Great Western Coffee Shop

The first of the 150's was due to transfer to FGW later today (Mon 25th) but Lo & Behold you'll never guess who has poked their nose in a put these moves on hold (only for the time being hopefully)

Yes you've guessed it 'The Department for Transport!'.............source a Operations Control Manager.

Get a Grip they say but keep sticking their oar in when they start getting the grip asked for!

Wouldn't it be great if the DaFT cleared off and left the railways alone. The network is nationalized in all but name now.

Anyone know why its been put on hold???  Im guessing its something to do with ATW somehow??

More than five of the ex-Central 150s were being used around Cardiff on Saturday. I noted two that had been freshly painted (sorry, I don't do numbers ;-) )- a couple were about in Central / Anglia colours. Intermediate door controls seem to have been fitted (even on one of the non-repatined ones)- the interiors are not re-upholsted (not in the unit I was on), but are quite tidy. Seats are chapman with a couple of the lateral seats looking like original ones.

Any news....still nothing from Arriva!!

Daniel

The sets due to be transfered were with ATW but old stock used by Anglia!

I thought only one set was in Anglia colours?

Anyone with connections at FGW able to give us more info about whast really happening here?? 

12hoursSunday- yup I know- there have been 9x ex-Central 150s at ATW's Canton depot since the end of last year- they all arrived in Anglia blue with the Central cab branding. They are all being used in service at present- I spotted two on Saturday that have not been painted in Arriva colours, all others are done- all in service have intermediate door controls fitted by Arriva and repainted units have new light clusters. This is why the transfer is a bit bonkers, because Arriva have already refitted and repainted them!

Daniel

They were all out saturday as well, (providing extra rugby capacity) so i'm assuming that all of these are now in traffic and have route allocations.

Thus, more than likely going nowhere.

Plus, if the dft stepped in, i can only speculate, but they're probably being put under pressure by the WAG not to allow these stock moves.

Well, if this transfer doesn't work out, although it will be good for the VL I sincerely hope you FGW guys get a break VERY soon. Given the way Andrew Haines seems to be working, I would guess that something will come to light quite quickly as he can clearly spot a good opportunity and pursue it with extreme predjudice!

He also seems to make opportunities where there appear to be none.

Daniel

atw have as good as confirmed they're not having the 180's

Reason: they're to much ^

Oh, and its been reported that the ebbw vale line is suffering from overcrowding already, even with trains running as 4 cars on peak/off peak services.

Cant be long before another two of the 150's you might have got, isn't moving ;)

ATW have said they aren;t having them, but doesn't mean the WAG wont do something about that. 

ATW are a perfect operator for the 180s, having the 175s already.  Possibly allow some of the 175s to have an additional carriage added from the 180s??  A big task I know with modifications needed, but a possibility. 

And it would have to free up some 158s for FGW. 

175's arnt cleared to operate on the majority of lines the 158's do in wales.

so they wouldnt be going anywhere.

the wag does aspire to get a better service for the sambrian line though (roughly a 2 hourly service) in the near future, so they'd probably stay around for that, as thats the current stock used on the line.

I can't post what I think but this is injustice, just look at the money spent on Wales with a new bloody line.

I don't think its fair for Valleys to have 6car whilst FGW struggle at peak with 2. It UNFAIR!

Perhaps if Canton were a bit better, less units could be sat in the depot and you wouldn't miss 5 150s...

As i've said, hundreds of times.

Go use a valley line in friday evening peak, and you'll see why its not unfair. The valley lines is a *max* capacity as it is (as in signalling capacity), so until ETRMS gets rolled out here, the only option is longer trains. Even when we finally get ETRMS i can still see capacity issues on the network itself. As thats what you get when you have a stupidly cheap, well run, and efficient railway network. People actually want to use it.

It was firsts own stupidity that they "forgot" to renew the 150's and so on that got hoovered up by other TOC's

Oh, and it was Blaenau Gwent council who proposed, and funded a large part of the ebbw vale service. Vote for someone better next time you have your local council elections ;)

I don't really think that is a fair thing to say considering the state of the Labour Gmt.

You might not, but if it wasnt for them, this whole thing might never have happened.

So its a perfectly valid point.

Oh, and you have what, 52 (?) "new" unites en route in the near future. Whereas, Wales is to get none.

So i think its fair game that you don't get atws stock, and sit and wait for just another year or so.

AH i never realised that it was because FGW forgot to renew their 150s that they lost them!!!!!  I thought it was the DFT who simply re-alocated them.

