Class 800 - Updates

[Ken.W]

On 19/02/2019 at 14:19, Coryton said:

I did a journey via London and back from Cardiff today, the Cardiff to
London legs not surprisingly by IET.

 

Two toilets I tried (in the same coach) were both lacking water. There
was an "out of order" sign lit up for each one, but it was above the door
and not at all obvious - who looks above a toilet door?
 

 

From what I've heard from those who've been on them already;

They can't be watered during station lay-overs 'in service' as our HSTs and MkIVs are, as this can only be done at the same time as the toilet retention tanks are emptied.

So they're watered on depot, and that's your lot for the day!

[Ken.W]

On 04/03/2019 at 14:04, The Stationmaster said:

I think the Standard Class 'reintroduce a buffet' idea is going to be a non starter because the only means I see of doing it is to rebuild one of the vehicles.  The existing doorway through to the staff area in the DTF is hardly suitable, or wide enough, for any sort of counter arrangement and there is really nowhere for those arriving to queue while those who have been served with hot beverages can safely return towards their seats.  In fact even to provide a counter would involve some significant mods to the DTF and inevitably a reduction in 1st Class seating - which is already in short supply on some services.  And all of that is before you realise it would be impossible on any Pullman catering services or you address the fact that people paying a large amount of money to sit in 1st Class won't take kindly to be in the midst of a scrum trying to get to, or away from, the counter.  The only logical method I can see of offering such things as hot bacon rolls is for a member of staff to take an order, return to the kitchen area - now with extra staff - to hand in the order and return with the goods once they are ready.  Quite how that can be done over the length of 9 loaded cars is a bit mind boggling  but it looks like the only way.  And how it would be done on a train formed 2x5  I suspect that staffing costs (which have already increased) would be against it.

 

The buffet bar in the EC sets is in the middle of the Standard class section, seperate from the kitchen in First class

[Richard E]

I see LNER have now confirmed the 800 as going into revenue service on 15th May. Initially serving the London - Leeds run it is said the sets will be rolled out across the rest of the route over the following months. It is also reported that, ultimately, LNER will have 65 sets available rather than the initial proposal of 45 sets.

 

https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/transport/more-spaces-and-faster-wi-fi-promised-for-peterborough-commuters-on-new-east-coast-main-line-trains-1-8849596

[Mallard60022]

Just a little aside here. I travelled from Plymuff to Paddington on Wednesday morning. 09.49 HST. 6 minutes early at Reading! Anyway there were 800s around and about but just outside Paddington there were loads all parked and lurking on about three Depots. I had no idea about these places as I do not get any railway mags these days.

My old spotter's hand was twitching like mad but I resisted. Pity I missed the 59s around Acton though as I never get to see them these days. Also there must have been dozens of Elizabeth Line Units parked up at Old Oak; looked like a Model Shop display cabinet. If I 'collected' Units I would be spending time in Therapy due to the frustration of not being able to see all the damn things that are flying about around London. e.g. how many 700s are there FFS?

Edited March 15, 2019 by Mallard60022

[hexagon789]

47 minutes ago, Richard E said:

I see LNER have now confirmed the 800 as going into revenue service on 15th May. Initially serving the London - Leeds run it is said the sets will be rolled out across the rest of the route over the following months. It is also reported that, ultimately, LNER will have 65 sets available rather than the initial proposal of 45 sets.

 

https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/transport/more-spaces-and-faster-wi-fi-promised-for-peterborough-commuters-on-new-east-coast-main-line-trains-1-8849596

 

The plan is the first IET will replace the NL65 HST set, on the 15th it'll work part if the diagram, and from the 16th the full NL65 diagram, which includes the Hull Executive services.

 

Should be these workings:

 

1A12 0700 Hull-King's X (0951)

1D11 1103 King's X-Leeds (1316)
1A33 1345 Leeds-King's X (1600)

1H10 1718 King's X-Hull (2005)
1J10 2028 Hull-Doncaster (2122)

Edited March 15, 2019 by hexagon789
To add additional info

[jamie92208]

It will be interesting to see if Hitachi are any better at presenting trains the right way round than their Great Western subsidiary.  There are a few chances of turning trains what with the loop through Sunderland and the various lines around Newscastle but with mainly all electric sets with only get you home capability on diesel other such turns will be limited.  However it might pay LNER to have someone station near Carr Loco with a mobile phone each morning to let control know which way round trains are as they come off the depot.

