"new" coaches needed for heritage use ?

[whole diary]

[broadgage]

Elsewhere on these forums it has been said that network rail are working towards banning dump toilets from the national network.
The cost of fitting retention tanks to existing stock is clearly going to be substantial, and with so many differing designs no economies of scale would be available.

I wonder therefore if there is a case for building a new* design of heritage coach incorporating modern retention toilets. If each coach had a total of 4 toilets, 2 at each end, then 2 such coaches would provide enough toilet capacity for most trains.
Existing toilets in the other coaches could be removed and the spaced for baggage or for catering stores, or possibly extra seating.

Producing a few dozen such vehicles to a standardised design should be far cheaper than "ad hoc" modification of numerous different vehicles.

Also the electrical systems of older LHCS^▸ (Locomotive Hauled Coaching Stock) are becoming increasingly unreliable, costly to maintain, and not adequate in terms of lighting provided.
These "new" vehicles could also be equipped with a modern and relatively low cost electrical system that would be reliable, simple to maintain, and of sufficient output to power the two adjacent vehicles also. (details to follow)

*By "new" I mean NOT newly constructed from the ground up, but rebuilt from existing redundant mainline stock, retaining bogies, underframes, braking equipment, and most of the bodywork, but with internal fit out and equipment largely renewed. A standard design for any operator, differing only in livery and colour of seat coverings etc.

[broadgage]

Improved electrical system for heritage type coaches.

The traditional way of providing lighting is to equip each vehicle with a battery charged by a dynamo that is belt driven from an axle.
This works reasonably well but suffers from a number of drawbacks.
At low speeds or when stopped the batteries run down, and may not fully charge before the next stop.
The dynamo is a special design that produces the same polarity, no matter in which direction the train may be running.
The batteries are often a non standard 28 volts.
Two complex electromechanical voltage regulators are used, one to give a constant 32.5 volts to charge the battery and the other to give a constant 25 volts on the lamps.
The batteries and the voltage regulators are often replaced with modern equivalents of doubtful suitability.

I therefore propose an alternative using modern technology to achieve lower costs, greater reliability and potentially more power.

Fit to the coach a modern 24 volt alternator, an off the shelf item as used on trucks and buses.
Belt drive this from an axle, carefully choosing the pulley size such that at the maximum permitted rail speed, the alternator is driven at the maximum permitted speed.
A standard alternator can easily produce 250 amps.

They last for years in heavy duty road vehicles and are cheap to replace in case of failure.

Fit a large 24 volt battery bank of say 250 amp hour capacity, more if desired. These are a low priced commodity due to mass production.

For general lighting use 3 watt LED lamps. These are very long lasting and very affordable if purchased in bulk.
One might to wish to limit the load to say 50 amps, the battery could supply that for a couple of hours. And the alternator would recharge the battery quickly once moving.
200 of the suggested 3 watt lamps would only use about 25 amps in total. 200 lamps would suffice for 3 coaches, the one fitted with the new equipment, and one each side also.
No voltage regulator is needed for the lamp circuit as the lamps give constant light with varying input voltage.
The battery charging voltage regulator is included with the alternator.

Possible refinements include, a low battery cut out that turns out say 85% of the lights when the battery is low.
A charge diverter that when the battery is full, diverts surplus current to some lower priority purpose such as heating hot water in the toilets.
A power inverter to produce 240 volts AC.

[Rhydgaled]

Producing a few dozen such vehicles to a standardised design should be far cheaper than "ad hoc" modification of numerous different vehicles.

Interesting idea. How much variation (if any) is there in underframe design between the different types of mrk1 coach (eg. TSO^▸ (The Stationary Office (now OPSI)), TSK, CK, BSK^▸ (Brake Standard Corridor (carriage)) etc.) anyway though? I'd have thought they were fairly standard anyway, although I really know nothing about this and if they are different it would seem to make sense to select, say, just the BSKs, for toilet mods.

I can however see a drawback to your suggestion of having a coach or two full of toilets and no toilets in the rest of the train: space. While there would be plenty of room in what is currently passenger saloon space to install a number of toilet cubicles, the space under the floor for retention tanks is limited. Thus, the tank would fill rather quickly with all those loos flushing into it and leave the train without toilet facilities. Something I've pondered in the past with modern trains is whether somebody could devise a means of having an automatic device which plugs itself onto carriages when the train stops at a station and partially empties the tanks during the station dwell. That would be a challange for an inventer; an even harder one would be to devise a means of emptying the tanks while the train is in motion, without making a mess like dump toilets do. The latter could be a bit like the steam-age water troughs in reverse, but with some sort of seal so the sewage doesn't spill on the track. Either would be too complicated to use on heritage stock though.