I still do not think that 150s are the answer to FGWs stock problem - its 158s and similar that they need.  Infact they need NEW trains, which I think its time the first group considered funding towards??  

The bottom line shazz is most people who read this site couldnt give two hoots if people are riding on the roof on the valley lines. only that FGW increase the capacity on the Cardiff /Portsmouth by getting hold of additional stock

Oh its not like first group have money luying around*








*its not like they're making near a ^229.7m a year in profits, honest




I know, i'm just pointing out the pit falls/ many many reasons they're more than likely not to get stock from across the severn, especially as i believe it was the daft/nrs idea to extend the platforms and send extra stock atws way

The DafT specified how many units the franchise needed in their greatest hour of wisdom and therefore it was not necessary for FGW to renew the lease on 8 150s...

I'd say as nice as more 158s would be, we aren't going to get any wheras we were going to get some 150s but apparantly not until 2010 so we will continue to suffer.  ::)

Why should FGW buy new trains anyway when they will loose the franchise in a few years time anyway. If the DafT really cared they wouldn't simply throw around stupid insult at FGW when THEY ARE the problem, instead they would tackle the route problem and build some bloody trains and not stand around chatting about it all bloody year  :-\ :-\ :-\

Other TOCs have, and do...

It's not like first have 3 franchises that could use new stock if they decided to become a rosco as well, and buy there own stock. And could even lease them to whoever gets the franchise come the end of the current one. And i'm sure the competition comission would welcome another rosco to sort out the stupidly high prices some trains cost to lease.

Its no different to how FGW own some of their HST powercars. 

ANyway, who has said nothing wll be going to FGW until 2010 in terms of 150s???  I haven;t read this anywhere??  Can you confirm this? 

Thats when the remainder ( 8 ) of the 150's from EMT will arrive at the very latest

Before, the rest cascade fgw's way sometime later

Do you mean London Midland????  I didnt think EMT has 150s?

...yes i did!

When you say the rest transfer, what do you mean???  I didn't realise that FGW wee to get every single other 150.  I would presume some would go to Northern and ATW also?

midland are replacing all of there 150's with turbo stars.

As far as i'm aware they are to be allocated to fgw as part of the "1000 extra carriages" thing

This is why FGW need these extra 150s:

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1847.0

Something that happens every weekend on the Cardiff-Portsmouth line

What about the Adelantes, are they coming as well?

I wouldn't go getting too jealous of the Ebbw Vale area- it has pretty close to zero employment prospects and bad road links, so railway access is literally a godsend. Now people with pretty much no opportunities can get out to find better jobs etc. As for the Valley lines, did I mention that the reason that six car trains will be run is that there has been a massive station extension project including 42 stations- this isn't just using existing platforms, it is major construction and investment the like of which isn't happening in England at the moment. That is why the extra units are needed.

I can understand why folks are getting upset, but as a Welsh rail user, I mustn't forget the FGW situation, but also FGW campaigners should be looking at what is happening in our area and taking notes about what CAN be made to happen. Luckily, the Welsh Assembly (up to a point) put their money where their mouth is. Having said that, our system is being done cheaply- they should really have done a Chiltern style total route modernisation (Turbostars and all!), but they couldn't come up with the money. Of course, Cardiff is a capital city, which helps, but WAG have also been carrying out improvements on the Cambrian line (more passing loops) etc.

I bet there is a hell of a lot of bargaining and politics going on behind this rolling stock and I bet Mr Haines is earning his ^ in the process too. I think by the end of it, if FGW don't get extra stock immediately, it will be clear to EVERYONE (not just those in the know) that the issues are totally the DaFT's fault.

Not much consolation if you are left stranded on a platform, but i (and many others) have been there too in Wales!!

Daniel

This is why we should have an English parliament. Currently a larger percentage of British taxes are spent per head on the Welsh and Scottish than the English. Personally I think power should be devolved to English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish parliaments with the issues which effect us all such as health and defence being dealt with at a UK level. You could also do away with the house of Lords and have the UK parliament performing that role for the local ones and vice versa. Everything would be more democratic and issues such as transport in England would be dealt with more fairly in the same way as in Wales.

The reason i think they're not investing in new stock yet, is that they want to wait for etrms to hit the valleys, so they dont have to make 2 investments, plus they can double the number of trains running at the same time. So the potential is there for a huge investment in stock come then, so someone will be raking it in for a stock order.

come the final roll out (2018 for the valleys if the trial goes to plan? same year as they want to replace the pacers etc)

In a way, i can see the sence in doing it this way, as the amount of stock they need to replace is a vast amount, across the whole atw network.