 

Jamie

[Gwiwer]

5 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

Just a little aside here. I travelled from Plymuff to Paddington on Wednesday morning. 09.49 HST. 6 minutes early at Reading! Anyway there were 800s around and about but just outside Paddington there were loads all parked and lurking on about three Depots. I had no idea about these places as I do not get any railway mags these days.

My old spotter's hand was twitching like mad but I resisted. Pity I missed the 59s around Acton though as I never get to see them these days. Also there must have been dozens of Elizabeth Line Units parked up at Old Oak; looked like a Model Shop display cabinet. If I 'collected' Units I would be spending time in Therapy due to the frustration of not being able to see all the damn things that are flying about around London. e.g. how many 700s are there FFS?

Partially within topic - Hitachi have use of the former Eurostar facility at North Pole opposite the (former) Old Oak Common depot which is effectively now just a couple of sidings and a soon-to-vanish Heathrow Express facility.  There are normally quite a few sets on North Pole including most of those not yet commissioned (one is still at Laira AFAIK) and anything requiring more than a spit-and-polish by way of attention.  So it's eyes to the opposite side of the line as we were accustomed to now when in the environs.

 

The class 345 units lined up at the sidings where Old Oak "Factory" once was are awaiting entry to service and are not necessarily fully commissioned.  They are not rotated with the sets which run daily in traffic.  It isn't possible to see which they are other than one or two nearest to the canal.

 

There are 70 "Crossrail" (or Lizzie Line) class 345 units not all of which yet have their full nine coaches.  There are 115 class 700 units of which the first 60 are 8-car (class 700/0) and the rest 12-car (class 700/1) plus 30 very similar class 707 5-car units units painted bright red in use by SWR.

 

London is changing very quickly.  800-family units out of Paddington and Kings Cross, 700-family units on Thameslink, SWR and just beginning to enter service on Great Northern and other routes, plus the Anglia "Flirt" sets about to arrive and a shed-load more new suburban trains for SWR.

[iands]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

However it might pay LNER to have someone station near Carr Loco with a mobile phone each morning to let control know which way round trains are as they come off the depot.

 

Jamie

Or, the driver could just contact the LNER control to advise which cab he (or she?) will be driving from when coming off the depot. 

[Mallard60022]

5 hours ago, hexagon789 said:

 

The plan is the first IET will replace the NL65 HST set, on the 15th it'll work part if the diagram, and from the 16th the full NL65 diagram, which includes the Hull Executive services.

 

Should be these workings:

 

1A12 0700 Hull-King's X (0951)

1D11 1103 King's X-Leeds (1316)
1A33 1345 Leeds-King's X (1600)

1H10 1718 King's X-Hull (2005)
1J10 2028 Hull-Doncaster (2122)

Just for a laugh I have booked First Class Donny to Leeds 1D11 and 1A33 return on the 16th! less than £20 and I can get to and from Donny on the bus for nowt! I Bet the seats are set for an HST!!!!! Will I get my free drinks (and butty?)! If all goes #### up then I will just have a ride and some spotting time + a cider in the Donny Station Bar!!

Phil

Edited March 15, 2019 by Mallard60022

[Steadfast]

Out of interest, why are the GWR ones lettered A-L, but missing F? I get that I looks like 1, but what did F do to upset someone and get missed out?

 

Jo

[JeffP]

6 hours ago, hexagon789 said:

 

The plan is the first IET will replace the NL65 HST set, on the 15th it'll work part if the diagram, and from the 16th the full NL65 diagram, which includes the Hull Executive services.

 

Should be these workings:

 

1A12 0700 Hull-King's X (0951)

1D11 1103 King's X-Leeds (1316)
1A33 1345 Leeds-King's X (1600)

1H10 1718 King's X-Hull (2005)
1J10 2028 Hull-Doncaster (2122)

 

 

Was lucky enough to get a cabride on the return at the end of 2017, including Hull back to Donny. It was the Midland Mainline set. Magic our Maurice.....

And went down in the cab of the DVT with 91101 pushing. Memorable day out.

[Geoff Endacott]

Deleted.

Edited March 15, 2019 by Geoff Endacott

[woodenhead]

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Partially within topic - Hitachi have use of the former Eurostar facility at North Pole opposite the (former) Old Oak Common depot which is effectively now just a couple of sidings and a soon-to-vanish Heathrow Express facility.  There are normally quite a few sets on North Pole including most of those not yet commissioned (one is still at Laira AFAIK) and anything requiring more than a spit-and-polish by way of attention.  So it's eyes to the opposite side of the line as we were accustomed to now when in the environs.

