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I'm not sure how important the length of a train - on its own - is.  "5 carriages is too short for a long distance train" - why's that if the passenger flow on that journey isn't all that great at any stretch of the journey?  A handful of trains from Portsmouth to South Wales, six or seven carriages each, was replaced a couple of decades ago by hourly 2 carriage trains ... and the outcome was a boom in passenger numbers.  I didn't hear of anyone saying in the early days of the AlphaLine services that they wouldn't travel because the trains were too short ... indeed they've needed to be lengthened to three carriages - and now headed back up to five - because of the width of the flow and not because of the inherent need for a train with a journey time of around 3 hours to be of a certain length.

Cornwall mainline , 2020, will have a train every 30 minutes.  Looking back to 2018, there were gaps of around 90 minutes then an 8 car ... I think I prefer 4 or 5 cars every 30 minutes - around 50% more capacity.

Another example.  In December 2006, services at Melksham dropped from 5 trains each way per day to 2.  In a storm of protest, it was pointed out to us that the replacement trains were typically 3 carriages not one, so we had more capacity on the flow. We didn't see it as a practical service - miss the quarter past six and you could catch the quarter to seven - small problem that the quarter past six was in the morning and the quarter to seven was in the evening.

In my view, many longer duration journeys DO need longer trains than those used at present.
Comfort and facilities become more important as journey times increase, and providing these requires a longer length train.
Also peak passenger numbers need considering, not just averages. Suppose that a short journey is operated by short trains with 200 seats and an average passenger count of 150. That might imply a fair bit of standing at busy times, which is far from ideal but arguably just about acceptable for a short journey.

If however the same 200 seat train is used for a 2 or 3 hour journey with an average passenger count of 150, then that is likely to be regarded as too short by those have to stand for hours, rather than for minutes.

Also breakdowns happen, whether of the train itself or infrastructure problems. On a local service, standing for 20 or 30 minutes on the following train is just about acceptable. On a journey of several hours, standing on the following train is not really acceptable.

There are of course services for which short trains are ample, but there are also IMHO far too many short trains running on routes that should have longer trains.

I am in general opposed to the building of any more short trains, unless some truly exceptional need for these can be demonstrated.
It seems to me that considered nationally, that we have plenty of short trains but not enough longer ones.
Suppose as an example, that a TOC perceives a need for some new 4 car or 5 car trains. I would prefer that they make use of some of the EXISTING voyagers or IETs, and that new full length trains be built to replace some of these.

As a currently relevant example, it is now becoming fairly widely admitted that the order for GWR IETs included too many 5 car units. It has also been suggested that people like me should not criticise this because it is a done deal and cant be altered.
If another TOC wants perhaps a dozen 5 car IETs, then in my view another 6 full length units should be built for GWR and 12 half length units transferred to where needed.
The 6 nine car units should be cheaper to build than 12 units each of five cars. 54 vehicles instead of 60 for a start, a 10% saving.

I think the Cross Country Voyagers prove the point. 4 and 5 car units running very frequently on long runs. They are almost bound to be peak hour trains and, therefore, overcrowded, on part of their journeys.

Also the  Pendolinos like then or loath them .

As Wikipedia says

"The original Pendolino order was for 54 eight-carriage sets, costing £500 million. The 8-car units were all later lengthened to 9 cars, then an additional four trains and also a further 62 cars were built between 2009 and 2012."

There are now  22  9 car  390/0 and 31 original sets  lengthened from 9 to 11 + 4 sets built new as 11 cars class  390/1.

Vindication of longer trains for longer journeys.

amended from 12 to 11 car sets.

It depends, doesn't it?

From a long distance operator's point of view you would love to have each train loaded with every seat taken and nobody standing.  From a passengers point of view then you would love to have a carriage to yourself, but failing that as soon as you hit the 50% of seats taken mark it then starts to diminish the experience, even when you have a seat.  The lengths some people go to in order to persuade nobody to want to sit next to them are extraordinary!

Many trains are woefully short of seats (CrossCountry being a prime example), but many trains do run around with plenty of spare capacity, sometimes even on CrossCountry service!  Flexible train lengths allow an operator to try to mix and match train lengths to provide the most suitable number of seats, but sometimes that clearly isn't possible.

Running anything longer than a 10-car IET or the similar length of an 11-car Voyager on an existing railway in almost all cases requires big bucks to be spent on upgrading the infrastructure, which is where HS2 has a strong selling point as it will be able to run trains of 400m long from the offset.

