Class 800 - Updates

[ess1uk]

There still is such talk according to Uncle Roger.

 

Jamie

And the MML Meridians?

[D854_Tiger]

Which is why Hitachi have upped the power the way they have, to give the impression of fantastic acceleration but when the train actually needs the power to maintain that acceleration the engines run back to the lethargic 700kW power rating.

 

I rather suspect Hitachi have upped the power the way they have to try and make up for a slight lack of electrification, rather than making some kind of impression.

 

When they have a watertight contract, upon which they are (seemingly) still largely delivering, I doubt they need to worry about making an impression, NR, the DfT and a somewhat p****d off TOC on the other hand ....

[D854_Tiger]

And the MML Meridians?

 

To quote Mr Grayling, the term used, when cancelling MML electrification, was brand new bi-modes.

 

Then we all know anything he has to say is.............. worth the paper it is written on.

[woodenhead]

If we are to look at the 800s so far delivered from a Hitachi perspective apart from the day 1 air con leak how reliable have these units been?

 

As 854_Tiger says, if Hitachi have delivered to specification then any under performance with regards acceleration is down to the NR failure to deliver an electric railway more so than the DFT getting the specification wrong.

 

IIRC - the plan was an electric GWML to Bristol/Swansea and somewhere in the SouthWest - beyond the wires in Devon and Cornwall 802s were the answer and beyond the wires in the rest of the UK was not a 125 railway operation.

 

That NR failed to get the wiring right isn't Hitachi's fault and even the DFT could be given some sway here that they had to find a solution that allowed the trains to be introduced when they were ready, address the massive overspend on the OHLE project and not have the embarrassment of brand new trains sitting in sidings waiting for the wiring to be completed and upsetting the Scottish Government who were expecting cascaded HSTs.

[159220]

I shall leave this here:  

 

800/0 Status update. 07/02/18 

 

001-004 - Hitachi Test Units, various locations.

005/006/008-025 - GWR Passenger Service. Total available units: 20 for a required 16 daily 

026/028/029 - Agility Trains West Acceptance/Mileage, Bristol. 

027/030-034 - Hitachi Commissioning, Doncaster.

007/035/036 - Hitachi Static Testing, Newton Aycliffe. Note. 007 still has small fuel tanks.

 

New diagrams start Monday - 4x5car units - expect 26/28 in service by Friday.

[Banger Blue]

800028 was out and about yesterday, it was on Reading TCD yesterday for Driver training.

[D854_Tiger]

And the MML Meridians?

 

P.S. A perfect cost effective solution that beggars belief as to why it is just not happening.

 

A much needed additional trailer coach, equipped with a pantograph for operation under the wires, and providing much needed extra capacity.

 

Mind you, those XC Voyagers might look a bit odd with an extra coach, not built with tilt profile, which I believe is the plan.

[jamie92208]

P.S. A perfect cost effective solution that beggars belief as to why it is just not happening.

 

A much needed additional trailer coach, equipped with a pantograph for operation under the wires, and providing much needed extra capacity.

 

Mind you, those XC Voyagers might look a bit odd with an extra coach, not built with tilt profile, which I believe is the plan.

 

Apparently it's not quite as simple as that as there is no inter vehicle wiring that can handle traction currents.  At the moment each coach is self contained but if the pantograph coach was in the centre of a 9 coach train then the coaches either side of it would have t carry the traction current for 5 and 4 cars respectively.  So do you put large capacity cables into each coach or gradually make them smaller.  Also the control equipment/switchgear will have to be added into each vehicle to accept the supplied current.  So it's not as simple as it sounds, however it is doable but at what cost.

 

Jamie

[Glorious NSE]

Apparently it's not quite as simple as that as there is no inter vehicle wiring that can handle traction currents.  At the moment each coach is self contained but if the pantograph coach was in the centre of a 9 coach train then the coaches either side of it would have t carry the traction current for 5 and 4 cars respectively.  So do you put large capacity cables into each coach or gradually make them smaller.  Also the control equipment/switchgear will have to be added into each vehicle to accept the supplied current.  So it's not as simple as it sounds, however it is doable but at what cost.

The XC ones can't be too far off a mid-life overhaul anyway you'd assume, if anyone wanted to line-up that level of work up with other major work. (Like, toilets maybe...?)

 

The challenge with XC is that the current franchisee (who is only in charge till October next year) is not going to sign up for that, and their replacement might decide to do something entirely different...assuming those franchise timings still stand it would presumably allow them to tack Hitachi or Stadler (or whoever else wants to offer one) bi-mode units onto the back of existing orders under construction...

[Coryton]

The XC ones can't be too far off a mid-life overhaul anyway you'd assume, if anyone wanted to line-up that level of work up with other major work. (Like, toilets maybe...?)

 

The challenge with XC is that the current franchisee (who is only in charge till October next year) is not going to sign up for that, and their replacement might decide to do something entirely different...assuming those franchise timings still stand it would presumably allow them to tack Hitachi or Stadler (or whoever else wants to offer one) bi-mode units onto the back of existing orders under construction...

 

Quite.

