Great Western Coffee Shop

From Mark Hopwood's mailing list

Wishing that article could have flagged a jump in ridership when the HSTs were replaced, now looking for a graph for GWR 2015 - 2019 passenger figures. Has there been a 'Sparks effect'?

Mark

Really hard to tell - the first electric train ran to Cardiff on 7th January 2020 and just over two months later we were in lockdown.  The scientist in me was taught to make one change at a time if you want to record the effect before you make the next change.  Sadly, no-one told the virus it should wait until 2021 so that GWR and the DfT could see the effect of the electric trains first.

I think it would be difficult to measure a sparks effect with a bi-mode train, because it also runs on diesel, and doesn't the sparks effect also rely on faster and more frequent services and that hasn't really happened.

And because electrification was never completed then I think it is true to say that some services have got worse, for example those wanting to travel from:
West of Reading to Oxford have to change at Didcot.
Bedywn to Reading passengers have to change at Newbury
No through services to Paddington from the Thames Valley branches.
Didcot to Oxford has shorter trains and less services

Let's hope we get some sensible people in dft/Government (delete as appropriate) who authorise a rolling progamme of electrification starting with the completion of the GWR electrifiction project.

This is a quote from Modern Railways annoucement of the contract:

"A review of the company’s diesel fleet is promised, while a ‘fleet strategy plan’ is intended to cut the costs of running a mixed fleet and replace diesel-only trains with what the DfT calls ‘greener trains’, possibly including battery-only units."

As this is the DfT I would assume that 'greener trains' doesn't mean putting more wires up or laying more third rail. :'(

Thanks for this, a good reminder to me of how comparatively recently the IEPs came in to service. It feels a lot longer...

Mark

And this was the release to the Stock Exchange this morning, with some pertinent figures

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVMsvnYX0AcXsCH?format=jpg&name=large)

Not a 5 or 7 year 'lease/contract' then, seemingly just a short extension.
What ever happened to the giving out of long leases to assist operators in long term planning?

Thanks, Chris - here it is in plain text in case anyone wants to quote bits of it.

It was for real franchises that a longer period would have made sense, but we never had those. These NRC things are just to fill the gap before GBR can taker over with a standard type of contract for all TOCs.

'Greener trains' means trains that are painted in a brighter shade of green.

This short extension makes sense, DfT will be handing over the TOC contract / franchising to GBR within the GWR contract extension.

DfT, NR, ORR and the TOCs are all part of the working group developing GBR; I doubt we will see a franchise bidding and award again like we used to

Can we stop calling it a contract 'extension' please? It's a completely different, new *management*contract.

“Battery only trains” will probably be how they spin the trial on the Greenford shuttle.  One in service and one spare = “trains”….  ::)

From the GWR press release:


Yes, things have got much better since 2015 when the lovely people at FirstGroup took over from those rapscallions at, er, FirstGroup.

(But more services to Gloucester is good! And I suspect "a comprehensive review of its diesel fleet" is code for "a one-way HST excursion to Booths" but time will tell...)

Yes, I think that “comprehensive review” of the diesel fleet has already taken place with a trip to Newport or Rotherham on the agenda for the Castle Class HSTs.

My one wish, after what must be 15-16 years of First running the entire GW network, that they would finally sort out having enough crew at weekends to run the full timetable. Ridiculous that after all this time of First running the GW network, most if not all weekends still have cancellations due to shortage of traincrew.

If any new rolling stock is being considered to replace the short HSTs in use at present, hopefully lessons will be learnt from the failed IET project.
Make certain that the new units are ALL delivered before scrapping the old stock.
Do not scrap the old stock until the new units have run with good reliability for at least 12 months.
Ensure that the new units are not too big a backward step in comfort and facilities.

I see no merit in replacing existing stock with new all diesel units. So that means in effect
100% battery power.
Diesel/battery hybrid.
Diesel/battery/25 kv hybrid.

Make certain that they work, even at Dawlish, and in other adverse conditions. Avoid anything too innovative.

