X Country HSTs

[whole diary]

[Zoe]

The current situation  has 4 car undefloor engine DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) on Plymouth to Edinburgh and 7 car HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) on Paddington to Oxford.  The solution here should be obvious but as some of the HSTs are owned by FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and ATP^▸ (Automatic Train Protection) would need to be fitted to the Voyagers it won't be possible.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

The current situation  has 4 car undefloor engine DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) on Plymouth to Edinburgh and 7 car HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) on Paddington to Oxford.  The solution here should be obvious but as some of the HSTs are owned by FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and ATP^▸ (Automatic Train Protection) would need to be fitted to the Voyagers it won't be possible.

sorry mate?

[Zoe]

The solution to overcrowding on XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)).  HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) on commuter routes out of Paddington seem a bit of a waste and Voyagers would be much more suited to the job.  This solution isn't possible though as FGW^▸ (First Great Western) own some of the HSTs and so they couldn't just go to XC.  The Voyagers also lack APT^▸ (Advanced Passenger Train) so would not be allowed to run at 125 mph.

[IndustryInsider]

The Voyagers also lack APT^▸ (Advanced Passenger Train) so would not be allowed to run at 125 mph.

I'll ask this question again, as I've never actually got an answer for it - perhaps one of the new members knows?

Voyagers are allowed to run on the ATP^▸ (Automatic Train Protection) fitted tracks at 125mph between Didcot and Reading, but at no more than 100mph on the ATP fitted tracks between Reading and Paddington. Why the difference?

[paul7575]

Academic now that XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) don't use that stretch, but I was told it was simply a question of traffic density on the fasts at the Paddington end of the route.

Paul

[IndustryInsider]

Academic now that XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) don't use that stretch, but I was told it was simply a question of traffic density on the fasts at the Paddington end of the route.

True, it's now academic. Though, if that's right,  I find that a rather strange reason - there may well be more trains on the Main lines east of Reading, but not many more, and west of Reading it's mostly 3-aspect signalling which actually gives drivers less distance to brake from a cautionary aspect to a red signal in most places.

[willc]

The current situation  has 4 car undefloor engine DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) on Plymouth to Edinburgh and 7 car HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) on Paddington to Oxford.  The solution here should be obvious but as some of the HSTs are owned by FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and ATP^▸ (Automatic Train Protection) would need to be fitted to the Voyagers it won't be possible.

Do you actually know anything about the loadings between London, Reading and Oxford? I doubt it, because if you did, you wouldn't be suggesting something quite so daft.

Why would anyone want to swap high-capacity HSTs, where most people stand a chance of getting a seat, for low-capacity trains with enormous toilets? Adelantes were too small for the busiest Oxford peak trains and they have plenty more seats than any sort of Voyager, the inadequate capacity of which is plain to see day after day on peak XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services between Reading, Oxford and Banbury.

The high-capacity HST concept was first proposed by the Strategic Rail Authority precisely to meet the demand between London, Reading and Oxford.

[Zoe]

Why would anyone want to swap high-capacity HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train), where most people stand a chance of getting a seat, for low-capacity trains with enormous toilets? Adelantes were too small for the busiest Oxford peak trains and they have plenty more seats than any sort of Voyager, the inadequate capacity of which is plain to see day after day on peak XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services between Reading, Oxford and Banbury.

So Oxford to London commuters (a journey of 1 hour) are more important than people traveling from Devon to the North and Scotland then?  It may well be the case at peak times that the HSTs are full but you are almost certainly not going to fill a 7 car HST off peak.  On XC the Voyagers are often packed even off peak.  The last time I went to Birmingham it was full and standing from Taunton.  I doubt anyone would seriously suggest a similar situation of Class 91s and Mark 4 coaches on London to Cambridge. What would FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have done if the Voyagers had never been ordered by Virgin and no HSTs had been available for cascade onto the Paddington to Oxford route?

