Great Western Coffee Shop

Have to share two (not so) great experiences on the new IET from Weston to Temple Meads this morning

The service was advertised as being 10 carriages on the departure boards at Weston
Just as the service was pulling into the station this morning a frantic announcement came over the tannoy saying that in fact only the front 5 carriages were in use.
Mad panic of people rushing to the far end of the platform to get to an open door!

On the train it was soon full, a passenger enquired why the rear 5 carriages had been out of service for the past two days, the guard told them that it was because there were insufficient numbers of staff available to operate what essentially is two separate trains.

This got me wondering, there was a train Manager and this other lady selling tickets, how many staff do they need within each section to "open" it to the public? Surely only the train Manager is controlling the doors and the other lady is selling the tickets?

I was then curious on this service why GWR staff were so active in selling tickets to ticketless passengers when they are constantly announcing about penalty fares and the requirement to buy a ticket before boarding

On another service it is just as likely to see the revenue inspectors on a service, so was wondering why it is deemed acceptable to buy a ticket on some services but can be given a penalty fair on others?

Often depends on how commission hungry the staff are!

Are we beginning to see the folly of the DfT dictating that 5 car units were ordered rather than 9 car units.

Aren't these trains DOO ???? perhaps with the train manager giving the driver the signal to close the doors as is done on Cross Country, who also incidentally seem to operate units in multiple without a connecting gangway between the units.

Still bemused why the Government|DfT|NR should decide to replace 8-carriage HST with 2x5-carriage IEP.

It was always going to need more staff, and if the powers that be thought the flexibility of of separating 2x5-carraige IEPS into 2 separate trains, great but limited or no use over most of the routes.

Much better approach would be to have continuous 12-carriage trains.

I’ve been on services where the train manager has raced ahead of the RPI asking only for people who need to purchase tickets. I guess it also gives a stronger case then for the RPI if the TM has done this

I am also perplexed by this as GWR already operate multiple units without a connecting gangway (165/166) with a single set of staff and sometimes just a driver, so cannot understand why they need so many staff for operating 2x5 IET's.
Is this because the 165/166 are operating in DOO land (aka the Thames Valley) and the IET's aren't?
What would happen if 2x5 IET worked London - Oxford would it need 3 staff members?
Are 3 members of staff required for multiple operated 165/166 in the Bristol area?

Agree, I can see the merit of a few half length trains for portion working and for lightly used services, but I feel that the order should have been mainly full length trains with a limited number of half length units. Rather than what was actually specified of mainly 5 car.

Considering the present degree of overcrowding, it wont be long until there are calls to extend the new trains. I would hope that this would consist of lengthening some 5 car units to 9 or 10 car, rather than adding just one vehicle to a 9 car unit.

Increasing some units from 5 car to 9 car has the merit of keeping a uniform fleet of only 2 types of train, whilst increasing the proportion of that fleet that is full length.

Increasing from 5 car to 10 car provides even more capacity, but means that the fleet now contains 3 types of train. A 10 car electric unit also needs TWO "get you home" diesel engines, whilst a 9 car needs only one.
That objection is probably more theoretical than actual however since full electrification is receding into the distance.
And if electrification DOES happen quicker, then there will be plenty of coaches with engines.

5 car bi mode has three engines. If lengthened to 10 car, two engines can be used with one being removed.

There are 35 9-car sets (800 and 802s) that are on order and have yet to be introduced into service.  Those 35 sets (comprising 315 carriages) will no doubt form a very healthy percentage of the final timetabled services, rather than 0% currently, so the number of 2x5car trains operating daily probably won't be that much more extensive than they are now.  The 58 5-car sets (comprising 290 carriages) will give the flexibility to form both the quieter services off-peak and at the extremes of the network, and form 10-car services in the peak to help supplement the 9-car trains.

I would like to think the 9-car trains will be extended to 10-car first as that would have the greatest impact on seating capacity at the minimal cost (that extra carriage would need to have an engine though).  If you extend the 5-car trains to anything other than 9 or 10-cars then you lose the flexibility of portion working, but perhaps extending a few 5-car trains to 9 or 10-cars would be the next step to take after extending 9-car trains to 10-car ones.  Options are available, providing the money can be found.