 

The class 345 units lined up at the sidings where Old Oak "Factory" once was are awaiting entry to service and are not necessarily fully commissioned.  They are not rotated with the sets which run daily in traffic.  It isn't possible to see which they are other than one or two nearest to the canal.

 

There are 70 "Crossrail" (or Lizzie Line) class 345 units not all of which yet have their full nine coaches.  There are 115 class 700 units of which the first 60 are 8-car (class 700/0) and the rest 12-car (class 700/1) plus 30 very similar class 707 5-car units units painted bright red in use by SWR.

 

London is changing very quickly.  800-family units out of Paddington and Kings Cross, 700-family units on Thameslink, SWR and just beginning to enter service on Great Northern and other routes, plus the Anglia "Flirt" sets about to arrive and a shed-load more new suburban trains for SWR.

But at Ally Pally next weekend train users still have the opportunity to ride in a veteran 313!!

[hexagon789]

5 minutes ago, Steadfast said:

Out of interest, why are the GWR ones lettered A-L, but missing F? I get that I looks like 1, but what did F do to upset someone and get missed out?

 

Jo

 

It's only missing from double 5-car sets, the 9-car trains do have a Coach F.

 

 

[hexagon789]

1 hour ago, Mallard60022 said:

Just for a laugh I have booked First Class Donny to Leeds 1D11 and 1A33 return on the 16th! less than £20 and I can get to and from Donny on the bus for nowt! I Bet the seats are set for an HST!!!!! Will I get my free drinks (and butty?)! If all goes #### up then I will just have a ride and some spotting time + a cider in the Donny Station Bar!!

Phil

 

Looking on LNER, if you try and book the service, the coach letters suggest the system knows it's an IET.

[hexagon789]

9 minutes ago, JeffP said:

 

 

Was lucky enough to get a cabride on the return at the end of 2017, including Hull back to Donny. It was the Midland Mainline set. Magic our Maurice.....

And went down in the cab of the DVT with 91101 pushing. Memorable day out.

 

It is still booked for the former EMT set, so a 2+8 rather than 2+9, which is why it's getting replaced first.

[Mallard60022]

The EMT set is, I think, doing DT on the Hull Peterborough section for Hull Trains at the moment. Is it the same set you are talking about?

P

[phil-b259]

21 hours ago, Ken.W said:

 

From what I've heard from those who've been on them already;

They can't be watered during station lay-overs 'in service' as our HSTs and MkIVs are, as this can only be done at the same time as the toilet retention tanks are emptied.

So they're watered on depot, and that's your lot for the day!

 

Which actually makes perfect sense when you think about it. a retention tank can only hold so much waste!

 

Topping up the fresh water tanks when empty won't help the situation if the retention tanks are full.

 

HSTs didn't have this problem as they continued the disgusting practice of showering the underside of the train and lineside (including any track workers, lineside equipment) and even passenger door handles with raw sewage - so keeping the fresh water tanks topped up at the likes of Paddington was an easy way of keeping the toilets in service.

[locoholic]

13 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Which actually makes perfect sense when you think about it. a retention tank can only hold so much waste!

 

Topping up the fresh water tanks when empty won't help the situation if the retention tanks are full.

 

HSTs didn't have this problem as they continued the disgusting practice of showering the underside of the train and lineside (including any track workers, lineside equipment) and even passenger door handles with raw sewage - so keeping the fresh water tanks topped up at the likes of Paddington was an easy way of keeping the toilets in service.

But that suggests that the IETs diagams need to include more depot visits.

[phil-b259]

1 minute ago, locoholic said:

But that suggests that the IETs diagams need to include more depot visits.

 

It could do - but in truth there are a number of other factors here.

 

Basically having retention tanks fitted means a substantial loss of flexibility when it comes to fleet diagramming as the tanks can only be emptied at specific depots equipped to do it. If the service ends up getting messed up due to an incident then you generally have to chose between recovering the service for passengers - or making further cuts to ensure every train ends up where it is diagramed to be at the end if the day. This loss of flex ability is not unique to the I800s, it also applies to the Electostar EMU fleet for example and south of the river can easily result in lots of toilets out of action if South Eastern or Southern's services get thrown into chaos.

 

The only ways to mitigate this are:-

 

(i) Fit bigger retention tanks (but NOT increasing the interval between emptying them or it defeats the object of providing redundancy in case of service disruption)

 

(ii) Provide more mini- depots (rather than simply siding space) allowing emptying to take place at places currently not equipped if disruption means they cannot return to the main depot or if the main depot is full up due to trains ending up there that shouldn't be there.

