Way back in 2011 we wrote a piece called Two Of Our Carriages Are Missing. It was about the long term failure to provide 12-car trains on Southeastern Metro services via London Bridge to Charing Cross and Cannon Street. Then, as now, it was generally considered that, aside from squeezing more people into the same number of carriages, the only realistic solution to solve the capacity problem on Southeastern Metro services was longer trains.
At the time the article was written we did not expect to see anything happening soon. Nethertheless, we did expect to see progress eventually. It was surely simply a matter of time.
S-l-o-w progress
It is true that there has been some snail-paced progress and that 12-car trains have started to appear on Southeastern Metro services. These are, however, few and far between. No extra carriages appear to have been provided and the only reason that there is enough rolling stock for the longer trains seems to be because of the slight reduction in the number of trains serving Cannon Street in peak hours – a result of rebuilding London Bridge. In other words, the number of trains is slightly reduced, but the overall capacity is the same because some of the remaining trains are a couple of carriages longer.
Although capacity has been maintained, what is really needed is an increase. The last major lengthening of trains in the South Eastern metro area took place in 1954 when train lengths increased from 8 to 10 cars. There have been subsequent capacity improvements which have been centred around track layout work and signalling enhancements. These have enabled more trains to be run but the limits of this appear to have been reached. The fundamental restriction on the number of trains that will be possible in a post-Thameslink-rebuilding era will be determined by the train capacity at London termini. This puts a maximum of 28tph into Charing Cross and a current maximum of around 22tph into Cannon Street, with some possibility in future that this may approach its former level of 25tph if suitable track and signalling modifications are made.
No infrastructure showstoppers
Increasing suburban train length to 12-car in the Southeastern metro area involves various localised issues that have been covered extensively before on London Reconnections. They include the difficultly of making Woolwich Dockyard suitable for 12-car trains and the fact that space, lengthwise, is very tight at Charing Cross, which restricts the formation of any 12-car train.
The very narrow ends of platforms 1-3 at Charing Cross. Notices prohibit passenger access to the narrow platform at the end of platform 3 when boarding, but permit passengers to alight onto it.
In simple terms a suburban train must consist of a maximum of three separate “Networker” units, otherwise the train is a metre or so too long. There are also a couple of minor issues with signal sighting affecting one or two platforms, and of track circuit positioning affecting a couple of short spurs. None of these issues are fundamental challenges in that they can either be easily fixed or a workaround provided (e.g. don’t schedule 12-car trains to call at Woolwich Dockyard).
You can’t run longer trains without more carriages
Until very recently we would have added that there was an issue with a lack of trains or – more accurately – carriages. We now seem to be in an era where procuring electric multiple units is not the problem it used to be, although there may be some shuffling around required to get suitable units available to enable Southeastern to provide longer trains.
This is not to say that Southeastern has sufficient trains – just that getting sufficient trains does not appear to be an insuperable problem (or at least it shouldn’t be). In fact, if more new trains were needed, the indications are that the DfT would either be prepared to buy them or look favourably upon the next franchise bidder that offered to do so.
Do we have the power?
One other potential problem is that of power supply. We say ‘potential’ because trying to get to the bottom of whether or not this is a problem has proven surprisingly hard. Certainly there are contradictory messages. The situation is complicated by the fact that there are two components to this. The first is the need for an adequate power supply to be available from the National Grid to one of the main feed points on Network Rail. The second is the presence of the infrastructure necessary to distribute the power within Network Rail itself.
It is hard to fathom out exactly what the situation is, but it would appear to be that Network Rail’s ability to distribute was, until recently, the crucial factor. They have now done sufficient upgrading work though to enable the Train Operating Company (TOC) to be able to make use of all the power available – just not necessarily where the TOC wants to use it. The latter point is significant because Southeastern and its predecessors have a history of sending trains over multiple different routes during the course of a day in order to minimise turnaround times at London termini and optimise efficient use.
Still can’t run 12-car trains to Hayes
It would appear from the relevant Network Rail sectional appendix (page 156) that the Hayes line is still out of bounds to 12-car trains. This despite the infrastructure (as in long enough platforms, suitable monitors) now seeming to be in place. The obvious explanation for this is that the substations on the line have not been upgraded. Nevertheless, Hayes branch excluded, the power supply cannot be that much of a restriction, because some 12-car suburban trains are run and because, in some cases, long distance 12-car trains have run for years along the same tracks.
Routes banned to 12-car Networker trains
So, currently, it seems that if one wanted to run 12-car trains on Southeastern suburban services there is potentially enough rolling stock and, in the short term at any rate, sufficient power supply to permit a modest increase in carriages deployed. In the longer term though one would expect that a long-planned power supply upgrade would be complete and so power would not be an issue. As such, a lack of power thus shouldn’t preclude a long term plan to order additional trains, so that the existing stock can be reformatted to provider longer, but fewer, trains.
…but it happens elsewhere
The ability to run some 12-car trains on some Southeastern Metro services seems to be confirmed by the MD of Southeastern, who has publicly stated that:
At the moment, we can only run 11 x 12-car trains each day, as compared with what we want. We have asked the DfT for more trains.
The last sentence seems to imply it is trains, rather than the power supply, which are the immediate critical factor.
Unfortunately, another factor seems now to have joined the critical list of requirements – depot space.
Railways historically awash with potential depot space
Historically, the railways haven’t had to worry too much about depot space. In London, at any rate, the quantity of land owned by railway companies used to be huge. In particular there were marshalling yards, other freight yards, steam locomotive depots for maintenance, engine works for construction as well as extensive track that was found to be unnecessary once more efficient means of signalling were devised. On top of that, as trains became more reliable and needed less maintenance, a smaller fleet could do the same job as a formerly larger one. Despite the massive sell-offs that took place over the years as land became surplus to requirements, there always seemed to be space that could be found for a depot when necessary and the gradual reduction of freight traffic seemed to help to ensure a continuing trickle of available sites.
…but land sold off
What seems to have happened in the past few years, in London at least, is that we have reached the point where finding any kind of stabling area for passenger trains is becoming problematic. What’s worse, the need for that space is rising, not falling. Recently we have seen a couple of examples of that desperation. Chiltern Railways were forced to utilise a less-than-ideal long and narrow site at Wembley to retain some maintenance and storage facility in the London area, and London Overground resorted to creating a small cramped site at Silwood sidings to accommodate the extra space needed for their 5-car trains on the East London Line.
Its even worse for London Underground
The problem of depot space is even more pronounced when one reads reports of London Underground planning for extra trains on existing lines. The Northern line is especially problematic, leading to the cost of increasing the frequency of the line involving figures that exceed the simple cost of the new trains that would be needed many times over. This is despite already having a new signalling system capable of supporting the increase in the number of trains.
…especially when underground
Even more difficult for London Underground is the situation where underground extensions are planned. Already, on the Northern line extension to Battersea Power Station, there is talk of storing trains overnight in the platforms at Nine Elms. The latest Bakerloo Line Extension consultation talks of storing eight trains in overrun tunnels beyond Lewisham and a ninth in the platform. Ominously, Lewisham, is in the heart of Southeastern suburban territory.
Nine Elms is an unlikely possible overnight stabling location on the Tube
One could also look at Crossrail within London. Originally it proposed a new large depot at Romford, but this encountered a lot of opposition. A lot of juggling went on to make Old Oak Common available, which was more acceptable as it was already a railway depot. More space was required so Ilford has been reconfigured and, late in the day, Crossrail realised it needed to store some trains near Abbey Wood – luckily again largely on existing railway land.
A lesson from History
In World War II, on the 9th April 1940, the Germans invaded Denmark. The time from invasion to capitulation was around six hours. Whilst the reasons for such a rapid capitulation were many and varied, the annihilation of the Danish Air Force before it even got off the ground was a major factor that made continued resistance quite untenable. Lining the planes up in a nice neat row along the airfield might look terribly organised in a military sort of way but does nothing to ensure the safety and security of your air force.
In Britain, the Royal Air Force did not make that mistake and carefully positioned its planes in protected areas around the perimeter of airfields to ensure that a lone enemy aircraft, or even a squadron attack, could not inflict too much damage. The thinking behind this was not lost on pre-nationalisation Southern Railway prior to World War II and the many ex-forces managers who ran it, who were fully aware that their engines were a potential target too.
… and Southern Railway had already learnt it
As a consequence of the need to disperse trains in preparation for facing up to a possible war, Southern Railway had a proliferation of scattered electrified sidings that could store only a few trains and sometimes even only a single train. Ideally such sidings would be north-south aligned so that the chances of a Luftwaffe bomber pilot hitting a train stabled in the siding was minimal.
Entrance to wartime north-south aligned siding just south of New Beckenham still in use in 1971 when this photo was taken
On the current Southern Railway suburban area the policy continues to some extent, but this is largely driven by a desperate shortage of stabling at the main suburban depot located at Selhurst. Meanwhile, on Southeastern, the dispersal policy was largely abandoned and the isolated siding, often now too short for modern trains, generally saw a return to nature.
New sidings for Networker trains
The catalyst for rationalisation of storage locations for Southeastern suburban services was the introduction of the Networker train around 1990. The stock was much more advanced than the slam door stock it replaced and much more valuable. The need for concentration of maintenance facilities and the convenient availability of the former Hither Green freight yard meant it was seen as both possible and desirable to house Networker stock at the existing large depot at Slade Green, and at the extended Grove Park carriage sidings which by now stretched as far as Hither Green. In both cases the long berthing sidings meant that capacity was generally unaffected by train length. You could store a train of whatever length you wanted. Train length merely restricted the number of trains you could store along a given length of track. Effectively each track could store a number of carriages and it didn’t matter much whether the trains themselves were long or short.
Grove Park and Hither Green sidings
Where have all the sidings gone?
To give some idea of the loss of stabling areas, on the Hayes line alone a train used to be stabled at a siding at Hayes station, another was stabled at a wartime siding at New Beckenham and on the associated Addiscombe branch there was space for four trains at Addiscombe depot, with further sidings around the station itself. Now there are none, although there is a limited berthing facility on the Beckenham Junction spur.
A train entering Addiscombe with entrance to sidings to the immediate right and the depot building beyond
So short of space is Southeastern that it stores trains in the platforms at Charing Cross and Cannon Street at night, despite these locations being wholly undesirable. An example would be the train that departs at around 0020 from Hayes and runs non-stop to Cannon Street to spend the remains of the night in one of the platforms there.
Storing trains at the London termini means that the TOC is running first and last trains, generally out of service, in the direction where there is little demand. Apart from wasted mileage and unproductive use of drivers, this is minimising engineering time available overnight and risking putting a terminating platform out of action in the morning if for any reason the train won’t start.
This can’t be a new problem – can it?
It is not clear what the plan was for Southeastern depots when the introduction of 12-car trains was originally proposed back in the 1990s. It does not seem to have been mentioned, but that could have been because it just wasn’t seen as an issue with so many sites still available. Many stations such as Bromley North had masses of railway land still available for use, but these sites have generally been built on now or are earmarked for development. There were also formerly suggested sites such as at West Wickham, which was originally safeguarded as a Fleet line depot. At the time there was still the possibility of keeping Addiscombe open as well and even expanding it, as plans for Croydon Tramlink had not yet been finalised.
In all probability Crossrail has not helped. There was great potential to extend Plumstead sidings. Failing that it could have at least been reinstated to its former size, but Crossrail has put paid to that. There are currently only three berths available at Plumstead – nothing near the critical mass necessary to make the location worthwhile as a drivers’ signing-on point.
The obvious solution
Finally there was the possibility of extending Slade Green depot. This would have seemed such an obvious choice, especially as the land was available, so it was hard to understand why this had not been done. It was thought that perhaps environmental issues concerning Erith Marshes was the problem.
Slade Green depot as shown on Carto Metro
Gibb Report tells all
We now have the Gibb Report to thank for the explanation for not extending Slade Green Depot being made public. His brief involved looking at Thameslink, which he took to include the proposed service to Gillingham, so Gibb decided to look at the issue of depots on Southeastern territory as well.
In his report Gibb states:
North Kent – the original plan was to increase stabling facilities at Slade Green, but this has now been established to cost £72m and too expensive. An alternative is urgently needed.
To some people, this must be the most mindblowing statement in the entire report. Just to be clear, it is obvious from more general comments coming out of Southeastern that it is the government, or rather the DfT, not Gibb or Southeastern who regard it as too expensive. Then again, it is easy to regard something as not too expensive when you are not paying for it.
£72 million – not a lot really
Within the broader picture, £72 million is not a lot to extend a depot. London Underground would probably be delighted if any of its desperately needed depot expansion programs could be done for £72 million. Putting it in context, it is probably about the same as the cost of four 12-car trains. It is also less than the quarter of the sum of money given to Network Rail recently to catch-up with the backlog of work that needs doing on the Brighton Main Line. Yet this smaller expenditure on Southeastern could unlock the solution to its capacity problem, although obviously the extra trains will still need to be bought.
Even more dramatically, one can look at the £72 million and compare it to the £7 billion being spent on the wider Thameslink Programme. Southeastern services, incredibly, are reportedly actually below Thameslink services in the customer survey satisfaction league – a distinction they only shares with Southern services. Spending £72 million on a depot and buying a few more trains to eliminate one of the main causes of dissatisfaction here would appear to be really low-hanging fruit indeed.
One has to wonder what the mindset is of the DfT if it cannot see that £72 million is an absolutely bargain in railway terms for increasing capacity in an area where it is desperately needed. It is strange that TfL did not propose expanding Slade Green depot in its proposal to take over Southeastern, but one suspects that if they had taken over, even cash-strapped as they are, they would have understood the issue and found the money pretty quickly.
There are two simple, obvious answers to why the DfT baulked at spending £72 million on extending Slade Green depot. The first is simply that it is real money that the DfT has to find which has not been budgeted for. The political impetus is not so great that they feel this is a necessity.
The other possible reason for the DfT not wanting to spend on Slade Green depot is that it is not perceived as doing anything for the travelling public. Or, alternatively, spending £72 million on expanding a depot is not seen by passengers as something that tangibly improves their commuting lives. In this they are wrong of course, just as spending money on renewing signalling improves their lives. Until you get announcements on the platform to the effect that an unexpectedly short train is due to the lack of depot space, however, the travelling public probably won’t get the correlation.
The Southeastern alternative
We also have the Gibb report to thank for spelling out what Southeastern’s alternative policy is:
South Eastern have suggested several complicated options involving Gillingham, with trains being serviced at the depot and later moved to a remote stabling siding.
Suggestions such as these just smack of being half-baked. Less-than-ideal solutions tend to cause long term problems and, in a railway environment, usually end up in the long term meaning more money is spent operationally than is saved in initial capital expenditure. Slade Green Depot is superbly located with three suburban routes to London – four if you count Dartford-Victoria – and only a short distance away from Dartford, which is a natural place whence to start trains in the early morning and terminate them in the evening. Surely it is far better to spend the money on the good solution rather than a bad one?
The Gibb alternative
Chris Gibb, as an alternative, suggests Hoo junction. To quote:
I think a dedicated GTR Thameslink stabling facility should be built at Hoo Junction, near Gravesend. There is a large former freight yard there, on both sides of the railway, which now stables engineering trains for Network Rail. This should be rationalised and space created for stabling all the North Kent Thameslink Class 700s, in sidings with newly created servicing facilities. Progress on this is urgently needed. This responsibility rests with the DfT’s Thameslink Programme Board. GTR should lead this project on behalf of the Board.
Now, a few things need to be borne in mind here. First, this is hardly an original idea and it is the obvious location. Unfortunately for Chris Gibb, it is safeguarded for Crossrail to Gravesend so there might be some issues. Secondly, it is clear that in this context Chris Gibb is thinking of a solution from a Thameslink perspective. He is not looking at solving Southeastern’s woes. Finally, from a Southeastern perspective, £72 million would probably go a lot further if it is used to increase the size of an existing depot easily capable of being expanded, rather than to build a complete new facility from scratch in the middle of nowhere.
What is a real pity, but understandable as it was not part of his brief, is that Gibb does not explain to what extent, if any, building a depot at Hoo Junction solves Southeastern’s depot problems. It might mean that Southeastern’s problems simply go away. Alternatively, the Hoo Junction depot might do very little to relieve Slade Green depot.
