Class 180 Adelantes - discussions, including their return to FGW

[whole diary]

[willc]

Was going by the tag on Rail's article - but then I'm a journalist and so are they, so it's bound to be wrong -

yawn

It's an article of faith with a number of posters here

The manufacturer is the company that built it - all others are sub-contractors & suppliers to the manufacturer.

Are you actually suggesting that a maunfacturer should be able to guarantee continuity of supply of parts from its suppliers over an extended period, like the typical 30-year life of a train? What do you do if they stop trading? Bombardier had to buy some of its suppliers not that long ago when they ran into trouble, to ensure it could deliver new trains, never mind provide parts for older trains.

As for spares supply, it was asserted that spares were no longer available - asserted, no more than that - which doesn't count as proof, does it? And, as I said previously, if you can't find a part, someone, somewhere will make it for you, for a price. Railways have been robbing parts off one train to keep another running pretty much as long as they have been around. If the dmu cascade had all worked out and East Coast had taken the 180s as first planned, I'm pretty sure 104 would have been given a thorough refit last year - which it will presumably now be getting this year instead.

Passengers might live in the real world but what have they got to do with my point about the parallel universe of train leasing? I'll spare people the detailed saga, if they're interested they can investigate it all themselves, but BR^▸ (British Rail(ways))'s rolling stock was sold off for peanuts prices by the last Tory government in its privatisation splurge. The leasing firms were then sold on very quickly for far more than the taxpayer got, making some people very rich indeed on the back of former public assets. And the operators continue to pay eye-watering sums each year to run things like Pacers, which passengers in the real world have to use.

I wasn't suggesting the contracts were the be all and end all of the picture - merely that many trains are covered by similar arrangements of a kind that laird said weren't being adopted by the rail industry, whereas availability of a specified number of trains each day is the fundamental point of the Virgin and SWT^▸ (South West Trains) arrangements with Alstom and Siemens, so it was in their own interests to make sure the things were built properly.

As for diagrams, yes, looking closely at what you might want to do with the 180s first thing in the morning and where that might put them in the mid-morning period, it may well be that you would have to keep HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) on the Herefords anyway. And 14 Adelantes would be nice to give all that flexibility but FGW^▸ (First Great Western) turned their face against that notion a few years back.

[Andy W]

The concept that you lease on the inflation adjusted cost of the original build is frankly bizarre.

It is not bizare for the leasing cost to be related in to the new build cost.  When you lease a car that is exactly what you expect.  A cheap car is cheaper to lease than an expensive car.

inflation adjusted -. Are you suggesting that if you lease a Capri today the lease price is based on the inflation adjusted price of the new car? You should lease on the current value. Leasing companies invariably offer that as the residual value (buy back value) on a car lease, lease / purchase agreement.

[Andy W]

Are you actually suggesting that a maunfacturer should be able to guarantee continuity of supply of parts from its suppliers over an extended period, like the typical 30-year life of a train?

If you buy something that you expect to have a life span of 30 years then yes I expect manufacturer support for that time otherwise you cannot guarantee that life span. I assume many failed parts can be refurbished and that,again, should be factored in.

The problem with the suggestion of a 30 year life span is that all the trains bought will last 30 years. What the planners should be looking for is that all units are available for the first 15 years (say) then a gradual diminution of the fleet after that point until the 30 year point.So the manufacturer support would be 15 years (with notice of end-of-life).

That is how you achieve the 30 years you suggest, in later life is the time to use scavenged parts - not when the train is less than 10 years old (30% of it's projected life).

What happens if the manufacturer goes bust? While that can happen that shouldn't stop provisions being made for new spares supply.

[paul7575]

We have become extremely averse to portion working these days, apart from Southern where there are regular splits such as Victoria to Bognor Regis / Southampton at Horsham. 

Did you mean Southern the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company), or the former Southern Region?  Portion working is pretty common in SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s area as well, not necessarily for splitting to two different destinations like they do at Horsham, but there's plenty of splitting and joining for capacity reasons at both Salisbury and Bournemouth.  Which is the sort of thing FGW^▸ (First Great Western) would presumably be looking at for the Cotswolds, ie two units to Oxford but only one beyond?

Paul

[Tim]

The concept that you lease on the inflation adjusted cost of the original build is frankly bizarre.