The traditional way of providing lighting is to equip each vehicle with a battery charged by a dynamo that is belt driven from an axle.
This works reasonably well but suffers from a number of drawbacks.
At low speeds or when stopped the batteries run down, and may not fully charge before the next stop.
The dynamo is a special design that produces the same polarity, no matter in which direction the train may be running.
The batteries are often a non standard 28 volts.
Two complex electromechanical voltage regulators are used, one to give a constant 32.5 volts to charge the battery and the other to give a constant 25 volts on the lamps.
The batteries and the voltage regulators are often replaced with modern equivalents of doubtful suitability.

That's interesting. Showing my ignorance of rolling stock design details again, I thought that most rolling stock (with the exception of steam-heat stock found on heritiage railways) was equipped with through electrical cables known as ETS^▸ (Electric Train Supply) (Electric Train Supply) or ETH (Electric Train Heating), with electricity supplied from the locomotive (or, in the case of Chiltern's silver sets, a generator in the DVT^‡(resolve)).

[broadgage]

On most modernish LHCS^▸ (Locomotive Hauled Coaching Stock) lighting and other electrical loads are indeed supplied from the locomotive, or less commonly from a generator.

This limits such stock to either being hauled by a loco with ETS^▸ (Electric Train Supply), or having a generator van in the train.

Older LHCS is self contained with each carriage generating its own current for lighting, and therefore being suitable for almost any type of loco.

I suspect a water tank and a waste tank big enough for two toilets could be installed each end of a coach.

[4064ReadingAbbey]

One of the issues with coach construction using a separate underframe is the problem of 'telescoping' in an accident. If the leading coach stops suddenly then it is possible that the coupling can part and the heavy underframe  of the following coach slices through the relatively light coachwork.

This was still a problem with the BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) Mark 1 coach even though, compared with its Grouping predecessors, it had an underframe stressed to withstand a 200 ton end loading at the coupler and buffers without permanent distortion, a lower value at the cantrails (which I can't remember!), heavy vertical anti-override pillars each side of the gangway connection and buckeye couplers. A monocoque body, such as used in the Mark 2 and all later coaches, can withstand such end-on collisions much better.

I would therefore suggest that the use of Mark 1 coaches on the main line should be deprecated. The trouble is that the Mark 2 coaches, with the exception of the last builds, tended to suffer from the tin-worm - a bit like motor vehicles of the same era.

The most suitable candidates for such re-building would be the Mark 3 coaches as they are still in use and the bits suffering worst from corrosion (near the toilets and roof water tanks and around the gangways and drag boxes - that is the parts which are often wet and don't drain well) have been replaced or their condition is known.

Mark 1 coaches and vacuum brakes belong on the heritage lines. Only monocoques and air brakes should be allowed on the main lines.

[broadgage]

As regards emptying the retention tanks of toilets, I doubt that this could be done on the move, but I wonder if a simplified system for emptying when stopped could be devised.

Consider a remotely operated valve that dumps the waste by gravity, between the rails.
Open this valve only at a suitable location where the usual ballast has been replaced with a smooth concrete trough that slopes down towards a connection with the fixed sewage system.
After dumping the waste, clean the trough and remove all foul matter by automatic clean water sprays. The clean water need not be mains drinking water but could be obtained from a nearby stream or well.

[Electric train]

There are number of complications with retention toilets.  The sidings require pumps and the required pipe work although a road tanker could be used but that would need a road access.  The heritage railway will need a discharge liecence from the local water company and they could be a cost involved if the local sewer network need enhancing, the use of septic tanks is not posible due to the chemicals used in retention toilets.

Trying to retrof fit tanks and the fixtures and fittings to hertigae Mk1 rolling stock would be expensive in the design process and the low number of systems would make them cost prohibative.

The above is a problem for main line TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) and NR^» (Network Rail - home page) to provide the depot facilities, for heritage railway they posibly have better ways to spend their money given the level of useage their on board toilets get.

[Chris from Nailsea]

I'm sure W. Heath Robinson could have designed some sort of apparatus to achieve that objective. 

[grahame]

The bigger question raised by this thread is "what's the purpose of a heritage railway?"  Answer that, and you'll start to answer how to look forward in terms of coaching stock and much else.

Is it to give tourists a ride through pretty countryside?   Is it to get people from "a" to "b"?  Is it to provide a vehicle for  people to run preserved railway engines and travel behind them?  Is it to give people a taste of the whole atmosphere of 'how it was' - either in reality with some unpleasant aspects such as shit on the track, or sanitised?  Is it to make money? Is it for some of the people to build their own little empire?  Is it to help the economy of the area served, and its people?   Is it to provide transport that reduces road congestion?  Almost certainly it will be a combination of some of those, with others being laughed out of court.