No good news
There never seems to be any good news when it comes to more capacity on Southeastern Metro. One would have thought with his rejection of TfL taking over the service, that the Transport Secretary would be anxious to show that the DfT doesn’t need devolved railways to provide a good commuter service. But then, one would also have thought the Kent Route Study would have drummed home the need to provide 12-car trains almost everywhere on Southeastern Metro services.
At the end of August, for four working days, Hayes commuters will find their peak hour service reduced from six trains to just four due to work with the Thameslink Programme. The platforms will be long enough for 12-car trains and enough carriages will be available to provide those longer trains. Will they be 12-car trains? The answer is probably obvious to everyone.
Cover photo by Chris McKenna. Thanks to Graham Feakins for the historical photos and background information
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The Gibb report stated a figure of just £2 million pounds for stabling 20 trains at Grove Park and Victoria Grosvenor sidings which would be transferred from Thameslink. He recommends it and I covered it here with the screengrabs from the report:
https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/transport-sec-chris-grayling-sits-on-rail-report-for-months-what-it-contains-revealed/
I’m sure additional costs would be involved (but not mentioned) but how much could it be really? Seven months after that report and no announcement of it happening.
In terms of sidings, Plumstead will have space for 3-4 more tracks once Crossrail vacate the area just north of the existing three tracks.
The DfT just don’t seem interested.
Politically I suspect most of the SE stoppers that could be improved by this investment operate either in safe Conservative seats that will continue to support them regardless, safe Labour seats that will not and poorer areas that no one ever cares about!
I have always thought that the depot situation for these lines would have been much improved if previous facilities had been retained. I have never quite understood why BR was not prepared to adapt the Rotherhithe sidings, or even part of the track leading to Bricklayers Arms, for use for EMU stabling.
I suspect the lurking issue behind these problems is the fact that a Secretary of State (SoS) like Grayling will believe the “market” (for the franchise) will resolve all these problems. He would not want £72m forked out if he believed that the “private sector” competing for the franchise could deliver it faster, to a better design and cheaper than a boring old government procurement. *If* there has been an awakening in the DfT about the actual potential of South Eastern’s network *and* the rampant scale of housing development then we might see bidders tempted to propose a large scale rolling stock replacement or influx that might then trigger the need for a modern depot. If there is any competence within the bidding teams one might hope that they would want to see any such depot at Slade Green. Nice theory – let’s see what happens in practice.
I did smile a little when I read some of the early paragraphs given the new HLOS for CP6, issued today, has apparently hived off enhancements so that the railway only does what is valued by passengers and I quote from the SoS’s statement.
The government is determined that the railway becomes more focused on issues that matter most to passengers — such as punctuality and reliability. A more reliable railway also plays a critical role in underpinning economic growth and bringing the country together. The government is committed to taking action to achieve these outcomes.
The HLOS is therefore focussed on the operation, maintenance and renewal of the existing railway — the areas of activity that will deliver a more reliable railway for passengers.
The above snippet from the statement throws up a glaring issue – that enhancements seemingly only cause disruption and cost and don’t do much for passengers. I am being a tad obtuse here but I do worry about segregating an element of what should be an integrated asset management process. There comes a point where renewal and maintenance are pointless. You do actually need enhancement to make things better overall and provide a quantum step up. However that does need to be put alongside a range of options. This is not new nor is it rocket science. It is very basic stuff.
What South Eastern demonstrably needs is enhancement. Your statement that not much has changed since 1954 highlights the issue very well. What else in the capital is still done in broadly the same way as it was in 1954 (excluding Edgware Rd signal cabin!)? Not very much given technology, products, training, skills etc have all advanced considerably. And the years of “hoo hah” over trying to obtain extra trains to bolster train lengths now is another area of disgraceful behaviour by the DfT. No wonder even Tory MPs like Bob Neill have had enough and have been scathing in their statements about what is going on / has gone on.
The more I see of the current DfT the more I despair. It will take 30-40 years to recover from some of the monstrously bad decisions that are currently being taken and it bodes very, very badly for the future. Rebuild of East Croydon and approaches? Dream on baby.
The Gillingham proposals conform with what I had heard, that (of the five Thameslink trains that finish/start at Gillingham) only two would be stabled in the depot, with one in the new bay platform at Rainham and two others at Rochester. There has been no indication, so far as I am aware, whether these are intended to be 8- or 12-car units.
I also think SE may be squandering some of its siding space because of its smallish fleet of 3-car 375/3s occupying space that would historically have been used for 4 cars, and certainly some of the 395s stabled at Faversham use sidings that are capable of holding 8 cars rather than the 6 car length of a Javelin (although sometimes one of the Sheerness branch 466s shares the same siding).
None of it looks to be much on its own, but cumulatively it may well add up to a couple of full length trains. SE has taken a handful of 377/5s into stock, which I believe usually overnight at Ashford or Tonbridge, and should have displaced a few Networkers back to Metro duties.
Another factor which must have an impact on the options available is the cost of security for stabling points. Without substantial fencing and usually a staffing presence as well trains are likely to get ‘repainted’ overnight. Means that quite apart from any driver rostering issues outstabling small numbers of trains at loactions remote from main depots is unattractive.
Have there ever been any estimates of how much it would cost to extend Woolwich Dockyard station? A Westward extension looks possible if you’re willing to block off Frances Street for a some months (and do a lot of overnight work)…
The latest Thameslink consultation round is non-commital about whether they’ll be running 8 or 12 car trains on the Rainham service. Which I find very surprising – surely stock allocation is a pretty crucial part of timetabling.
All it says is “The route can also be operated by 8 or 12 car trains” (page 12) and then “These trains are not able to call at Woolwich Dockyard due to short platforms being unable to accommodate 12 carriage trains” (page 15)
The Southeastern consultation released alongside Thameslink clearly stated 8-car Thameslink services yet it still skips Woolwich Dockyard. Despite this it is timetabled at 5-10 minutes slower from Dartford to London Bridge than all-stopping SE Metro services. Thameslink will also skip Belvedere and Erith. Both of those plus Woolwich Dockyard are in areas with housing and population growth.
Coming back to Plumstead and the potential there , the article says it isn’t possible to expand the current three tracks which I’ve heard a fair bit but I’m sure the Crossrail planning documents showed they would vacate the triangle of land north of the current SE sidings. The permanent Crossrail depot is to the east. Can’t find the planning drawing to hand right now though. Anyone know for sure?
Reading the article again and the headline that capacity wont increase anytime soon seems a bit bleak. If it does cost just £2 million to transfer 20 trains from Thameslink to Southeastern by the end of 2017 as the Gibb report states, that will then free up 20 Networkers for Metro services which should have an effect from 2018.
Couldn’t some of those class 319s that have gone into storeage be of use to South Eastern?
While it may be possible to find space for a new rolling stock depot at Hoo Junction, the importance of the site for infrastructure maintenance should not be overlooked. Materials are stored and engineers’ trains made up for work over a wide area of south east England. There are smaller sub-yards at Hither Green and Tonbridge, but the nearest equivalent facility is at Eastleigh. Hoo Junction has the big advantage of being an isolated location for carrying out work that can generate noise and dust. This activity is just as important as maintaining the trains.
In considering sites for new facilities, the railway often looks no further than its own boundary fence. There is a large area of vacant land, not in railway ownership, immediately north-east of Hither Green sidings. This is designated Metropolitan Green Belt, so careful negotiations would be needed to make the area away from houses available for railway use, but the planning designation means that the purchase price should be trivial by comparison with the cost of extending the sidings.
@TT: Not sure if I would want them if I were running SE. The acceleration seems to be poor and they do sound as though they slip a lot.
The Hayes line is now cleared for 12 car Networker running, and there is a regular working down there (I believe it goes down empty for 09.15 Hayes – Charing Cross). Regarding the Thameslink workings from Rainham to somewhere north of the river, these should release some Networkers from the current Gillingham to London services up the North Kent line, which ought to be able to be used to strengthen further Metro workings. As stated elsewhere the 377 cascade from Thameslink has still not happened. The eight units now operated by South Eastern have some bizarre maintenance arrangement at Selhurst. An ideallace to berth extra mainline stock and release Networkers would be Chart Leacon at Ashford, currently being over grown by weeds. A lot of the smaller berthing locations (such as New Beckenham) don’t get used due to persistent vandalism, and much has been spent to make Plumstead more secure. Another short sighted stance, has been the failure to augment 376 units up to six coaches, so there is a 10 coach train locked into running on a 12 coach railway. I suggested to the DfT in 2013 that 36 additional coaches would be ideal, but it was pooh-poohed with the statement “It’s not as easy as just building extra coaches and putting them in” to which I countered that London Overground were doing exactly that with the very similar 378s being made from four to five coach units. A short term plan for 376s could be to split the fleet in half and make 18 x 6 car and 18 x 4 car units so they could actually be run as 12 car trains. But it would still need more coaches, as there would be three “trains” short (currently 32/36 available as 16 ten car workings, would become 8 twelve cars formed 2×6 and 5 twelve cars formed 3×4). Of course. Things takes thought and vision, something in short supply at the DfT.
@Londoner in Scotland: You need to see a contour map…. It’s not flat around there!
The Grove Park Down sidings and Hither Green yard are actually *up* from the through lines, and that piece of land you’re thinking of is, I believe, *below* the level of the through lines!
So probably not so easy!
@Tall Blue: Electrostars are limited to 5 coach units….
We’re the 376s not originally built with the intention that an additional coach could be inserted at a later date? When Electrostars can run in 12 coach formations, why are they limited to 5 coach units? Granted, possible power supply issues, but is that insurmountable? 375s, 377s and 387s merely have an upper power limited when running in 12 coach formations.
Tall Blue, all Electrostars are not the same. There may be software or wiring issues that mean some classes can be extended and others cannot.
Tiger Tanaka, I’d be very happy with 319s in permanent 8 car formation on Vic-Orpington, but it’s the stabling space issue again that’s the problem.
@Tall Blue: There are two buses in effect. The first one is the per unit bus and then an overall unit to unit bus.
It is the internal bus which IIRC is limited to 5 coaches. This bus is, I believe common to all variants of the Electrostar. It has been discussed before on here and some of the other commentators should be able to give you the reason as to why.
I have no idea how many Electrostars you can hang together…
A few responses.
From the Murky Depths,
I must admit I hadn’t seen the bit about £2m in the Gibb Report. But £2m seems to me what you need just to tart up existing sidings to be suitable for different stock. You can’t install a set of points (with associated signalling) for less than £1m on the main line. It would be cheaper in the depot but still big figures so I really can’t see £2m going very far on a brownfield site. Looking at LU figures for comparable works convinces me that this is merely a “brush and clean up” cost for reassigning to different, possibly longer, stock.
On the subject of Plumstead sidings, I have to admit my comment was based on visual inspection and it hadn’t occurred to me some of the land might be returned to Network Rail.
erinoco,
As a general comment, stabling sidings near the centre of London, other than for use as a refuge, is very much out of favour and not considered a good use of land. The trend has been away from this – most notably in recent decades with Marylebone diesel depot being relocated to Aylesbury. It also leads to a lot of empty running – note how critical Gibb was of stock for the Uckfield line being stabled and serviced at Selhurst.
It is now generally recognised that the Old Oak Common depot for Crossrail was a big mistake. It should have either been further out or should have had passive provision for oversite development for housing.
Walthamstow Writer,
Fully in agreement. I note Chris Grayling wanting to provide what matters most to customers. Clearly that doesn’t extend to getting rid of the DfT specifying the services and handing them over to TfL.
A few more responses.
Man of Kent,
I didn’t realise the proposal was that bad. I thought the idea of the Thameslink Programme was to solve problems not create them. It certainly seems an unwelcome contrast between that and Hornsey, Three Bridges or Brighton even. Probably Cricklewood and Bedford too. Still if a project gets chopped and changed at the last minute then that is what you get.
MIkeP,
The reason given for not being able to stop 12-car trains at Woolwich Dockyard is clearly nonsense as the trains have SDO. I suspect the real reason is that track-based SDO equipment hasn’t been installed at Woolwich Dockyard. And the reason it hasn’t been installed and won’t be is because they don’t want the trains to stop there anyway.
Yes it is ridiculous they can’t tell us if these will be 8-car or 12-car. If 8-car then presumably this means a reduction in Metro capacity although the freed slots into Cannon Street probably mean extra capacity into Cannon Street for long distance trains*.
* as in putting back the capacity that was already there before the Thameslink Programme started.
Tall Blue,
I really hope you are correct and 12-car trains can run to Hayes. I was told something very similar (even the same train) over a year ago so was quite surprised when the latest section appendix said otherwise.
I would be delighted to be proved wrong and hear that 12-car trains will be used during the post-August-Bank-Holiday engineering works.
On the subject of 375 Electrostars
My understanding is that the units are limited to 5-car.
Also you can’t run 5+5+2 in case the final two cars are not on the platform at some stations. Remember you cannot walk through them like 377 Electrostars.In any case, at the article points out, finding the units does not appear to be the primary problem now.
Renationalise the lot, Reorganise a structured management that want to run a railway not a load of competing companies that frankly could not care less about the Railway.
Interesting article. One point. The impression is given that current Southeastern peak services are all 10 car length. This is not the case, A number of peak services are still only 8 car length despite 10 car length platforms having been available for decades. I don’t know the proportions and current operations are of course distorted by (a) short formed Cannon Street services underloaded by the inability to use London Bridge (b) Networkers undergoing their accessiblity modifications and cosmetic refurbishment and (c) the failure rate of the class 465/466 stock despite having had 25 years to bring it up to a good standard of reliability. Southeastern used to have a (useful) section on its website showing the usual length of all peak hour trains, but this seems to have disappeared. Nevertheless – having commuted at varying peak times on the Sidcup line for over twenty years and on occasions the Bexleyheath line – it is far from the case that 10 car peak operations on Charing Cross / Cannon Street services are the norm.
Re: PoP – confused by your comments on Electrostars. In what way can’t you walk through a 375 that you can on a 377 (they both have the same arrangement of intra- and inter-unit gangways, and for that matter in the beginning both were Class 375 for Connex)? What’s with 5+5+2 (there is no such thing as a 2-car Electrostar)?
C;lass 376s (the 5-car units that are the problem) don’t have end gangways, so if a 5+5+2 formation did exist there would indeed be a problem if the two car unit were hanging off the end of a short platform. (You could, of course, put it in the middle of the train). I understand that 5 cars is the maximum an Electrostar unit can be (which is why the 378s could be extended from 3 to 4 to 5 cars, but the 376s can’t be extended from 5 to six), and that at least three units can be coupled together – I have never seen a 3+3+3+3 formation and don’t know if it’s possible. But 3+3+4 or 4+4+4 are certainly possible. Whether a 2 car Electrostar could be built I don’t know. If not, the existing 5-car units could be reduced to four and the redundant intermediate cars used, with new driving cars, to make more four car units.
Balthazar,
I think I must have had a senior moment. There is some combination that is banned because you can’t have a 2-car unit at the end. For some reason, I was convinced that 375s were like 465s as regards to being able to walk through but of course, as you point out, they are not.
The 5+5+2 was hypothetical.
@ PoP – I deliberately steered away from devolution as we’ve discussed it so many times before. It is now for the DfT to deliver or else keep things as they were in 1954. There is a part of me that is still expecting the DfT to try to do something “different” just to cock a snook at the Mayor and TfL.
As an aside I suspect the DfT will not like a fair number of responses to the SE consultation. This is because there has been a concerted campaign to ensure the answer to every appropriate question is “transfer the service to TfL to plan, operate and improve” (or words to that effect). Wonder how many responses will end up in the bin or being ceremonially burnt by the SoS? Can’t imagine that those responses will even be acknowledged in whatever the DfT’s response is as it doesn’t fit the current political narrative.
Re: WW – I can’t help thinking that the way that the DfT might do “something different” from TfL could be to insist on toilets on inner suburban rolling stock (obviously the Networkers do have such facilities, but the 376s do not). This would follow from what is happening on the South Western, even though I don’t think that was actually at the DfT’s instruction, but presumably fell out of how the winning bidder did its new fleet planning.