That illustrates the error in the simplistic thinking going back to Operation Princess that doubling the frequency and providing (generally) slightly more than half the seats per service increases capacity. However, around the peaks commuters are generally tied to time and less likely to spread out by half an hour either side spontaneously, and not all of the routes were capable of frequency being doubled in this way completely (eg Leamington Spa to Birmingham NS via Coventry) leading to a straight reduction on those portions and people travelling to/from them.

Pendolinos are either 9- or 11-car. No 12-car sets.

Point taken original entry amended.

Was it only this morning I started this thread?

My original post stands.  There is no need for a long journey train to be over 5 carriages long if the number of passengers on any part of the journey isn't all that great.  For sure, passengers for a longer journey should have more legroom, and more space is likely needed for luggage too.  Whatver the catering offer is to be, that needs space as do cycles, wheelchaits, mobility scooters. And seating for all.   All in all, pehaps 10% to 25% more length of train per passenger than on a locl service.  But if number of passegers could comfortably sit in a 4 coach local train, a 5 coach long distance train is about right.

I recall Richard Gibson of Cross Country projecting a loading diagram for a train from Glasgow Central - I think it was the 09:00 - showing how it loaded along the way with some pretty busy sections and some quieter ones - but with an oveload shock at 16:45 from Bristol wher lots of people got on for Taunton. Apparently there aren't all that many on board from St Erth (at 20:44) to Penzance.  And that's a very real problem of carrying lots of spare capacity all day for a short section of the route.  We never did get a copy of that prentation, so forgive me if the data is slightly wroong.

I quite agree that many long distance trains at the moment are too short. And that a possible solution is for the next batch of bimodes ordered to be 9 carriages, with the 5 cars stepped across to other services and / or run more in pairs. First has expertise in 800 and 802 ... it's not far-fetched to see new 9 car trains arriving into GWR land, with displaced 5 cars running in pairs to Crewe every couple of hours, splitting at Crewe to serve Holyhead and Blackpool North. The voyagers released then strengtheing Cross Country services.

Nothing wrong with short long distance trains. I do think the photoshopped class 153 at Bleaneau Ffestiniog painted in NightStar colours and split half seating and half sleeping berthe was taking it a bit far.

In addition, the "shorter but more frequent" method only works if the timetable is sensible and robust. Once a half-hourly service becomes "two within ten minutes, then nothing for 50" you are stuffed. See Cross Country, passim.

Admitted suggests an acknowledgment by those responsible that they got it wrong. Could you back this statement with examples of where people in the rail industry or government (as opposed to armchair pundits, enthusiasts, who don't have to admit anything as they didn't make the decision) have "admitted" that too many short sets were built. 

By "fairly widely admitted" I meant among members of this forum who are otherwise supportive of the IETs. I recall several posts suggesting that IETs are actually not bad, but that too higher a proportion were the 5 car ones.

I cant imagine HMG or GWR ever saying "we got it wrong"

There's a simple solution to that, build more coaches and add them to the 5-car sets just like they did with the 9-car pendolinos.

Signed.

Simple Simon.

As soon as you increase their length you lose the ability to double up. So unless you have a magic money tree to increase them to 9 coaches that could be very expensive.

Yes, and for this reason I would not be in favour in lengthening 5 car units to 6, 7, or 8 cars.
I would however support increasing some of the 5 car units to 9 cars. This would retain the advantages of a fleet with only two train lengths, rather than adding a third variant.

Even a handful of former 5 car units made full length would provide useful extra capacity.

Only have to buy one 88 seat coach to replace the centre driving coaches especially if they are still in production. The two driving coaches could be stored for spare parts as these two coaches with cab and kitchen should have the most wear and tear.

Sooner or later the turbos will be retired and will need replacing with money from that same money tree so a new build of 4 coaches added to a 5-car IET might well be a less costly option and would release 5-car sets for the Cardiff - Portsmouth services and also GWR would not have to employ so many staff to push trolleys on 2x5-cars through the trains.

That's an interesting idea, but I can't imagine the thought of writing off two end vehicles for each new set created would look good on its own.  Hitachi will want the same return on those vehicles that they are currently expecting for the next 35 years or so. Though if they could be reused for another order then that might work. 

2x5s, or 2x anything, can increase specific carriage overloading and thus decrease comfort because of the limited ability to move carriages.

