Locos are now around £3 million. IEP cars are around £2.8 million.
Hauled vehicles are around £1 million if you need new ones, and around
£300k for a thorough refurbishment of an old vehicle such as a mark 3, which will run for another 20 years at least. The differentials do not stop with the initial costs. Several power
cars are inevitably going to cost more to maintain than one locomotive.
If the country end of a route is much less busy than the London end,
then either the train is overcrowded at the London and or it is
under-utilised at the country end. If the line is not electrified
throughout, either there is diesel running under the wires - undesirable
but not a catastrophe, or a change of traction. Either there is dead diesel traction on the electrified route, or dead electric traction on the non-electrified route.
The neat solution to the problem is to electrify out from London to the
end of the busy section, split the train and push/pull enough of the
vehicles to satisfy the need at the country end of the route. The
undesirable alternative is to make people change trains, in which case
an ordinary DMU can be used.
Fools' Gold
In the face of criticism, it was claimed that another great benefit of bi-mode is the ability to "self-rescue" if the power is down. This is fools' gold. There are indeed situations where this might be a benefit, but even then the train is not going to get further than the train at the front of the queue that does not have this "self-rescue" ability. And the best way to prevent loss of power is not to skimp on the specification of the overhead line and to maintain it, and the equipment on the trains, to a reliable standard.
IEP cleverly manages to get the worst of all worlds at maximum expense
as a result of a civil service specification which asked for a train
that could do everything. The same thing has been going on in defence
procurement for decades. It is what happens when projects are left to
Sir Humphfrey.
25 Oct 2012
4 Oct 2012
WCML fiasco - and the IEP tendering procedure
I will not comment on the WCML fiasco except to say that it points up the need to look at the way the IEP contract was awarded.
The original specification for the IEP was not met by any of the submissions from the competing tenders. The final specification for the trains that have been ordered is significantly different from that in the original tender.
The train manufacturing companies could reasonably argue that they never had the opportunity to bid on the basis of the final specification. Whether they would be within their rights to ask for a judicial review is a matter for the lawyers, but given that IEP is extraordinarily bad money, as was point out by Foster, suggests that the taxpayers would have an interest in the outcome.
The original specification for the IEP was not met by any of the submissions from the competing tenders. The final specification for the trains that have been ordered is significantly different from that in the original tender.
The train manufacturing companies could reasonably argue that they never had the opportunity to bid on the basis of the final specification. Whether they would be within their rights to ask for a judicial review is a matter for the lawyers, but given that IEP is extraordinarily bad money, as was point out by Foster, suggests that the taxpayers would have an interest in the outcome.
1 Oct 2012
IEP window seats are not
Proposed layouts for the IEP trains. It's sardine tins for the standard class but hey, who cares, they're just oiks.
What to do with Voyagers?
Voyagers are a high speed diesel electric multiple unit train built by Bombardier and introduced in 2001 for Virgin Cross Country services. There are two varieties of Voyagers, class 220 and class 221, the latter having tilt capability. A further class of similar trains were built for the Midland main line and are called Meridians, designated class 222.
As originally built the class 220 units were four car and the class 221 made up into four and five car sets. The trains were originally intended for a high-intensity service centred around a hub at Birmingham New Street. This was known as Operation Princess but it proved unworkable, led to severe overcrowding on some sections, and was abandoned after a few months. After that, the Voyagers ran in pairs over the busier sections of route - an uneconomic arrangement as two sets of train crew are needed. It is also unlikely that this type of train would have been considered if the operation of eight car trains had been contemplated from the outset.
There have been many criticisms of Voyagers, mostly relating to passenger comfort. The seating capacity is low and the seating is cramped, luggage capacity is inadequate and engine vibration is intrusive. One reason for the low seating capacity is the space taken up by wheelchair access toilets, of which there are more than required by the regulations. They are also heavy; class 220 intermediate cars weigh 44 tons and class 221 52 tons, compared to 35 tons for a hauled mark 3 vehicle.
With the go-ahead having been given for additional electrification, it has been proposed that additional Voyager cars be built with pantographs, so that the trains can switch to electric power on electrified routes. This is in principle a similar concept to the Hitachi IEP train, with similar advantage of flexibility and the similar drawback that costly equipment is being carried around uselessly all the time.
What else could be done with these trains? There are 34 class 220s and 44 of class 221. That gives 156 driving cars and about 200 intermediate vehicles. What if the engines were removed and the cars used as hauled stock, the end vehicles becoming control trailers? They would then augment the fleet of hauled mark 3 stock and the trailer cars presently running within HST sets, all of which are now known to have a live expectancy of at least 60 years from their date of construction.
