EMU cascade what happens after crossrail & Thameslink

[gronk the shunter]

After the recent electrification announcements there hasn't been any speculation or comment on what new trains if any will be needed. When the lancashire triangle and the GW elec schemes were announced it was said that they would use 319 emu's displaced by thameslink and rebuilt/refurbished with air con etc and a very small build of desiro's.

Now there's to be a great deal more lines to be electrified what emu's will be provided? Not knowing much about crossrail, will it displace other emu's from LTS or anglia? Is there any hope bombardier in derby might get new orders out of these latest schemes or will there be enough stock to cascade around the regions?

[chrisf]

Crossrail's new fleet will render some 315s redundant. Thameslink will displace 86 319s for cascading but their 377s will return to Southern, which by then will be part of the same franchise anyway. I doubt that there will be enough sets available to resource all the lines to be wired so there would be some new build. What I do fear, perhaps needlessly, is that the stock to be used in the Valleys will resemble Tyne and Wear Metro cars!

 

Chris

[Claude_Dreyfus]

My vote for the class 319s is that they are cascaded straight to the scrap yard! By the time the new Thamslink units are available they will be pushing 25 years old, and have not been well maintained over the last few years...some of them resemble mobile scrap-heaps at present.

[Glorious NSE]

On the contrary, I think there's been *loads* of speculation!

 

So far as I can see, Crossrail and Thameslink projects will free up:

 

377s currently with FCC (odds on these will go to Southern though)

321s currently with FCC

319s currently with FCC

317s currently with FCC

I don't *think* it will free up the 365s or the 313s with FCC

It will free up *some* of the 315s currently with Greater Anglia

360s currently with Heathrow Connect

 

I think one of the key questions is timing, will enough 319s have been released to allow them to be used on the first electrification projects, or will there have to be some kind of newbuild just to tide it over with the 319s then finding different new homes...

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Yes, the 377s are being leased from Southern - both the 377/5s and (I think 3) 377/2s. Once the new stock is in place they will be 'nominally' returned to Southern, a bit of a moot point as the franchises are being merged in any event.

[Karhedron]

The PEP derived stock will be pushing 40 years old by the time Crossrail is complete, well due for retirement. They have bucket seats, no toilets and are AC only so they do not have any of the factors that the 319s have that might give them a bit of longevity.

 

Only a cynic would expect to see such old stock pushed on the poor folk of the Valleys. So I fully expect to see 315s in Arriva Wales livery in 5 years time.

[gronk the shunter]

I suppose the question is how long do the dft expect or believe the 313/315 and 317/319/321 fleet can realistically run for. I read somewhere that they were referred to by government as "modern designs" yet by the time these lines are electrified they'll all be 30+ years old. How nice it would be to have a rolling stock strategy. It looks as though the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

['CHARD]

The Greater Thameslink consultation document requires potential bidders to make proposals regarding the return of 'rolling stock' to its respective leasing company. In this sense, DfT is putting the ball 'in the market's court' to decide what happens to cascaded stock, rather than dictating it. Eversholt's 315s do look particularly vulnerable, and whilst the 313s look to become one of the longest-lived classes in BR history I suspect they would be candidates for replacement with a new build of Capitalstars (Class 378), as and when TfL move to bring the low level lines to Moorgate and Old Street into the Overground family.

[Clay Country]

I'm sure I read somewhere there was a structural integrity issue with the 313/314/315 fleets that makes further life-extension uneconomic. As has already been mentioned, these will certainly be ready for retirement by the end of the decade. As for the 319s, the contract for the Desiro City sets hasn't even been signed yet, so I reckon there's a good chance dmus will be rattling around on newly-electrified lines in the north-west in a couple of years' time.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Pure supposition of course, but I would suspect the Southern class 313s would be vulnerable to the cascading of the class 377s from FCC once the new stock is delivered. As I understand it the 313s were a short-term replacement for the 377/5s being 'loaned' to FCC. Then again, in the tradition of the vagaries of DafT, we could still have them in 10 years time!

[Ron Ron Ron]

I wonder if the Heathrow Connect 360's will go to live with their siblings in East Anglia?

 

There's widespread speculation that the Welsh Valleys will get some of the vintage AC stock, rather than new build trains.

 

 

 

[John M Upton]

One thing that has been mooted is in 2020 when the Greater Thameslink franchise is expected to end and the new longer one begins (although the chances are even money that DaFT will change their minds several times, consistent they are not!) is that the current Southern 'Metro' operations in South London will be transferred to Overground. A new build of 378's could then replace by then life expired first batch 455's and allow 377's to be cascaded to further strengthen Southern main line services whilst the 377/3's see the 313's off the premises once and for all.

 

One suggestion that was also made was that when the 23 Class 377/5's come back (assuming that there is anything left of them as with FCC they are getting completely trashed by graffiti and vandal morons at the moment and FCC seem to be in no way inclined to do anything about it) they could be reconfigured internally to Class 379 interior spec with lots of luggage space and made dedicated Gatwick Express stock which in turn would see off the 442's which although nice are utterly hopeless for GatEx operations with the amount of ever increasing (both in terms of amounts and sheer size) of luggage that they are required to carry.

 

As for the 319's, they will need to be stripped to the shell and chassis and rebuilt from the wheels up, most of them are little more than heavily thrashed wrecks now, the aforementioned very active of late graffiti morons doing nothing to help either. New build may be a more preferable option in the long term.