Fair points here - the suspension of electrification into Bristol and Bath is the root of this issue, leading to the 2x5 car trains coming into service first. But why drag an empty 5 car unit around, rather than detaching it and leaving it in a siding? Unless of course it will be given additional staff when it gets back to Temple Meads en route to Paddington, but that seems to defeat the original ideas behind having the bi-mode units.

Curious. In fact, bi-curious.

very good.  Your suggestion of leaving the dead train in the siding assumes that there is a siding and the path to go and collect the train again. 

Running a 5+5 car train, with 5 locked out of use may have been insisted upon by Hitachi.
Running a single 5 car unit, though more logical might have resulted in a public perception that the costly new trains were not available in sufficient numbers to run the advertised services. Cynics like me might even have been tempted to say "Voyager"

Running two units with one locked out of use makes it clear that this is a GWR staffing issue and not a "new train broken" problem.

There may be a few issues going on here. Coupling and decoupling units doesn't seem to be happening routinely yet in stations as should eventually be the case, so they are going around in pairs all the time (except if one develops a fault).

I think that when that is sorted out, much of the time the service from Weston would be one 5-car unit, coupled to another when this reaches Bristol, and sometimes a 9-car all the way through.

Coupling and uncoupling of carriages etc to match demand or serve branches used to be a almost a signature feature of the original GWR and carried on through BR (W) but I think it will take some time for this to become slick and it is not apparent enough attention has been given to this (at least as yet). This can also be seen in relation to the 387 units (4/8/12).

IIRC there's a union agreement about who can staff both units which obviously reduces flexibility, as more staff are trained up on them this should become less of an issue.

Much to the annoyance of all those passengers crammed into a five car set knowing full well that behind them is 5 carriages carrying fresh air. Still, I suppose better than no service at all but was predicted would happen.

GWR need to nip this in the bud pretty quick as this is not good PR for their new trains. If the media get a hold that this is happening on a regular basis they will have a field day. You can see the headline “Brand new trains running around carrying fresh air not passengers”.

As II points out, once the 9 car sets are in service, they will replace some of the 10 car diagrams that only really require 9 cars.

You mean there is an agreement between GWR and the Union about....

It takes two to tango

Then leave it on the platform at Temple Meads. The Manchester XC and Waterloo SW trains, amongst others, stay put for the time it takes an IET to get to Weston and back. If it is a staffing issue, that would be better than running the show with the back half of the pantomime horse fast asleep - potentially bad PR as Timmer said. 

I've held back from commenting on this before, but I wondered from the beginning how all the 'guff' about increased capacity would actually work out when commuters from Yatton, Nailsea and Backwell and other stations between WSM and BRI who had the 'luxury' of some 8 coach HSTs supplementing the 2/3 coach locals at peak times found them reduced in capacity to 5 coaches.  I am sure others are right in saying that the media will have a field day if/when they realise that one of the excuses for fare rises is daily being flouted and possibly even planned for a reduction. They will probably not be interested as to whether it is the DfT or GWR who are to blame: it's 'the railways'.

Very true - although I seldom boarded an 8 car HST at Weston to find it full.

When all the gloss has been taken away and the flim-flam forgotten, we will find that we asked for one thing, were told we were getting another, and ended up with some rather different. You're right - it's "the railways", and everybody had better get busy blaming everybody else.

If anything blame the unions, trying to look as if they are doing something as all the members pay to be part, in truth all they have done is made everything more difficult for GWR and made a solution to the overcrowding problem, an issue again! I imagine once the 9 car IET's come into service this will soon be sorted, but its just annoying for everyone right now.

And your justification for that statement?

I have seen a comment in the diagrams thread of UK Railways that the issue relates to failures in the uncoupling of units.

The diagram for trains running West of Bristol is that they run 2x5 between Paddington and Bristol where they split and a single 5 coach unit runs on to Weston or Taunton.  On the return this links at Bristol to form a 2x5 to Paddington.

Since the automated uncoupling is not working correctly they are being run as 2x5 with a locked out set until Hitachi produce a working system.

Well coupling up seems OK: https://youtu.be/fiitEoXTrbE

The relevant discussion is towards the bottom of this page:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/gwr-intercity-express-train-iep-initial-diagrams-allocations.153431/page-20

I cannot comment on the accuracy or otherwise of the statements, but we know there were reported coupling problems on the first day.

Presumably these teething problems will be quickly sorted.

Why is it that some people seem to be overly in love with unions and what they do, sorry but what I said is my own personal opinion and the truth.