Timbeau
You can have a 4 sets of 3 car. There was one booked in one timetable period on my train home. What I believe you can’t do is use the 5 car and 4 car 377s together due to the software.
The first of a number of posts…
Electrostars.
1. Limited to 5 car units because of traction power limitations within each unit. As they are theoretical all dual voltage units (the first delivered were AC for C2C) and all the traction electronics are sized around the maximum output of the transformer. The maximum number of motors and inverters is a function of the number and size of power distribution cables.
2. The software (the older version pre 379s and 377/6 &/7 and 387s) was therefore written taking account of the physical 5 car limitation.
3. So the 376s could have been extended to 6 car with the addition of trailer and worse acceleration (thankfully they don’t have AC which would have provided an additional 30-40KW load in the new trailer) but the software would have needed to be complete rewritten. As the crash reg requirements have since changed twice there is now no sensible way to get another coach inserted (assuming you were going to rewire, replace computers and use rewritten software. (The newer electrostar software on the 379s, 377/6 &/7 and 387s is not compatible with some of the equipment on older electrostars e.g. digital PA vs analogue PA on the older ones so could be ported to the 376s without an even bigger rebuild)
4. From memory the limitation on the number of electrostar units coupled in service is 6. The intention being one 12 car (3x4car) could rescue another 12 car (3x4car) if needed without causing complications. (the limitation on Desiros might be 5 making rescues logistically harder from a door control point of view)
5. Southern regularly used to have 4x 3car to form 12 car on an East Grinstead diagram.
6. Picking up on the point made in 3. , due to differences in the computer systems “MK1” electrostars (357, 375, 376, 377/1-/5 ,378) can’t run in service with “MK2*” electrostars (379, 377/6 &/7 and 387). *The same computer system that is the basis of the current avertra one. This limitation created several years of entertainment on Thameslink where the entire timetable and diagramming was based on flighting 2 compatible trains through the core after FCC little oops moment resulting in the fine. Also one of the reason for GTR retaining the 387s on GN routes as they have basic rescue compatibility with 700s and 707s
Therefore forget doing anything with the 376s
Re Londoner in Scotland
Hoo – The intention was that only the disused areas of the yard would be used for a rolling stock depot without any effects on the infrastructure yard use. An area is safeguarded in the Crossrail Act for rolling stock use in the event of a CR extension to Gravesend so has been very carefully looked at previously.
Re PoP,
On the via Greenwich Thameslinks: “Yes it is ridiculous they can’t tell us if these will be 8-car or 12-car.”
The reason is very simple this is the marginal service that gets what ever rolling stock is available and due to the chopping and changing in timetables since the stock order was tweaked there aren’t enough 8 or 12 car units for the service to be one or the other it has to be mix and this has been clear since the first consultation. Don’t expect the 12cars to be on at the busiest times either…
An interesting comment on the comparable lengthening of services out of Waterloo was that, with modern trends to announce trains from a terminus ever closer to the departure time, the desire to schedule crew layovers so they report to the platform only minutes before departure, and some obscure requirement not to open the doors until the crew is in place, passengers are increasingly finding it difficult to reach the front car of 8-car sets before departure, let alone the extra two cars being added.
Mr Beckton: I would buy your first reason. But reaching the front of a train before departure is not made any more difficult by the doors not being open – the normal way is to walk/run along the platform. In fact closed doors make it sort of easier, because you do not need to keep wondering whether to leap on in case the doors suddenly close while you are not alongside one.
“Regarding the Thameslink workings from Rainham to somewhere north of the river, these should release some Networkers from the current Gillingham to London services up the North Kent line, which ought to be able to be used to strengthen further Metro workings.”
The latest Southeastern May 2018 consultation has the service retained but running only as far as Dartford. It was always an off-peak only service before London Bridge rebuild so can’t see many units freed up.
On the subject of the 376s, I thought it would’ve made more sense for them to move to South West Trains instead of them ordering 5-car 707s. Third rail, high capacity and 10-car is the SWT limit as opposed to aiming for a 12-car SE Metro Network is is almost complete give or take a few projects. SE would then have cascaded trains for 12 car running or new builds. That’s make sense.
Instead the 707s were ordered, now surplus before even in public service and probably moving to SE to mean even less trains can go 12 car in the coming decade or two. If so what a failure of planning by the DfT and Grayling.
@tallblue, @fromthemurkydepths
@fromthemurkydepths is correct that South Eastern appear not to gain any extra stock from the Thameslink proposals, but not for the right reasons. Metro trains from Gillingham run right through the peak.
Comparing the 2010 timetable with the 2018 proposals, Metro starters from Gillingham depot appear to be almost identical. In 2010, five trains started from Gillingham, and the depot may also have provided a Strood starter or two. Similarly, the 2018 timetable also contains five trains that have no outbound working to Gillingham.
That does tie in with the need to stable some Thameslink trains other than at Gillingham depot.
@ From the Murky Depths – I think one of the issues with the use of the 376s is the absence of air conditioning. I think this was the last class ordered where this was omitted. In theory this could be retro fitted but along with the other limitations such as an absence of wide gangways they represent very much yesterday’s view of what is required for modern metro trains. With hindsight one has to wonder why the former was omitted given the era when they were first specified but that is water under the bridge. Yes I know a/c stock loses cool air every time doors are opened but so do heated trains in winter lose heat and no one complains about this. It is notable that Anglia are replacing all existing trains and Thameslink are similarly replacing the 319 trains with air conditioned trains from Siemens.
I suspect whoever wins the franchise will probably be offering to replace all the networkers and class 376 vehicles. Low interest rates make replacement cheaper than refurbishment. This would confirm to current procurement practice and allow DfT to proclaim the excellence of the franchising process in providing a major improvement to travelling conditions for commuters which TfL would have been unlikely to have offered had devolution proceeded. I also suspect 12 coach trains as opposed to 10 coach to become the norm in this scenario.
I also suspect the SWT 707 stock may ultimately be headed to Thameslink who probably could do with another 150 coaches as DfT specified a much smaller number than was originally envisaged and this limitation is already imposing constraints as the original vision was to have had a further 200 vechicles.
Richard B,
I also suspect 12 coach trains as opposed to 10 coach to become the norm in this scenario.
But you still need somewhere to put them.
@ PoP I agree and that is the rub any franchise bid has then to include the funding along with a rational proposal for the location of such depots. This makes this franchise award quite fascinating.
Re Richard B,
Unfortunately the 707s weren’t built to Thameslink performance specifications so it would probably be back to Germany for a rebuild. For example the 700s have 50% powered axles and 207kW traction motors whereas the 707s have 40% powered axles and 150kW traction motor so 700s have an average of 103kw per axle but the 707s just an average of 60Kw per axle, resulting in maximum acceleration rates (to 30kmh^-1) of >1.0ms^-2 and 0.85ms^-2. 24 of the 30 707s also didn’t /won’t have pantographs or transformers fitted when they left the factory.
SWT “apparently” gave up on 707 acceptance yesterday so they will now be First’s problem.
Purley Dweller, the 4 car and 5 car 377s have been compatible for some years now. I’ve driven 12 car trains formed of a 3, 4 and 5 in fact!
Richard/NGH, I wonder if there is a possibility of the 707s heading to GTR to allow the 3 car 377s to return to the coast, thus scrapping the rest of the 313s?
Re Anonymous,
I expect they would get snapped up by one of the new LM franchise bidders for Birmingham Cross City as local electrification add-on schemes in the West Midands complete requiring more stock and replace the existing 26x 3 car 323s.
With lots more of the soon too be surplus Desiros (21x 360s ex Anglia and possibly 4/5x Heathrow Connect units and 10x 350s ex Transpennine) joining them to replace 7x319s, and allow more longer Euston service too.
If anyone ever thought running a railway in the UK was simple they need only look at rolling stock issues of length and gauge before playing fantasy trains!
SH(LR): Any piece of land can be raised or lowered and then flattened in order to provide a suitable workspace, surely? Just a matter of how many notes…
Actually, depending on the load factor of first class on SE services, if Chris Grayling gets his way there’ll be little more room for standees (He’s said he is “absolutely” committed to getting rid of the first-class section on commuter trains and that he did not see the case for having two different carriages on shorter train routes.) As I recall though, the first class sections do provide some extra income still?
@Alison – quite right – the test is yield per square metre. First Class,if full, usually beats second.
More generally, not providing first class opens up the possibility of open access all first class operations. In the dying days of NSE,for example, some senior managers looked carefully at launching an all-First commuter service on carefully selected routes in competition with the incumbent franchisees. Needless to say, the department was terrified at the idea which got squashed therefore. These days, the lack of paths on the obvious routes would prevent such behaviour…. But Grayling would like it, I suspect, and it ought to pass the not primarily abstractive test.
For the record, the proposal would have cherry-picked the main first class stations such as Haslemere and Guildford, Brighton, and Tonbridge, using 442s with a high touch customer service including reserved seats. Off peak,the sets would have been used for excursions.
@ Graham H – accepting that train paths are a real issue there must still be a possible glint in someone’s eye that all those surplus EMUs (as ngh set out) provide a lovely opportunity for a quick all first class refurb job and bingo, a revenue grab can start. Those ex TPE 350s would be ideal on routes north of the Thames if they’re geared for 110mph running. Could also, I guess, be converted for DC if push came to shove.
Hmm – “posho” expresses from Norwich, Cambridge and Northampton into London. Kerching. 😉
Re: NGH – with the caveat that the ongoing delays to the announcement might be giving the opportunity to amend proposals, it would seem unlikely that 707s are included in West Mids plans since bids went in for the WM franchise last autumn while the 707s were only declared surplus to requirements (from 2020?) at the end of March.
(I have to say that much “fantasy fleet manager” comment seems to be conducted with little regard to actual constraints…)
Re: GH – did the Department squash the concept before or after Roger Freeman made his famous comment about how privatisation could put businessmen on one train and secretaries on another?
More interestingly, what is your -and indeed my Lord Dawlish’s – view on the market for that level of first class capacity today?
Further to my first post this morning, should the rolling stock equivalent of “crayonista” be “cascaderado”?
@WW – before,I think. (Interesting in itself – I’m not sure I’d made the connexion).
So does the market still exist as it did 20 years ago? I’m not entirely sure that it does – on both SE and SC,first class has been downgraded to the mere presence or absence of an antimacassar. I have no feel for takeup there as I rarely travel in the peaks on those routes. On SWT, thanks to the 444s (?), first still seems to be full and flourishing during the peaks at least but empty interpeak (and full again after the theatre trade hits).
The contrast between SW and, say, SC,suggests however that the market could be (re)created if there was enough effort and space to provide a genuinely high touch travel “experience”. Clearly, the existing 37x family of stock doesn’t allow for that. The attraction of the 442s at that time was that they would have required relatively little spend to make them fit for purpose (a new livery , of course, and rebranding as “Silver Bullets” -the chosen name). Current ac and dc stock might want rather more attention (eg provision of buffets perhaps).
In terms of markets, the Silver Bullet concept was targetted at those specific stations which had very high first class useage, so yes to Haslemere but no to Basingstoke and the Solent,yes to Brighton but no to Horsham. Nowadays, I suspect that the SE market would be very difficult to call because of the HS1 service’s impactal, though I imagine the SW and SC operations would be commercially sustainable..
North of the river, we hadn’t done any research because of the lack of any obviously suitable stock. Cambridge and Oxford are perhaps more akin to the Brighton market although the large academic components there probably spread the first class demand throughout the day (and certainly whenever i have used those routes off peak, first has been full from those specific stations) . Northampton and Norwich used not stand out, and in the latter case, I would expect the base market to be too small.
The point of the business was to provide a dedicated, fast high touch service, with few, if any, intermediate stops and to be able to fill the train completely from those few stops. In that sense, slower, semifast services that couldn’t fill a train would have undermined the services’ USPs. – a different proposal to retaining first class generally,where I tended to consider yield per square metre. .
WW
Nothing new there
“Kent Coast Pullman” ( or whatever it was called ) comes to mind, or the pre-war “East Anglian”
Or, longer-distance, the “Queen of Scots” ( Of which I have a wonderful early-BR era poster visible to my side ) vs the “normal” Edinburgh & Newcastle expresses.
SE Trains have reduced the first class bits from the two parts between the cabs at both ends and the first set of doors, to one single end piece in an intermediate coach. Not quite sure how many seats are left but it’s looks like a reduction from 24 seats per unit to around 16…
That’s going to make a big difference!
Re Balthazar @ 07:27
“Re: NGH – with the caveat that the ongoing delays to the announcement might be giving the opportunity to amend proposals, it would seem unlikely that 707s are included in West Mids plans since bids went in for the WM franchise last autumn while the 707s were only declared surplus to requirements (from 2020?) at the end of March.”
You are also assuming that the ROSCO was unaware that at least one of the two SW bidders wasn’t going to include the 707s last Autumn and didn’t immediately start to offer them elsewhere. As the same ROSCO had just financed some similar new Aventras for Anglia just a few months earlier they will have been aware that the Bombardier option for replacing the 455s/456s/458s if that was in the bidder scope was /is high single digit % cheaper than Siemens alternative so the writing was on the wall for the rest of any new fleet being Bombardier at which point keeping the 707s starts to make very little sense as the leasing rate is comparatively high as it was a mid-franchise alteration paid for by DfT so may be less keenly negotiated between SWT, the ROSCO and Siemens than might normally be the case.
The 707s might make it into service in October/November.
Re Southern Heights,
Expect to see the same on the First/MTR SW with the 450 with smaller relocated 1st class (and no guard office) and no 1st class on the new Aventras (i.e. no 1st Class to Reading).
The GWR 387s lack 1st Class.
Reduced 1st class seating on GN 387s compared to 365s.
And Anglia will only have 1st Class on the faster Norwich services.
The noose has been tightening for while on 1st class.
Re: NGH – I couldn’t say whether Roger Ford’s information is correct, but he did write (Modern Railways, May 2017, page 24) that Stagecoach’s bid included the 707s. If so, then their availability could not have been known until late March 2017, while the WM bidders had to submit their detailed proposals in autumn 2016.
@Balthazar (07:31). Wasn’t the actual quote about civil servants — presumably senior civil servants, as they were the only type the minister knew, rather than the thousands who work in Jobcentres — versus typists, who would travel in something “cheap and cheerful”. Ah, where are the typists now?
@Richard B
Have a look at the decline of the Pound against the Euro and Yen exchange rates. UK-built trains have higher value added in local currency but the difference is not enormous. Even though interest rates are not moving up in the short term, the expected cost of new build trains versus existing trains has increased and will continue to do so.
Even if the new trains party is not yet over, it soon will be.
Two belated points. First, DfT doesn’t ‘buy’ buy trains, well, not directly. By adjusting the ‘N’ multiplier in the quality section of the franchise bid evaluation, bidders have been encouraged to take advantage of the current combination of cheap EMUs and cheap money to undercut even existing ‘new’ stock such as the Class 379 and 707. And Angel cut the price of the Class 707 to the bidders.
So the trains are bought by the operator and funded by private finance.
This availability of cheap-to-lease trains has been reflected in the mass extinctions of existing fleets at Anglia and SWT . The next mass extinction is likely to be South Eastern where at least the 190 Networkers are expected to be replaced. What this influx of new untried designs will do for reliability is another matter.
Re Answer=42
“Even if the new trains party is not yet over, it soon will be”
And probably before SE bids are in knowing SE users luck!
Re: Capt Deltic & NGH – so there we go: two diametrically opposed opinions! And of course some will see new trains as good, and others will see them as bad, so that satisfies everyone!
I take it that the West Midlands fleets are too small to qualify as a mass extinction.
Re: Alan B-G: seems it was typists and businessmen:
http://bufvc.ac.uk/tvandradio/lbc/index.php/segment/0000200218016
I call that a draw!
Re Captain Deltic,
SE extinction – That is assuming there is a ROSCO willing & able (Rock?) and that the others haven’t got at DfT in the mean time.
The Networker MTIN is pretty grim (as you know!) so it shouldn’t be too hard to improve on that as the benchmark is low.
New stock should also require much less maintenance so the question of extra stock becomes easier because just stabling (and not depot space and facilities) that would be the issue for the a limited amount of additional new stock…
Re Balthazar,
I wish I was as hopeful as Captain Deltic but I can see plenty of negatives that could see it not happen too.