 

The major hold up at the moment is the new Thameslink stock or rather lack of it. Thanks to Government fannying about there is still no sign of any movement on this and the first units were supposed to have been delivered and in service last year!! At the current rate there will be a very nice state of the art EMUD at Three Bridges and nothing to put in it....

[Glorious NSE]

I wonder if the Heathrow Connect 360's will go to live with their siblings in East Anglia?

 

It's an interesting, odd, very non-standard, small fleet, being 5x 5 car sets, so i'm not sure how eager they would be to take on odd-sized sets.

 

I did wonder whether they would just relocate to Heathrow-Reading services, but I doubt that connection will be open by the time they are made redundant from Heathrow Connect.

 

I suppose they could make them more standard by knocking a trailer out (which could be put in a newbuild Desiro, say for TPX?) though, in which case Greater Anglia might be more interested?

[The Stationmaster]

The simple answer to the original question is easy - lots of folk expecting a shiny new electrified railway are going to find themselves landed with secondhand, distinctly tatty, emus (and wonder what they've done to deserve them). I'm not the keenest bunny on the hillside when it comes to 165s and 166s (our current local fare) but I'd sooner have a recently refurbished version of either instead of a 319 and I suspect lots of folk paying Thames Valley commuter season ticket prices will think the same.

[gronk the shunter]

Mike I think you're completely right there. Up here us simple Northern folk are looking forward to our new improved electric railway and smart new trains, getting rid of the old 150's and 142's that have been here for 25 years. What we'll get though is a load of old tat in a new paint job. The 319's are not much better than a 150 from my (albeit limited) experience of them. History repeats itself yet again. We had clapped out 30 year old 305's and 309's in the 1990's, off loaded, sorry cascaded from NSE and soon(ish) we'll get more 30 year old NSE rejects!

['CHARD]

I wonder if the Heathrow Connect 360's will go to live with their siblings in East Anglia?

 

Bear in mind, these units are owned, not leased, by British Airports Authority.

[Ron Ron Ron]

Bear in mind, these units are owned, not leased, by British Airports Authority.

 

Indeed, but will the BAA have any use for them after Crossrail is up and running?

Heathrow - Reading shuttles perhaps?

There aren't enough HEX 332's to extend through to Reading.

['CHARD]

Heathrow Express will continue to run alongside Crossrail, but as I understand it, the Crossrail diagrams will remove the Heathrow Connect portion of that operator. So unless BAA moves them to another airport link, they'll probably sell them on...

[Ron Ron Ron]

Heathrow Express will continue to run alongside Crossrail, but as I understand it, the Crossrail diagrams will remove the Heathrow Connect portion of that operator. So unless BAA moves them to another airport link, they'll probably sell them on...

 

See my post above yours.

If the Heathrow - Reading shuttles are to be run by HEX, then the Connect 360's would be needed there, or to bolster HEX services if the trains run through.

On the other hand, if the Heathrow - Reading link becomes an extension of Crossrail, or is run by the GW franchise, then the 360's will be surplus to requirements.

 

Remind me what happens to the Central area (T1, 2 & 3) to T4 shuttle once Crossrail starts?

At present one 360 is dedicated to this each day IIRC.

 

 

 

 

[black and decker boy]

I think one of the railway mags recently had a piece on tailing the old dc traction kit off a 317 that is now in storage and fitting new ac traction kit. I think it was Alston but may be bombardier. The idea being to type test and prove a business's case so that the 317 and sister fleets can be so treated for dumping in the poorer regions, apologies, cascading to the north and Wales

 

Anything has to be better than 142s and what was wrong with the 305/309s? They filled a gap

[scorpion]

its not a case of anything is better than a 142, i use pacers daily and it could be a lot worse.

 

a 313/315 fitted with high back seats and every window is a blank panel will not be welcomed as an improvement on a unit where every seat has a view

 

i'm sure most of the pacer denigrators don't actually travel on them

[gronk the shunter]

Pacers aren't as bad as they're made out to be, good things about the pacers is the view from every seat, and even when full don't feel claustrophobic due to the low backed seats and the amount of glass and ventilation. It's the bouncy ride and the wheel squeal that's the problem in my opinion. The ride is better on a 150 but not much else.

[5944]

319s are mechanically and electrically a lot better than they used to be. There's been a lot of work done on the doors and the traction side of them. The less said about the interiors and exteriors the better! But that is down to where they are used. The interiors get graffitied regularly, and even set on fire at times. There isn't the inclination to keep sorting them out because they're being cascaded soon. At least, that's the impression I get. At Hornsey, we get a couple of units per week for C or D exams, the lesser exams being done at Bedford Cauldwell. They're not "our" units so there isn't the pride in maintaining them like there is with the 313s, 317s, 321s and 365s.

 

No mention of 313 replacements yet. There's not a lot else that fits down the tunnels to Moorgate! It'll be interesting to see what Merseyrail's new units look like, and whether they'll be of restricted gauge and usable on NCL. There was some talk a couple of years ago of Hitachi fitting a new traction package to both 313s and 365s, but that seems to have gone quiet.

[lmsforever]

Seems as though DAFT are working a flanker on the TOC,s that are being electrified this is not good enough and looking at a photograph on here of said units I pity any passenger who gets to ride on them.When will someone take control of the civil servants who seem to run our railways?

[Karhedron]

No mention of 313 replacements yet. There's not a lot else that fits down the tunnels to Moorgate!

I wonder if the new London Overground units would work. They seem to work well on other ex-313 routes.