2. Reliability issues - rolling stock

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

2. Reliability issues - rolling stock

Are there any plans to increase the reliability/availability of the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train)▸ .
Before the wretched things even entered service, I and others expressed doubts about them.

In particular I voiced doubts about the "flexible train length" knowing that flexible is the new term for shorter.
A fleet of mainly 5 car units has resulted in many short formations on busy services. First class is then declassified and reservations voided.

And as for the essential requirement that the new units be able to cope with the known conditions at Dawlish, they can not and the service is now suspended when adverse conditions are expected.

In previous sessions, have we already asked if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), given free reign to choose, would have opted for the Hitachi trains that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)» specified to replace the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) 125s?
I suspect that previously we might have had a rather diplomatic response but given the change of government and ministers, might we possibly get a more candid opinion now?  It might shed some light on what future procurement procedure changes may be needed.

Given the now well known rolling stock problems GWR are facing how are GWR ensuring that any pain is fairly shared out rather than being concentrated on a small number of routes or stations? Maybe being more specific, in recent months the shortages in the Bristol area have resulted in the Filton shuttle been cancelled on a fairly frequent basis, often for several journeys in a row. This maybe hasn't been too bad until now as there are a few other services that serve journeys between Temple Meads and Filton. However with the opening of Ashley Down, the running of that shuttle becomes much more important given no other services will stop at the new station. So what changes will be made to ensure users of Ashley Down station aren't left with an hourly shuttle service that is often cancelled, not just for the opening weeks when media attention will be on the station but also after that when us local residents need a service we can rely on.

[GWRPA]

On IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train), earlier this year, Mark brought back Barry Milsom – who previously held my role in the Executive team – as Projects Director. Barry has been tasked with working directly with Hitachi on several key interventions through Project Unity.

I should start by saying we know some customers retain nostalgia for the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) but the data clearly shows that IETs are much more reliable – particularly when operating on electric – and our customer survey data shows a marked improvement in satisfaction compared to the HSTs too.  Not only that HSTs are very heavy diesel users and IETs are therefore more reliable, better serve our customers and better serve the environment.  They are a better train.

Our challenge remains getting the right number of vehicles into the right place each day.  That’s more complicated when there is disruption of course, and this is something that will improve as performance improves.

We have 93 IET sets, split between the 800 and 802 fleets, some of which are 9-cars, the rest 5-cars. We require 80 sets each day to run our planned service.  This leaves 13 spare for maintenance and to cover for those sets that we lose to damage and vandalism.

We have seen in recent weeks a real uptick in availability, and we’re now more regularly getting 80 sets we need each day.  If there was disruption the day before however some of those sets might not be in the right place at the right time – this can lead to services running with fewer coaches than planned especially at start up. Our team do all they can to avoid this, and will work throughout the day on set swaps to try to rectify the situation. And of course this is preferable to cancelling a service outright, but we know short formations can lead to busier services and a more uncomfortable experience for our customers. This is a key area of focus for the business and I’m confident we’ll continue to see improvement as the work continues.

I should say too that as a result of our National Rail Contract and the reduction in taxpayer subsidy post-pandemic, we did make the decision to reduce the size of our fleet, but to maintain the timetable improvements we made in 2019.  We could not have done that without the flexibility of the IET fleet, which allowed us to schedule more services as five cars, bringing IET services on regional routes like Gloucester-Bristol or our regional Cardiff services to the South West. We made these choices to protect the timetable and service frequency on the vast majority of our routes.

Clearly capacity is stretched and there are trains that are very busy.  We are working with the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) on the potential to bring more trains into the fleet and I will write a little more on our rolling stock strategy later.

Thanks for the question regarding Ashley Down, that is a very good point and I will make sure my team in Control is fully up to date with contingency plans including special stops where needed. It’s great to see the new station open (3000 journeys on Day One) and of course there’s so much more to come in the West of England with the Henbury line and (we hope) the line to Portishead.

[Red Squirrel]

Do we have any news on cascaded Welsh units?

[ChrisB]

Are the repairs & modifications that the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) needed on the corrosion issue complete? If not, how long to completion & how many are out of service at any time being fixed?

[GWRPA]

Do we have any news on cascaded Welsh units?

The DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) has given us permission to explore adding more trains to our fleet, no further news at the moment, but as soon as there is news we will share.

[GWRPA]

Are the repairs & modifications that the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) needed on the corrosion issue complete? If not, how long to completion & how many are out of service at any time being fixed?

This modification programme is still ongoing, we have no more than 2 trains away at any one time to limit affecting our availability and ability to deliver our service.

[broadgage]

I find it surprising that IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) are considered more reliable than the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) ! In many years of fairly regular travel, I never recall a West of England service being cancelled or short formed "due to more trains than usual needing repairs", yet now this is a regular event.

[GWRPA]

I find it surprising that IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) are considered more reliable than the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) ! In many years of fairly regular travel, I never recall a West of England service being cancelled or short formed "due to more trains than usual needing repairs", yet now this is a regular event.

IETs are around 3-4 more times reliable than HSTs - and performance is even better when operating under electric. It's worth noting the IETs do more than the HSTs were doing (eg hourly Cheltenhams, 2-hourly Carmarthens, and as noted above running on regional services too).

[broadgage]

And what happened to the "essential requirement" that IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) be able to cope with the extreme weather conditions at Dawlish ?
They clearly can not, with the service now being suspended during times when high tides are combined with high winds.
The recent improvements to the sea defences at Dawlish should reduce wave impact if compared to the conditions prevailing when the IETs were designed.