One small comment re 1st class on the Anglia main line. I recently used the route and ended up on a Norwich express from Colchester to Ipswich and then back from Ipswich to London. This was off peak and I struggled to find a seat on the outward trip. Someone at AGA is managing to tempt people to upgrade to get bums on seats. The return trip was on the edge of the PM peak so plenty of business people travelling back. While not as full in 1st class as earlier there was still a decent loading.
Obviously that’s just a single observation to be treated with due caution but I was genuinely surprised. I don’t travel by rail very often so my observations tend to be years or months apart so the differences in loadings is often very pronounced.
@WW: First on SE Trains is normally about 75% -80% full in the peaks… I have no idea about off peak and they don’t seem to do cheap upgrades. No real point as there are no real benefits.
Speaking of the 707’s however…. This morning I saw something that looked very odd in the Overground’s New Cross yard. It was shaped like a 707 and red. Unfortunately as I was on an SE train the view was for only a few seconds. Any clues as to what it might have been? New stock for the Goblin?
Re SHLR,
707 test runs at night from there about a fortnight, presumably AC/DC change over testing.
Platform length at Charing Cross is obviously an issue. Is there any possibility of extending the short platforms back into the concourse? The offices above presumably scupper prospects to provide a mezzanine floor but could additional space be found somewhere?
Charing Cross is a pest, with just the six platforms and those pesky Networkers that are too long to fit a 12-car in (375s no problem). Really the only way to improve platform lengths without losing a platform is to build out onto the bridge a la Blackfriars. Those Jubilee bridges may not last as long as folk thought…
On a side note, the glut of new trains is going to hammer reliability for the next few years across the country,
Anglia will suffer most, especially given that many of those new trains will have been built by a manufacturer with no experience of the UK. Expect questions in the House!
If SE gets a total fleet replacement for the Networkers then a similar thing could happen there, depending on the choice of fleet. One would hope a fleet of Aventras might come that way and make life easier.
Balthazar at 17:33 yesterday — thanks for that, and for confirming it was Roger Freeman. I encountered him a few years later when, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he was responsible for the government’s IT ‘strategy’ (I was editing a business magazine on that topic at the time). He knew as much about IT in the late 1990s as he did about railways at the start of the decade.
@Supermac – So is it cheaper to extend the platforms at Charing Cross to take 12-car Networkers, or replace the Networkers with 12-car units that fit the infrastructure?
Given the need to improve/expand the concourse and probably add new platform faces, I suspect a rebuild of CHX is inevitable, with timings depending on the impact of Brexit on growth etc…
Jimbo / Supermac. Any new trains ordered by the new SE franchisee are unlikely to arrive before 2021, by which time the Networkers will be approaching their 30th birthday. Given that spending money on new trains is very likely (if not inevitable), and certainly in the right timeframe for a fleet renewal, then it would seem that ordering them to fit the infrastructure would be a minimal cost option. Personally I cannot see how rebuilding the bridge across the Thames is going to be justified.
From experience, I would budget at least £5m per 12 car siding (excluding land), with small economies of scale for larger sites (>8 berths). Look at Thameslink – 6 sidings + washer at Peterborough and 6 at Horsham. I doubt there was much change from £75m. Even rebuilding the existing Cricklewood for 20 12 car equivalent berths (noted that it’s actually more than that, but 7 are only 8 car) and a washer was >£2.5m per siding, and there were very few new point ends in the depot (out of 40ish) and more than half the stabling length was reused!
The proposed Manningtree depot for Anglia would be a good comparison for Slade Green, though there have been some silly compromises to save money, at the expense of opex costs.
Re Jimbo, Supermac, SFD et al.
The difference between a networker intermediate car and a driving car is just 83cm but there is far more to it that that.
The sensible thing would be to have new stock still at 240m (as that is the effective standard for that side of the network) but better adapted to issues at Charing Cross with:
– “walk though” inter car connectors to allow those in the car furthest from the buffers to enter/exit more efficiently through doors further forwards
– ASDO on individual doors to take account of maximum usable platform length (with track balisies for individual platforms (also sorts Woolwich Dockyard)
– Fewer cabs – the sensible solution would be to break with tradition and go for longer units 6 car units (or even fixed 12 car units*) for the via London Bridge Metro services which would also reduce the cost of replacement as cabs etc. cost circa £250k. That then leaves the issue of what to do with the Victoria metro services – 8 car fixed units???
* The 8/9**/10***/12**** car Desiro City and Aventra units are actually 2 units with single cab at one end joined together which in the case of the 220m or 240m variants reduce the number of cabs by 2-4 and results in 1 fewer train management computer and control electronics and also reduces the component count (and mass) as redundancy is far easier to built in*****.
** Crossrail Aventra 4+5 car half units with 22.2 / 22.9m cars
***Aventra 5+5car half units, Anglia with 24m or First SW with 20m cars
****Thameslink Desiro City 6+6 car units with 20m cars
Re SHLR,
Quick update on 707s at New Cross depot: 001 and 002 there to use the OHLE test equipment
“Notices restricted passenger access to the final carriages” should be “…restrict…”.
I think that I understand why “In simple terms a suburban train must consist of a maximum of three separate “Networker” units, otherwise the train is a metre or so too long” (end carriages are longer than intermediate carriages) but maybe this can be clarified in the text?
Regards
zin92,
Changed although I would argue that “restricted” is perfectly correct as it is used in the passive tense as in “Notices state that passenger access is restricted when using the final carriages”. It now states “prohibit” which is better anyway.
As I understand it, the Networker restriction is down to length plus the undesirability of having a 2-car unit at the end without gangway access throughout the train. Note that 12-car Networker combinations other than 3 x 4-car are banned everywhere on the network according to the Sectional Appendix but no reason for this is given.
Re PoP,
1. There are a reasonable number of metro stations where the platform lengths are long enough (with stopping position discrepancies allowed for) for 12 car with 4+4+4 but not 4+4+2+2 e.g. Deptford.
There is the easy solution with new stock of fewer cabs help with the length issue and/or ASDO to help with the stopping position tolerances.
2. on narrow platforms at termini it is very common for passengers to walk down within the train which doesn’t really work well if you have lots of passengers exiting the front doors of the 11th car when the platform is still narrow.
In the worst days of the Platform 15 Cattle Pen at London Bridge it was quicker to walk down the “platform” inside the train so passengers at the back would walk through till the front doors on the 5th car walk along the platform and get into the rear door on the 4th car then walking down to the 1st car. The platform dwell times assumed the driver could easily get back to the other end…
A proper walk through metro design would really help the narrow platforms issue at CHX by effectively creating extra pseudo platform width.
With all future Up services calling at London Bridge (rather than circa 10tph in the (am) peaks using former Up loop) the loadings on the trains on arrival at CHX should be a bit more even and the highest not quite as high as at some points in the past.
@NGH: Thanks for the info on the 707’s! I wonder if they are going to give them a run on the ELL as well?
On the loading of trains arriving at London Bridge, with the new platforms and the revised stopping positions, the loading on the trains has become much more spread out across the entire train, this is largely due to distance to the concourse from the very back of the train now being equal to that from the front. On 12 coach trains it is in fact less.
This is a bit annoying for those of us living closer in (i.e. Zone 6) and catching a fast train. The last coach used to almost empty, but now we are forced to spread along the platform and it has become a case of pot luck as to whether or not you get a seat!
I never did put down what the Gibb reports says in relation to its £2million cost to transfer 20 377/1s from TSGN to Southeastern:
“The alternative (to 377s on the Coastway lines) is to transfer up to 20 Class 377s to South Eastern (as per their proposal to DfT of 21st December, 2016) to provide additional passenger capacity. Whilst depot capacity exists on South Eastern to accommodate this rolling stock, principally at Grove Park and Victoria Grosvenor sidings, £2m is required to improve facilities at the latter to accommodate more overnight activity, so the decision must take that into account. I recommend the transfer third rail only Class 377/1s to SouthEastern, as the dual voltage units are most usefully retained on the GTR network. The Class 377/1s may remain on South Eastern for the rest of their life – they will be thirty years old in 2032”
Eight months on and 377s are now going into storage aren’t they as more 707s come on line? 319s certainly are. The DfT still havn’t approved the plan even at a low cost of £2 million.
Actually some are being transferred to South Eastern. I saw one in July at Beckenham Junction….
Is that the 8 that went there in a like-for-like swap? If so it wasn’t a net increase in stock and though they have more flexibility on routes they run on, it’s not a gamechanger by any means. Very small scale improvement.
Its worth remembering that across London Terminals there will be a lack of platform availability, even if XR2 comes online. Given the lack of any new central London site suitable for additional platforms (and cost!), and the inability of some existing sites to be reconstructed to take 12 cars, it seems a reasonable assumption that, sooner or later, more stations like Blackfriars will appear.
@ Ben – I agree there will be an ongoing shortage of central London terminal platforms. I’m afraid I don’t agree that more platforms will be built on bridges. To be honest there is not much practical scope for this. We are therefore back to a range of solutions like working to get turnround times reduced, speeding entry and egress from trains to reduce dwell times, changes to track layouts / speeds and signals to raise throughput and improve run in / run out times at platforms and through junctions. Service pattern rationalisation would also help but “wah we can’t have that because we are stuck in the 19th century”. There are then the much bigger solutions of more Crossrails and more tube lines into South London to shift demand to other services which don’t need central London terminal platforms. Back to the same old tedious issues in this country – no vision, no planning, no long term financial commitment, wrong headed and muddled political interference. It’s a miracle anything ever gets done. Look at Paris / Ile de France and weep.
Ben,
Blackfriars had two through and three terminating platforms when on the north bank before reconstruction and now it is rebuilt and straddles the Thames it has two through and two terminating platforms. Therefore, I cannot voice much enthusiasm for the idea of replicating the concept to increase capacity.
Word is Southeastern will now get some more 377/5s but no idea how many. 20 requires £2 million to be stored at Victoria.
@WW – Exactly so – this shortage of terminal capacity has been looming ever larger since at least my time in NSE, with the eastern side of the capital the most pressing in those days. [At the time, my preference would have been to built a through station under the Wharf, linked to the LTS on the north bank and the SE on the south – cost then probably about the same as Stratford Unmentionable, and perhaps somewhat more useful to the travelling public – that may still be part of the long term solution, especially if combined with various crossrail-type schemes. To note that actually what no one is seriously proposing is new *terminals* of any sort, only more through running to ease the onward distribution issues].
Graham: Quite. The conventional wisdom is still that long-distance trains should terminate in mid-city, and short-distance ones should run through. But the boundary between these two categories may be moving, and/or anomalous cases (e.g. LBG-Victoria) are gradually getting ironed out.
@GH/WW/Malcolm
Well no new terminals apart from the Old Oak Common suggestion for Chiltern services. Whether one would classify a terminus straddling Zones 2-3 where everyone’s supposed to change to Crossrail services as a true terminus is some what up for discussion.
@ Snowy – to be fair the OOC Chiltern idea is analogous to Greater Anglia having resumed services to Stratford via the then defunct Lea Bridge. It was a “spur” terminal but one that reached a very significant interchange that has grown in importance since then. We now have that line from T Hale to Stratford being better used, a reopened station and the prospect of an enhanced service from 2018/19. If the same trick can be pulled on the New North Line from the Ruislips into Old Oak Common I’d say that was a very positive development for the future indeed – assuming interchange will be reasonably convenient at OOC. If OOC is redeveloped with new employment prospects alongside the transport improvements then it is all to the good given Marylebone is very constrained and unlikely to see much expansion.
I don’t see people who use GA into Stratford looking particularly inconvenienced if they have to change trains – far easier and cheaper than slogging into Liv St for a wide range of destinations including south of the river on DLR. I used the line last week and plenty of people waiting at T Hale and also people on and off at Lea Bridge despite it being off peak.
@ Snowy
Surely the major point of the Chiltern trains to OOC is to connect with HS2 or Crossrail towards Heathrow rather than onwards to central London?
@Malcolm – it’s getting increasingly difficult to distinguish between long and middle distance services (the GW and MML are a case in point) and I suspect the old-fashioned idea that you well describe derives from radically different journey times; these days, the time difference has narrowed considerably.
@WW/Snowy – I was reflecting on OOC – yes, it’s useful but, no. it’s hardly a significant contribution to terminal capacity to the west of the capital. Maybe OOC will become a Wharf in the west in terms of size and require an installation to match, but somehow I doubt it – the site is somewhat, err, rail locked for a start – and putting a major terminus there to serve such a bigger market would be tricky/expensive without tunnelling.
Herned
Crossrail – yes, but into central London, rather than the much-more inconvenient dog-leg ( including down to the Bakerloo line ) @ Marylebone ….
Re Ed,
Another 4x 377/5 transferring over this week (but will get Southeastern branding before they see service), same arrangement as before with Selhurst maintaining them. The remaining 11x to follow soon.
@NGH: I think I saw one this morning, sitting in the SE sidings near Victoria. Still with Thameslink logos on the side….
As if to prove me at least partially wrong, Southeastern promise an extra 68 carriages between now and November. But then, some of these are for services such as those to Maidstone East which are hardly Metro services which is what the article was about.
Also of note
So, that is sod all extra 12-carriage trains at the height of the peak – as we have come to expect.
Also, bit bemused by the suggestion that the Bromley South line (whatever that is) will see a number of peak-time trains lengthened from eight to ten carriages. Suspect either this is just sloppy wording and this won’t happen or that this isn’t a reference to metro services.
Diagram showing routes to benefit here.
I should have entitled the article “Why capacity won’t increase significantly on Southeastern Metro any time soon”.
@PoP
SouthEastern use “Bromley South line” as one of their groups of routes for service disruption (also served by the “Maidstone East” and “Sole Street” groups).
There are a lot of numbers to juggle, but I think the 6-to-8 references on trains to the Medway Towns and Maidstone East suggests that 465+466 formations will be replaced by 2×377, and that some of the 466s will be redeployed to make up 10 car formations on Orpington-Victoria workings, plus potentially peak oddities (e.g. Blackfriars trains) that pass through Bromley South.
There are 43 466s, and while some are needed for the Bromley North and Sheerness shuttles, there will presumably be a mass shuffling of where the rest are used in the peak – as has been noted previously, 10 car trains can run into all platforms at Charing Cross, whereas 12 car Networkers can’t.
Unless it is intended to run 2x376s on Victoria-Orpington….
Platforms on the Vic-Orpington route won’t take 10 car trains – hence the bemusement of PoP
So, will Maidstone East’s share of these 68 extra carriages be in compensation for the cancellation of the proposed extra two trains per hour Monday to Saturday Thameslink service from Maidstone East to Central London via the fast line? I really had hoped for a service that provided a connection to the Thameslink Core in just five stops, to cater for the substantial new suburbs round the periphery of town, and the recent developments of riverside flats.
Badly worded – There have been loads of 6 car services running on the Vic – Orpingtons for the last circa 2 years so those will go to 8 car hopefully reversing the poor performance due to extended dwell times on the short.
Re: NGH – presumably the writers of that text expect their readership to have a sophisticated appreciation of the relative quantities denoted by “a number” as opposed to “some”… (Or have I failed to read something? – probably.)
Maidstone Jotter
The Thameslink services via London Bridge to Maidstone have not been cancelled.
See attached timetable from the consultation a few months ago:
https://www.transformingrail.com/-/media/goahead/transforming-rail/files/tl-mainline-routes-2018.pdf
The confusion arises as these trains were not mentioned in the SE consultation which ran at the same time.
Late yesterday Southeastern enhanced their announcement with a list of trains that have now been extended.
The category with the most entries is “Bromley South Line” which mostly consists of Victoria-Orpington services. There is one Bromley South – Victoria service plus an oddball Orpington-Blackfriars service via Lewisham (so it doesn’t go anywhere near Bromley South!).
On the Sidcup line Southeastern seem to be struggling with the concept of AM and PM.[Now corrected. PoP]
Except on the “Bromley South Line” few of the services are actually in the peak hour and I am sure they didn’t need extra carriages to be available to lengthen the 23:26 Charing Cross – Dartford (arrive 00:11).
ngh,
So really many of these nearly-new carriages are just enabling Southeastern to get back to where they were two years ago. I cannot recall peak hour stock ever being shorter than 8-cars when, many years ago, I had my first job on the railway and worked at Sydenham Hill station (on the Bromley South Line).
