I.E.P.

[jjb1970]

Although I hate the process that sits behind the procurement of the IEP I am keeping an open mind about the train itself. Hitachi know how to build a train and they are clearly very serious about the British market, it'll be in interesting to see if they can secure orders for their more prosaic EMU's that they've announced.

[DaveF]

Good point, but ... I was thinking that if you are getting on at a station without a Greggs (etc.), then you're more likely than not getting on a stopping service, or a commuter train, in which case, you probably aren't going to be on the train for long, and so finding a seat may be more of an issue than finding the buffet? And, quite frankly, if someone can't go without a cup of coffee for a hour or so, it's high time they bought a thermos.

 

For the second issue, get a reusable insulated cup and decant the coffee from the station cafe into it ... sorted. No burnt fingers :-)

 

For myself, buffets and trolleys are secondary issues, I'd far rather know I'll probably find a seat, that there will be room to stow my bag, and that most of the windows will line up with the seats so I don't feel like I'm in an isolation room. If there isn't a buffet, there isn't a buffet. I can manage without, or I'll bring a flask.

 

 

In theory I agree with this, but the nearest station to me at which long distance services stop (i.e. to London, the south west etc) has no buffet, no shop and is only staffed for a few hours each morning.

 

The nearest shop of any description is over 0.5 miles away.

 

The joys of living in a slightly more remote part of England.

 

So it is nice when the train has some form of refreshment service.

 

David

[Coach bogie]

I think there are two sides of train catering. Restaurant services and buffet services. The BR breakfast was a great British institution and one of the best breakfasts you could get. I found BR restaurant services superb and on the rare occasions I've sampled GW restaurant services I hae found those excellent too. However they were/are expensive and probably beyond what most people paying their own bill are willing to pay.

 

For buffet services, nowadays when many large stations have a Sainsburys or M&S Food or Tesco Express or whatever nearby or in the station which has a massively wider choice at much cheaper prices than a buffet car or trolley then the only reason I can see for using the buffet is if you're really parched and forgot to buy a drink before boarding.

 I agree for modest journeys but on a 7 hour journey from Kings Cross to Aberdeen (from someone who did this on a regular basis for two years) the trolley was very welcome.

 

MW

[The Stationmaster]

I think there are two sides of train catering. Restaurant services and buffet services. The BR breakfast was a great British institution and one of the best breakfasts you could get. I found BR restaurant services superb and on the rare occasions I've sampled GW restaurant services I hae found those excellent too. However they were/are expensive and probably beyond what most people paying their own bill are willing to pay.

 

 

I wouldn't call the FGW breakfast 'expensive' to be honest as it compares fairly well for value with the breakfast you can get in some of the big chains e.g. Cafe Rouge do a sort of 'full English' for £7.95 while the FGW equivalent is £8.50 and in my experience (of both) is considerably better value for money (in fact Cafe Rouge have despec'd their breakfast and it isn't now such good value as it was a year or so back) ,  Wetherspoons don't seem to quote a price on line for their breakfasts but the last time I looked I think they were £1 cheaper than Cafe Rouge for the nearest equivalent however the quality of neither of them is on a par - again in my experience - with FGW's offering from their Travelling Chef service.

[Southernman46]

All rather academic atm as the IEP doesn't fit (technically) into a great many of the GWML's platforms (yet)..............

[Xerces Fobe2]

All rather academic atm as the IEP doesn't fit (technically) into a great many of the GWML's platforms (yet)..............

Doh!

[jjb1970]

I wouldn't call the FGW breakfast 'expensive' to be honest as it compares fairly well for value with the breakfast you can get in some of the big chains e.g. Cafe Rouge do a sort of 'full English' for £7.95 while the FGW equivalent is £8.50 and in my experience (of both) is considerably better value for money (in fact Cafe Rouge have despec'd their breakfast and it isn't now such good value as it was a year or so back) ,  Wetherspoons don't seem to quote a price on line for their breakfasts but the last time I looked I think they were £1 cheaper than Cafe Rouge for the nearest equivalent however the quality of neither of them is on a par - again in my experience - with FGW's offering from their Travelling Chef service.

 

That does seem pretty good value, last time I ate in a FGW restaurant car it was very good but I remember thinking it was good but also expensive. Maybe my mind is playing tricks or something. I remember the "last call for dinner" etc announcements on BR when it was a way of travelling part of the journey in first class to have a meal on the train. 