You clearly missed the memo. Forget magic money trees, since mophead conned himself into no.10 a veritable magic money forest has been discovered in the back garden of no.11. I'm surprised Philip Hammomd's gardener didn't notice it, and perhaps Philip and Teresa didn't look out of the back window very often...

Ask and thou shalt receive. Apparently...  ;D

I think the short answer to the question in the topic title is 'Yes'.

The slightly longer answer is 'Yes, for the same passenger numbers'.

For very short journeys with stops 5 minutes apart (I'm thinking London Underground with this one) and passengers not being on the train for more than about 30 minutes you can cram more pepole in a short train by making them stand, hopefully only for about 5 minutes as somebody will get off at the next stop (or the one after) allowing passengers standing to grab the seats before the next load of passengers board. For slightly longer journeys, up to 1 hour (example here being Cardiff to Merthyr) but still with stops every 5-10 minutes you need toilets and more seats so can cram fewer passengers in the same length of train. If passengers will be on the train for more than an hour, then seat pitch needs to be increased to improve legroom (and luggage space) so again less passengers can fit on unless you make the train longer and if stops are over 10-15 minutes apart then nobody should be having to stand either.

Indeed, as noted above there should be a time limit above which nobody should be expected to stand. So if there's a gap between stations of more than 15 minutes, then the busiest train of the day between those stations should still have a few seats free and nobody standing.

Not alot you can do about breakdowns though, expect encouraging operators to try and win golden spanners for looking after the trains. Well, that and having a number of 'hot spare' units available at strategic points to pick up a diagram in that unfortunate case.

I agree with that; if anything there's more than enough Voyagers and 5-car 125mph Hitachi units in existance and on-order given the recent MML and WCML announcements. Similarly I don't think any more diesel 125mph units (that includes anything with a diesel engine that's capable of over 110mph, unless the class 801 single engine plus its fuel is significantly lighter than batteries to do the same job of keeping the 'hotel power' going for hours if the unit is stuck) should be ordered beyond what is currently known about.

I think something similar should happen to the Voyagers and Meridians once the MML and WCML TOCs are done with them, because they're not so new scrapping some of the driving vehicles would be less unpallatable. Basically the 220s would have their centre cars inserted into 222s (assuming the two types are similar enough) and 221s merged with other 221s. For the class 800s, I have an idea to make the trains longer without scrapping driving vehicles and without building any more diesel engines.

• Complete the electrification to Oxford and Bristol (via both routes)
• Order 14 sets of 7 AT-300 EMU intermediate vehicles; no diesel engines just some batteries for emergency hotel power (unless the diesel engine would be significantly lighter)
• Remove the 3 intermediate vehicles (with diesel engines) from 14 5-car bi-modes and insert them into 14 other 5-car bi-modes
• Insert the new intermediate EMU vehicles into the 'orphaned' 2-car sets created in the previous step
• Net result: 28x 5-car bi-mode become 14x 9-car EMU and 14x 8-car 'super power' bi-mode with 6 diesel engines.
• Deploy the 14x EMUs on Oxford/Bristol/Cardiff services
• Cascade the 14x 'super power' bi-modes to CrossCountry, allowing any Voyagers left at 5-car after the reformation suggested above to move to the Cardiff-Nottingham service

That certainly applies to stock without unit-end gangways, but not to something like a class 158. I would therefore not entirely agree with broadgage on this point:I don't think there's a problem with short units that have unit-end gangways, a 75-110mph top speed and no large 'crumple zones' or kitchens etc. that waste space if doubled up (although I think we have enough suburban type units with wide doors for stopping services for the time being). With something like the class 158s, you can run a long train on the busy part of the route and drop coaches for the quieter bits to save fuel (or give through services to more places) That doesn't work nearly so well if passengers can't move between units without getting off the train (in which case they are effectively having to change train). Thus I consider the large number of 125mph 5-car units being built now to be madness, especially once you consider that if a route has 125mph linespeeds it's obviously quite busy or it'd never have justified the investment in linespeed upgrades.

Throwing another stone into the pond ... come December some brand new services are being introduced; the keyword description of them is the "superfasts" characterised by not even stopping at Swindon  ;D . I am lead to believe that some of these will be single 5 car sets, and where a train didn't exist on 13th December but do on 16th December, there's some logic to that. Cleary an eye will be kept on the various diagrams - whether there will be sufficient flexibility and capacity to act on loadings that are way out (above or below) what has been forecast, and how accurate those forecasts are, will be interesting to watch.

