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GWR to lease ‘tri-mode’ class 769 multiple units from Porterbrook


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3 minutes ago, Covkid said:

 

And that in itself is a microcosm of what NR did a few years previously when they closed the regional offices and moved everything to Milton Keynes - with limited success. Staff from Glasgow, York and Birmingham chose redundancy rather than commute to "that" place. 

 

The move from Friars Bridge Court to Basingstoke was very likely to invoke the same human reaction, and to an certain extent did. Not sure how many did or still do, but I know of one woman who was was travelling London - Basingstoke, doing four hours work, a break and travelling back to London within her 7 hour working day.  Who'd have thought it !!!   

 

Strikes me Network Rail have forgotten they actually employ human beings rather than payroll numbers.

It's quite a popular pastime, move something far enough that the incumbent resource don't want to go, offer redundancy and then employ new staff on new terms and conditions.

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2 hours ago, Covkid said:

 

And that in itself is a microcosm of what NR did a few years previously when they closed the regional offices and moved everything to Milton Keynes - with limited success. Staff from Glasgow, York and Birmingham chose redundancy rather than commute to "that" place. 

 

The move from Friars Bridge Court to Basingstoke was very likely to invoke the same human reaction, and to an certain extent did. Not sure how many did or still do, but I know of one woman who was was travelling London - Basingstoke, doing four hours work, a break and travelling back to London within her 7 hour working day.  Who'd have thought it !!!   

 

Strikes me Network Rail have forgotten they actually employ human beings rather than payroll numbers.

 

Modern management, innit!

 

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3 hours ago, Covkid said:

 

And that in itself is a microcosm of what NR did a few years previously when they closed the regional offices and moved everything to Milton Keynes - with limited success. Staff from Glasgow, York and Birmingham chose redundancy rather than commute to "that" place. 

 

The move from Friars Bridge Court to Basingstoke was very likely to invoke the same human reaction, and to an certain extent did. Not sure how many did or still do, but I know of one woman who was was travelling London - Basingstoke, doing four hours work, a break and travelling back to London within her 7 hour working day.  Who'd have thought it !!!   

 

Strikes me Network Rail have forgotten they actually employ human beings rather than payroll numbers.

 

Maybe should point out that the NR move related to Train Planning, not Controls. 

 

EWSR did the same thing when they opened their CSDC at Doncaster, again many experienced staff could or would not relocate, in some cases, hundreds of miles.

 

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4 hours ago, Covkid said:

 

Strikes me Network Rail have forgotten they actually employ human beings rather than payroll numbers.

 

NR has to dance to the tune of HM Treasury these days - and according to them renting expensive office space in the centre of London does not represent a 'good use of taxpayers money'. Moreover with the DfT being big fans of de-centralisation / devolved decision making (which is what is behind the latest reorganisation into 'regions' rather than 'routes'), to the bean counters in Whitehall, moving your staff to be in the middle of your enterprise (rather than concentrated at one end) is 'efficient' keeps ministers happy too.

 

Of course it helped the bean counters / Whitehall / ministers that Basingstoke also had a rather large and mostly unused ROC building (there is no money to move signalling control into it on a whim these days - you need a big renewal scheme to justify that these days) standing idle with plenty of office space available.

 

For the record, various Sussex and Kent staff were also in Friars Bridge Court and have been booted out to other NR owned facilities so NR could vacate the building .

 

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21 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

Maybe should point out that the NR move related to Train Planning, not Controls. 

 

EWSR did the same thing when they opened their CSDC at Doncaster, again many experienced staff could or would not relocate, in some cases, hundreds of miles.

 

Some of my former staff did very well out of the EWS move to Doncaster - they applied for redundancy because they didn't want to go but were then asked to go there on a temporary basis to train newcomers and were offered what almost amounted to double pay to do so.  So several of them duly did exactly that and then took redundancy after they finished as trainers.

 

However there were certainly some amusing moments for them one chap was busily explaining to an 'off the street' newcomer how to time a light engine over a substantial distance as a planned move under Short Term Planning procedures.  the trainee seemed to be taking it all onboard and was getting on with the job until a few minutes later he turned round and asked 'what's a heavy engine?.    Very logical question if you know sweet fa nothing about railway work.

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On 20/09/2019 at 20:34, caradoc said:

 

Maybe should point out that the NR move related to Train Planning, not Controls. 

 

EWSR did the same thing when they opened their CSDC at Doncaster, again many experienced staff could or would not relocate, in some cases, hundreds of miles.

 

 

Yes. I had daily experience of trying to speak to the controllers at CSDC.  It was a waste of time ringing 0600-0800 and 1800-2000 because their 12 hour shifts involved catching up for the handover and the fresh shift taking over. 

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10 minutes ago, Covkid said:

 

Yes. I had daily experience of trying to speak to the controllers at CSDC.  It was a waste of time ringing 0600-0800 and 1800-2000 because their 12 hour shifts involved catching up for the handover and the fresh shift taking over. 

 

You can imagine our delight in NR Glasgow Control when we phoned the CSDC and got one of the guys who had moved down there from Scotland - It made life much easier !

 

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  • 5 months later...

In marginally related news to this thread, platform extension work I understand is complete at Sandhurst, and is being started at Mortimer to facilitate 769s to run on the GWR Wessex network. 

 

Also, as an aside, work is moving at pace with Reading Green Park station, base layer is down and being compacted with rollers up and down all week.