 

Something which must have affected restaurant services badly is the way the country has effectively shrunk. Not geographically but in terms of journey times some Inter-City routes like London - Bristol and London - Birmingham are now almost commuter services. 

[Ramblin Rich]

I don't understand why the floor levels are different, surely it would be easier to design & build all the coaches with the same (higher) floor level? Will there be a premium for sitting on ones with better head room?

Just thought, is the lower floor level needed for the pantograph well....?

[Glorious NSE]

You presumably need the lower level by the doors to reduce how much steppage is involved in getting on the thing...

[Heed]

I heard that the higher level is to fit the engines under.

[Ramblin Rich]

I heard that the higher level is to fit the engines under.

Yes, I saw that info further up, just thought it strange to have different floor levels in different coaches. Martyn's comment about door levels is understood but still think it's a bizarre arrangement, especially as other high speed DMUs manage with flat floors (Voyagers, Adelantes) - is there really that much more to fit into IEP?

[Titan]

Is it in order to fit all the extra gubbins required in order to comply with the latest Euro emissions standards? There was some discussion about how there will be no more new locomotives as no-one has yet found out how to fit it all within the UK loading gauge, maybe this is the solution for IEP?

[Xerces Fobe2]

This project has all the hallmarks of a failure waiting to be delivered. Don't scrap any HST's yet we might need.them for a few more years yet!

 

The perfect storm is brewing where Hitachi delivery the train fully compliant to the DaFT specifications but is is not up to the job. Meanwhile large swathes of the GWML are bereft of any OHLE with a few more years.until it's completion.

 

The TOCs decide that these trains are expensive and not up to the job and demand subsidies from DaFT to operate them. Meanwhile numerous diesel engine failures seriously reduce the availability of IEP fleet

 

Think this could never happen will look at Breda's tribulations with rolling stock in various parts of the World over the last 15 years or so!

 

XF

[david.hill64]

There is just the small possibility that IEP may result in some serious competition on the ECML and possibly GWML. If I was an open access operator I would be licking my lips at the thought of a fleet of 91's and mark 4 coaches being available for a lease rental charge that is being reported as possibly only 25% of that of the IEP. If paths are made available there could be difficult times ahead for the franchise operators.

[Reorte]

We might not like it, and as one who had the privilege of full breakfast served in Mk3s on the West Coast several times I know that on train dining is a special experience, but the sheer number of people now travelling, and that's before the "sparks effect" on the GW, mean we have to change our views. I'm not particularly looking forward to the changes, to masts and wires, the architecture (if it can be called that!) at Newport, Reading etc is brutal, but at the same time the investment which is going in to the railway now is amazing. IEP won't be HST2, that may be a shame, but we could have had a Serpell Report sized railway by now...

There's all that investment but if it's all going into that list of things then I've had enough of it to be honest. "We might not like it", well, I certainly don't. When "progress" is making the whole experience rather less pleasant (even if nominally more functional, not that I had much of an issue with that anyway) then to hell with it. I miss the days when I was excited and not depressed by the future.

[Ron Ron Ron]

.......Not geographically but in terms of journey times some Inter-City routes like London - Bristol and London - Birmingham are now almost commuter services. 

 

 

On the GWML, Bristol and points east, to London is widely considered to be a mainly outer-suburban commuter market these days.

 

 

I don't understand why the floor levels are different, surely it would be easier to design & build all the coaches with the same (higher) floor level? Will there be a premium for sitting on ones with better head room?

 

I've read elsewhere that the height of the "raised floor" in the motor vehicles, is virtually the same as the height of the floor in MK3 & Mk4 coaches.

The standard (lower) floor height is lower than the existing Mk3 &4

 

I don't know is this can be verified by reference to any documents or press statements?

 

 

.

[The Stationmaster]

On the GWML, Bristol and points east, to London is widely considered to be a mainly outer-suburban commuter market these days.

 

.