Plus queen street really needs to be 5 platforms, not the 3 it currently is if growth  continues at this rate.

The DfT didnt specify how many units the franchise needed but the SRA did strongly hint in the Invitation To Tender. They did this by listing the amount of units (broken down by class) that SRA/Jacobs research indicated were required.

Therefore you could argue that the bidders took their lead from that.

However, we know from FOI disclosures that the final decision to go with 2-coach rather than 3-coach Class 158 units was based on a detailed comparison of then-current loadings mapped onto the new December 2006 service pattern conducted by FGW. The benefits were seen to be capacity on key services and performance (avoidance of cancellations, standbys at strategic locations, fleet cycling etc.) It was described as "a vast improvement on what was originally proposed."

There would obviously be cause for debate as to whether they reached the correct conclusion.....

It should also be noted, though, that people like Andrew Griffiths realised that there would still be some very busy trains, which is why they pressed for extra HST stops to be made at local stations during the peaks.

This was found to be more difficult than first thought to implement at locations such as Keynsham and Oldfield Park.

I would argue that the above is relevant, given that the proposed transfer of Class 150 units from ATW is meant to unlock the potential for 3-coach Class 158 units to be created.

Great news for FGW! Congrats, you are pretty much back to where you were when Wessex had the franchise!! The Govt have got a real cheek making FGW pay for this recovery plan though.

I can't possibly see that Arriva will give up the 150s without being compensated. I would guess that the compensation will have to be a deal with 180s. Also, as it says that the new stock will arrive in Summer 08, is there not a chance that the other stock may be used with a little clever jiggery pokery? I think it will be one of the biggest railway scandals of recent years if a company is divested of stock required to run an enhanced service after millions of pounds have been spent on platform extensions + train repaints and alterations!

I suppose that the other alternative is that WAG will pay FGW to run say, the Vale of Glamorgan or Maesteg service as an extension of one of their Cardiff routes with the additional stock they have and that Arriva will not longer require the extra units.........that would mean that FGW would have an extra income stream to help pay for the rescue plan??

This is pretty tense!

Daniel

There is a relevant priced option in the Franchise Agreement :

I know ;-)

The V0G bit even got into a draft timetable- I have it on my laptop at home. However, they would need to go on to Bridgend as well. In fact, if there has been some co-operation here, the service could be operated by existing Arriva mainline staff. At present, the crew changes at Cardiff with VL staff leaving and main-line staff taking the train onto Bridgend.

The only thing that would worry me is that if the route is tacked onto the end of a longer route, the quality of service would go down the pan and cancellations would occur. Unless, there was a huge wad of slack stuck in the timetable (like the Maesteg service, that dwells at Cardiff for ages).

This idea popped into my mind because I have recently met with the ATW franchise manager. He totally blanked me re: the 5x 150 unit transfers (what a suprise), but took a great deal time explaining that WAG pay for the trains on the VoG and that Arriva simply crew them- he also pointed out that WAG could arrange for any TOC to run it. When I mentioned that FGW had the VoG route in a draft timetable, he look suprised that I knew this and commented that this might still be rumbling about.

This is purely speculation, but this could be another option to the rolling stock issue. This would mean that WAG would have shiney refurbed 3 coach 158s or 150s running out to Cardiff airport. This would mean that no Welsh taxpayer's money has been wasted too!!

I don't think we have heard the last of this one folks! As I commute on this route, I may have to face the fact that I am turning purple (arrrgh!).

Daniel

Yes, but other TOC's don't have to pay ^1bn to the DFT! Oh, and I think a tongue in cheek "told you so" is in order, my source is very reliable  ;)

I did think of you earlier.....

I thought these still hadnt gone anywhere due to the daft blocking it? ;)

See link below.
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1862.msg13465#msg13465

still, says nothing of the 150s, it mentions new leases on 5 3 cars for the ports>cardiff

oh, and MTLS need to learn the difference between turnover and operating profit.

I do agree with danielp though, ATW/ the WAG will probably seek some sort of compensation package if it does happen.

EDIT: Just saw the fgw link, the bbc do like to be sketchy with there news, cant wait to see what the WAG think of this next time they're in session.

FGW have clearly stated that they are to recieve 5 class 150 units in their press release. Trust me, it's going to happen!

From those who know, are the ATW-FGW stock transfers back on then? If so when. When I went by Canton this morning, there were 3x Anglia liveried sprinters in the yard + about four other ex-Centrals that have been repainted......

Arriva are still very quiet!!!!

Daniel

Cheers....I know which, but not when!!

Daniel