Great Western Coffee Shop

From fgw.co.uk
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/NewsItem.aspx?id=649

Projected timings:
0706 Paddington
0733 Reading
xxxx Newbury
xxxx Pewsey
xxxx Westbury
xxxx Castle Cary
0902 Taunton
0930 Exeter St Davids
0952 Newton Abbot
1004 Torre
1008 Torquay
1017 Paignton

That's great news, and long overdue.

Though it's a bit puzzling that the service runs to Paignton not Plymouth, as any late running could mean a lost connection and defeat the whole object of the exercise for Plymouth bound pax. Anyone know or hazard a guess why it runs to Paignton (and also, where FGW are magicing up an HST from)?

I suspect Torbay council has put some funding forward for this!

Well this is a little bit better than the service that is currently in operation - I believe the earliest direct train to Devon and Cornwall is currently the 07:30 Paddington-Penzance (via Bristol), though that doesn't get to Penzance until 13:18.

Still not good for anyone who wants to get to Tiverton Parkway from London early without having to change though, I'm guessing the 08:18 will still be the earliest for that.

TVP seems to be a bit neglected when it comes to early trains to/from London because the Sleeper doesn't stop there either.

I suspect that Tiverton Parkway is more used by people parking there in the morning and returning in the evening. So maybe its not so much of an issue?

Good news for Torbay,in reality no change for Plymouth and beyond.Dont think Air South West will loose sleep on this one.Fly London City to Plymouth in 70 minutes arrive 1035 or the best part of a 4 hour journey including a dodgy change at Newton Abbot.(No competition).

Ah yes, I thought the ASW spokesperson would pipe up.  If they were trying to compete they'd run it to Plymouth and depart London at 0600 calling Reading, Exeter, Plymouth arriving 0900.  I don't think FGW will be losing any sleep on whether or not ASW give a hoot about this service to be honest.

It will be a cross platform change at Exeter St Davids, which will be held I would expect. And if the worst comes to the worst, there is a XC Voyager not too far behind.

Maybe there's a good reason that the 142s can show London Paddington (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=3260.msg25203#msg25203) on the destination blind... ;)

I don't see your point Mr ASW? this train is ADDITIONAL to everything that runs now?

In addition to slightly improved timing it is extra capacity on a route that often needs it.

 Good that it will hopefully supply an extra service to London from Newton Abbot, without changing at Exeter.

The new 0706 Paddington/Paignton is not by any chance the HST set currently used on the 0818 Paddington/Exeter st Davids and return 1155 Exeter/Paddington service retimed and extended through to Paignton by any chance?.Just a thought.

Doesn't sound like it:

"Devon and Cornwall Business Council Chief Executive, Jeremy Filmer-Bennet said: ^ We are delighted by the announcement of two extra HST services for the west country this will further enhance the the opportunity to growth economies of Devon and Cornwall, as well give a greater real connectivity for business in the region"

And further more the article refers to the fact you can be in Exeter for 0930 rather than worrying about Plymouth - whether right or wrong for those wanting to travel to Plymouth early from London, this is clearly more about Devon & Torbay than any sort of competition with ASW for Plymouth.

Remember also there is a gap for Torbay & Newton Abbot for a HST service between 1045 & 1245 going back to London as 1A81 PNZ-PAD runs non-stop PLY-EXD and as you say 1A82 starts at EXD at 1155.

This was mentioned in the duplicate thread...

"I personally think that xc should use there hst's and give fgw some 221's to run a penzance-exeter service with tilt enabled"

Didn't XC disable all their 'tilts'

Thats right to save on maintenance costs I think.Also I remember reading that Virgin when they ran XC wanted the route from Taunton to Plymouth tilt enabled around the time that part of the Banbury route was.

As far as I know, the Oxford to Banbury section was only ever tilt enabled to allow the testing of the equipment back when the Class 221 fleet was being delivered - a good choice given that it's tight curve after tight curve between Tackley and Heyford.  Even if it did remain tilt enabled after the test period, there was no increase in the permissible speed over and above the normal HST speed for the route.

