Class 800 - Updates

[St. Simon]

I've been checking Real Time Trains to follow the 800s on the Cotswold line.  Unfortunately, yesterday and today, 1W14 London Paddington to Great Malvern was terminated at Oxford.  1P25 Great Malvern to Paddington, which is formed from 1W14 at Great Malvern, started from Oxford.  The evening trains, 1W33 London Paddington to Great Malvern and 1P47 Great Malvern to London Paddington, were cancelled throughout.  I don't know anything about the cause of these cancellations, or even if they were planned in advance and not being shown on Real Time Trains.

 

Neat video on the GWR Twitter feed of a 10 coach train arriving at Swansea: https://twitter.com/GWRHelp/status/948641675307638785

 

The caption is "Today we ran the first Carmarthen to London Paddington Intercity Express Train and added more IETs for Swansea and Cardiff. These are providing 1,800 more seats a day between South Wales and London as we continue to introduce our #GWRNewTrains"

Hi,

 

Yesterday was cancelled probably due to OLE problems between Paddington and Slough I think (East of Reading anyway), whilst today was probably fallen trees or distruption on account of Storm Eleanor.

 

Simon

[Clearwater]

I'm due to be travelling to South Wales and back tomorrow. Are there particular services the 800 run on?

 

David

[jim.snowdon]

You should try Stornaway black pudding - it's even better than the English version.

 

Jim

[Ken.W]

We're rivet-counting the on-board breakfast that GWR offer?

Makes a change from talking in circles about their performance on diesel, I guess...

Rivets in it???

Ouch that thought makes the teeth shudder!

[Zomboid]

Black pudding is bad, but better than "white pudding", which I had in Northern Ireland (as part of a breakfast called an 'Ulster Fry').

I've no idea what it is, but I won't be having it again.

[DY444]

FWIW 1215 Padd-Cardiff on Wednesday (800008/800009) was the first IET service to depart Reading on AC carrying passengers. 

[Ron Ron Ron]

FWIW 1215 Padd-Cardiff on Wednesday (800008/800009) was the first IET service to depart Reading on AC carrying passengers. 

 

 

Which according to RTT, ran on time (slight delay approaching Wooton Bassett jct) and arrived in Cardiff 1 early.

 

 

 

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[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

Axle Counters now stable for the moment for all Electric Traction, fully electric operation, using my APCO site at Didcot can now commence in the near future.

 

EDIT: To correct timescales

 

Simon

Edited January 5, 2018 by St. Simon

[The Stationmaster]

Which according to RTT, ran on time (slight delay approaching Wooton Bassett jct) and arrived in Cardiff 1 early.

 

 

 

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.

 

Which it should have done of course as it had over 2 minutes in hand after departure from Newport.  The interesting things which come out of a close look of the timings is that it lost time in various places similar to those on earlier runs west of Swindon although it didn't lose time through the Severn Tunnel which is encouraging although oddly it seemed to lost time getting away from stops.  Once electrification reaches Parkway most of the time lost in running problems will be solved I think.

[JeffP]

Black pudding is bad, but better than "white pudding", which I had in Northern Ireland (as part of a breakfast called an 'Ulster Fry').

I've no idea what it is, but I won't be having it again.

White pudding or oatmeal pudding is a meat dish popular in Ireland,^[1]Scotland, Northumberland, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. White pudding is similar to black pudding, but does not include blood; it consists of pork meat and fat, suet, bread and oatmeal formed into a large sausage.^[2]Hog's pudding, made in Somerset, Cornwall and Devon, is similar, although it is much spicier as it contains black pepper, cumin, basil and garlic.

White pudding may be cooked whole or cut into slices and fried or grilled. It is an important feature of the traditional Irish breakfast.

 

I ate it in Cornwall while a student, (I still dream of those breakfasts at Mrs Jeffreys), and it's nice, I don't eat either black pudding or boudin, though....

[jjb1970]

Black pudding is one of those things that appears in many countries, sometimes called blood sausage. They do quite a nice variation in Bali, Indonesia. Although Indonesia is a Muslim country Bali wasn't an Islamic island and pork is popular there.

[Geoff Endacott]

What's with all this talk of black puddings? Is it the nickname for the Trans Pennine Class 802s?

 

Geoff Endacott

[Ken.W]

Further to my previous posts concerning the Inverness trial run, the more I hear of this performance was in fact quite dire, around 20mph less than an HST on the banks.

Opinion seems to be 'something will have to be done about them', whether that's uprating, or retaining HSTs

 

Also, regards the pathing problems I posted earlier relating to the Newcastle - Berwick section, with more additional services planned and 3-aspect signalling with 110 / 125running;

just to make this equation even more interesting, this (~67 mile) section also has 27 CCTV Level Crossings (and only 4 of which are in the ~20 miles south of Morpeth)

[Zomboid]

Further to my previous posts concerning the Inverness trial run, the more I hear of this performance was in fact quite dire, around 20mph less than an HST on the banks.

Opinion seems to be 'something will have to be done about them', whether that's uprating, or retaining HSTs

Electrify the Highland main line?

[jamesg]

An update from the Cotswold line today.  The morning class 800 (1W14 06:52 London Paddington to Great Malvern) ran without issue, just one or two minutes late at some stops.  The return (1P25 09:54 Great Malvern to London Paddington) was slightly late leaving Malvern, which turned into 15 minutes late at Worcester, 25 minutes late at Evesham (the northbound HST took the single line first) and 35 minutes late at Oxford.  There were lots of delays and cancellations on the route today, not helped by delays on the Westbury route into Worcester, so the return journey can't be considered normal.

