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Class 800 - Updates


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GWR routes seem to be particularly prone to trains being reverse formed. When it was 100% HSTs, I reckon about 1/4 of them turning up at Reading were the wrong way round. Much more likely to happen than on my ECML or WCML journeys.

 

That is far more than in my experience of London to Cardiff workings. I'd have said 1 in 20 or fewer turning up the wrong way round in the 'old' days.

 

 

 

The first time I rode on one, it had to be reversed on the triangle at Swansea because the doors wouldn't open on one side!

 

Good to know that they can be turned there.

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On a serious note it isnt always the train which is wrong, this morning a 10x802 ran up to Londinium with L-G London end (wrong way round but correct lettering) and A-E Country end right way round and correct lettering, on arrival at Londinium somebody decided to reverse the lettering so G-L was Country end and E-A London end!  :nono:

 

 

 

But was that manual intervention, or did the software decide to do it itself?

 

If the set lettering can be reliably controlled manually, then it is very disappointing if they are still getting set letters the wrong way round. (Obviously the way round each unit is facing is a different matter).

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That is far more than in my experience of London to Cardiff workings. I'd have said 1 in 20 or fewer turning up the wrong way round in the 'old' days.

 

 

 

Good to know that they can be turned there.

I was commuting on GWR for about a year, just before the start of 800 introduction. I usually got Exeter or Oxford line trains, and would hear many announcements about "first class is at the (wrong end)" on all trains going either way, not just the ones I caught. Hard to know where up trains that I wasn't catching had come from.

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GWR sets can become “reversed” by missing the Gloucester stop-and-reverse in one direction but not the other. Also when diverting via Yeovil which requires reversal at Exeter. There are other possibilities but these are less likely in traffic. The fact is that some sets have been delivered and entered traffic the wrong way round. This could (or could have been) be corrected with a trip around the Greenford loop, a shunt move at Reading, Stoke Gifford and possibly Laira or some longer and less likely routes of which Reading - Trowbridge - Bath - Bristol Parkway - Reading is just one.

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Without photographic evidence I dont believe you. :no:

 

Ha ha!

 

I did think about it actually. There was a paper reservation as well, which matched the electronic one above the seat, and my ticket!

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But was that manual intervention, or did the software decide to do it itself?

 

If the set lettering can be reliably controlled manually, then it is very disappointing if they are still getting set letters the wrong way round. (Obviously the way round each unit is facing is a different matter).

I am not sure but I going to go for manual intervention because normally once they are set up they will stay that way unless coupled, uncoupled or somebody changes it.

 

What wont be helping is the amount of paperwork we are receiving about changing the methods of working.

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All aspects of train servicing are done by Htachi under a contract let by the DfT meaning GWR have very little say in things like which way round they come off depot.

 

This is 'the wrong way round' actually!  Hitachi have no way of turning a unit round.  They come off depot in the same orientation the operator sent them on.

 

The fact is that some sets have been delivered and entered traffic the wrong way round. 

 

That might be Hitachi's issue, although I doubt it, it's more likely that the sets were diverted somewhere along their delivery move.

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Thinking about it earlier on - maybe part of the issue may be down to mechanical/software issues on the units. 

 

Maybe a particular unit can only couple at one end... or the TPWS/AWS/ATP is defective in one cab... or one of the pans is badly worn, requiring the other pan to be the 'outer' one.

 

 

Am I also right in thinking that the 'correct' way to marshall them is with the First Class compartments together in the middle of the train (which puts them in the right place at Paddington for changing to the Hammersmith & City for Euston & KXSP)? If so, this means that half the units should be one way round and half the other. It's quite easy to see how in that circumstance pairs could wind up being broken up and reformed with two units both facing the same way.

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Am I also right in thinking that the 'correct' way to marshall them is with the First Class compartments together in the middle of the train (which puts them in the right place at Paddington for changing to the Hammersmith & City for Euston & KXSP)? If so, this means that half the units should be one way round and half the other

 

I don't believe so. I think first class should be at the London end of all units. Putting first class in the middle sounds a good idea in itself, but I don't see how deliberately having some 5 car units one way round and others the reverse way round would work in practise.