Make certain that luggage and cycle space is sufficient for use in areas popular with holidaymakers.

Legally and technically, you are correct, to most it will appear as an extension.  Either way it is good news for the employees and passengers or in modern parlance team members and customers


Given the recent announcement that GWR are looking for additional EMUs for its fleet my guess is the 'Castles' will be replaced with 5 car 800's

Will that require servicing of 800's somewhere west of Stoke Gifford?

If the Castles are to be replaced by 5 car IETs, then what about main line services ?

It seems that insufficient IETs are available to run the present services, about a dozen half length services today for example.
How is an already often inadequate fleet to cope if several units are to be used elsewhere ?

Is there not already some servicing at Long Rock and at Maliphant?


Yes, but the 769s will be in service by Christmas (just not telling you which Christmas) and there should be units spare from not running the superfasts that many 5 car units were built for, and more by turning the Bedwyn service into a shuttle from Newbury, or using 769s and replacing the London destination of London (Paddington) with London (Gatwick). If that does not give you enough IETs on a daily basis to meet the timetable requirements, change the timetable to schedule some more trains as 5 cars in the first place.

That comment written to mix the sensible, the pragmatic, and the "don't be silly" - interesting question is to sort out which is which.

In the medium term some of the Cardiff / Padd stopping services could be replaces with 110mph (387) EMU's the timings would not be far behind that of a class 800.  If the wires go up to Oxford then all the Oxford fasts could be replaced with 387's (or equivalent 110mph EMU)

A copy of the current GWR contract (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1122644/first-greater-western-ltd-2022-nrc.pdf) has now appeared in DfT's public register of rail passenger contracts (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-greater-western-2022-rail-contract). Plenty to read there!

The main thing picked up so far is what Chapter 4.3 "The Rolling Stock" says about the 769s. That's in Appendix 1 (p 81), where there are two tables. The 769s appear on the first: Original Rolling Stock - with a lease expiry date of 1st April 2023 -  but not in the second: Specified Additional Rolling Stock.

But those tables are difficult to interpret. Apart from the 80x fleet, all items are shown as additional stock leased from their own original expiry date. But the columns that would show that replacement are not filled in. It really isn't clear what the finer points of this table mean - such as an omission.

This is, of course, a contract written by lawyers, and making obvious sense is not the top priority in its layout or wording. If you want proof of that, look at the note above the table explaining what an early redelivery date is (there's a column for those - it's empty):

The other important factor is that the whole contract is a bit of a farce anyway, as it can be altered (and they usually are); and it confers almost no rights on GWR/First since everything important is at the SoS's discretion. So if, at the time of making the contract, no-one was sure what would happen with the 769s, maybe they just decided to leave that bit out. There were (and still are) a few months to see what does happen and for talks among various parties to try and find a solution.

I think it simply means that if a replacement unit is not ready to be put into service when the unit to be replaced is due to be returned, you can keep the original unit until the replacement unit is ready - unless the Secretary of State agrees to an earlier release of the unit to be replaced.

As there seems to be no replacement units in Table 2, which seems to list some further leases for current stock when the current ones expire (and no Table 3) this seems to be a note that does not apply, presumably because it's in DfT's standard document template and was not deleted as this template was edited for the GW agreement.

What is perhaps a little surprising (although I have not gone through all 583 pages to find the answer!) is that there seem to be no further leases agreed for the class 387/1s when the current leases expire on 1 April next year.

There's an ITT out for that requirement (it's on the forum somewhere) - which explains the wording in the table.

Or maybe it isn't, at least I can't find it. So, for the record, this - in what always looked like a benchmarking exercise demanded by DfT - was the core of the tender notice (https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2022/W22/775815678):

It's been reported that the result is most of the 387 fleet (30 of 33 units) is staying.

Maybe they (DfT and GWR) really were giving the 769s one last chance in June, or maybe they had already given up on them. Either way that has now become a plan. (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19683.msg328616#msg328616)