One of the benefits of this scheme is that the Voyager cars are compliant with accessibility requirements, which mark 3 stock is not, and combining vehicles of the two types would avoid the need for an expensive small build of accessible vehicles compatible with mark 3 stock. Such a scheme could provide Britain's railways with the ability to react flexibly to traffic requirements, something that is painfully lacking at the moment.
As originally built the class 220 units were four car and the class 221 made up into four and five car sets. The trains were originally intended for a high-intensity service centred around a hub at Birmingham New Street. This was known as Operation Princess but it proved unworkable, led to severe overcrowding on some sections, and was abandoned after a few months. After that, the Voyagers ran in pairs over the busier sections of route - an uneconomic arrangement as two sets of train crew are needed. It is also unlikely that this type of train would have been considered if the operation of eight car trains had been contemplated from the outset.
There have been many criticisms of Voyagers, mostly relating to passenger comfort. The seating capacity is low and the seating is cramped, luggage capacity is inadequate and engine vibration is intrusive. One reason for the low seating capacity is the space taken up by wheelchair access toilets, of which there are more than required by the regulations. They are also heavy; class 220 intermediate cars weigh 44 tons and class 221 52 tons, compared to 35 tons for a hauled mark 3 vehicle.
With the go-ahead having been given for additional electrification, it has been proposed that additional Voyager cars be built with pantographs, so that the trains can switch to electric power on electrified routes. This is in principle a similar concept to the Hitachi IEP train, with similar advantage of flexibility and the similar drawback that costly equipment is being carried around uselessly all the time.
What else could be done with these trains? There are 34 class 220s and 44 of class 221. That gives 156 driving cars and about 200 intermediate vehicles. What if the engines were removed and the cars used as hauled stock, the end vehicles becoming control trailers? They would then augment the fleet of hauled mark 3 stock and the trailer cars presently running within HST sets, all of which are now known to have a live expectancy of at least 60 years from their date of construction.
One of the benefits of this scheme is that the Voyager cars are compliant with accessibility requirements, which mark 3 stock is not, and combining vehicles of the two types would avoid the need for an expensive small build of accessible vehicles compatible with mark 3 stock. Such a scheme could provide Britain's railways with the ability to react flexibly to traffic requirements, something that is painfully lacking at the moment.
29 Sept 2012
No room for two
The occupant of the aisle seat was rather large and so nobody could have sat in the window seat on this class 159 train.
British trains are the narrowest standard gauge trains in Europe. This is probably because greedy nineteenth century landowners would only sell a strip of land of minimum width to build the railways on. After much cost and effort, it became possible to run vehicles 2.82 metres wide over the entire network, provided that they were no more than 20 metres long. This became the standard for the mark 1 stock. In the late 1960s it was considered desirable to run longer vehicles and it was realised that with a bit of tapering of ends and recessing of things like door handles, a 23 metre vehicle was possible, with an actual width of 2.74 metres, the same as the actual width of the mark 1 bodyshell. Some vehicles were, however, built to the full width of 2.82 metres, including all the 20 metre long suburban stock (classes 317, 455, 465 etc), and a few full-width vehicles were built to a 23 metre length for service on the former GW routes out of London (classes 165/166). These latter have a very limited route availability.
Since the mark 3 stock was introduced, gauge clearance work has been carried out which allow the vehicles to operate over much of the system. However, more recent 23 metre stock has generally been narrower, typically 2.7 or 2.6 metres.
Given the epidemic of obesity, one might have thought that those concerned with the specifying of rolling stock, now the Department for Transport, would have realised that optimising the width of new passenger trains would be a priority. Instead, they have specified even longer vehicles for the new IEP trains, 26 metres long, which will mean a further reduction in width and some very expensive infrastructure work on top. In a rational world, where people were considered important, the DfT would have specified a minimum width of around 2.8 metres, which would probably have resulted in a vehicle slightly longer than 20 metres but less than 23 metres. As it is, a couple of generations of rail passengers will be forced to travel in sardine-tin conditions. One also has to wonder what would happen if one had reserved a seat, only to find it impossible to use owing to the size of the passenger in the adjacent seat? When there are enough complaints and the situation becomes untenable the train companies will end up having to remove a file of seats and adopt a 2+1 configuration, which will play havoc with the economics.
British trains are the narrowest standard gauge trains in Europe. This is probably because greedy nineteenth century landowners would only sell a strip of land of minimum width to build the railways on. After much cost and effort, it became possible to run vehicles 2.82 metres wide over the entire network, provided that they were no more than 20 metres long. This became the standard for the mark 1 stock. In the late 1960s it was considered desirable to run longer vehicles and it was realised that with a bit of tapering of ends and recessing of things like door handles, a 23 metre vehicle was possible, with an actual width of 2.74 metres, the same as the actual width of the mark 1 bodyshell. Some vehicles were, however, built to the full width of 2.82 metres, including all the 20 metre long suburban stock (classes 317, 455, 465 etc), and a few full-width vehicles were built to a 23 metre length for service on the former GW routes out of London (classes 165/166). These latter have a very limited route availability.