It is not bizare for the leasing cost to be related in to the new build cost.  When you lease a car that is exactly what you expect.  A cheap car is cheaper to lease than an expensive car.

inflation adjusted -. Are you suggesting that if you lease a Capri today the lease price is based on the inflation adjusted price of the new car? You should lease on the current value. Leasing companies invariably offer that as the residual value (buy back value) on a car lease, lease / purchase agreement.

No I am not.  But if you do not inflation adjust the figure the leasing costs look even more out of proportion with the orginal cost of the asset.  Also it is the inflation adjusted cost that gives you some idea of that it might cost to build a new train to the same spec today.  if you are on a 20 year fancchise, wouldn't it make finacial sense to pay ^700,000 now rather than ^100,000 per year for twenty years.

[laird]

Could it be that the 377s were designed for ease of coupling and uncoupling given that it forms such a big part of the Southern timetable.
SWT^▸ (South West Trains) have fewer locations where they couple or uncouple, and those locations also tend to be the stations with generous dwell times?
I was thinking barring termini SWT split and join trains at Southampton Central, Basingstoke (both in the station and yard), possibly at Poole/Bournemouth, I guess there will be others but it is certainly a less common site than on Southern.
The 180 was probably not designed with a split and join at Oxford in mind, my reasoning behind that is when the 10 car units began working on the Cheltenham-Swindon-Paddington route the rear five cars were locked out of use from Gloucester to Swindon rather than simply joining the five car set on arrival at Swindon.

Thinking about Oxford I guess the plan would be be to split the units in one of the two platforms, one unit turning back toward Paddington? Does the signalling permit that, otherwise wouldn't the platform be occupied for too long and delay the following services. There always seems to be something of a queue of trains when I go through Oxford so I'm guessing headway between trains there must be fairly tight?

[willc]

Thinking about Oxford I guess the plan would be be to split the units in one of the two platforms, one unit turning back toward Paddington? Does the signalling permit that, otherwise wouldn't the platform be occupied for too long and delay the following services. There always seems to be something of a queue of trains when I go through Oxford so I'm guessing headway between trains there must be fairly tight?

There are windows in the timetable, as the trains aren't all evenly spaced out. At present, some Cotswold Line Turbo workings split and join and it's quite common for London-bound sets to arrive at 22 or 23 minutes past the hour for a departure at xx.31 so potentially feasible to couple a 180 in that window, so long as the sets agree to talk to each other. When trains split in platform 2, the set remaining at Oxford works into the carriage sidings before setting back to No 1 to go south.

You can split sets in No 1 and send them off in either direction, as it has bi-directional signals, but it's the 'wrong' side for Worcester-bound trains, so this is rarely done, usually only if it will help get a set going back towards London as fast as possible after a delay on the way up to Oxford - and where it won't get in the way of other services.

[IndustryInsider]

There are windows in the timetable, as the trains aren't all evenly spaced out. At present, some Cotswold Line Turbo workings split and join and it's quite common for London-bound sets to arrive at 22 or 23 minutes past the hour for a departure at xx.31 so potentially feasible to couple a 180 in that window, so long as the sets agree to talk to each other.

Though of course that might change over time, and you could argue it would be nice to make use of the extra freedom and punctuality given by the redoubling to remove such a pathing allowance in the timetable.

[Andy W]

a. 180s are history in these parts. They will all have new operators by the start of next year, judging by the interest being shown.
b. If you split trains, someone will always be in the wrong part, so hello instant delays as they (slowly) sort themselves out when the train divides.
c. You can't have a train sitting in a platform at Oxford for 15 minutes. There are too many other trains and not enough platforms. Even if you were to park in the goods loop north of the station to wait for a path, as a journalist, I - never mind the nationals - would have a field day with trains being operated like this - 'sorry you've missed your train, that's it just up there at the sidings, you can sit and look at it for 15 minutes until it leaves'...
d. Imposing this kind of nonsense on passengers heading to London and living within driving distance of the Chiltern line would have a simple effect - they would all drive to Bicester instead - net result, a FALL in Cotswold Line passenger numbers
e. To pay to run trains like this would need 200 passengers going to Worcester and beyond on every train - they don't exist and wouldn't even if the trains were faster. Do a headcount on the 17.21, 17.51 and 18.21 ex-London beyond Moreton-in-Marsh pretty much any day of the week if you don't believe me.

[grahame]

Five years of growth at between 8% and 10% compound per annum adds another 50% to the passengers.  That's what's happened in many parts of the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) area.  Five years of growth at under 1% per annum add less that 5% to the number of passengers.   That's the base figure on which the current SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) was drawn up, and the basis on which the franchise was awarded.