 

And replacing stock with plenty of life in for new builds seems to be flavour of the day at the moment...

[Pandora]

I assume it is safe for the 800 bi-modes to be able to raise or lower  a pantograph at high speed without detriment, therefore if modest lengths of  OHLE was provided at strategic points such  as the first couple of miles of line before / after a station platform or major  junctions on the route, the bi-mode could accelerate to  125 mph line speed from station  or junction stops on electrical power when beneath OHLE,  and change to diesel power until the next stopping point on the route. if this is a workable mode of operation, how many miles of OHLE would be required on say the Welsh part of the route?

Edited February 8, 2018 by Pandora

[Glorious NSE]

Quite.

 

And replacing stock with plenty of life in for new builds seems to be flavour of the day at the moment...

The upside of that is that a refurbed 220/221 ought to make quite a nice 'interurban' train, allowing a cascade of longer distance 'sprinter' types...?

[D854_Tiger]

The upside of that is that a refurbed 220/221 ought to make quite a nice 'interurban' train, allowing a cascade of longer distance 'sprinter' types...?

 

Pound for pound, the class 180, Voyager, Meridian family are the most powerful diesel trains on the railway, some might even argue they are the Deltics of their age.

 

I suspect you would need to guarantee inter-city style revenues from any routes chosen to justify the cost of operating them.

 

I believe that's what did for the Deltics, when the EC had finished with them, nowhere else suitable, profitable enough, to send them.

 

Though, nowadays, thanks to traffic growth those routes increasingly do exist, if replacement is the order of the day, there might be a job for Meridians on Waterloo - Exeter and Voyagers on the Marches or even the Cambrian.

[Zomboid]

I assume it is safe for the 800 bi-modes to be able to raise or lower a pantograph at high speed without detriment, therefore if modest lengths of OHLE was provided at strategic points such as the first couple of miles of line before / after a station platform or major junctions on the route, the bi-mode could accelerate to 125 mph line speed from station or junction stops on electrical power when beneath OHLE, and change to diesel power until the next stopping point on the route. if this is a workable mode of operation, how many miles of OHLE would be required on say the Welsh part of the route?

That wouldn't be workable because the OLE is used to distribute the power. That kind of design would need feeder stations in many, many locations. Feeder stations are by far the most expensive part of a 25kV electrification.

[Glorious NSE]

Though, nowadays, thanks to traffic growth those routes increasingly do exist, if replacement is the order of the day, there might be a job for Meridians on Waterloo - Exeter and Voyagers on the Marches or even the Cambrian.

That's the kind of thing.

I'd add Cross Country's Birmingham-Stanstead and Cardiff-Nottingham routes, GWR's Cardiff-Portsmouth workings, EMTs Liverpool-East Anglia workings...Chiltern?

 

Lots of places where an Intercity ambience is probably a good thing to have, but where the existing fleet (generally 158/170 based) isn't quite there...

 

The 220/221 also have fabulous big windows, so anything with billing as a scenic route is a win also...West Highland line?

 

Excess designed-in HP isn't the end of the world, the units already de-rate themselves automatically in normal use, just tweak the software to use fewer engines.

 

I don't think they'll end up in a scrapyard if they did get replaced.

[Coryton]

Pound for pound, the class 180, Voyager, Meridian family are the most powerful diesel trains on the railway, some might even argue they are the Deltics of their age.

 

I suspect you would need to guarantee inter-city style revenues from any routes chosen to justify the cost of operating them.

 

I believe that's what did for the Deltics, when the EC had finished with them, nowhere else suitable, profitable enough, to send them.

 

As well as being expensive, the fact that they were a small number of a non-standard type can't have helped.

 

That's the kind of thing.

I'd add Cross Country's Birmingham-Stanstead and Cardiff-Nottingham routes, GWR's Cardiff-Portsmouth workings, EMTs Liverpool-East Anglia workings...Chiltern?

 

Lots of places where an Intercity ambience is probably a good thing to have, but where the existing fleet (generally 158/170 based) isn't quite there...

 

I'd very happily settle for keeping the 158s on Cardiff - Portsmouth rather than putting 165/6s with 2+3 seating on a 3+ hour journey.

[ejstubbs]

Mind you, those XC Voyagers might look a bit odd with an extra coach, not built with tilt profile, which I believe is the plan.

 

Probably no odder than some of the trains you see on Great American Railroad Journeys, with the loco taller than the coaches, or what looks like a double-decker coach in the middle of a train of single-deckers.

 

I suspect most passengers wouldn't care what the train looks like from the outside so long as it's comfortable and pleasant to travel in, and gets them where they want to be on time.  (That said, I still smile when I see a 365 approaching.)

[The Stationmaster]

That's hard to detect as a passenger. The 0-30 you can see and feel the difference, but above that without a speedometer I can't tell if it's accelerating fast or not. Doesn't matter if it's a HST, IET or a 450 for that matter.

 

Easy enough to tell if you have a watch capable of counting seconds, or even a less puissant watch if you compare actual point-to-point timings with nett booked point-to-point timings.

