Question 4 – 24 Jul 2023: Fleet capacity

[whole diary]

[Red Squirrel]

With the loss of the 769s and the withdrawal of almost all the Castle sets is there enough slack in the rest of the fleet to provide sufficient capacity where it is needed?

[Mark Hopwood]

Things are tight and we certainly don't have "slack" in our fleet - it's a reflection of the times we find ourselves in.

Overall, we do have enough trains, but it is very tight and can be impacted by unplanned maintenance issues, or any damage or faults that are experienced. We are also impacted by the challenges of having trains in the right place due to infrastructure damage, and industrial action.

All fleets are being worked harder (there is little resilience). The May 23 timetable alterations (some services taken out) have freed up some IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan))'s/west units to cover the 255 workings/additional metro west services. We also created 3 x 158 2 cars from 2 x 158 3 cars and with more 4 car 158s working Cardiff to Portsmouth services, vice 5 car Turbos which give us more 2 car and 3 car Turbos for metro West. In addition, there are several LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) 165 3 cars now in Central/West to bolster the West Fleet. We will monitor this closely to see how performance is or isn’t affected.

We are continuing to work hard to address reliability issues and to get units stopped back into traffic - one of our Class 150s has been away at Wolverton for some time (150202 for those who collect the numbers!) and we hopoe to see that back very soon. Equally, one of our IETs 800026 has been out of traffice since 2021 after crack issues and a portion of the bodyside was cut away - that should return soon.

[grahame]

Probably "missed" Mark - I wonder if he's going to pop in for follow ups - but it's been pointed out that there are some 230s at Reading.  Was it at Transport Focus last week that Mark explained "we bought VivaRail". They come from Bedford - Bletchley. As well as the Greenford branch , one has to wonder about  the suitability of these trains for other branches.
 

[IndustryInsider]

That is definitely being wondered about.  Units of a different type from others, working isolated branches, definitely causes me concern over reliability.