[dog box]

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) would have done nothing...because stock procuremment is nothing to do with the relevant TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) its a matter for the Daft

[Zoe]

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) would have done nothing...because stock procuremment is nothing to do with the relevant TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) its a matter for the Daft

FGW did outright purchase some HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) though.

[dog box]

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) would have done nothing...because stock procuremment is nothing to do with the relevant TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) its a matter for the Daft

FGW did outright purchase some HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) though.

Not quite.....First Rail Holdings purchased 43092/93/94/97/98/122/153/154/155/158/194/198

[willc]

Why would anyone want to swap high-capacity HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train), where most people stand a chance of getting a seat, for low-capacity trains with enormous toilets? Adelantes were too small for the busiest Oxford peak trains and they have plenty more seats than any sort of Voyager, the inadequate capacity of which is plain to see day after day on peak XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services between Reading, Oxford and Banbury.

So Oxford to London commuters (a journey of 1 hour) are more important than people traveling from Devon to the North and Scotland then?  It may well be the case at peak times that the HSTs are full but you are almost certainly not going to fill a 7 car HST off peak.  On XC the Voyagers are often packed even off peak.  The last time I went to Birmingham it was full and standing from Taunton.  I doubt anyone would seriously suggest a similar situation of Class 91s and Mark 4 coaches on London to Cambridge. What would FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have done if the Voyagers had never been ordered by Virgin and no HSTs had been available for cascade onto the Paddington to Oxford route?

All passengers are important but it's not FGW's fault that Virgin ordered utterly inadequate trains for CrossCountry, nor is it their job to sort it out.

Oxford-London trains well into the 'off-peak' period are heavily loaded and also need to accommodate Cotswold, Reading and Slough passengers along the way, depending on the particular working. And those commuters on their one-hour trip are probably paying a lot more for their tickets than the average XC passenger does - most of whom, in any case, are not making trips as long as Devon to Scotland. According to DafT when it re-let the franchise, the average XC journey length in 2005-6 was 81 miles and about 50 per cent were less than 50 miles, so little different from a 63.5-mile London-Oxford run.

[Tim]

west of Reading it's mostly 3-aspect signalling which actually gives drivers less distance to brake from a cautionary aspect to a red signal in most places.

I am not an expert but Stan Hall (in "on Track for Disaster") reckons 4-aspect signalling places greater demands on drivers, because the double-yelllow aspect is ambigous especially where traffic densities are high and signals often on double-yellow Although the driver ought to slow down at a double yellow on the assuption that the next signal will be single yellow that signal might have steped-up by the time it is reached so you might end up driving long stetches at 80mph on double yellows all the way with the AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System) warning going off and being cancelled at each signal but the train never slowing down (and 4-aspect signalling only achieves its aim of allowing more trains to be squeezed in if drivers enter into the spirit of things and drive like that).  You then get a single yellow (acompanied by an identical AWS activation and cancellation) which you need to break for and you can see how that might easier to miss than with 3-aspect signalling when you get a single yellow after a long line of green.

4-aspect signalling might be safer in theory (the theory being based on the assumption that drivers will observe all aspects and respond correctly), but SPADs^▸ (Signal Passed At Danger) seem to happen when a driver gets distracted or tired and makes a mistake and high speed running with closely spaced signals must be more demanding and exhausing for the driver than a lightly signalled route.  AWS is a perfectly adequate system for a dilergent, alert driver on a lightly signalled route, but as speeds, number of signals and traffic densities increase it isn't really up to the job.  also AWS was designed for 3, not 4 -aspect signalling.  Green gives a bell sound and all restrictive aspects the same horn sound.  On 3-aspect that doesn't matter, if you hear a horn you break to stop, on 4-aspect the horn is ambigous - do I break to stop or just slow down a little. 

A look at the reports of rail accidents caused by SPADs show that drivers hardly ever dieliberately ignore a signal (a "determined drive by", the Moorgate tube accident being the only possible exception to that I can think of).  But driving long distances on yellows and closely spaced signals do seem to place more stress on the driver and make him more likely to get it wrong.