How could a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) who were new to the area / set of services (I'm thinking ex Wessex here) know that they had been fed such a pessimistic forecast?  So there's a need for extra trains ... to ease the overcrowding, and to cover the flows that weren't catered for in the sums bases on 2002 - 2004 data and almost no growth, but are very much there now.

[ChrisB]

Agreed - the problem for the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) is that this is the same pretty much across the country - not just FGW^▸ (First Great Western)-land.

[northwesterntrains]

Agreed - the problem for the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) is that this is the same pretty much across the country - not just FGW^▸ (First Great Western)-land.

London rail services get monitored a lot more closely than in other parts of the country and the media pick up on this and always make the FGW Paddington services, NXEA^▸ (National Express East Anglia) Liverpool Street and the FCC^▸ (First Capital Connect) services sound like the worse in the country.

There is also a bizarre intercity defintion.  FGW's HST^▸ (High Speed Train) services are classed as intercity and so one person standing on a 7+2 HST between Paddington and Reading classes it as overcrowded, while 58 people standing on a 3 car Manchester Airport-Edinburgh (3 hour 40) express service between Manchester Piccadilly and Chorley is classed as 'busy.'

I mentioned in another post previously that if passenger numbers change it affects the amount of money changing hands with DfT but doesn't affect the amount of rolling stock allocated.  Northern had to refund a large part of a subsidy that DfT gave them because due to around a 33% growth in passenger numbers it meant Northern 'didn't need it', while with the former National Express East Coast and the intercity part of First Great Western the subsidy is paid by the operator to DfT and refunds were granted by DfT due to passenger numbers on long distance services being affected by the recession. 

[northwesterntrains]

If you buy something that you expect to have a life span of 30 years then yes I expect manufacturer support for that time otherwise you cannot guarantee that life span.

You'll find that even if they produce spare parts for 30 years after production the costs of spare pairs will rise every year and become very expensive towards the end of the 30 years.

I don't think trains are guaranteed to last for 30 years.  I think it is an expected average life span of around 30 years for diesel units and around 40 years for electric units.  It's a bit like buying a TV, it should last around 10 years but the guarantee will be for between one and five years depending how much you want to pay and if it needs a few new parts after 8 years then it's non-economically viable to pay for replacement parts, but the TV might get to 12 years without any new parts if you're lucky.

[paul7575]

Could it be that the 377s were designed for ease of coupling and uncoupling given that it forms such a big part of the Southern timetable.
SWT^▸ (South West Trains) have fewer locations where they couple or uncouple, and those locations also tend to be the stations with generous dwell times?
I was thinking barring termini SWT split and join trains at Southampton Central, Basingstoke (both in the station and yard), possibly at Poole/Bournemouth, I guess there will be others but it is certainly a less common site than on Southern.

I think the difference is just that Horsham is much more 'visible' because they split/join twice an hour nearly every hour in each direction, but in my experience the procedure on a 450 or 444 takes no longer (than SN) when SWT are timetabled to do it.  For instance in the weekday peak at Southampton they split 10 car down direction trains during an overall 5 min station stop, the front unit leaves 2-3 mins after arrival non stop to  Bournemouth, the rear follows as a stopper 2 mins later (which is the soonest it can due to signalling headways).  It is very similar at Horsham - the rear unit is constrained by the signalling, not the procedure.  On Sundays SWT split/join Portsmouth/Poole services at Eastleigh every hour.

But you are right about some units taking longer than others - the SWT 458s cannot be split and joined in service at all, it has to be done in a depot - basically because the gangway door design is totaly useless.   OTOH^▸ (On The Other Hand) the 159s and 158s at Salisbury are practically as fast to split or couple as a modern EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) - I guess practice makes perfect...

Paul

[readytostart]

For instance in the weekday peak at Southampton they split 10 car down direction trains during an overall 5 min station stop, the front unit leaves 2-3 mins after arrival non stop to  Bournemouth, the rear follows as a stopper 2 mins later (which is the soonest it can due to signalling headways). 

There's only one train a day in each direction that I know of running non stop from Southampton to Bournemouth.
The more usual split is at Bournemouth, where a 10 car unit arrives on platform 3, splits - with the front 5 heading to Weymouth (I understand 10 car units can't run West of Poole due to power capacity on the juice rail) and the rear five shunting to the middle sidings then back to platform 2, forming the front 5 coaches of a Weymouth - Waterloo service.
As you mention there are the regular Sunday attaches / detaches at Eastleigh.