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On 20/03/2020 at 11:52, SouthernMafia said:

In marginally related news to this thread, platform extension work I understand is complete at Sandhurst, and is being started at Mortimer to facilitate 769s to run on the GWR Wessex network. 

 

Also, as an aside, work is moving at pace with Reading Green Park station, base layer is down and being compacted with rollers up and down all week.

Are the 769s active on the North Downs route yet?  I've not been out to watch trains for months, this would be a good excuse.

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They entered service with Northern relatively recently, didn't they? Though those are probably only bi-modes.

 

I've no insider information, but an idea as gloriously simple as putting diesel engines onto a 319 to mimic the 750V supply is the kind of thing that sounds easy and turns out to be massively complicated to the point that just buying new would have been quicker and no more expensive.

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7 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

They entered service with Northern relatively recently, didn't they? Though those are probably only bi-modes.

 

I've no insider information, but an idea as gloriously simple as putting diesel engines onto a 319 to mimic the 750V supply is the kind of thing that sounds easy and turns out to be massively complicated to the point that just buying new would have been quicker and no more expensive.

 

Nope.  None in service with Northern.  Rumour has it that one might go into service with TfW next week as they've been doing several test and driver training runs recently with 2 units out on some days.

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On 14/11/2020 at 00:05, Northmoor said:

Are the 769s active on the North Downs route yet?  I've not been out to watch trains for months, this would be a good excuse.

Not yet, only one (769943) has been delivered to Reading TCD so far. I wouldn't expect to see it out in the wild for a while yet!

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  • 4 months later...

Hi,

 

As it seems to have passed people by, the GWR Class 769s began mainline testing last week:

 

IMG_0120.JPG.c499725cdd8b154c461406571a0edc5c.JPG

 

I don't think there are regular testing paths just yet, but they are running Reading Depot - Reading - Didcot - Maidenhead - Didcot - Maidenhead - Reading - Tilehurst - Reading Depot diagrams (they are booked to go straight from Reading into the Depot, but the last two times I've seen them, they have gone to Tilehurst to enter the depot).

 

They do look rather swish and don't half go! At the moment they are primarily testing on the OLE, but there is video evidence on youtube that they have done at least one run in diesel.

 

Simon

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Does anyone know what the traction “rules” will be for the North Downs line? Presumably the 769s will work off the juice between Reading and Wokingham and Reigate and Gatwick, but what about between Aldershot South Jct and Shalford Jct? Can the trains change power system on the move?

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There were two tests last week. On Monday 769946 ran a single Reading-Didcot-Maidenhead-Reading trip on electric only.  On Wednesday it did two round trips.  They tried running on diesel but there were "issues" so most of the run was again on electric.

A third test was planned for today but was cancelled after two of the three units at Reading were declared failures.

The current tests, when they run, are being handled jointly by GWR and Colas and appear to be booked off Reading at 11:33 running as 5Q10.

As I understand it, they will not change between modes on the move as it requires actions by the driver which are regarded as a distraction risk if moving.  As to which mode will be used on which section of the North Downs route, that has still to be advised.

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I look forward to the 769s' introduction on the North Downs Line.  Before the pandemic, the regular 3-car 165s were always very well loaded at any time of day and in the morning rush hour into Reading, frequently crush-loaded; I have certainly been forced to stand from Blackwater and actually seen people left behind at Wokingham.  If nothing else, the guard can rarely sell all the tickets necessary before Reading.

 

The old units really seem to toil up the gradients as well, this impression is confirmed by an old friend/colleague who now drives them for GWR, including on this route.

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8 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I look forward to the 769s' introduction on the North Downs Line.  Before the pandemic, the regular 3-car 165s were always very well loaded at any time of day and in the morning rush hour into Reading, frequently crush-loaded; I have certainly been forced to stand from Blackwater and actually seen people left behind at Wokingham.  If nothing else, the guard can rarely sell all the tickets necessary before Reading.

 

The old units really seem to toil up the gradients as well, this impression is confirmed by an old friend/colleague who now drives them for GWR, including on this route.

Be careful what you wish for!  There's a lot of debate as to how the 769s will perform on the route.  Yes, the Turbos did struggle at times but that's because they were geared for 90 mph to take advantage of Brunel's billiard table.  That's why the Chiltern fleet are geared for 75 mph to cope better with the hills on that route. 

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56 minutes ago, Mike_Walker said:

Be careful what you wish for!  There's a lot of debate as to how the 769s will perform on the route.  Yes, the Turbos did struggle at times but that's because they were geared for 90 mph to take advantage of Brunel's billiard table.  That's why the Chiltern fleet are geared for 75 mph to cope better with the hills on that route. 

 

From the video's I've seen of the Welsh fleet, they do seem rather lethargic travelling up the Valleys. 

 

As for todays test run, I was under the impression that all 3 units have been declared failures. 769930 was the unit earmarked for todays test run, but that was having issues last night while being prepared for today. 946 was due to be the backup (the unit from last weeks test run), while the third unit isn’t available either. 

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1 minute ago, John M Upton said:

So, not going well then.....

 

Has it ever? How many years late are we now with the Northern units and still none of theirs are in service. For something that was billed as a quicker and cheaper alternative to buying new Hybrid units, Stadler seem to have been able to knock Porterbrook out of the park with this one. 

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