Class 800 - Updates

[Coryton]

Looks like it will be going ahead

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/strategic-vision-for-rail

Who gets custody of the west of England sets?

 

Interesting.

 

So the GWR 800's get split between two operators.

 

And the current GWR franchise to be extended to 2022. I didn't realise you could extend franchises this long without re-tendering.

[Siberian Snooper]

Are the 800s managing to maintain HST timings, now that the dust is settling or are they still regularly losing time?

[Gilbert]

Are the 800s managing to maintain HST timings, now that the dust is settling or are they still regularly losing time?

Train I saw was about 20 late I think

[RJS1977]

To be as much as 20 late suggests some issue other than slow acceleration - either some other issue with the train (e.g. a door fault), or else something completely external to the train (tresspass/vandalism, signal/point issues, pathing issues etc).

 

Incidentally GWR have recently published a comparison of HST and 800 acceleration from a standing start to Facebook:

 

https://www.facebook.com/gwruk/videos/10154938846011806/

[JeffP]

One or two comments on there saying that ws a setup. Indeed, the HST looked to be taking it steady.

[Zomboid]

I don't think anyone would dispute that 800s are faster from a standing start, and probably at all parts of the speed range on electric.

The concern has always been above about 50-60 whilst on diesel power. Which that video isn't going to do anything to address.

[D854_Tiger]

Looks like it will be going ahead

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/strategic-vision-for-rail

Who gets custody of the west of England sets?

 

 

The idea is to encourage some competition and splitting the WoE from the GW could achieve that to places like Exeter, maybe Plymouth and Bristol (via Westbury) to London or perhaps a similar arrangement to the West Coast Main Line where LNW will provided the secondary services and lower but slower (or maybe not so slow) fares.

[D854_Tiger]

One or two comments on there saying that ws a setup. Indeed, the HST looked to be taking it steady.

 

Actually it looks about right to me but I suspect that clip is being highly selective and it's what happens over ten minutes that might be a fairer comparison.

 

But fair play to GW nothing wrong with a bit of hype if the normals are happy to buy into it.

[Covkid]

The idea is to encourage some competition and splitting the WoE from the GW could achieve that to places like Exeter, maybe Plymouth and Bristol (via Westbury) to London or perhaps a similar arrangement to the West Coast Main Line where LNW will provided the secondary services and lower but slower (or maybe not so slow) fares.

 

 

The DfT have spent the last few years building the Great Western franchise through amalgamating Wessex LTV and the HSS services, finally giving it a unifying new livery. It is something the public are getting used to as well as the staff, and that is the most important part - give the customer brand awareness.

 

Then good ole DfT rip it all apart. In my view it is bonkers 

[D854_Tiger]

The DfT have spent the last few years building the Great Western franchise through amalgamating Wessex LTV and the HSS services, finally giving it a unifying new livery. It is something the public are getting used to as well as the staff, and that is the most important part - give the customer brand awareness.

 

Then good ole DfT rip it all apart. In my view it is bonkers 

It was Labour's idea to have just one TOC per London terminus.

 

New broom remember.

 

Speaking for the West Midlands, I doubt we would now want to give up the three operators that are about to compete for our London fares.

 

Then compete they do, when I arrive at Birmingham International all I can see are Chiltern posters telling me I can get the same thing cheaper form Warwick Parkway.

[The Stationmaster]

To be as much as 20 late suggests some issue other than slow acceleration - either some other issue with the train (e.g. a door fault), or else something completely external to the train (tresspass/vandalism, signal/point issues, pathing issues etc).

 

Incidentally GWR have recently published a comparison of HST and 800 acceleration from a standing start to Facebook:

 

https://www.facebook.com/gwruk/videos/10154938846011806/

 

And now show us the start to pass times Chippenham to Wootton Bassett and the relative speeds at Wootton Bassett Incline.  And that HST was starting away remarkably steadily for whatever reason (Driver told to?).

 

As for splitting off a Devon & Cornwall TOC I am fascinated to learn that DafT are now keen to increase railway managerial costs and timetabling complexity in the West Country - more daft ideas from DafT.

[Geoff Endacott]

Maybe the local and long distance services can have one track each from Exeter to Plymouth. The long distance services (with the Voyagers) can have the dry side through Dawlish and the local trains can have the wet side.

 

Geoff Endacott

[Coryton]

The DfT have spent the last few years building the Great Western franchise through amalgamating Wessex LTV and the HSS services, finally giving it a unifying new livery. It is something the public are getting used to as well as the staff, and that is the most important part - give the customer brand awareness.