Looking at a 30 or 40 year lifespan, and looking at preserved railways beyond the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) too, there may be an opening for a new build / rebuild of stock for the gentle (top speed 60 mph or less) short journey (practical up to an hour) UK gauge shorter wheelbase carriage. Modern material, low maintenance, droplights but neither windows that people can stick their heads out nor air-conditioning.  Wide windows, disabled loo, probably corridor, central door locking (but no need for electric plug doors?).     For a rebuild to work , it would need to be off modernish standard units available in quantity - and the logical recent source of those has already been snapped up for the D trains.  Other thoughts along those lines (but are they going to be knackered and too non-standard) are class 142 units or mark 3 coaches from HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) once some of them actually don't have a further mainline life.

[broadgage]

I would say that the purposes of most heritage railways are
1) To offer a SLIGHTLY sanitised re-creation of what railways were like in the past.
2) to offer the opportunity to run vintage engines, both to observe them and be hauled thus.
3) To allow visitors to view attractive country side.
In that order IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion).


If the railway is regularly used simply as a mains of getting from A to B, then in my view the priorities are rather different.
1) Must be reliable
2) At least reasonably comfortable, ideally BETTER THAN some recent offerings on the national network.
3) Preferably air conditioned, at least in warmer parts.
Such an operation might be better named a community railway, rather than heritage, and would almost certainly need stock passed for main line use.

[Rhydgaled]

Regarding 4064ReadingAbbey's crashworthyness comments, would the problem be resolved by using an early (non-aircon) mark 2 coach on each end of the train with mark1s in between? Although many diesel-hauled railtours (using class 37s, 47s etc.) could use mark 2 aircons or maybe mark 3s, in my opinion a steam locomotive would look daft hauling aircon stock.

If mark 1 coaches are to be restricted to heritage lines, then I'm afraid you will have to do the same with steam locomotives (or build a new fleet of charter stock that looks like a mark1, has slam-doors and no aircon but uses monocoque construction and has retention toilets).

The bigger question raised by this thread is "what's the purpose of a heritage railway?"  Answer that, and you'll start to answer how to look forward in terms of coaching stock and much else.

Is it to give tourists a ride through pretty countryside?   Is it to get people from "a" to "b"?  Is it to provide a vehicle for  people to run preserved railway engines and travel behind them?  Is it to give people a taste of the whole atmosphere of 'how it was' - either in reality with some unpleasant aspects such as shit on the track, or sanitised?  Is it to make money? Is it for some of the people to build their own little empire?  Is it to help the economy of the area served, and its people?   Is it to provide transport that reduces road congestion?  Almost certainly it will be a combination of some of those, with others being laughed out of court.

That is a very good question. My view is that the principle function of most heritage railways is (or should be) to give people the chance to see 'how it was' (sanitised to a degree, where it is possible without preventing it from seeming to be authentic), both in terms of running preserved rolling stock and station buildings, signalling etc. In the case of some of them, such as the West Somerset and possibly the Watercress and/or Bluebell I think there may be an argument for allowing modern trains to share the route (particularly in the low season, when the heritiage railway might not be running) to get people from A-to-B with the aim of reducing road traffic, but it would have to be a very busy line for a heritiage train to be saving enough car journeys to cut greenhouse gas emmisions. It would be better if people could be persuaded to use buses instead of cars, but somehow I think some would be more likely to abandon their cars to use even a steam railway. But, for a heritage railway, looking authentic (to a degree*), is almost certainly number 1.

Of greater significance to this debate though is mainline railtours (Network Rail can't ban mrk1s or even dump toilets from infrustructure they don't own). Again, I think authenticity is key, even so far as to say the choice motive power for the majority of tours** should be relevant to the area the tour is passing through (for example, I was rather disapointed when I found that none of the locos shortlisted for this year's Pembroke Dock steam railtour were a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) type, although apparently the tour has now been cancelled anyway).

I would say that the purposes of most heritage railways are
1) To offer a SLIGHTLY sanitised re-creation of what railways were like in the past.
2) to offer the opportunity to run vintage engines, both to observe them and be hauled thus.
3) To allow visitors to view attractive country side.
In that order IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion).

If the railway is regularly used simply as a mains of getting from A to B, then in my view the priorities are rather different.
1) Must be reliable
2) At least reasonably comfortable, ideally BETTER THAN some recent offerings on the national network.
3) Preferably air conditioned, at least in warmer parts.
Such an operation might be better named a community railway, rather than heritage, and would almost certainly need stock passed for main line use.