Since the mark 3 stock was introduced, gauge clearance work has been carried out which allow the vehicles to operate over much of the system. However, more recent 23 metre stock has generally been narrower, typically 2.7 or 2.6 metres.
Given the epidemic of obesity, one might have thought that those concerned with the specifying of rolling stock, now the Department for Transport, would have realised that optimising the width of new passenger trains would be a priority. Instead, they have specified even longer vehicles for the new IEP trains, 26 metres long, which will mean a further reduction in width and some very expensive infrastructure work on top. In a rational world, where people were considered important, the DfT would have specified a minimum width of around 2.8 metres, which would probably have resulted in a vehicle slightly longer than 20 metres but less than 23 metres. As it is, a couple of generations of rail passengers will be forced to travel in sardine-tin conditions. One also has to wonder what would happen if one had reserved a seat, only to find it impossible to use owing to the size of the passenger in the adjacent seat? When there are enough complaints and the situation becomes untenable the train companies will end up having to remove a file of seats and adopt a 2+1 configuration, which will play havoc with the economics.
4 Sept 2012
Now broom at Transport
With a new Transport Minster, Patrick McLoughlin, announced today, comes the opportunity for a re-think not only of HS2 but also of the Hitachi IEP. The penalties for cancellation of the first tranche will probably be horrendous, but this is not the train the railways need. If the fleet order can be confined to the current 370 vehicles, it would be worth taking a loss to avoid saddling the country's railways with hundreds of trains that are unsuitable for the services on which they will be operating and are an overpriced and over-elaborate solution to a relatively simple problem.
31 Aug 2012
Fury over rail fare rises
I have little sympathy over the fury about rail fare rises. A major cost here is rolling
stock. Had it not been for the mad panic over safety in the period after
the Clapham rail accident, the mark 1 slam door stock would still be in
service. This would have considerably reduced the costs of the whole
operation. It was good for about 45 years from 1975 ie in the normal way
of things the last of it would have been withdrawn in 2020. As it was,
the last of the stock was taken out of service in 2005, which means that
15 years of service life was lost - nearly one-third of the total.
There were a variety of enhancements that could have been made to this stock at minimum cost to bring them up to modern standards, plus the option of re-bodying but retaining the most expensive and valuable components ie bogies and other running gear and the electrical equipment which was simple and robust and could have been made to last indefinitely. The new stock, being heavier, also consumes more electricity which has to be paid for.
One of the reasons why the less expensive option was not chosen was because the oligolopoly of train manufacturers was anxious to sell their very expensive new products and convinced the politicians who make these decisions that trains are like cars and have a fifteen year replacement cycle.
Things are going to get much worse. As has been pointed out before, the real cost of railway rolling stock went up by a factor of about 6 between 1955 and 1995 and has risen again with the advent of trains like the Pendolino, the Crossrail replacement and the Hitachi Inter City Express which has just been ordered. The latter costs about £2.9 million per vehicle compared with £6000 per vehicle in 1955. Allowing for a factor of 40 for inflation, that makes the new trains ten times as expensive in real terms. They are not ten times more comfortable, or ten times faster or ten times safer. Passengers travelling in 1950s trains normally remark how spacious and comfortable they are in comparison with the new ones.
There were a variety of enhancements that could have been made to this stock at minimum cost to bring them up to modern standards, plus the option of re-bodying but retaining the most expensive and valuable components ie bogies and other running gear and the electrical equipment which was simple and robust and could have been made to last indefinitely. The new stock, being heavier, also consumes more electricity which has to be paid for.
One of the reasons why the less expensive option was not chosen was because the oligolopoly of train manufacturers was anxious to sell their very expensive new products and convinced the politicians who make these decisions that trains are like cars and have a fifteen year replacement cycle.
Things are going to get much worse. As has been pointed out before, the real cost of railway rolling stock went up by a factor of about 6 between 1955 and 1995 and has risen again with the advent of trains like the Pendolino, the Crossrail replacement and the Hitachi Inter City Express which has just been ordered. The latter costs about £2.9 million per vehicle compared with £6000 per vehicle in 1955. Allowing for a factor of 40 for inflation, that makes the new trains ten times as expensive in real terms. They are not ten times more comfortable, or ten times faster or ten times safer. Passengers travelling in 1950s trains normally remark how spacious and comfortable they are in comparison with the new ones.
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