[Geoff Endacott]

 

I shall leave this here:  

 

800/0 Status update. 07/02/18 

 

001-004 - Hitachi Test Units, various locations.

005/006/008-025 - GWR Passenger Service. Total available units: 20 for a required 16 daily 

026/028/029 - Agility Trains West Acceptance/Mileage, Bristol. 

027/030-034 - Hitachi Commissioning, Doncaster.

007/035/036 - Hitachi Static Testing, Newton Aycliffe. Note. 007 still has small fuel tanks.

 

New diagrams start Monday - 4x5car units - expect 26/28 in service by Friday.

 

 

800026 is in service today.

 

800019 has yet to appear.

 

Geoff Endacott

Edited February 8, 2018 by Geoff Endacott

[The Stationmaster]

I assume it is safe for the 800 bi-modes to be able to raise or lower  a pantograph at high speed without detriment, therefore if modest lengths of  OHLE was provided at strategic points such  as the first couple of miles of line before / after a station platform or major  junctions on the route, the bi-mode could accelerate to  125 mph line speed from station  or junction stops on electrical power when beneath OHLE,  and change to diesel power until the next stopping point on the route. if this is a workable mode of operation, how many miles of OHLE would be required on say the Welsh part of the route?

 

Which takes us back to past misunderstandings of the performance of these trains when running on diesel power because the principal problem as far as time loss is concerned is at lower speeds.  Although in my experience of them the trains aren't in any case particularly good at comfortably sustaining 125mph when running on diesel power. The critical part on many of the GWR routes is mid range acceleration and recovery from permanent restrictions of speed where the Class 800s are noticeably having difficulty in matching HST point-to-point times.  And of course these are, in general, on sections of route never even considered for electrification (with the debatable exception of Cardiff - Swansea).

 

If you're going to string up getting on for 5 miles or so of overhead to get them up to speed than in many cases it won't be much more expensive to go all the way to the next station to fill in the gap as the power supplies have to be there along with some of the infrastructure.  But that won't solve the current problem - and neither will anything else short of slacking out the times (and potentially re-writing the timetable) or actually electrifying the rest of the railway.

[D854_Tiger]

Which takes us back to past misunderstandings of the performance of these trains when running on diesel power because the principal problem as far as time loss is concerned is at lower speeds.  Although in my experience of them the trains aren't in any case particularly good at comfortably sustaining 125mph when running on diesel power. The critical part on many of the GWR routes is mid range acceleration and recovery from permanent restrictions of speed where the Class 800s are noticeably having difficulty in matching HST point-to-point times.  And of course these are, in general, on sections of route never even considered for electrification (with the debatable exception of Cardiff - Swansea).

 

If you're going to string up getting on for 5 miles or so of overhead to get them up to speed than in many cases it won't be much more expensive to go all the way to the next station to fill in the gap as the power supplies have to be there along with some of the infrastructure.  But that won't solve the current problem - and neither will anything else short of slacking out the times (and potentially re-writing the timetable) or actually electrifying the rest of the railway.

 

 

As I understand it, eventually, the core GW 125 mph route from London to Cardiff and Bristol is to have eight trains per hour, six of which will be via Parkway, so completing even the cutback electrification program should solve most of the problem.

 

As for the Cotswold routes, the improved station dwell times will surely compensate for any lack of acceleration, given that currently even a class 166 is timed faster than a HST via Moreton in the Marsh. Then, in any case, the PAX are hardly going to care given they will be enjoying a near doubling of service frequency and, in the case of both routes, no more class 150/166s turning up every other train.

 

I still believe (is it still the case??) the intention is to extend one Bristol service every hour at least as far as Exeter, so they may well be lacking over a HST on what is something of a racing stretch, even if it isn't a 125 mph railway, but again a massive increase in service frequency is surely compensation.

 

As for the timetable, it's going to have to be completely re-written eventually, once the electrification is complete. As for any failure to reliably operate the existing timetable, tough, it's only for a short while you can't expect jam on it when you're eventually going to get a brand new railway and fleet of trains.

 

Go tell it to the Northerners still enduring Pacers ever day.

[Glorious NSE]

Go tell it to the Northerners still enduring Pacers ever day.

 

 

On their 125mph intercity services?

[royaloak]

Blah Blah Blah, posting opinion as fact again etc

 

Go tell it to the Northerners still enduring Pacers ever day.

Or go ask the people of Exeter who have to endure Pacers every day!

[Peter Kazmierczak]

As I understand it, eventually, the core GW 125 mph route from London to Cardiff and Bristol is to have eight trains per hour, six of which will be via Parkway, so completing even the cutback electrification program should solve most of the problem.

 

 

 

So is this 4tph to Cardiff and 4tph to Bristol (with two via Parkway and down Filton Bank to Temple Meads, and two via Bath)?

[royaloak]

So is this 4tph to Cardiff and 4tph to Bristol (with two via Parkway and down Filton Bank to Temple Meads, and two via Bath)?

He just makes it up as he goes along.

 

I wonder if 854 could share the timescales for all the postponed or deferred electrification to be completed as he is obviously in possession of the information because he goes on about it every day.

Edited February 8, 2018 by royaloak