 

I do think that GWR might want to take down the posters showing which way round units are intended to be for now.

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Ah today was a day of near total amazement - I saw more sets which were the right way round and 2x5s which were correctly marshalled and orientated than I did sets which were wrong .  I even travelled (Reading to Cardiff and return) on 2x5 sets which were correctly marshalled and orientated.  Lots of class 800 sets have very clearly for whatever reason, entered traffic the wrong way round - even on public launch day there were trains which were wrong - and in my view this is a consequence of poor detail managrement of the contract terms under which trans are required to be presented for traffic.

 

GWR have become pretty good in my experience of making clear the formation of trains, in very basic terms (i.e the 1st Class accommodation is in vehicles x,y, z, q and p by their position in the train).  But this cannot of course indicate which vehicle is, for example, lettered L or D but simply identify where they might be.  With consistent, correctly orientated and formed, trains it is simple to identify which vehicles are where by letter, even if a train is running in reversed formation but it it inevitably requires all sets to be correctly orientated.  Yes, sets on the Western tend to get turned but provided it is known which way round they are then which vehicles are where becomes a simple matter and generally - after more than a few years of being involved in it - it is not exactly a  difficult task to get trains turned to be the correct way round either by again putting them through the diversionary process which reversed them or if necessary and albeit not everywhere physically turning them to put them right.  But provided a train is correctly formed it still remains feasible to advise station staff and thence passengers that a train is running in reverse formation - that is a very basic feature of railway work on the Western and long has been.  It ought to be a simple discipline to impose on the train provision contract and to be blunt I am surprised that it was not.

 

Anyway back to today and both at Reading and, at last compared with past experience, at Cardiff the departure screens clearly indicated the position of the 1st Class accommodation from which it is simple - if you have the relevant GWR public leaflet - to work out which vehicles are where by Letter label within the train because it was correctly formed. Interestingly at almost every station stop on both trains passengers were situated in roughly the correct places on the platform before the train ran in - only at Swindon on the Down journey did I see a considerable migration along the platform, probably to get to empty seats which had been seen in the leading set as the train ran in.

 

The current timetable has incidentally copied a long established feature of continental practice by using extended station stops as a means of assisting punctuality.  I shall find out on my next trips, on Monday, if this happens to be a weekend feature but extended stops of several minutes at Bristol Parkway came as a surprise, aided and abetted by early arrival in both directions.  Yes even the diesel powered Up train, which had left Cardiff a couple of minutes late, arrived at Parkway 2 minutes early.  This caused me to check the set numbers on arrival at Reading and it turned out the train was formed with 802021 and 802008 so the extra diesel power available on these sets might well have a beneficial effect although I was not doing any detailed timing but a check on RTT shows that the train in fact ran to net times so its performance was not anything special, it simply didn't lose time rather than gaining some.  Arrival at Reading was incidentally 3 minutes early (a gain of 30 seconds on net times so again nothing special), which turned out to be to my advantage for onward connections resulting in my overall journey time (on a total of 3 trains) being reduced by 30 minutes, I could not have done the rail part of my journey in a similar time by road without breaking various speed limits but the biggest gain was down to making a minus connection which had more to do with some quick running by a 387 and a GWR Driver exercising some common sense and making a late departure on a local service which turned it into an unofficial connection, but punctual running by the 802 helped.

 

So overall not a bad day in train running terms on GWR, a very good days in terms of correctly formed and orientated Class 80X trains, but a number of 802s noted in Bristol and South Wales workings (why?).

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I don't believe so. I think first class should be at the London end of all units. Putting first class in the middle sounds a good idea in itself, but I don't see how deliberately having some 5 car units one way round and others the reverse way round would work in practise.

 

I do think that GWR might want to take down the posters showing which way round units are intended to be for now.