 

Then good ole DfT rip it all apart. In my view it is bonkers 

 

It is rather like Education, where things rarely have a chance to settle down before the next change comes in.

 

It's interesting that the document makes the point (three times I think) that service reductions and line closures happened under British Rail. I would argue that available funding, increases in car ownership and competition from buses had far more to do with it than whether the railways were nationalised or privatised. (Although that is how quite a few people seem to see it - British Rail was so stupid that it cut services and stopped people using trains and the nice privatised ones are buying new trains and opening lines...)

[Coryton]

Maybe the local and long distance services can have one track each from Exeter to Plymouth. The long distance services (with the Voyagers) can have the dry side through Dawlish and the local trains can have the wet side.

 

Geoff Endacott

 

There used to be a line in Australia that really did work like that....but only because one was standard gauge and one broad gauge.

[D854_Tiger]

Maybe the local and long distance services can have one track each from Exeter to Plymouth. The long distance services (with the Voyagers) can have the dry side through Dawlish and the local trains can have the wet side.

 

Geoff Endacott

 

The only dry side for Voyagers is east of Exeter.

[D854_Tiger]

There used to be a line in Australia that really did work like that....but only because one was standard gauge and one broad gauge.

 

There used to be a few GWR ones as well.

 

Oh crikey better not give them ideas.

[royaloak]

No need to get touchy. A simple "GWR don't do this" would suffice if you feel it needs mentioning rather than that rather balshy reply.

 

I'm not assuming anything, I was talking generally, since I took the discussion to be a more general one about seat reservations.

In a thread specifically about the GWR 800s!

[phil-b259]

The idea is to encourage some competition and splitting the WoE from the GW could achieve that to places like Exeter, maybe Plymouth and Bristol (via Westbury) to London or perhaps a similar arrangement to the West Coast Main Line where LNW will provided the secondary services and lower but slower (or maybe not so slow) fares.

 

FFS

 

99.999999% of competition that goes on with respect to train travel is with other modes - i.e. THE MOTOR CAR, and to a lesser extent bus / coach and plane. We do not 'need' more 'rail on rail' competition to make things better. As the Gibb report on the GTR situation back in the Summer noted all it usually does is eat up paths that NR needs to allow maintenance to take place or to act as 'firebreaks' and give the timetable half a chance of returning to normal after incidents.

 

Moreover passengers generally couldn't give a sod about WHO operates their trains and providing even more 'options' will do nothing to ease confusion of ticket validity or produce significantly lower fares.

 

By all means divide the service groups into 'slow' and fast services if that is what produces the best outcome in timetabling, but don't id yourself that splitting them amongst two 'competing' TOCs will actually improve matters - whatever the minister and his minions may claim.

[Zomboid]

It's a thread about 800s. Much of the chatter has been about the GWR ones, but ECML and TPE 800/801/802s are all on topic here, too...

[Coryton]

FFS

 

99.999999% of competition that goes on with respect to train travel is with other modes - i.e. THE MOTOR CAR, and to a lesser extent bus / coach and plane. We do not 'need' more 'rail on rail' competition to make things better. As the Gibb report on the GTR situation back in the Summer noted all it usually does is eat up paths that NR needs to allow maintenance to take place or to act as 'firebreaks' and give the timetable half a chance of returning to normal after incidents.

 

Moreover passengers generally couldn't give a sod about WHO operates their trains and providing even more 'options' will do nothing to ease confusion of ticket validity or produce significantly lower fares.

 

By all means divide the service groups into 'slow' and fast services if that is what produces the best outcome in timetabling, but don't id yourself that splitting them amongst two 'competing' TOCs will actually improve matters - whatever the minister and his minions may claim.

 

Also, given how few opportunities there are with the current system to introduce competition, you could argue that we need other mechanisms to ensure value for money for passengers and if they are effective we shouldn't need competition.

 

It's all very well to bring the benefits of competition to - say - passengers travelling to Bristol because the West Country trains pass that way, but it's not much use for people going to Wales.

 

Maybe we could have competing companies running the Night Riviera and you choose which night to travel depending on which offers the better service?

[royaloak]

And now show us the start to pass times Chippenham to Wootton Bassett and the relative speeds at Wootton Bassett Incline.  And that HST was starting away remarkably steadily for whatever reason (Driver told to?).

 

As for splitting off a Devon & Cornwall TOC I am fascinated to learn that DafT are now keen to increase railway managerial costs and timetabling complexity in the West Country - more daft ideas from DafT.