In many respects it is, but that is only during the peaks.  The rest of the time, and to some extent during the peaks, it is competing with other modes for business traffic, leisure travel, and people who simply want to get from A to B for whatever reason.  For many of these travellers (and for a reasonable chunk of the commuter market as well) the GWML is in heavy competition with other modes but particularly the parallel M4 and the attractions of the 'personal travel capsule' - my personal travel capsule doesn't allow me to eat & drink or pay much attention to the scenery enroute but it is comfortable, has air conditioning and a radio/cd player, and is reasonably economical as I'm only looking at marginal costs when using it.

 

To compete with that a train has to offer at least the same and preferably more - for me the 'more' is a comfy seat where I can relax, ready access to decent food & drink, and a chance to read in comfort or view the passing scenery.  If I don't get that then my choice of an alternative to my personal travel capsule is constrained and I might not go for it.  (Oh and the only reason I ever seem to have for travelling to Bristol is 'leisure', travel to South Wales can be for other reasons as well, as can travel to the West of England.  As these have until recent times been served by what is largely a common train fleet overall costs of that fleet can be spread across the routes.  

 

Electrification will remove part of that commonality but to then further sub-divide on the basis of market difference in respect of Bristol and South Wales strikes me - as someone with direct past operational experience of those routes and train fleet - as one of the better ways of blowing very big holes in both feet.  Meanwhile whither Cheltenham/Cotswolds passengers - the A40 isn't that bad and the M4 isn't that far away for many of them!

[The Stationmaster]

I think this discussion or something like it could still have been taking place even if Serpell had been acted upon as what we are talking about is, by and large, huge sums of money which we don't necessarily have being lavished on what is pretty much the Serpell rump anyway. Given ongoing cost increases of equipment, the railway's "Cash card" largely maxed out these days and interest rates which are at an unrealistic and unsustainable low I see Serpell as being an issue to beware of just as much of the future than of the past.  

Having done a lot of practical work on Serpell I get the impression that currently the national network's infrastructure is heading in precisely the opposite directions.  As far as the Western is concerned none of the additional singling in Cornwall which I assessed & suggested has happened, and indeed one bit of past singling has been re-doubled.  The dequadrification of Filton Bank (pre-Serpell of course) is being reversed, the dequadrification from Newport to Cardiff hasn't happened, singling in West Wales hasn't happened, singling between Gloucester and South Wales hasn't happened nor has additional singllng between Oxford & Worcester (where it has in fact gone the other way with more reinstated double line).

 

The difference between Serpell then and network now is that there has been a vast increase in passenger journeys which has meant changes to infrastructure and putting back what was taken out.  Thus many of the Serpell cost saving proposals have simply vanished, they can only be regained by forcing people off the railway and onto the roads.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I thought the Northern consultation was more about reducing service frequencies on less busy lines to free up DMUs to provide extra capacity elsewhere. Kind of along the lines of 'you have 100 DMUs to play with, how do you best plan to use them?'.

 

As for the IEP floor heights, this link talks of 100mm difference for the driving/diesel powered vehicles: http://www.dca-design.com/images/content/pdfs/RailMag_April14_IEP-MockUpReveal.pdf

 

I'm pretty certain I've been on meter gauge EMUs in Slovakia with different floor heights within the same vehicle, which was noticeable. But 100mm would be a slight ramp in the vestibule/bogie area.  

[Ron Ron Ron]

.... But 100mm would be a slight ramp in the vestibule/bogie area.  

 

It is just that. A  very slight ramp in the vestibule and end of vehicle area (just under 4" in old money).

 

As the higher level is on a par with the floor level in Mk3 & Mk4 coaches, this gentle ramp effectively replaces the step up from the platform to door level in those older coaches.

 

Only those who have seen the mock-up can judge at this stage.

 

 

.

[Reorte]

So why not just have all the vehicles at that height?

[Budgie]

because then they would not match the platform height.

[Grovenor]

Check the PRM TSI regulations, they have quite a bit to say about the permissible gaps between platform and vehicle threshold, and new vehicle designs are required to comply.
Keith

[kenw]

Will the new franchiesies on the ECML have to use this awful train or will they be able to retain the IC225,s ?

Erm, why would they want to retain the 225s?

 

It was notable that other operators who it was suggested would have these foistered off on, oops sorry 'cascaded', were prompt in saying 'no thanks'

[Hesperus]

Erm, why would they want to retain the 225s?

Because as well as being fast, comfortable trains with powered doors it sounds like they are going to be far cheaper to lease than their replacements.