@ Verulamius at 07:36
Thanks for your confidence. While every other proposed Thameslink service was dealt with in the SE consultation document, I thought it alarming that only the Maidstone East proposal was omitted, despite its prominence in the Thameslink consultation report.
Trust is not easily won by organisations that do not tell the public the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Especially re Maidstone. (See my remarks in other strands).
Re PoP,
Sort of…
True for via Bromley South – many of the line users were miffed that they got affected by the London Bridge works too. So back to where they were 2 years ago.
The other via LBG lines have benefited from some longer trains for the last 2+ years with the cars diverted from the Orpington Metro services and are still longer e.g. 8-10 and 10-12.
PoP,
PS – I can definitely remember being on some of those 6 car services! Agree that they were always 8 car before the London Bridge works as long as I can remember (EPB era)!
@PoP: I expect that Orpington to Blackfriars (via Lewisham) service to return to its normal destination of Charing Cross post Christmas blockade.
Southern Heights,
If so then a Charing Cross service will have to be diverted to Cannon Street to make space for it. Charing Cross already has the maximum sensibly useable capacity of 28tph.
But I don’t think Cannon Street will be able to handle many more trains post-blockade. It will be able to support a maximum of 22tph and it must be close to that now.
Even if it went to Charing Cross (or Cannon St) it wouldn’t explain why it got included in the “Bromley South Lines”.
@PoP: That train was diverted as part of the works, so given that the Greenwich line trains are also no longer going to Charing Cross (CHX), how did this ever work before the works started?
Have four additional (I’m assuming that the Greenwich line had 3 tph to CHX) services come from elsewhere?
Southern Heights,
Charing Cross used to have 29tph before the track layout and length of track circuits were modified on the northern approach (serviing platforms 1-3). A desire for more resilience may have also been a factor in the reduction by 1tph.
Cannon St used to handle 25tph before the work at London Bridge. This can’t be reinstated because it relied on trains using the Metropolitan curve at Borough Market to get trains out of Cannon St in the morning without adding to congestion at London Bridge.
As for the Greenwich line trains, this will be largely irrelevant because they will be swapped with something else so combined Charing Cross/Cannon St capacity will be unaltered.
A possibly daft question but has anyone ever studied how to make all platforms on South Eastern’s main line and suburban services (ignoring little branches and stubs) at least 10 car but ideally 12 cars long? Surely it is midly ludicrous that this sort of scheme has not been put in place on all routes into Charing X, Cannon St, Blackfriars and Victoria?
I know some routes did have works years ago and we have one or two nasty and difficult locations but isn’t this the sort of step change in station infrastructure, along with accessibility works and ticket hall capacity expansion at a few locations, that is much needed? Given new trains cost thrupence each (slight exaggeration) nowadays isn’t it stations and power infrastructure that need an aggressive enhancement programme to work along an expanded train fleet?
Faffing around to make trains 8 cars long ago and claiming it as some sort of riotous success story just feels like a waste of effort and an attempt to deceive people.
Walthamstow Writer,
Page 55 of the Kent Route Study sort of gives the answer for the London Bridge metro area.
Most of the work was done years ago which makes it all so maddening. Power supplies have also been upgraded.
Note that 12-car suburban trains have run to Cannon St so not all of these changes are necessary to run 12-car trains. if SDO is not possible then you can simply have 12-car trains not call at Woolwich Dockyard. It isn’t that busy by Southeastern standards and catching a train back one stop to Woolwich Arsenal increases your options considerably.
A figure of £20-50m is given but I suspect that includes extending platforms at Woolwich Dockyard. Note the issue of Slade Green depot. Presumably they can uncouple to store trains. I just have this feeling the powers that be seem reluctant to properly address the issues of either extending Slade Green depot or providing a decent alternative.
The same study pours cold water on longer suburban trains via Bromley South. due to not being good value for money. But practically everything Orpington to Beckenham Junction is 12-car so you could have Orpington to Beckenham Junction then fast to Victoria (or Blackfriars) if there was the will to provide such a service. You would probably still have to do some work at Victoria and maybe Shortlands (or not stop there). I suspect you could extend Penge East, a fairly busy station, quite easily.
Re WW,
To add to what PoP says:
On the Victoria or Blackfriars services (Ex LCDR) it would be huge job in scale though not necessarily that expensive with judicious SDO but far more bang for buck can be achieved with alternative train interiors in the short term (get rid of 3+2 seating etc.)
Victoria P1-8 is a big issue to solve as there are only 3 proper 12 car platforms with 2 more 12car with SDO (a few metres short for non SDO) so reducing to 7 platforms with a big rebuild??? (sorting the shortest 9 car platform will be tricky otherwise)
12 car will effectively over hang the junctions at Herne Hill so not great for stoppers.
Power supplies not great already (Electrostars limited to notch 2 along chunks of the route).
Having said that most of the via Herne Hill Route platforms are 9 car long so 10car might be fairly easy…
8 car: West Dulwich and Brixton
9 car: Herne Hill, Sydenham Hill, Penge East, Kent House, Shortlands, Bickley
12car /10 car Beckenham Jn
12 car Bromley South, Orpington
All of the Catford Loop is 8 car platforms but sorting the 3 needed for longer Victoria – Dartford services might be worth thinking about.
SE have increased the number of lengthened services again this week with more of the additional stock now available and an updated pdf of the changes:
https://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/-/media/goahead/southeastern/documents/all-timetables/enhanced-services-timetable/se-enhanced-service-additional-carriages.pdf?la=en
More changes (improvements) still to come.
@ NGH – if nothing else that pdf of longer South Eastern trains shows how the three main commuter lines east of LOB all interwork / have loop services.
Interesting to see that Victoria-Dartford is not forgotten. It also highlights how, in the desire to increase the length of one train (17:04 Victoria -Dartford), one ends up getting multiple entries in the table as further off-peak trains are operated by the same lengthened train.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not knocking these improvements which are very welcome. It is just that these sort of improvements are going to be the sort that means that in a few months time no-one will notice any benefit because the trains will be just as full again as witnessed elsewhere when incremental enhancements are made. The most noticeable example was the addition of a seventh car to the Jubilee line which, within weeks, made no difference the level of crowdedness.
The extra carriages came from what was available due to stock replacement elsewhere. The figures are entirely matched to supply and have no relationship to the demand. You are getting what is available not what is needed.
Given the massive built up latent demand though, one could argue that what is available is at least more-or-less a subset of what is needed. The question then moves on to how best to plug other gaps.
@PoP: Let’s hope the power supply is adequate….
Finally the South Eastern ITT appears…
News release headlines…
Plans unveiled to boost capacity with space for at least an extra 40,000 passengers per day
Improved, longer, more comfortable trains and fast wifi connectivity by 2022
Region will become the first in the country to have a new joint team running day to day operations for track and train to cut delays and improve performance
Next operator required to remove first-class accommodation on all services within 18 months of taking over the franchise to increase space for all commuters
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/better-journeys-for-south-eastern-rail-passengers
And the ITT documents themselves:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/south-eastern-franchise-2017-invitation-to-tender
Do I understand table Attachment A part 1: Table SE on page 10 of 13 in https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/662871/sef-itt-attachment-a-train-service-specification.pdf correctly?
That from December 2022 all Hayes trains will go to Charing Cross or Victoria (50/50 split).
Rather amused that peak hour specification is determined by metres of train provided. It makes perfect sense but just seems weird.
Encouraging that there is a plan to double the trains from Victoria to Lewisham all day from 2 to 4 per hour. The existing 2 services to Dartford plus 2 more to Hayes. Surely these services will crawl over the flat junction at Lewisham without any infrastructure changes there? But still … this addition will be very helpful for passengers for Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye and Nunhead. These services are carrying far more passengers than even a couple of years ago.
Diverting Hayes trains from Cannon St to Victoria would have been unthinkable 30 years ago, maybe 20 years ago when many people wanted Cannon St. Not sure what the situation is today but from December 2022 it would seem to involve a change at London Bridge or a walk over the bridge so I doubt it would be popular. But maybe more people work in the West End now.
As I understand that Lewisham – Victoria can be a maximum of 8-cars long (or 160 metres in ITT-speak) I really hope they have
12-car240m trains on the Hayes – Charing Cross services.More details are set out in the Stakeholder briefing note:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/663122/south-eastern-rail-franchise-stakeholder-briefing-document.pdf
Victoria via Lewisham to go to Hayes and Crayford.
North Kent via Lewisham to be from Cannon Street.
Blackheath to be both Cannon Street and Charing Cross.
Sidcup to be Charing Cross with Cannon Street peak only.
Extra trains to Ashford enabling Hastings trains to be fast to Tonbridge.
@Giovanni
It’s not the existing 2tph to Dartford – Table SC (the Bexleyheath line) has 4tph Charing Cross (6tph peak) and 2tph Cannon Street (4tph peak). Table SD (the Sidcup route) has the Victoria via Lewisham trains.
There’s some choices for the off-peak 4tph Charing Cross (peak adds an extra 4tph with similar choices) and 2tph Victoria trains that go via Sidcup to go:
A) “Bidders must stop 2tph at [Slade Green] as part of an advertised through train to or from [Cannon Street], and as part of the Table SB service.”
B) “Bidders must stop a minimum of 2tph at [Dartford].” (Charing Cross trains only)
C) “Bidders may extend any service they stop at [Dartford] to and from [Gravesend], [Strood], [Rochester] or [Gillingham] as part of the Table SF TSR.”
E) “Bidders may operate this service to and from [Barnehurst] as an advertised through train to or from [Cannon Street] or [Charing Cross] as part of the Table SC service.” (Victoria trains only)
F) “Bidders may operate this service to and from [Darford]” (Victoria trains only)
If they go with Option A or E, rather than F, for the Victoria trains, they won’t go to Dartford.
Whoops, the 4tph peak-only trains via Sidcup are Cannon Street (avoiding Lewisham)
Given that “First” is funtionally-almost-indistinguishable from “Second” on those services, I can see why, but the re-arrangement of final destinations is … interesting.
I can see a lot of interchanges happening @ Lewisham or London Bridge for Cannon St users.
Of course this is the mirror of (almost) all of the Greenwich & N Kent line trains going to Cannon St only, isn’t it?
As discussed in these pages, some time since.
Re Si, Giovanni et al.
All sounds good for reducing conflicting moves at Lewisham!
The quality of the ITT document in terms of technical detail is far better than DfT previous attempts. It also explains several previous decisions in previous tenders in writing between the lines.
The big question is why none of this was in the draft route study and what the point of these studies are if something not-very-similar-at-all is chosen. References were made to reducing conflicts at Lewisham but the options chosen weren’t part of the study as far as I know.
Another interesting little thing:
The new operator will also be required to trial Pay-As-YouGo ticketing in the Medway Towns (such as through an Oyster-type card or Contactless payment card) to ensure ticketing is as seamless as possible.
re: crossing movements at Lewisham I make it:
4tph Cannon Street (6tph peak) on the Blackheath platforms
4tph Charing Cross (6tph peak) on the Blackheath platforms
4tph Victoria (4tph peak) on the Hither Green/Ladywell platforms
2tph Charing Cross (2tph peak) on the Hither Green/Ladywell platforms
(2tph peak Charing Cross or Cannon Street to Hither Green that can avoid Lewisham or not)
2tph Charing Cross (4tph peak) to Ladywell avoiding
2tph Cannon Street (6tph peak) to Hither Green avoiding
4tph Charing Cross (4tph peak) to Hither Green avoiding
?tph non-metro services avoiding
I’m assuming that the requirement for 2tph all day Cannon Street – Hither Green avoiding Lewisham and that Orpington (or beyond) is the only Hither Green route with all day Cannon Street service will mean that that service stays avoiding Lewisham at peak times when the peak Cannon Street to Sidcup line services can fill that requirement.
It depends on those peak Orpington line trains, and what route they take, but that could be just 4tph (6tph peak) using the crossover to crossover.
In addition to the ?ph non metro avoiding, there will also be the 2ph Thameslink – Maidstone trains avoiding Lewisham on fast/slow lines.
Re Verulamus,
Swapping from fasts to slow in parallel to Hayes – Charing Cross Lewisham avoiders that go straight on to the fasts.
@ Verulamius
They aren’t metro and thus I included them in the ‘?tph non-metro’ that I couldn’t be bothered to work out! 😉
The timetable specification is strangely lacking on information about the various other services that Southeastern will share track with. Perhaps it’s a test of the bidders knowledge of the network?
Re SI,
Other operator timetables interactions are covered in the main ITT document with lots of rules about what can and can’t be done.
Having read the Kent stuff on the document, ‘?’ is 8tph Charing Cross and 2tph Thameslink off peak, with peak times giving 4tph additional Charing Cross, 4tph Cannon Street, 8tph that can go to either terminal beyond London Bridge, and 2tph that can go to Cannon Street as an alternative to going to Victoria/Blackfriars.
South Eastern have “solved” their difficulties without having to use 12 car trains on the Sidcup to Charing Cross line – they’ve swapped the 3+2 seater trains for 2+2. So standing from Sidcup during peak hours is now the norm. Nice one.
I’m afraid that’s about all they can do really…. You’ll have to get used to it.
Southeastern have even been putting Southern stock straight into service without as much as a repaint. There was one at London Bridge last night.
There is far more room for standing with 2+2 and dwell times are lower too (The 465/9 with modified seating modified to 2+2 a decade + ago have been displaced from semi-fast services by 377s from GTR)
In 4 years time there will be no 3+2 seating left but there will be longer trains.
Interestingly yesterday Stagecoach announced they are now trying (subject to DfT approval) partner with Alstom (80%-20% JV*) for the next SE franchise. The implication is that Alstom will be supplying the new metro stock fleet.
*Was 100% Stagecoach
Just 3 bidders left:
Govia
Abellio – East Japan – Mitsui (same as new London-Midland operator)
Stagecoach – Alstom
@ngh: That must be a single 465/9 and one that I have never seen!
I must admit I won’t miss the 3+2 seating, it takes forever (certainly longer than the 90 seconds in the WTT) to unload my normal train home at Orpington (2R90: CHX -> Folkestone C) and a lot is due to near impossibility of extracting all the passengers from the first two/three coaches quickly enough with the seating as is.
“Stagecoach announced they are now trying to partner with Alstom for the next SE franchise. The implication is that Alstom will be supplying the new metro stock fleet.”
Interesting – because Alstom has not had much recent success in the UK rolling stock market – only six types (classes 175, 180, 334, 390, 458, 460) all first ordered before 2001, and no repeat except for expansion of the Pendolino fleet. But it seems they are teaming up with Siemens
http://www.alstom.com/press-centre/2017/09/siemens-and-alstom-join-forces-to-create-a-european-champion-in-mobility/
Among recent Siemens deliveries are the class 707s ordered by Stagecoach for SWT, which only entered service last year, but are unwanted by their successor franchise SWR who favour Bombardier’s products. It is also only two years since Adtranz finished an extensive rebuild of SWT’s class 458 units as five-car units (incorporating some class 460 cars) – again to be cast aside by SWR.
Maybe both classes will find a new home on South Eastern?
@Timbeau: Only if:
– They could replace all the 465’s
– Were put back into 4 coach units so that they can be formed into 12 coach trains.
– It might require (yet more) power upgrades?
What would you do with the remaining coaches?
Thirty class 707s and thirty-six class 458s (total 330 cars) could obviously not replace all the class 465s (147 units) and 466s (43 units), total 674 cars. But as the Desiro City production line is still alive and well, currently churning out 717s, it is presumably not too late to build more 707s?
As for the existing units being 5-car, one car in each of the existing 707s could be removed, to be incorporated in the new-build units, maintaining the old Southern tradition of cars of different provenance in the same unit (e.g 4SUB augmentation trailers, Class 455/7, Class 458/5)
It might be possible to re-form the 458s into a mixture of 4-car and 6-car sets: (eighteen 4-car units, making six twelve-car trains, and eighteen 6-car units, making a further nine twelve-car trains).