It undoubtedly makes a lot of sense to have all units the same way round, especially if 5 car sets move between formations for whatever reason (including presumably booked reasons in future train plans?).   But what is needed is the necessary discipline, including contractual discipline with the train provider, to both enforce that situation and take account of it, and deal with it, in the event of unavoidable reversals.

 

To give up on something which is a sensible method because people (various?) are unable to make it work properly does not strike me as a disciplined approach to the management and use of very expensive resources or any contracts connected with the day-to-day provision of those resources.  Maybe it's time to polish some toecaps on the backsides of more than a few pairs of managerial trousers?

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There seems to be some confusion about the coach lettering, on 5 coach sets coach E MUST  be the wheelchair space, which means it must be the First Class coach, by default the other driving coach will be coach A, if formed as a 10 coach train the other wheelchair space MUST be coach L, so all the other coaches are lettered accordingly.

 

What would be useful would be to say which coach is leading so people would know where their reservation was instead of the pointless "First clas is in coaches 1,2,6 and 7, which doesnt tell you where your reserved seat in coach L is does it.

 

Do they listen?

No comment!

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Today I had a dayout on the trains and did Barnstaple to Gunnislake and return. Must be over a hundred miles and only just over eleven pounds return without any railcards. Very good value indeed.  Anyway the bit from Exeter to Plymouth was 11.17 off St Davids and formed of 10 car class 800 (not an 802) with 800 803 leading. It was VERY slow going up Dainton and  Rattery. People in the carriage were commenting on the slow speed of the train.  By comparison, the 15.01 return from Plymouth was an HST and it absolutly whipped along with hard acceleration as soon as it emerged from Mutley Tunnel.

Edited by andy stroud
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I agree that replacing an HST with a 5-car Class 800 is a backward step (assuming that the full capacity of the HST was actually required), however it would be interesting to know whether the total number of vehicles (or perhaps more importantly, seats) provided by the new trains is greater or fewer than the trains being replaced ?

 

I forget the number of HSTs but I gather it's quite a decent capacity increase - there are 605 new vehicles, equivalent to 64 full length (9/10-car) sets, though a few will be replacing non-HST workings like the Bedwyns. 

 

In my travels today I noted, among other things, 800003 displaying badly-peeling livery vinyls around most windows.  This looked atrocious on such a new train.  I do have a picture but it's on the iPhone which means it will upload sideways or inverted here until I have had a chance to run it through the desktop software.  Suffice to say that the peeling wasn't slight - we are talking several centimetres and around almost every window.

IIRC this only affects a handful of early 5-car sets which were vinyled in a certain way, presumably they'll be re-done in due course.

 

So overall not a bad day in train running terms on GWR, a very good days in terms of correctly formed and orientated Class 80X trains, but a number of 802s noted in Bristol and South Wales workings (why?).

Presumably it means they can get more IETs in service while driver training in the South West is still going on, but it's been the plan to use 802s on other routes for some years now - I think since they ordered extra 9-cars in 2016?

Edited by Christopher125
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By combining various sources of data together, I had a look at how deliveries to GWR are going.

 

802016, 802020 were on mileage accumulation /acceptance trials last week, so are close to service.

 

Deliveries of 802/1s to North Pole seem to be on Mondays, and on that basis I'd expect 802109 to arrive tomorrow. 802101/2/3 are in service, 802104 arrived on 27/11/18 and doesn't seem to have ventured out yet. 802105 appears not to have been delivered, with 802106/7/8 arriving on consecutive Mondays.

 

Projecting that forward, 802114, the final unit, should arrive on 04/03/19. That looks promising for an end of March HST Farewell, as has been suggested for a while now. 

 

Of course there are plenty of things which could upset the above, not least the way I've combined information to draw my conclusion, but the end of the Western high speed HST looks close.

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There seems to be some confusion about the coach lettering, on 5 coach sets coach E MUST  be the wheelchair space, which means it must be the First Class coach, by default the other driving coach will be coach A, if formed as a 10 coach train the other wheelchair space MUST be coach L, so all the other coaches are lettered accordingly.