 

(ii) Have a bigger train fleet in the first place so that trains can be sent to the depot more frequently (i.e. when the tanks are only half full) thus providing some contingency against trains not being able be emptied as schedule due to network disruption - although this means an expansion of depot size to accommodate them.

 

All of these are either difficult, expensive or both and as such will not represent value for money for the DfT, the TOCs or the vehicle owners - all of whom would much rather disruptive incidents don't happen to muck up their finely tuned plans in the first place!

 

So to get back to the current situation on GWR, with the problematic introduction experienced by the 800 fleet and continued issues with getting trains off depots on time, it doesn't take a genius to realise that some trains will end up being released into traffic not having been emptied. Presumably when all the 800s are in service and have reached a certain level of reliability, issues with toilets will disappear - unless the trackside infrastructure misbehaves if course.

 

 

 

[Richard E]

2 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

The EMT set is, I think, doing DT on the Hull Peterborough section for Hull Trains at the moment. Is it the same set you are talking about?

P

Not when I saw the Hull Trains driver training set in Peterborough, it was a FGW set short formed (5+2), 43010 leading and 43190 on the back. That was on 4/3/19 at 15:30.

 

[JJGraphics]

11 hours ago, locoholic said:

But that suggests that the IETs diagams need to include more depot visits.

 

. . . or it may suggest that insufficiently-sized retention tanks for the time in service between depot visits is a design fault – another DaFT mess-up?

 

John

[Gwiwer]

Even HSTs have toilet problems.  I acknowledge there may well be issues with the IET fleet having been mis-specified in that and other departments but on my "farewell" HST trip from Paddington to Penzance and back the set used on the down had no flush water in at least six toilets and in the one which I found which would flush (and in several of the others) there was no hand-wash water.  All in all quite unpleasant.  On the return up trip the facilities were not required between Penzance and Plymouth where we swapped sets but - on a different set - the London service again had no hand-wash water in at least four toilets and no flush in two having just come off depot at Laira.

 

In fairness those apparent faults might be the result of different causes such as defective flush or tap mechanisms but the end result is the same - no water where it is required for hygiene purposes.

[Mallard60022]

12 hours ago, Richard E said:

Not when I saw the Hull Trains driver training set in Peterborough, it was a FGW set short formed (5+2), 43010 leading and 43190 on the back. That was on 4/3/19 at 15:30.

 

Ah yes Richard. My fault and that is the one AFAICR. Can only blame my aged eyes and brain.

P

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, JJGraphics said:

 

. . . or it may suggest that insufficiently-sized retention tanks for the time in service between depot visits is a design fault – another DaFT mess-up?

 

John

A typical British problem believe it or not.  On Class 373 Eurostars the retention tanks were designed to normal TGV standards in terms of capacity SNCF stating that they were perfectly adequate for all normal service use but it was quickly found that once British passengers started using the trains the tanks weren't really adequate for normal use and the stuff used to 'u improve' water for recirculation use was being used at a far greater rate than was the case in SNCF experience with TGVs.

 

Quite why this was so was never established but maybe British passengers had a more ingrained hand washing fetish habit after using the toilet?  So did the IET draw on Eurostar design data for the specification of the size of the retention tanks rather than actual in service experience?  I don't know but no doubt somebody does somewhere - but they probably aren't saying.

 

48 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Even HSTs have toilet problems.  I acknowledge there may well be issues with the IET fleet having been mis-specified in that and other departments but on my "farewell" HST trip from Paddington to Penzance and back the set used on the down had no flush water in at least six toilets and in the one which I found which would flush (and in several of the others) there was no hand-wash water.  All in all quite unpleasant.  On the return up trip the facilities were not required between Penzance and Plymouth where we swapped sets but - on a different set - the London service again had no hand-wash water in at least four toilets and no flush in two having just come off depot at Laira.

 

In fairness those apparent faults might be the result of different causes such as defective flush or tap mechanisms but the end result is the same - no water where it is required for hygiene purposes.

This is not exactly a new problem on HSTs, in fact in my experience it has been noticeable for several years.  Possibly a consequence of insufficient time to water on turnround (or even on depot) for whatever reason although turnround times at Paddington have actually been lengthened over the years.  It could equally be down to problems with availability of materials or time on depot to fix problems as I have come across instances where the toilet will flush but the basin taps totally lack any hint of delivering water.