There remains an alternative logic that suggests that trains should have a very similar stopping pattern to boost frequency, and to ensure maximum use of capacity where it's a limit. And to make the trains that break the pattern and eat paths also be shorter ones - well, it could be a dangerous game as it pushes things towards limits that could impact on reliability.

The only reason I can see for 2x5 units is that they are going to be divided somewhere.

A suitable candidate would be 1C91 which is overtaken at Exeter by 1C92. 1C91 then becomes the local stopper Exeter-Paignton-Newton Abbot-empty Laira to stable. Always overkill when an HST and when I saw it once at Paignton all bar the first coach was locked out of use.

If the train was divided in future at Exeter the rear half could make a return working to Bristol. In the morning the situation could be reversed as there is a similar movement from empty Laira- Newton Abbot then passenger to- Paignton-Paddington.

I remember the days when a 159 9 coaches left Waterloo dropped 3 coaches at Salisbury, then at Exeter St David's divided again with 3 coaches going to Paignton and 3 going to Plymouth. When they returned the did the reverse. The good old days!

The Waterloo to Bristol services do similar, splitting at Basingstoke then Salisbury.

How about a 5 car from Paignton joining a 5 car from Barnstaple at Exeter for the Devon Metro Express to Paddington...?

The major problem with splitting two 5 car sets is as has been said there is no connection between the sets, We used to have a problem sorting out the drunks into the  right half with the midnight Brighton from Victoria which was formed of 2 * 6 PULs which split at Haywards Heath with one half to Brighton and other to Eastbourne. The introduction of the CIGs and BIGS with inter unit connections  on the Brighton line made this less of a problem.

If you could always guarantee that a unit would always arrive in the right order and right way round at the joining station you could have driving cab with corridor connections at one end, So two fives would split and front unit go off somewhere and rear unit the same, and hopefully rejoin the correct way round on their return journeys. Of course you'd have to hope as well that one unit didn't fail so the reaming unit had to driven from the blunt end on the high speed part of the trip.

There's no guarantee the units will be the right way round now. A few months ago a Plymouth-Paddington was made up of two five cars, one being the wrong way round so 1st class was at each end of the train. Actually I think it was quite a good arrangement. Not sure that if the units were reversed and 1st class was in the middle it would be so good.

I cant foresee any relatively new and expensive IET vehicles being scrapped, unless in the case of severe accident damage.
Scrapping TWO of the end vehicles so as to make one full length train out of two short ones sounds very wasteful. Scrapping or storing just ONE end vehicle after one has been written off in an accident, is more reasonable.

Building another 4 intermediate vehicles so as to make a 5 car unit into a 9 car sounds a lot more attractive.

Turning two 5 car sets into a 9 car set by building an extra vehicles, and scrapping two vehicles, might cost £1 million to provide no significant extra capacity.
Turning one 5 car set into a 9 car set by building another 4 intermediate vehicles might cost about £4 million but would roughly double the passenger capacity.

In the unfortunate event that an IET suffers severe accident damage to an end vehicle, then in my view the damaged vehicle should be scrapped, the other driving vehicle be stored as a spare, and the insurance money be spent on building another intermediate vehicle.

I am sure you are aware about the deployment of 5 car vehicles after the December TT. It’s not my place to comment whether it will work out or not, however you would think that after a year of it being postponed it will be in ship shape.

I can see that in the next 30 years that we will have the IETs more being ordered for further frequency improvements. Ultimately, if you want to deliver some of the stuff in the Western Route Study then you are going to need more units.

Noting that First TrenItalia will be phasing out Voyagers, is it a fair bet they'll be phasing in IETs?  Will we end up with the same number, or more, or less IETs than we had HSTs?

Once electrification to Cardiff and eventually (we hope) Bristol and Oxford it would be cheaper to order some all electric IETs for those duties if a larger fleet is required. 

May be quite some time before the Severn Tunnel is energised, so bi-modes will be necessary for a while.

Talking to someone who regularly travels to Bridgend from Bristol Parkway they said that in conversation with staff at BPW the staff are commenting that in the long run it might be cheaper to bore a second Severn Tunnel than to keep spending millions each year TRYING to maintain the present tunnel.

An interesting thought. >

A new Thread perhaps?

New thread at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=22152.0 ...