doors in the joined train still open. Both units doors open.

Although not seen this time they regulalry split two ICE 2 sets at Hamm. the join is quite interesting teh first unit arrives stops doors open, driver opens coupling cover, second unit rolls down the platform with couplings open and just joins straight onto the first unit. Doors don't close on first unit.

Also watch a couple of the Saxon 750mm lines in operation with auto couplings. Undo brake pipes remembering to shut air valves. Undo steam heat pipe wearing gloves! then open catch on one coupling and pull apart. Coupling up bang together do steam heat and brake pipes, remebering to open the valves somebody does need to be on the track but it was usually the loco crew. All done in the time it took to type this bit. 

Considering Southern Electric split trains regularly at least half a dozen places at least hourly or as at Staines half hourly.

We seem to have got got very squeamish about splitting and joning trains.

Which is a pity brecause it's major advantage of train over a bus is that it can be split into it's parts and serve severval destinations. Look at the ACE with it's half a dozen portions.

We've fogotten how to run railways.

[willc]

Er no, we haven't. As you note, there is still portion working in Southern electric land and it still happens every day at Oxford, though just not on the scale it did in Thames Trains days, when they had to do it to provide capacity between Oxford and London, since they didn't have HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) to call on like FGW^▸ (First Great Western) does, and because they then provided the London to Stratford-upon-Avon service, so sets to and from the Cotswold Line and Banbury/Stratford split or joined all day.

[inspector_blakey]

It's also reasonably frequent in my experience at Bristol Temple Meads; I suppose it's not really portion working in the sense that different sections of a train are generally heading to different places (although Wessex used to have at least one split at Westbury where a 4-car 158, I assume from Portsmouth, had portions working to Cardiff and Penzance) but I've been on many trains that have had units added or removed at Temple Meads to adjust the capacity.

[Worcester_Passenger]

We seem to have got got very squeamish about splitting and joning trains.

I agree.

To give them their due, First Trans Pennine Express have taken to splitting and coupling at Preston, so that a pair of 185 units from Manchester Airport will go forward to any two out of Blackpool, Barrow, Windermere, Glasgow and Edinburgh. With that set of destinations, splitting the units makes v sound sense. Shame that the timetable isn't as regular as it ought to be.

The other rationale here is to gain the track capacity over the Oxford Road section in Manchester.

[laird]

I think the reluctance varies by company, South West Trains increased the number of joining/splitting moves for the Desiro fleet when they reduced the length of off-peak services?
The Preston 185 coupling is rather enforced by the lack of capacity through to Manchester, I suspect if they had the paths they would be tempted to run separately.
I guess the concerns that one service running late will result in a partial cancellation or occupation of platforms which are in short supply. Or that the complex coupling mechanism won't couple or uncouple on demand. Certainly a problem that affected the former Wessex fleet, often we sould see a yellow card in the cab window with its black x symbol denoting the coupling would not work.

Sometimes it wasn't a great problem so on one occasion I was on a train routed through the middle road at Gloucester toward Awre and then back onto another 158 for the run to Birmingham.

Scotrail probably don't have much choice with the West Higland split and join at Crianlarich, I've certainly been delayed there waiting for the other units to arrive but travelling North there is a small safety measure, having six cars means the split point can be moved if an uncoupling fails on one. It is a change from where it began though as this 2+4 from 6 was originally a 3+3 from six, very much in the style we see on FGW^▸ (First Great Western) today with the 158s. What went wrong was that when the uncoupling was attempted rather than splitting at the mid-point the trains would split where the non-driving end of the carriage met the driving end of the next unit. It appears this has been fixed for the 158s though.

[paul7575]

I think the reluctance varies by company, South West Trains increased the number of joining/splitting moves for the Desiro fleet when they reduced the length of off-peak services?

I don't think that ever happened, to any significant extent. Discussions in the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) group at the time it was making headlines suggested it only applied to a very small number of services on weekdays. I didn't notice any significant changes to train lengths in Hampshire - although the doubling of frequency to Weymouth at around the same time led to some offpeak 444 services becoming single units all the way through for obvious reasons.

The main reason for the media coverage was that they decided to run only single 455s for most of the day at weekends, ie the inner suburban red units.  In much of the London area it was incorrectly assumed they'd do this in the midday offpeaks as well, but it never happened - apparently because it would have required too many ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) moves and additional drivers.

Paul 

[IndustryInsider]

apparently because it would have required too many ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) moves and additional drivers.

Almost certainly the case.  There's really not that much time between the end of the morning peak at 10am and the start of the afternoon peak at just gone 4pm.  Many unit diagrams only have time for 1 or 2 round trips in that time, so the number of ECS moves and drivers required really just don't make it a worthwhile thing for such a short time.

[laird]

I have it in mind that Basingstoke sees a few more parked up Desiros during the day now, not so much of a problem as the ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) is a booked turn anyway, effectively an extension of the service from Waterloo into the yard, drop a unit and turn back. I remember when the routine was changed on one of the morning services somehow the unit being left behind was not far enough down into the yard resulting in some discussion on the platform. I guess ultimately they would have changed to turning back in platform 1 or 4 as needed to get round the problem. Or waited for a driver to come along and move the unit in the yard the few metres more required. Apart from those 12 car trains the balance did seem to stay at 8 carriages.