[grahame]

Text I have typed from the recording of the Zoom session - please forgive typos.
DM - Daryn McCombe, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)
TL - Thomas Lydon, GWR
GE - Graham Ellis
BC - Bryony Chetwode
CB - ChrisB

Question 2

GE: IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) - degree of members expression of concerns. reliability and capacity.  Note of first electric start from Pilning on Saturday

DM: Product director back from Avanti to improve hitachi fleet availably and seeing a good improvement. Showing shape of graph.  Fleet availability in orange and yellow range until May but green since. Some consistency too. Also progress. Quirk - if a set is damaged e.g. cows - come out of number that required to provide. Turn around has improved.

GE: Trains hit by waves?

DM: Come to that. Piechart showing reasons for sets out, hits is quite a big wedge (20%?)

GE: Follow up - cascade welsh units

TL: DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) have given us permission to explore but can't say anything more at the moment, but sure you'll hear as soon as we can on the Coffee Shop ;-) . We are planing on assumption we will get them and to releasee right type to boost Bristol and Westbury. First units release a short HST^▸ (High Speed Train) then IETs and Turbos.  IETs onto intercity to strengthen them.

GE: Suggestion of remaining HSTs departing?

DM: That is our intention. Commitment towards carbon reduction. They are some of the most polluting trains. Nostalgia and fondness noted; been around for a very long time but getting on and associated maintenance costs are quite large as well. So not just carbon also quite a lot of money.

TL: Question on the forum relating to fixing the cracks on IETs

DM: Max 2 trains away and will take a number of years with 93 trains. Ultimately Hitachi risk and pool rather than GWR pool.

GE: How does responsibility change as we hit "nationalisation".

DM: We don't know - as we understand it, that contract carries on, with new nationalised entity inheriting the contract. Ultimately Hitachi and the RoSCOs^▸ (Rolling Stock Owning Company) that own them will still be in existance

GE: Off topic, naughty question - my understanding is that the RoSCOs carry on as privatised companies.

DM: That's in Labour's plan at the moment. It's about freight operators and note open access - Lumo and Hull trains and note news that First Group has taken on Grand Union's Stirling operation and RoSCOs will remain in the private sector.  We don't know if in the future they intend to set up a GB^▸ (Great Britain) rolling stock company. In the current economic environment taking on TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) like Great Western is essentially cost neutral to the taxpayer whereas sets of [lots of] trains would not be. It's not as clear cut as it might first appear between public and private ownership. The infrastructure owner - Network Rail - is already in public ownership and on our bit we work very closely with them

GE: And off topic still but for the people on here .. is it fair to say that the majority of staff on operational roles with GW^▸ (Great Western) will have a transfer across to the nationalised operator?  So we're not looking at a complete recruitment of new drivers ...

TL: No - I can say in a first instance and when I joined GWR five years ago it was one of my questions to Mark Hopwood as to what happens if GWR gets nationalised and we will all get TUPEd across. In t6he curren6 environment it would be a surprise if there were large scale redundancies though as time goes on. Expectation is TOCs into public ownership perhaps even before GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) is set up in legislation. In future, as that integration between track and train grows deeper they have already talked about areas like delay attribution and others where there may be crossover between the track and train. You may see a reduction in headcount but I doubt that would initially involve compulsory redundancies.   It's probably also worth saying that out contract expires in full in June 2028 but from June next year SoS has the ability to terminate First's contract running the GWR with 3 months notice.  We don't know when that will come but commitment has been made that all TOC operations will be in national ownership by the next election.  Happy to take any questions - I know it's not one of the specific ones ...

DM: I did promise to come back on Dawlish Sea Wall issues.  We did face some challenges over the weekend.  In essence [explanation of resistors on roof] ... high voltage ... insulators.  If they shutdown they try to restart up to "Dawlish mod" 10 times but then give up.  We were seeing many more issues last year than this. Cleaning has dealt wit6h a large chunk of the problem. Not seeing repeated issues we were this time last year away from Dawlish. Ongoing meeting talking through exactly what happened on the train; we are all assuming it's the same problem but proof / confirmation awaited.  In any case, the trains that were shut down were trains that were stopped; when moving, water tends to wash off / come away more quickly and that 10 restart program is more effective.  So plans with NR^» (Network Rail - home page) to use other sets on stoppers [on such days?] and in any case cascading may move some IETS off those services.

TL: Question on IET reliability - member finds it a surprise that's stated. They ARE 3 to 4 times more reliably, but far more intensely used. North Cots IETs not Turbos, Cheltenham Spa services etc, more to Penzance, run to Carmarthen. And as part of out savings for taxpayers IETs now running on regional routes as well.  I CAN understand why there may be some dismay at that comment, but they are more reliable particularly when running on electric.

DM: Also factor in it's a different type of door - moved from mechanical to electrically interlocked safer door on the IET. And the number of door operations the IETs are doing are far in excess of the HST numbers. Electrical doors have some challenged but safer and more reliable.

[WelshBluebird]

Thanks for the question regarding Ashley Down, that is a very good point and I will make sure my team in Control is fully up to date with contingency plans including special stops where needed.

Bit of a cross post here (as I'm also going to mention it in the Ashley Down thread), but sad to say my worries being turned into reality over the last couple of days due to the poor reliability of the Filton shuttle. Several evening peak services cancelled yesterday, and whilst it does indeed look like the services to Gloucester had a stop at Ashley Down added to give it some peak servce, nothing was added in the opposite direction to Temple Meads. And it looks like the same is going to be the case this evening too. This kind of thing is exactly what I was concerned about and is going to stop people being able to rely on the train service. Certainly for me if this continues I'll just default to getting the number 70 bus to Temple Meads instead.