 

I wonder if anyone has the number of the class 800 that operated 1W14 and 1P25 today?  It was 800011 on Tuesday.

[royaloak]

1W14 and 1P25 are both showing as 800011 on diagram NP105

[jamesg]

1W14 and 1P25 are both showing as 800011 on diagram NP105

Thanks; I'm surprised not to have seen anything in my Flickr feed from the local photographers, as this was the first working on the Cotswold line in good(ish) light.

[The Stationmaster]

Further to my previous posts concerning the Inverness trial run, the more I hear of this performance was in fact quite dire, around 20mph less than an HST on the banks.

Opinion seems to be 'something will have to be done about them', whether that's uprating, or retaining HSTs

 

Also, regards the pathing problems I posted earlier relating to the Newcastle - Berwick section, with more additional services planned and 3-aspect signalling with 110 / 125running;

just to make this equation even more interesting, this (~67 mile) section also has 27 CCTV Level Crossings (and only 4 of which are in the ~20 miles south of Morpeth)

 

Three aspect signalling isn;t really a problem with 125 mph running (until you have to put the brake in and then subsequently get a green on the next signal and have to get back up to speed of course) and all it really does is limit line capacity - which might turn into a problem at the northern end of the section perhaps?

 

Interesting, and maybe not entirely surprising, to hear what happened north of Perth.

[4630]

A link to a document detailing the 'IEP Train Technical Specification', which is in the public domain, has appeared on another forum.

 

I've not seen the document before and as it contains a significant amount of information regarding the Class 800, I thought it might be useful for others on this forum who may be interested.

 

The caveat, and there is always at least one, is that although the document is Issue 5 and is dated 19/07/12 and was the 'Formal Issue for Contract', there will have been some contract variations subsequent to the publication of this document.

 

So with that caveat in mind, enjoy!

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/82840/tts-redacted.pdf

Edited January 5, 2018 by 4630

[Arun Sharma]

I was on 800-014 this afternoon on the 10car 1247 DID-PAD which I gather started life in Swansea. My first ride on one of these and I was very impressed by the seating. Whilst the seats couldn't ever be described IMO as "soft", the seat swab length suited my buttock-knee length very well [as a one-time helicopter & FW pilot, one gets to know what's important in a seat!]. Additionally, the upright gave probably the best lumbar lordosis support [i.e., fitted my spinal curve] that I have ever experienced on a train. Clearly someone [?Hitachi] has been doing some useful ergonomics research in designing these seat units.

 

Granted my body envelope won't be the same as too many folk's but I was rather pleased with the comfortable journey.

[Clearwater]

I left Paddington on the 0815 to Cardiff and returned on the 1556 service. We were signalled to leave on time but ended up 15min late due to technical problems. Thought seat was comfortable and cabin was quiet - little external noise. Impressive acceleration under the wires out of Paddington.

 

Coming back was incident free save for the age it took to open the doors at Cardiff Central. Is the switch hard to find?

[Ron Ron Ron]

A link to a document detailing the 'IEP Train Technical Specification', which is in the public domain, has appeared on another forum.....

 

......The caveat, and there is always at least one, is that although the document is Issue 5 and is dated 19/07/12 and was the 'Formal Issue for Contract', there will have been some contract variations subsequent to the publication of this document.

 

So with that caveat in mind, enjoy!

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/82840/tts-redacted.pdf

 

In that version, you can clearly see how the originally specified requirement for 125 mph running on diesel power, has been removed from the bi-mode trains.

 

 

Section 3.8 (page 21)

 

  

The IEP Trains must have a maximum service speed of at least 125mph and shall be able to achieve that speed on the whole of the IEP Network.

The requirement to be able to operate at 125mph applies during operation in Standard Mode and Locomotive Hauled Mode. (i.e. dragged by a loco)

 

It is accepted that 125mph may not be achieved under the following circumstances: 

 

..... (9 bullets points here, detailing those circumstances, including)....

• in the case of an IEP Train containing Bi-mode IEP Units operating in Self Power Mode; 

 

 

 

 

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Edited January 5, 2018 by Ron Ron Ron

[4630]

In that version, you can clearly see how the originally specified requirement for 125 mph running on diesel power, has been removed from the bi-mode trains.

 

 

Section 3.8 (page 21)

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

I’m not going to second guess the engineering/cost/other reasons for that change, but if the specification had been left as shown in Issue 5, perhaps some of the operating issues that are now being raised would have been reduced or eliminated.

[Geoff Endacott]

So in order to keep to HST timings without the wires they will need to stick a Class 67 on the front. At least there are plenty to spare.

 

Geoff Endacott

[Ken.W]

Three aspect signalling isn;t really a problem with 125 mph running (until you have to put the brake in and then subsequently get a green on the next signal and have to get back up to speed of course) and all it really does is limit line capacity - which might turn into a problem at the northern end of the section perhaps?

 

Interesting, and maybe not entirely surprising, to hear what happened north of Perth.

Exactly, while with signal sections ~2 mile in length 125 running itself isn't a great issue, however, getting checked is

With as I posted earlier a substantial increase in services on this section being planned, with VTEC, TPE, ScR, and a new Open Access operation all wanting more services, the chances of being checked for a train ahead increase, particularly where there's different stopping patterns (already common), or 'catching the barriers' as they've had to be raised behind it as they've been down too long with the number of trains in each direction (and with 27 of them to be controlled)

So pathing issues, and being able to achieve them arriving from the north, become even more critical.

 

Incidentally, the number of LC's is the reason for this section having almost as many signal boxes as the rest of the ECML put together