It is a shame that tilt enabled trains have now had their equipment removed.  I wonder what kind of journey time reductions could have been achieved west of Exeter had the system ever been fully exploited?

I don't think the tilt equipment has been removed on XC 221s - it's integral to the bogies - merely isolated out of use because XC saw no point paying for it to be kept serviceable when it wasn't needed on the routes they operate.

As for magicing up HSTs, not difficult to do when several have been removed from Cotswold and Oxford diagrams over the past year or so to save money and been replaced by Turbos.

Am I right in thinking that Class 221's (AKA Vomet Comets) only tilt where Track side equipment has been installed to tell the train to tilt?
 

Correct,the tilt mechanisms can be disabled by an on-board system called Tilt Authorisation and Speed Supervision (TASS). TASS beacons, spaced about every five miles apart, transmit data to the train which stops them tilting on stretches where bridges and tunnels would get in the way of this manoeuvre. It also relays the maximum speeds for corners.

Virgin's Pendolinos also use TASS.

With regards to tilt between Plymouth and Taunton,according to the Network Rail 2007 business plan redeployment of Class 221 fleet was the reason Virgin did not pusue this.
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse%20documents/BusinessPlan2007/PDF/Route%2012%20Reading%20to%20Penzance.pdf
Figure 19  Page 19
"Taunton ^ Plymouth (12.02 &12.03)Maximise tilt train capability Improved journey times  No longer under consideration by Virgin Cross Country due to redeployment of Class 221 fleet"

All the Voyagers should have had tilt enabled, and all these slow XC routes could have been sped up one by one.

How short sighted! And now the IEP (if it isn't axed) doesn't even have tilt despite the huge benefits Virgin have proved it can bring...

Weight of a four-car Voyager without tilt 185.6 tonnes
Weight of a four-car Super Voyager with tilt 227 tonnes

So you would have them lug all that extra metal up and down mile after mile just so they could achieve marginal journey time reductions in Devon?

Name one place between Derby and Bristol where tilt would do anything significant to speed up journey times. Railtrack and Network Rail have cleared long stretches of this route for 100-mph-plus running for Voyagers, following the example of the work done long ago on the track on the ECML and GWML for HSTs (and ECML Deltics before them).

IEP wasn't meant to tilt because any slight time improvements would have been cancelled out by the cost of fitting and maintaining tilt equipment on the trains and trackside. It is cost-effective on the WCML because there are many places along the route where tilt is the only way to achieve higher speed without breaking the bank to create cut-offs - if you are going to spend that kind of money, you might just as well build an HSL.

An ex-Virgin Cross Country driver told me that the journey time saving between Birmingham and Manchester via the XC route was probably only two minutes.  Will's right in so much as there is precious few areas between Derby and Bristol, though I would argue that quite substantial journey time reductions could potentially be achieved in Devon and Cornwall with a fully functioning TASS system - the reasons that it's a non-starter are, in my opinion, two-fold;

1) It's not just a question of bunging a few TASS transponders on the tracks and then adding 15mph to the speed of the route - there are other factors, namely distances between signals and structural clearances that can be very costly in their own right to alter.  The Oxford-Banbury test route saw many of the signal locations altered to ensure there was adequate braking distances between them.

2) The GWML west of Exeter, whilst a main line, doesn't have the amount of tilt compatible trains (even post IEP if they were to have been designed with a tilt system) or the important population centres of the WCML route.

The weight comparisons are interesting, but it's worth saying that all that extra metal is being lugged mile after mile as the system has only been isolated and not removed (as Will rightly corrected me on a while ago) - though I believe a small amount of unnecessary wiring has been removed, the reason for the majority of the added weight is to do with the bogies.

Non tilt Voyagers have bogies that look like BMX bikes, the titling stock has bogies similar to an HST.
 

Just to clarify, my point about lugging the metal around was that two thirds of the XC fleet, the Class 220s, are not carting extra weight around, which they would be if the entire Voyager fleet had been built to tilt. Given the routes XC currently operates, tilt west of Taunton or Exeter would be an extravagance for one train an hour out of a fleet that size venturing into the West Country. Same would apply to any Great Western train fleet, given the number of workings that go nowhere near that part of the system.