 

What would be useful would be to say which coach is leading so people would know where their reservation was instead of the pointless "First clas is in coaches 1,2,6 and 7, which doesnt tell you where your reserved seat in coach L is does it.

 

Do they listen?

No comment!

 

It makes sense if you have the leaflet telling you which vehicles are what by letter and if the train is correctly orientated and formed - and alas some are still not correct (yesterday was an amazing day in that respect as I said).  

 

The leaflet supplemented by posters would help to inform passengers but don't overlook the fact that many people (not usually wheelchair users although it does happen) do not make reservations so they have no interest at all in what letters the various vehicles carry - they just want to know where to find a seat.  And the practice of telling them where the 1st class accommodation is sited does at least tell them where the rest of the accommodation is  (it's sensible to refer to 1st Class because it is always the smallest number of vehicles in any 80X formation and therefore can be more readily read and understood on platform monitor screens).

 

Simple answer - make sure the trains are correctly formed and orientated and then use platform signage in the way it was used, and worked well, for many years for HSTs (even if they were running in reverse formation).

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On a railway where it is possible for a train to be reversed, sooner or later it will happen, however carefully the diagraming is worked out. It therefore behoves the train operator, if he is worth his salt, to be able to cope with either or both units in a train being the wrong way round. Virgin West Coast manage it on the Chester/Holyhead services, many of which are 2x5-car Voyager formations. Cross-country have the same potential problem, and presumably cope with it, all of which would suggest that GWR should be able to. There is no means whereby Hitachi can turn a train at North Pole, short of a trip to Didcot and back, and unless their contract lawyers have made a gigantic mess of things, they will have written into their contracts as a circumstance beyond their control and thus something for which they will not accept any liability. Simply assuming that all the units will remain the right was round, or be joined in the right order every time, would be naive on the part of the train operator.

 

Jim

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On a railway where it is possible for a train to be reversed, sooner or later it will happen, however carefully the diagraming is worked out. It therefore behoves the train operator, if he is worth his salt, to be able to cope with either or both units in a train being the wrong way round. Virgin West Coast manage it on the Chester/Holyhead services, many of which are 2x5-car Voyager formations. Cross-country have the same potential problem, and presumably cope with it, all of which would suggest that GWR should be able to. There is no means whereby Hitachi can turn a train at North Pole, short of a trip to Didcot and back, and unless their contract lawyers have made a gigantic mess of things, they will have written into their contracts as a circumstance beyond their control and thus something for which they will not accept any liability. Simply assuming that all the units will remain the right was round, or be joined in the right order every time, would be naive on the part of the train operator.

 

 

Talking of Didcot, when I was there last they'd made a very good start on a system showing which bit of platform each coach would be at for IETs, in the manner of some other European countries.

 

I don't know if this is a trial and the idea is to roll out to other stations, and if they do it whether it will make it to 'foreign' stations such as Newport and points west.

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I was once on a train (A class 144) coming out of Leeds and we were misrouted down past Holbeck Shed.  The driver rang the signalman, changed ends and we set off up the Wellington curve and back on our route to Morley.   Such unexpected reversals can happen for the strangest of reasons.   However I would suspect that if the diagrams have been designed to keep units the right way round then it should be fairly easy for someone to sit down and do a bit of analysis and work out if a pattern is emerging and suggest a course of action to get things back on the right track (Pun noted)

 

Jamie

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Why didn't they put the first class in the middle so it doesn't matter which way round the set is running? Orientation doesn't matter when the trains are symmetrical.

 

Geoff Endacott

In the days when cars had side corridors, that solution might have been more acceptable. But the open saloon layout now universally adopted needs to restrict the passage of thieves, vagabonds and the great unwashed, in search of a seat in the steerage, through those sections of the train where people have paid a lot more to avoid such vulgar incursions. Whether the existing 8xx design has mastered that is another matter, of course.
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Why didn't they put the first class in the middle so it doesn't matter which way round the set is running? Orientation doesn't matter when the trains are symmetrical.

 

Geoff Endacott

 

 

That would have taken some planning . . . a skill which DaFT seem to be lacking . . .

 

John

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