The Bristol route is very leisurely timed so there is no need to gun the HSTs, nice easy acceleration will still see the train arriving on time or slightly early at each station so why gun it just to sit in the next platform waiting 5 minutes for departure time.

 

That video only shows that a gently accelerating HST is slower off the mark than an 800 given full throttle from a standing start, woopy doodly doo, an 800 should be quicker off the mark than a HST regardless of how it is driven (that has never been in dispute) but get above 30mph and it will be even stevens speed wise (although the 800 will be in front courtesy of the faster acceleration from a standing start), but from 40mph onwards the HST will soon catch and overtake the 800 and disappear off into the distance.

 

If somebody could show me a video of them both doing 40mph and then going onto full throttle lets see the result, that is where the acceleration is needed but the 800s dont have it.

 

All the (reliably) timed runs I have seen show the 800 getting away quite sharpish with the engines supplying the full 700kW/940hp but above 30mph the engine electronics are set to run back to 560kW/700hp and so where you actually need the grunt to maintain the acceleration it isnt available and the 800s are normally 15 to 20mph slower than a HST would be expected to be running at.at the same location.

 

Another glorious example of smoke and mirrors to make it appear the 800s are quicker than they actually are.

 

As for the Devon and Cornwall franchise, they have to give all those Civil Servants something to do to warrant all the jobs, next time round they will stick it all back together again, the franchise process is nothing more than a job creation scheme at the DaFT, unfortunately it is the Railways, passengers and tax payers who have to stump up the cash for it.

Edited November 29, 2017 by royaloak

[jim.snowdon]

Actually it looks about right to me but I suspect that clip is being highly selective and it's what happens over ten minutes that might be a fairer comparison.

 

But fair play to GW nothing wrong with a bit of hype if the normals are happy to buy into it.

It isn't entirely fair to expect a train with series-wound DC traction motors to be comparable to one that will have inverter-fed variable frequency/variable voltage AC traction motors. There are significant differences in the power:speed and tractive effort:speed characteristics. In particular, for a DC traction motor to deliver high tractive effort at high speed there has to be a trade off against low speed tractive effort. It's a bit like riding a bicycle with only one gear.

 

Jim

[Siberian Snooper]

According to the spotlight news, the plan for a separate Devon and Cornwall franchise for the branch lines has now been binned. A good job to. There's also the possibility of reopening the Okehampton, but no folding stuff to fund it. No chance of going further as the costs have gone up by a large amount. "No numbers though ".

[D854_Tiger]

FFS

 

99.999999% of competition that goes on with respect to train travel is with other modes - i.e. THE MOTOR CAR, and to a lesser extent bus / coach and plane. We do not 'need' more 'rail on rail' competition to make things better. As the Gibb report on the GTR situation back in the Summer noted all it usually does is eat up paths that NR needs to allow maintenance to take place or to act as 'firebreaks' and give the timetable half a chance of returning to normal after incidents.

 

Moreover passengers generally couldn't give a sod about WHO operates their trains and providing even more 'options' will do nothing to ease confusion of ticket validity or produce significantly lower fares.

 

By all means divide the service groups into 'slow' and fast services if that is what produces the best outcome in timetabling, but don't id yourself that splitting them amongst two 'competing' TOCs will actually improve matters - whatever the minister and his minions may claim.

 

 

I wasn't necessarily promoting the idea myself just repeating the government's stated intention or maybe I should say Grayling's stated intention.

 

However I would state that there are a surprising number of people nowadays for whom modal choice doesn't really exist.

 

A lot of older people who can't or won't contemplate long car journeys which, in any case, can be so horribly congested as to be unworkable.

 

As for the coach, it can compete on price but that price usually comes at a price.

 

My mom recently had to get to Southampton for a cruise and ruled out the just one National Express direct coach per day as totally impracticable and it wasn't much cheaper either.

 

The railway offered two trains an hour to choose from.

[37114]

To be as much as 20 late suggests some issue other than slow acceleration - either some other issue with the train (e.g. a door fault), or else something completely external to the train (tresspass/vandalism, signal/point issues, pathing issues etc).

 

Incidentally GWR have recently published a comparison of HST and 800 acceleration from a standing start to Facebook:

 

https://www.facebook.com/gwruk/videos/10154938846011806/

We were 15mins late leaving Paddington due to train fault then running well below line speed between Reading and Didcot. Train was 30mins down at Chippenham.