Southern Heights, there is no requirement for SE to repaint its newly acquired Southern stock unless it is scheduled for for maintenance purposes. As long as they don’t have Southern branding on them, they are fine – and who cares what colour it is if the trains are longer.
@Anonymous: I wasn’t criticising them! Quite the contrary… And let’s face it, they are owned by the same parent company anyway….
Despite their manufacture, Alstom/Siemens don’t actually own the class 458/707. Ownership is with Porterbrook and Angel respectively.
Perhaps Alstom is focused on the train maintenance aspect of the franchise? Does the current franchisee maintain their trains in-house?
Verulamius…..Yes
Re: Verulamius & 130
… and no.
Or to put it another way: which fleet(s) are being discussed? (Verulamius did not specify.)
Re Timbeau @1342,
“It is also only two years since Adtranz finished an extensive rebuild of SWT’s class 458 units as five-car units (incorporating some class 460 cars) – again to be cast aside by SWR”
Wabtec* rather than Adtranz did the rebuild. Adtranz is now known as Bombardier Transportation
*Westinghouse (US) Air Brake Technology Corporation who also now own Brush.
Re Timbeau, 130 & SH(LR)
Both 707s and 458s are non compliant with the metro stock specification for the SE franchise and both would need major interior re-engineering. The 707s also have a worse power:weight ratio than the 465s/466s…
Re Verulamus,
Networkers are maintained in house at Slade Green, The original SE Bombardier stock in house at Ramsgate, the Hitachi HS1 stock by Hitachi In Ashford and the ex GTR 377s mostly maintained by GTR at Stewarts Lane /Selhurst.
Bombardier also have the mothballed Chart Leacon depot in Ashford which would help with the extra depot space required.
Service contract margins have historically been significantly better than build margins so Alstom will be chasing both especially as their factories are running at less than a third utilisation. It is now well known what service margins are and they are under attack. SWR will be maintaining it new Bombardier Aventra stock in house for example.
@NGH
I meant Alstom of course – the original builders of the class 458s and the main contractor for the rebuilds (which were actually done, as you say, by Wabtec)
SE Metro services getting the 458s (Alstom) and 707 (Siemens) dumped on them, and presumably still keeping the 376s (Bombardier) sounds like a nightmare and completely against the current trend of replacing the stock with a harmonised (fixed length?) fleet (as with SWR’s Aventras or the TL 700s)
I’m sure the Stagecoach bid will include new stock to replace the Networkers (and maybe the 376s as well), Slightly surprised they’re actually bidding with a manufacturer, maybe Alstom gave them attractive terms
Re Mikey C – If Stagecoach is the successful bidder and sources its trains directly from the manufacturer, is this likely to be significantly cheaper than getting them via a ROSCO? And if it is, is this a template for future bids?
Stagecoach used to own one of the Rosco’s, which would have been useful. Don’t know why they sold it though.
@Southern Heights
Surely the unloading problem you describe is due to the capacity of the stairs off the island platform, so everyone clusters in 3 carriages. If it weren’t, people would travel in carriages further away and save 60s by walking down the platform bypassing those stuck on the train. As it is they bunch to be nearest the stairs. And while when I travel mostly O/P from Orpington, I get a seat on the 2+2 and 2+3s, I’m not sure commuters would appreciate a 20 minute stand if all carriages were 2+2. Be careful what you wish for
Actually we’re talking about a 40 minute stand – my train is nominally a 35 minute journey but is invariably 5 minutes late. South Eastern advise me that they don’t intend passengers to stand, but the facts speak for themselves. There are no extra carriages, just fewer seats – presumably so that those boarding at Hither Green can actually get on the trains now.
@John B: Comparing the unload time of a 375 with a 465, I’d say the 375 is quite a bit faster. 375/9’s aren’t as good due to their 3+2 seating, but they are still better than the 465’s
The problem comes down to:
1. The width of the aisle: you pretty much need to walk sideways to get down it.
2. The distance between the seats: everybody needs to move their knees out of the way so someone near the window can get out. This then blocks the aisle.
On a 375 this all a little bit roomier. But those little bits, make a huge difference.
As to standing… On the slows, the journey to Orpington is 45 minutes or so (versus 25 on a fast). If you are anywhere near the front then you end up standing if you get on at London Bridge and might get a seat, if you’re very lucky, at Chislehurst. Not really worth sitting down at that point is it?
@Elastigirl11: In theory the arrival of more 377’s from Southern should allow SE to move some 465/9’s from outer urban services, to inner urban services. However that is all subject to the power being available for 12 coach trains. From earlier comments in articles on the London Bridge rebuild, there isn’t enough power available to extend all trains. So more standing room might actually be the only possible option…
Re MikeyC
As I wrote in the comment 2 above yours
“Both 707s and 458s are non compliant with the metro stock specification for the SE franchise and both would need major interior re-engineering. ”
Still applies so it is very very unlikely.
Re LittleJohn,
Financial company/ies in various potential forms will be brought on board to lease the stock to the franchisee but that can be sorted later.
Wouldn’t Southern be a more logical destination for the 707s, as a replacement for some of the 455s?
@Southern Heights
45 mins?
When I used to commute Orpington to London Bridge (about 15 years ago) it used to be scheduled at 25 mins in the morning peak (Cannon Street service, not stopping after Grove Park).
(Although it frequently took a lot longer than that).
A fast train (off-peak or shoulder peak, they don’t stop at Orpington in the peak) would often be scheduled at 16 mins, and 15 was possible.
I’ve not done that journey in quite a while, is it really 45 mins now?
JOHNKELLETT….
if class 707 isn’t suitable for South Eastern, is there any likelihood that DfT will specify something different for Southern? The duties are rather similar. The only reason I can think of is if a minister gets stung by a “new trains parked in sidings” scandal.
The 707s are similar to the 700s trundling up and down on other TSGN services, so might actually be a good fit there. Southern’s 313s and 455s are now, I think, the oldest multiple unit trains on the network (at least this side of the Solent!) for which replacements have not been ordered.
DJL
Table 204-R says:
15 minutes fast in the off-peak
29 mins in the peak, stopping Grove Park & New Cross
But … 28 mins all-stations once the peak is over
Timbeau……they may look like a class 707, but have a worse power to weight ratio, so inferior performance
@130
That can be fixed by taking one of the trailers out. Four car sets would work better on Southern anyway as they usually need eight or twelve car trains.
@DJL, Greg Tingey: 45 minutes realisitcally in the peaks from Charing Cross. Sod the 35 minutes, it really doesn’t ever happen… The later you are in the peak, the slower it goes. There’s a good reason why I’ve shifted my working day so that I’m using the trains in the early peak!
The fasts can do it in 14m 30s from London Bridge. The 1700 to Folkestone Central does it (but not this week as there’s a 20 mph speed restriction just before Grove Park on the down fast). Hither Green will probably have a speed restriction soon too.
@SHLR
“Sod the 35 minutes, it really doesn’t ever happen”.
Not borne out by looking back at some of this week’s arrivals on Real Time Trains. Most on time to within a minute or two, but true that the later running takes place towards the end of the peak.
Re: Timbeau: unlikely that Southern and Thameslink services will be in the same franchise next time around – the DfT strategic document published last November gives a strong hint (as well as that about transferring the West London Line services operated by Southern over to TfL). TSGN was created specifically for the execution and introduction of the new, expanded Thameslink service.
Re: Atimbeau – the principal Southern metro routes are now 10-car capable.
Quail used to do trackmaps which included rough platform length in 20m carriage lengths. Given all the lengthening and rebuilding thats recently taken place on routes surrounding London, does such a thing currently exist thats up to date?
Re: Ben – the regional Sectional Appendices which can be found on the Network Rail website give platform length information (and a lot else!). Of course, the link between platform length and train length is not direct with Selective Door Operation.
Have to say the time taken to change between Charing Cross and Cannon Street trains at London Bridge is now a serious disincentive to travel. Long escalators and having to walk across the concourse past the Thameslink platforms makes it a real trek.
Greenwich line passengers already suffer with only Cannon Street trains. The Woolwich line will also go the same way. It should be remembered that the DLR terminus at Bank is only a short walk from Cannon Street.
Would love to see Mr Grayling trying to change trains at Lewisham. Feel sorry for all the Bexleyheath line passengers who work in/visit the hospitals at Denmark Hill.
CDPL
Several of us, suggested ( And may be findable in the long-back pages of this blog ) that not having a convenient footbridge at the new London Bridge was a serious design flaw …………
CPDL, Greg Tingey,
And several of us, suggested that a foot overbridge isn’t necessary at London Bridge and is technically very difficult and would be unsightly.
As Greg says, we have been through this in detail before so a revival of this discussion will lead to serial deletions of comments.
And there are now lifts and escalators…. Are the extra few seconds really such a “serious disincentive”?????
[Just about tolerated as not directly on the subject of an overbridge PoP]
Re the carriages, here’s an extract from an email from Southeastern to my MP:
And here’s the Southeastern press release boasting of adding carriages on the Sidcup line:
https://newsroom.southeasternrailway.co.uk/news/embargoed-00-01-mon-18-sep-coming-to-a-station-near-you-68-extra-train-carriages-on-busiest-southeastern-routes
They are claiming 5000 extra seats at peak, including lengthening Sidcup peak time trains from 8 carriages to 10. Am I being particularly dense here, as I can’t see why there is more capacity?
The 365’s have 348 seats in each 4 unit set, vs. 218 in the 376’s 5 unit set. So in a 10 carriage formation, the 376 only provides 436 seats, whereas even an 8 carriage formation of a 365/1 provides 696 seats. Seating capacity has been reduced by 38%; in practice it is worse as the 365’s often ran with more than 8 carriages.
So NGH is right, but clearly Southeastern want to tell a different story publicly….
@Elastigirl
I don’t know, and the press release doesn’t say, what new rolling stock is going from Thameslink/Southern to South Eastern but they won’t be 365s or 376s as Thameslink/Southern has no trains of either class – the 365s are all on Great Northern, and the 376s are all already on South Eastern. I assume they will be 377s or possibly 387s.
377s come in 3- 4- and 5-car formations, so can be formed into trains of almost any length. cars. A ten-car formation (3+3+4 or 5+5) would have about 650 seats
365s haven’t worked on South Eastern since 2004, but the figures you give appear to be for 465s (Networkers) anyway.
Nowhere does the press release say what rolling stock will be used to form the Sidcup line’s ten car trains. They might be 376s. They might be 377s. Or they might be ten-car Networker formations (i.e class 465+465+466) displaced from other routes which will be getting the 377s . Adding a two car class 466 to an eight-car (2x class 465) Networker formation adds 168 seats.
Re Elastigirl11 ,
They have indeed added 5,000 peak seats across the network in total but some routes have seen a reduction. Routes like Victoria – Orpington that were short formed during the LBG works have now gone back to their former lenghts and SE will be taking back Blackfriars – Orpington/Bromley South peak only services from Thameslink will also add to the stock requirement.
As previously noted having all SE trains stopping at LBG post works (11tph Up CHX never did in the am peak pre works) has increased the stock requirement to run the peak services via LBG by 1.8-2.1% compared to during the works and the extra 11th stopping has pushed the non HS fleet requirement up by about 2 trains worth of units.
Re Timbeau,
The 25 units are 23x 377/5 and 377163&164 have been with SE for months (nrealy 9 months in some cases)
As some carriages are going to South Eastern and none are being taken away, there will be a net gain of carriages, and therefore seats, on the network as a whole. How that will manifest itself will vary between individual lines. Some will see the new trains, others will see longer trains displaced from elsewhere, others still will get the original shorter trains, reformed into longer formations. So one of the incoming twelve car trains can replace an eight car train, whose cars can then be used to lengthen two other eight-car trains to twelve cars.
Offpeak at least, Thameslink are running the Kentish Town to Orpington stopper from May, and Southeastern are starting 2 tph of the Orpington Victoria service at Bromley South (Grrr)
Doesn’t that mean SE’s stock requirement goes down?
Re Timbeau,
Largely agreed but the required number of trains/units to run the same level of service has gone up too…
As all trains now stop at London Bridge the number of trains required to run the peak service has increased due to increased journey times.
Dwell times have also increased, increasing journey times and incresig the rolling stock requirement.
Hence the net increase is only around a third of what you might think on services through LBG.
“As some carriages are going to South Eastern” past tense they all arrived a long time ago and all of the changes apart from the Thameslink related ones have been made. (There was a high profile conviction at the Old Bailey this morning with CCTV footage from either 377163 or 4 of the suspect doing a runner for Dover in mid-September)
Most of the 25 extra units sub leased from GTR have been used to run some SE’s Victoria services as 8car /12car 377s (back to full length i.e. the 8car services are back at 8 after being 6 for a while during the LBG works ) releasing some 465s/466s and 375s to allow tweaks to the SE via London Bridge services.
Re John B,
SE Peak requirement will go down very slightly because of the Blackfriars- Bromley South being swapped for Thameslink to Rainham. If it went to Orpington rather than BMS then it would go up!!!
John B & others
I do hope they have made allowances in the timetabling for reversals at Bromley S with no sidings or “normal” turnback facilities ….
Otherwise, I predict it might end in tears … yes, I know about possible path conflicts to/from Orpington, but at least the layout there is set up for reversals ….
Elastigirl11,
Your extract from your MP’s letter really highlights the situation that Southeastern finds itself in. It would love to provide a better service (and has been trying to do so) but that requires large sums being spend by the DfT. It would be quite unrealistic to expect SouthEastern to fund the extra capacity – there is no money in it and that is not how franchises normally work once you are in the middle of them.
So SouthEastern is frustrated but can’t say too much (especially to an MP, who I suspect is part of the party currently in power) as it has to be seen not to exceed its remit. It really has done its best in the past with proposals that have been rejected.
One can almost feel an air of obsequiousness in the letter. We are so grateful for the crumbs of comfort that the DfT have deigned to throw in our direction. OK, not quite that extreme but you get the drift.
Greg,
Yes it amazes me that terminating in the platform at Bromley South on a regular basis is feasible. It must be a bit frustrating for the operators with Orpington not that many minutes further away.
Since the demise of Eurostar, Orpington has had four proper terminating platforms and another two (3 and 4) that can be used for that purpose. As you say, possible path conflicts but I can’t believe that is as bad as standing a train on the down fast line at Bromley South.
I can’t see the point in running the Thameslink to Orpington in preference to Victoria. Its such a slow service that any Orpington passengers could get to Blackfriars 10m quicker via LBG, and even the Petts Wood passengers would have the same time changing there. 4 evenly spaced trains to Victoria would seem much more useful than catching a Thameslink and changing at Bromley South to a fast., as it gives 25m gaps in arrival time.
Why can’t Orpington cope with the 10tph if all services ended there.. CHX can cope with a pair of lines feeding 3 platforms, Orpington has 4
Timbeau, my mistake re the 365 – yes, they are 465’s, which still run off peak. As NGH says, the new trains came in around September, but the appearance of the 376’s on the Sidcup line was in January after the completion of the London Bridge works. No doubt they have been moved off another Southeastern line.
Pedantic of Purley, I find it hard to sympathise with Southeastern as surely any company tendering for a multi year franchise would do its homework on the likely change to the demographic over that time. I do see that the economics of the franchise mean that they have limited options, but the approach of reducing seats to fit more passengers on is concerning. It’s a very different situation to, say, London Underground, when lots of people stand at peak time, but there is a lot of churn. I’ll see if I can push Southeastern to state what they think is an acceptable stand time….
Re John B,
Largely agree – the point of the service Blackfriars – Bromley South via Herne Hill service is for stations north of Bromley South rather than potentially anything between BMS and Orpington.
It is worth nothing that there is quite a lot of local (not central London) peak traffic on the route and additional stopping services south on BMS would help spread the load and help with dwell times when the trains are busier further north.
[As a reminder the current minimal Thameslink Bromley South – Blackfriars services often appear in the top 10 most crowded in the country and due to the Wimbledon Loop decision there is very little chance of getting on a Blackfriars train at Herne Hill]
Slightly perplexed as the are 4 equally spaced Victoria – Orpington services currently??? As previously explained on LR several times you can’t run more than 4tph.