For heritiage railways,  I agree with you there. Your second set of priorities (for a railway used simply as a mains of getting from A to B) is probably what I would say the national network should be like (although I'd hope for reliability on heritiage railways too, if at all possible given the age of the rolling stock). Anything used for journeys of over a hour though should be more than 'reasonably comfortable' if that is how a class 150 is described.

-----------
* there doesn't seem to be much pre-nationalisation stock around these days so a GWR-liveried loco with choc+cream mrk1s is probably acceptable, but I'm not sure about a GWR-livery loco with Southern Region green mrk1s or blue & grey stock, I probablly wouldn't complain if I saw it done though
** I don't mind the odd visit of locos from any region on a line which sees plenty of relevant ones, but in general I'd hope to see Southern region locos in the south, LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) locos in the north east and GWR ones in the area operated by the former GWR.

[ellendune]

Regarding 4064ReadingAbbey's crashworthyness comments, would the problem be resolved by using an early (non-aircon) mark 2 coach on each end of the train with mark1s in between? Although many diesel-hauled railtours (using class 37s, 47s etc.) could use mark 2 aircons or maybe mark 3s, in my opinion a steam locomotive would look daft hauling aircon stock.

Not sure the mark 2s would make any difference the mark 1s could still over ride each other.  This i all a question of how you balance so called authenticity ( mark 1s post date most steam locos) and safety.  One serious crash with mark 1s and they would be banned from main lines.   

If mark 1 coaches are to be restricted to heritage lines, then I'm afraid you will have to do the same with steam locomotives (or build a new fleet of charter stock that looks like a mark1, has slam-doors and no aircon but uses monocoque construction and has retention toilets).

Not sure I understand the logic here, could you explain?

Of greater significance to this debate though is mainline railtours (Network Rail can't ban mrk1s or even dump toilets from infrustructure they don't own). Again, I think authenticity is key, even so far as to say the choice motive power for the majority of tours** should be relevant to the area the tour is passing through (for example, I was rather disapointed when I found that none of the locos shortlisted for this year's Pembroke Dock steam railtour were a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) type, although apparently the tour has now been cancelled anyway).

I don't see why NR^» (Network Rail - home page) cannot ban mark 1s or dump toilets. 

1) NR do have some responsibility in law for the safety of trains on their premises. So if they believe they are unsafe in the conditions of a main line they have to be able to ban them.

2) Dump toilets are a big issue (as I understand it) with NR's track staff.  Here it is seen health issue. NR have a duty for the health and safety of their staff so why can't they ban dump toilets if they can demonstrate there is a risk to their staff?

[broadgage]

"I don't see why network rail can not ban dump toilets or mark ones"

What I think that the O/P meant was that network rail COULD ban the above from infrastructure that they control, but that they COULD NOT ban anything from heritage lines that are not under NR^» (Network Rail - home page) control.

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

Instead of modifying the toilets in all Mark I and II coaches, I wonder if it would be cheaper to design and produce a “toilet coach”.  This could be a conversion of a normal coach, with maybe a domestic type macerator and storage tank all above the solebar to reduce costs etc.  Maybe it could be developed to include a first aid point, baby changing facilities etc.

A cheaper idea would be to gut all or part of a suitable vehicle and install some portaloos.

If I had the money maybe I’d do some research, produce a “toilet coach” (posh or basic, based on the research) and hire it out to special train operators.

Edit - this is of course a different slant on the opening post in this topic.

[Rhydgaled]

"I don't see why network rail can not ban dump toilets or mark ones"

What I think that the O/P meant was that network rail COULD ban the above from infrastructure that they control, but that they COULD NOT ban anything from heritage lines that are not under NR^» (Network Rail - home page) control.

Yes, that is what I meant.

If mark 1 coaches are to be restricted to heritage lines, then I'm afraid you will have to do the same with steam locomotives (or build a new fleet of charter stock that looks like a mark1, has slam-doors and no aircon but uses monocoque construction and has retention toilets).

Not sure I understand the logic here, could you explain?

What I'm saying is that mark 1s (and maybe the early, pre-aircon, mark 2s) are (as far as I know) the only stock allowed on the national network that looks at home behind a steam locomotive. If you were to ban mark 1s from the national network* then there is nothing for mainline-certified steam locos to haul, meaning you might as well ban steam locos from the national network as well. If you want to ban mark 1s but continue to allow steam locos, you will need to construct some new stock for the steam locos to haul because there's nothing that meets modern standards which looks the part.

* and there are good reasons why you would want to