@ Elastigirl11 – bidders don’t do their own economic assessment. They will rely on what the DfT tell them to provide by way of the service specification. We know that the South Eastern franchise has been extended and extended which means there has been no competitive opportunity for the DfT to rebase its numbers. We also know that the DfT has seriously underestimated the scale of house building in SE London which means that demand numbers for the train service are wrong. As TfL is integrated with other Mayoral initiatives and has retained planning expertise it is in a broadly better position to try to cope with demand changes due to external factors. We have seen this with the way in which Overground services have developed to try to keep pace with demand.
TOCs are merely contractors who take some revenue risk but who are ultimately guided by their paymaster (the DfT) not any independent economic analysis. Unfortunately 7 year franchises afford little opportunity for ongoing, meaningful service development *unless* the DfT has set this out in the contract. Therefore the idea that TOCs just wander off and buy train fleets of their own volition is a complete fiction but one that the DfT is quite willing to allow as it keeps its responsibility in the shadows. If external factors create extra demand that was not foreseen in the franchise then the parties have to muddle their way through with the usual result that the passengers suffer the short to medium term consequences of overcrowded services. It’s happened time and again across multiple franchises so not unique to South Eastern.
To be fair it’s not easy to keep on top of all of the issues and capital investment is expensive so you can partly understand a reluctance to splash cash on what may be a short term “blip”. However I think many commentators would say there is probably a better way to plan franchises and development than the one we have.
re ELASTIGIRL11
SE are on a second soon to be third “do the minimum” short term extension to the original contract award with DfT in control of the purse stings during the extension. Hence demographics really don’t feature it is all about doing DfT’s bidding and as SE is in receipt of gross subsidy cost control is the main metric.
The franchise was originally let for 6 years from 1st April 2006 to 31st March 2012 with a performance related option fro a 2 year extension (till 31st March 2014) in a low growth environment franchise award period at the end of the Strategic Rail Authority’s existence before DfT wrested control of awarding franchises shortly before the actual award (The SRA did most of the award process). Due to subsidy minimisation attempts the SRA was legendary for insisting on low or no passenger growth estimates to reduce increases in subsidy. Southeastern got the 2 year extension option
Hence there is very little “homework” to be done in such circumstances as DfT defines the goal posts.
After the West Coast franchising fiasco the SE franchise was extended to prevent another mess and for a long time to so as not to have a franchise change during the London Bridge rebuild on the “Kent” side till June 2018 and then again till December 2018 to align better with the 2nd phase of massive Thameslink timetable changes.
Hence the current refranchise process is the first opportunity to take sensibly account of growth on SE since privatisation. (the early 1990s recession and 25% drop in passenger numbers put paid to previous planned improvements then. The fear of another recession like that has always lurked in everyones minds with SE
SE are soon about to be 12years into a 6 year franchise where the big change planned was the intro of HS1 services!
It is the new normal for all London Metro routes and the provision of seating on the 376s will look generous in the future, the only saving grace will be more cars overall i.e. more 12 car trains but with fewer seats than an existing 8 car 465s. Given passenger growth there is no other choice which is always unpopular at stations where users no longer get a seat.
@Elastigirl11: 376’s have been used on the Sidcup line before January. It might be that they now happen to coincide with your travel patterns… I have seen them at Hither Green waiting to join the mainline…
Elastigirl: More-or-less, the system is the following. The government decides what trains are run, with how many carriages, how often, and to what timetable. They also decide how long passengers can reasonably stand. The government sets their demands when they franchise the service, and this is fixed for the length of the franchise. Changes can only occur when the services are re-franchised (extensions to the franchise just mean the old service is retained for longer).
There is very little capacity to make changes outside this franchising process. And the company holding the franchise has no real ability to improve the service.
@Aneconspeak: To summarise: “privatisation is largely a con implemented for ideological reasons”.
WW: “Therefore the idea that TOCs just wander off and buy train fleets of their own volition is a complete fiction…” but, um, wasn’t that supposed (allegedly) to be the point of creating the ROSCOs? So that TOCs could get extra bits and bobs whenever they wanted because they’d always be available from the ::ahem:: specialists?
I’m looking for my coat in the snow…
I am not all that close to current procurements, but I understand that the recent franchises have resulted in TOCs almost “wandering off and buying their own fleets”. I say almost, because the DfT’s quality assessment process has encouraged new trains, and new trains are currently cheaper than even nearly new trains from a few years ago. The government did have a cunning plan, broadly expressed in the Industry’s Rolling Stock Strategy document available from this link: https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/about-us/governance/strategic-boards/planning-production-board/rolling-stock.html. This was overtaken by all the new builds that, particularly, South Western Railway, Abellio Greater Anglia and West Midlands Trains chose to buy, displacing modern and recently refurbished stock.
In a few years time, TOCs might be able to obtain extra trains quickly, especially around London as there will be a significant number of surplus electric trains with respectable performance and reasonable condition, unless, of course ROSCO s scrap lots of vehicles to try and preserve the value of the others.
Government interference for the new Southeastern franchise goes much further than previously.
Woolwich line passengers will lose their twice hourly services to/from Charing Cross. They are being diverted at Lewisham to run with additional stops at New Cross to Cannon Street.
This is supposed to reduce crossovers at Lewisham despite significant expenditure a few years ago to double track the flyover to make such moves easier.
Woolwich Arsenal and Greenwich stations already have DLR services which is only a short distance from Cannon Street.
The new specification also removes the Bexleyheath line/Victoria service which is used by a larger number of people working at/visiting the hospitals near Denmark Hill station. Trains will run from Hayes to/from Victoria instead.
Lewisham is totally unsuitable for changing between the lines. Narrow stairs/subways cause delays.
The new layout at London Bridge means changing between Charing Cross and Cannon Street trains takes longer than previously and involves long stairs and escalators/lifts. I timed my last interchange which took 3.5 minutes. Not ideal but it does give shopping/refreshment opportunities in Network Rail’s retail park.
It appears that the DfT mandarins just looked at route diagrams and then just ignored the public consultation.
CPDL,
Just to correct matters of fact and clear implication.
This is supposed to reduce crossovers at Lewisham despite significant expenditure a few years ago to double track the flyover to make such moves easier.
Not so. The reason for doubling the flyover was because, as a result of the Thameslink Programme it was no longer possible to cross from Charing Cross to the Cannon St lines (to serve platforms 3 and 4 at Lewisham). An alternative route capable of serving trains in both directions simultaneously was essential. Nothing to do with reducing crossovers [crossover moves] at Lewisham. In fact it increases them.
… Greenwich stations already have DLR services which is only a short distance from Cannon Street.
The implication is presumably that Greenwich Southeastern services shouldn’t all duplicate this and go to Cannon St as well. The problem is that after the Thameslink Programme it is simply not feasible for the Greenwich line to serve Charing Cross. One can argue it is not as bad as all that because not all trains will go to Cannon St – some will go to Blackfriars and beyond – but this just as controversial.
Lewisham is totally unsuitable for changing between the lines. Narrow stairs/subways cause delays
True, but if Network Rail got their way (and had the money), there would be a deck above the tracks at Lewisham to make changing trains there much more pleasant – and presumably quicker than at London Bridge. It is quite a high priority in their station improvements plan.
The new layout at London Bridge means changing between Charing Cross and Cannon Street trains takes longer than previously and involves long stairs and escalators/lifts.
True, but with the old station a lot of trains were unable to stop at London Bridge. It is possible to change to a train that stops at the station but not possible to change to one that doesn’t. So, although this disadvantage is often cited, it isn’t the full story.
As a general comment to all, we have covered the issue of time taken to change trains at London Bridge many times and, unless something genuinely new is added then further comments on this will be deleted.
Re CPDL,
I think you’ll find it is actually being transferred to Thameslink and Blackfriars instead and Southeastern’s change is actually in response to the Thameslink one and the opening of Crossrail with 12tph to the Westend…
Err No. The expenditure on the Tanners Hill Flydown was to make Charing Cross – Lewisham moves possible post London Bridge and Bermondsey Diveunder redevelopment which made them impossible without an intervention at Tanners Hill not just Charing Cross – Blackheath specifically which was traditionally achieved without using the flydown or Lewisham Jn crossing moves (especially before the flydown was built!), you have joined 2 potentially separate problems into 1.
Lewisham Jn immediately north west of the platform at Lewisham is a slightly separate and different problem and the logical solution to that is to minimise (or even eliminate if you are TfL and wanting to take it over) crossing moves there. e.g. via Blackheath go to Cannon Street and via Ladywell or Hither Green go to Charing Cross, doing so will significantly improve SE’s PPM.
It is a consultation not a referendum.
DfT and NR do know that Lewisham couldn’t handle the interchange without big works, just that the scale of the works is probably bigger than DfT would like.
Re PoP,
Almost snap!
@ Alison W – that may have been the original elegant intent from the lawyers and financial advisors that created the privatised structure for the then government. They typically always believe “markets” and active buyers can fix anything. They aren’t keen on railway professionals telling them the real world doesn’t quite fit with their elegant vision. Unfortunately we are a very long way from those early days of swashbuckling TOCs buying class 170s to run lots more trains out of St Pancras or other such examples. Tracks are more congested, the industry has shown many times that franchises can and do get things wrong and go bust, the economy doesn’t always play ball and really the buck stops with the government for all the pretence about privatised “this and that”.
Anyone with even a modicum of railway historical knowledge could tell you railways have always been intensely political and its deeply ironic that politicians in the mid to late 90s thought they could wash their hands of their responsibilities. The reality always was that the “private” railways are a client and contractor set up and with the government as paymaster they are ulitmately in control. That’s little different to BR *except* BR was an integrated railway organisation at least one step removed from the Department for Transport. Nonetheless the scope for interference through control of the purse strings remains as great as ever. The TOCs know they have to deliver their contractual commitments but they also know exactly how to “game” the entire industry structure and given Network Rail is effectively a DfT department now they know the slightest glitch by NR gives then scope for claims / adjustment to their obligations etc. Quite why it appears to have taken the DfT so long to twig they’d be “on the hook” for every NR delay / failing I know not. Anyone who manages a contract knows there are two sets of obligations and commitments and both sides need to ensure they “do their bit” properly and don’t allow the other side to be able to wriggle out of their commitments. Managing the client side of things is probably harder than the contractor’s job of managing their team and ensuring maximum profits.
It’s clear from reading any recent edition of Modern Railways (or similar) that just about every recently let franchise is “going south” because of NR project delays or enforced changes to Control Period plans to fit around the finances that NR have. I expect we will see rather more of this although some TOCs seem to have their own issues over new rolling stock depot locations which is their risk not a NR one in the first instance. Even TfL have been affected with the GOBLIN electrification delays and the West London station problems on Crossrail. They also have their own rolling stock contract problems too and it remains to be seen how / when those rebound on Network Rail’s plans. The basic story here is that railways are complex things with multiple interractions across assets and disciplines and a fractured structure and unhelpful government don’t help in making for an efficient, low cost industry.
@ 100&30 – I’d still argue all those new trains are the result of a government policy. They decided to place a greater weight on quality. They didn’t have to do this. It remains to be seen whether this was actually a good idea except where existing rolling stock was at the end of its economic life and had to be replaced such as for Northern Rail and the Great Northern route into Moorgate.
I also share Roger Ford’s concern that such massive fleet replacement will do little for service reliability in the short to medium term. If we assume the usual “bath tub curve” issues are present for every new fleet then a lot of people are going to suffer delays and breakdowns. That will tarnish the undoubted upside of nice new trains where they are genuinely needed. It will also do little to help the railways’ finances.
I’m very sceptical that there will be any surplus stock, diesel or electric, in 5 years time. I suspect a lot of trains, even relatively new ones, will be scrapped or else will go for re-use elsewhere in the world. If patronage on the railway does recover after whatever “blip” it is currently experiencing then I do worry that we will have a lot of overcrowded services on routes with new trains / improved frequencies and no real ability to further expand capacity. I can’t see Northern Rail or Trans Pennine Express being able to go back to government and convince them they need even more new stock given the fact the then SoS had to override his chief Civil Servant to authorise new stock now in build.
This will sound a bit daft but this current “fashion” for huge new stock builds feels rather too good to be true. Clearly lots of new trains are being built but it doesn’t feel terribly rational to me that perfectly decent new or half life trains will be rendered redundant as a result with no plan for their redeployment or use a reserve fleet. That is not a rational basis for managing expensive long life assets. At some point this becomes economically unsustainable and the shutters will come down even where new trains really are needed – I suspect the Wales and Borders franchise will be one where this is true and I suspect East Midlands is another where the non electrification of the core route and other issues are now causing huge specification problems for the DfT.
I am waiting to see what transpires on South Eastern and how much the DfT “rip off” the TfL Overground concept but fail to put in place some of the other aspects TfL do specify. I think South Eastern is another “make or break” franchise for the DfT but for different reasons. Grayling wants his “brave new world” of joint working on this franchise, he wants to rub the Mayor’s nose in the dirt by “doing it better” than TfL but there is also huge Conservative party pressure on him to both improve services hugely and not change service patterns. I don’t see how you reconcile all those things – especially if new trains mean many more people having to stand. I rather fear that we will end up with an incomprehensible mess with flawed objectives and misaligned incentives that often arise when you try to do something new in a limited timescale for purely political reasons. Let’s be honest the current SoS does not have a good track record for “innovation” in public policy matters.
WW. I agree re the quality provisions in the franchise competitions, but I suspect that the major fleet purchases were unintended consequences of that provision. Of course, however unintended the consequences may be, the DfT have to follow the rules that they have set.
Hardly unintended, if the DfT requires new rolling stock as part of the specification. (which, for example, put an end to any hopes Vivarail may have had of getting an order from Northern)
The money spent on refurbished 455/456/458s and new 707s for what will now be a life of only three years is a rather different matter, I admit.
Re Timbeau, WW, 130.
One problem with the refurb programmes has been they take far longer than planned oftern with huge knock on effects especially if cascades of other stock to different franchises are also part of a “grand plan”.
Many franchsies also had rolling stock zoos comprising a several micro fleets leading to operational complexity and increased costs.
Looking at SWR the 458s and 707s would both need modifications to meet the loading requirements and 455s and 456s could never realistically be modified. In the case of the 458s again after a short time after the previous refurb.
Deliveries of virtually all new stock are running late and will be late so existing stock won’t be going anywhere for a while which is going to cause cascade issues in places too. What DfT appears to be looking for is an actual market with free float rather than being held to ransom with no choice by ROSCOs with more flexibility, earlier retirement of unsuitable stock and less requirement to be aligned to infrastructure project time tables. (Look at the Hitachi 385s in Scotland where it now appears they will need new cabs (new design) to solve a curved windscreen double vision problem (is that single or double yellow at the signal ahead?) which is looking like delaying delivery by 12-18months, in such circumstances some readily available stock would be ideal.
WW Quite agree re the attempted TFL rip off on the new SE Franchise by the Conservatives. The published spec suggests we will continue to have a mess of lines serving different termini resulting in some awkward interchanges or long waits. Perfect opportunity to grasp the nettle but they have bottled it to avoid upsetting their own supporters a la the Wimbledon Loop.
@Anonymous – I very much doubt if the limitations in the new South Eastern specification is being dictated by a fear of upsetting alleged Tory voters who use the Wimbledon loop. Even if Network Rail’s original proposal had gone ahead to terminate all Wimbledon loop trains at Blackfriars you would still have had a problem with the presentation of trains at flat junctions south of London. Indeed the original proposal was to double the frequency. I am not proposing to rehearse the sad history of the flawed public consultation which says more about how little they explained the proposal but the point at issue was the need to ease the 24 trains per hour through the Thameslink core.
The SouthEastern specification was always going to be problematic precisely because of the tension between improving the Metro service and maintaining the frequency and destination choices for the outer suburban and Kent Coast services. Leaving aside the rivalry between Grayling and Khan it does seem the TfL proposal for converting the SE Metro services into the Overground brand did not properly address the challenges posted by the Kent Coast services.
@Richard B
I don’t think Anon meant that Wimbledon Loop users’ demands are directly dictating the SE timetable. Only that their experiences at Wimbledon have made the planners wary of changing existing service patterns anywhere on the network.
There was a similar fuss in North Lanarkshire last year, when Whifflet services via Bargeddie, a route which had just been electrified, were switched from Glasgow Central High Level to run instead through the Low Level station on the Argyle Line to North Clydeside.
In consequence, Lanark services via Bellshill were diverted into the Glasgow High Level terminal platforms, when they had previously run through to North Clydeside via the Argyle Line
Complaints were received from passengers on both routes – the Bellshill line passengers objected they now had to change to get to North Clydeside, whilst on the Bargeddie line passengers complained that the Low level station was a less pleasant place to wait for a train, and that the trains home were already full when they arrived at Central.
Re NGH
Sorry but there are still trains from Woolwich Arsenal to Lewisham in the spec for the new franchise.
Otherwise we’d be having another Parliamentary train.
The Thameslink service is an extra.
timbeau 19 March 2018 at 17:41
For those not familiar with the west of Scotland, I think “North Clydeside” is usually called Dumbartonshore.
Dubartonshore sounds much better than Dunbartonshire!
@Alan Griffiths/SH(LR)
Curiously, the county is Dunbartonshire but the county town is Dumbarton (with an “M”)
I thought more people would be able to locate the Clyde on a map than could find Dumbarton! In any case, most of the route north of the Clyde lies within the City of Glasgow (historically in Lanarkshire)
@Timbeau / Alan Griffiths. Interestingly, Although local government reorganisation now means the north Clydeside lines are in Glasgow / Dunbartonshire / Argyll & Bute, the Strathclyde Passenger Authority lives on and there are various ‘travelcard type’ tickets where validity is defined by the former Strathclyde area.
Was at Charing Cross today, and I thought of having 12 car trains at this station, perhaps the only thing to do in order to achieve this is to extend the Platforms over the Thames, like at Blackfriars, with entrances at either side of the Thames, incorporate or get rid of the foot bridges either side of the railway, and voila 12 car trains at Charing Cross, if this could ever be achieved, of course this would most likely mean the closure of Waterloo East station, if CX were to have a south bank entrance
Gillingham Stan The Man,
Suggested in the Kent Route Study and many times in the past prior to that but probably quite impractical.
Hard from an engineering perspective, you can’t disturb the river bed because the Bakerloo line tunnels are very close to the river bed, risk of unexploded bombs being disturbed (look at the Jubilee Bridges – no footings in the river and there is a reason for this). The bridge is almost certainly close to its weight limit. Steam trains were restricted over it and one of the reasons Southern Railway was so keen to electrify is because of the problems of the weight restrictions on the bridge.
And what would be the advantages and disadvantages and would it be worth it?
Gillingham Stan The Man
Closing Waterloo East would also lose the Southwark Jubilee line interchange which is very useful.
But you can have 12 coach trains at Charing Cross, I have been on them… It’s just that they can’t call at every platform!
So really is the cost worth it?
@SHLR
The cost of not having all platforms at CX capable of taking 12 cars is that some trains will have to be shorter. (Or, if all trains are twelve cars, there will be fewer of them). This reduces capacity over the entire network.
Non-stopping longer trains, as is done at Woolwich Dockyard, is obviously not an option here.
“incorporating” the Jubilee Bridges is unlikely to work – they are not nearly strong enough to take the weight of a train. And as there is a right of way, they cannot be removed altogether.
The forecourt at Charing Cross is set a lot further back from the river than at Blackfriars, and an extension of the shorter platforms to twelve cars would not reach anywhere near the far side of the river – the existing 12 car platforms barely reach the near bank. And Waterloo East is quite a distance from the far bank
Just to be clear.
All six platforms at Charing Cross can take 12-car trains.
However there are some restrictions:
1. Networkers must be 3 x 4-car otherwise they are too long if they include 2-car.
2. Networkers (of any length) are not allowed into platforms 4, 5 and 6 (I think).
3. On platform 3 you can alight from the 12th car but you may not board it. The logic is clearly that whilst the train is in the platform you are not in danger of falling onto the track from the narrow platform.
4. Or some or all of platforms 4, 5 and 6 you may not alight or board the last carriage. This doesn’t stop 12-car trains using those platforms though as they won’t foul any points.
The reason the Route Study put forward the suggestion was because they were hoping for more platforms – not longer ones. Now that they believe they can get 32tph through London Bridge, the lack of capacity at Charing Cross is a limiting factor on how many trains can be run.
Re PoP,
The restriction are even more complex than that – I’ll dust them off later.
I know this suggestion is terribly London Underground. What about reconfiguring Charing Cross with three tracks with a platform each side. One side for entry, one for exit. Also stepping back or even double stepping back would be required. For each track, a a train would leave each platform every 6 minutes, and there might be as much as 3 minutes stationary. I imagine ATO would be de rigeur!
(puts away crayons!)
I was wondering whether it would be worth lengthening platforms 1-4 by extending them into the concourse (to the same end position as platforms 5 and 6), and maybe removing the building between platforms 4 and 5 to recover the concourse space
A flaw with this is that this would block off the side entrance to the station which leads to street level (handy for Embankment connections) AND connects to the walkway leading to the pedestrian river bridge so this would probably rule it out…
Thanks for the info, 😊
I didn’t factor the los of the jubilee line interchange at Waterloo East
@PoP: 1 is correct, but 2 is wrong, I think it’s 12 coach Networkers are restricted to 1-3 as the SDO doesn’t work or something like that.
But I’ll leave it for NGH to detail as they are complex indeed!
In a completely
unexpected announcement:DfT have delayed the award of the new franchise from this month to November (Just as well SE are on a record 3rd extension to next Easter then!)
Any rumours that Govia found massive holes in DfT modelling resulting in far more units being required and a new TSR are completely
unfounded.At least they haven’t specified a season (which year?) as a target date…
@ngh: SHOCKER!!!!
TSR is what in plain English exactly?
@SHLR
TSR – Tactical Strike and Reconnaissance?
RE SH(LR)
I’m not shocked at all.
TSR = Train Service Requirement – tender document contain all the key data, assumptions and requirements on services to be run, rolling stock and staffing thereof
@ Ngh – Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. The curse of South Eastern strikes again. It did for TfL and the Mayor who got their train numbers wrong in their devolution proposal and now it’s done for the DfT and bidders. Obviously a tad less sympathy for the DfT who should know what they’ve asked for and what the resultant numbers would look like.
I see on another forum that the Telegraph are spinning the delay as “Grayling’s dilemma” about not wanting to award the franchise to “discredited” companies like Govia or Stagecoach. Ho hum.
And there was me thinking that surely everyone who has had any involvement with railways knows that TSR stands for Temporary Speed Restriction.
So the franchise has been further delayed. Not much can be done about that but, in the light of this, what DfT could do is look again at some of the franchise requirements and bring them forward (and pay Govia appropriately , if necessary). An obvious candidate would be an improved Sunday service. Of course, what is really needed is longer trains yet a delayed new franchise seems to be pushing this back again. Meanwhile, the intensification of housing in the suburban affected routes continue apace.
In yet another completely
unexpected announcement:DfT have delayed the award of the new franchise from November 2018 which no one expected them to be able to make so December in reality to mid February / early March 2019
And SE are on a record 4th extension to Saturday 22nd June 2019.
Ideal news to drop when everyone is looking at Gatwick instead.
Having a new franchise start the same week as Brexit probably wasn’t a good idea any way.
The award fo the West Coast Partnership has also been pushed back to November 2019 with VTWC getting a 12 month extension (DfT need to clear the decks for Brexit).
Gatwick has been very kind to Grayling to enable bad news to be hidden.
And (once more with feeling) the show’s still not over till Thameslink reaches Maidstone.
@Maidstone Jotter
Don’t hold your breath. An application for a Transport & Works Act order appeared just before Christmas, to being Chart Leacon depot at Ashford back into operational use.
Until Thameslink get this running, the Maidstone line services cannot be put in place.
https://www.thameslinkprogramme.co.uk/chart-leacon-rail-depot
Re Man of Kent,
And a bit unfortunate as it was also at one point being penciled in to provide all extra rather than a mix of displaced and extra SE stock capacity by some of the SouthEastern bidders.
Previous DfT desperation to keep additional SE stabling capacity off NR/Government books if at all possible as led lot of wasted effort and NR just attempting to sort it any way.
A dispensation has been granted allowing class 466 units to remain in service from 2020 without PRM modifications, but subject to the condition that they must always operate coupled to a class 465, which is compliant. See https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/756924/angel-class-466-31-october-2018.pdf .
At present class 466 units work alone on the Bromley North and Sheerness branches and between Strood and Maidstone West (but not the trains to and from Tonbridge). That means four diagrams will have to be worked by some other type of unit. Assuming these come from the existing SE fleet that almost certainly means class 375/3. I assume that will result in four peak hour trains being three coaches shorter, though there will be four additional 466s for Metro services. It was only last September that the Strood – Maidstone West shuttle reverted to 466 in order to release a 375/3 for Main Line workings.
However, who knows who will be operating the franchise in 2020 and what their rolling stock plans will be?
If Thameslink services to Maidstone start by then, won’t that release a few 375s? (as the paths will be occupied by 700s instead)
The Bromley North branch is a five minute journey to and from Grove Park. There is no step free access to the branch line platform at Grove Park. So no wheelchair user is thus ever likely to attempt the journey, regardless of the rolling stock. I appreciate that the PRM regulations affect many with less drastic or obvious disabilities, but common sense would suggest that allowing 466 stock to continue to use the branch beyond the deadline is a no-brainer.
Could a few 171s be spared from fellow Govia franchise Southern? Or some soon-to-be-redundant 313s from GN?
But indeed THE RULES will probably prevail and Bromley North will be served by a replacement bus service.
There are no spare 171s. It’s not unknown for the peak extra on the Ashford-Hastings line to be cancelled when they run out of units. Plus, they’d be completely non-standard for SouthEastern drivers.
Perhaps a solution for Bromley North would be a 466 with the toilet removed, making the cost of PRM modifications a lot less expensive. Or even a 319 (which they used to drive).
You couldn’t make this up, couild you?
You MUST have a PRM-compliant train, on a servie where one terminus is impossible to be PRM-compliant ….
Re Timbeau,
Agree with Traveller, Southern are already short of 171 and even if you electrified Marshlink then you’d want to use the released 171s to lengthen the remaining Uckfield services. The plan to take on some more 170s ex Scotrail was cancelled.
The GN 313 are intended for the scrap yard hence they would need more significant modifications than 466s. Southern have done a good job on the Coastway 313s though.
The 466 PRM issues are much larger than just an accessible toilet (regarded as smallest issue in reality) in that there isn’t even a wheel chair space…
All switches, step design, no step lighting, accessible seat geometry isn’t accessible (they just changed the seat covers etc.), handrails unsuitably positioned all over the place, non compliant PIS (audio and visual), train platform gap, signage….
The notice is effectively stating that none of the bidders intend to keep the 466s on for the medium or long terms and that unlike the 465s there was no planning for modifications either (the Brush/Hitachi units (will) have more PRM mods than the less reliable GEC Alstom 465s . The 2 car 466 resulted from the reduction in orders for 4 car GEC-Alstom units.
By far the most probably outcome of the SE tender will be Abellio winning after yet another suicide bid so unlikely to be any Govia-Govia mutual aid and SE passengers will be wishing for the return of Govia after a few months at most. (Watch the Anglia and Scotrail Train wrecks in motion).
Greg: Except, as has been pointed out, accessibility is not just about one single issue. Otherwise it would be possible to justify trains which are not accessible because the route is not fully accessible, and a route not being fully accessible because the trains are not…
It is perfectly valid to require fully accessible trains on a route which is, at the moment, only partly accessible.
Not that the law had to be written the way it was. But it was written, so it has to be complied with. That is how laws work.
NGH
Watch the Anglia and Scotrail Train wrecks in motion
Well, it’s “Arriva” ( I think ) rather than Abellio, now running the “Overground” & since they became the sole contractor, the service also seems to have slipped somewhat, as the saying goes & not showing any signs of improvement, either.
Malcom
Perfectly correct, no argument with that … but laws such as this also allow for temporary exemptions, do they not? Why one could not have been obtained for the Bromley N Branch, until such time as Grove Park gets proper acessibility – which would be a good idea in & of itself – beats me.
@ Ngh – It would be an enormous irony for S Eastern passengers to be campaigning for the return of Govia given the years and years of criticism of their performance. I’ve no reason to doubt your “jungle drums” but why on earth would Abellio put in another “suicide” bid for a franchise? Surely the movement of cash from the Netherlands to underpin their UK operations is a massive warning sign to avoid a repeat?
@ Greg – the double irony with the Arriva Overground situation is that the service is worse despite the much trumpeted “very demanding” performance regime that TfL set for the new concession term. I do wonder how much of the contract is being “waived” by TfL to cope with the GOBLIN mess and knock on consequences. For example I understand the weekend cancellations on the GOBLIN are not abated under the performance regime because the underlying reason is to help the DMUs limp along in providing the weekday service.
@WW
If future Kentish passengers do find themselves hankering for the Govia days it wouldn’t be unusual – there are people on SWR who look back on the Stagecoach era with (probably somewhat rose-tinted) fondness, especially on days like today when we have yet another of the seemingly never-ending series of strikes.
Re: GT – please put me right if necessary, but I don’t think anything has emerged suggesting that Bromley North won’t have a train service in one year and one day’s time. I would advise against reading it into the general Class 466 statement of PRM compliance which will (obviously) be rather more geared to the metro operation.
On which subject, how about a New Year’s Eve sweepstake on “How many rail services in the greater London area will not run on or after 1st January 2020 because some or all of the relevant rolling stock has not met targeted PRM-TSI compliance?”.
My prediction: None.
(Note that disruption arising from stock being unavailable for service due to ongoing PRM targeted compliance works does not count by this definition.)
I’ll take that as a resounding “No” to my suggestion for crystal ball gazing, then!
Happy New Year all, and here’s to an interesting next 365 days of transport-watching – not least as to how PRM compliance pans out.
And in completely
unexpected annoucement Govia Southeastern are getting a record 5th Direct Award until 10 November 2019, with an option to extend the agreement further to April 2020.Abellio have won the East Midland Franchise tender (subject to 10day standstill and appeals).
This means Abellio will now have the majority stake in 5 franchises which is a record (Sir Humphrey might describe it as “adventurous”, hence Abellio still wanting to be competitive in the SE tender might be “heroic”…)
DfT are looking to award West Coast next in June with SE there after.
PS:
SE is realistically down to 2 bidders as Stagecoach have major ideological differences on pension risk with DfT that look unresolvable unless DfT attempts to get (mostly older) pension risk off DfT’s books is halted.
Presumably once we’re out of Europe we can take back control of all these restrictive regulations about things like pensions to equip our economy for the bright, new, dynamic future?
RogerB. All these things, especially asking the private sector to shoulder historic pension risks, are self inflicted. At risk of being snipped, we (UK politicians of all persuasions) have a history of blaming the EU for bad news and taking the credit for good news even if it was EU inspired (think roaming on our mobile phones). Of course, you might have been making this point with some good irony!
Re: NGH – “This means Abellio will now have the majority stake in 5 franchises which is a record”
By what measure? The National Express total was nine (C2C, Central Trains, East Anglia, East Coast, Gatwick Express, Midland Mainline, ScotRail, Wales & Borders and Wessex Trains if memory serves), although I’m struggling to recall the maximum extent at a single point in time – was there a brief period when all nine were held?
Rumours have been running for a bit now that 707s are destined for South Eastern, but it is not clear whether this relates to franchise award or a putative non-award scenario.
Re Balthazar,
They weren’t all concurrent (some ceased to exist 2+years before NatEx started on some others)
Most owning groups now (this decade) count 4 as the sensible limit. given franchise size and risk which has increased with passenger numbers and DfT risk devolution agenda. (Abellio seems to be the only one not to get the memo).
Measure – Of the current size franchises (the number of franchises has shrunk as they they were merged )- it was easier to hold more when they were smaller e.g. GatEx with just 8 units at the time. Scotrail under Abellio is carrying almost double the number passengers since when it was last run by NatEx.
707s – it will be interesting to see if and where on SE they appear…
If DfT pushing this would suggest bidders having a common plan to take them on even if as a stop gap by all bidders.
Re 130,
It will be interesting to watch the point when they realise they have to find intra UK scapegoats to blame and it gets very messy.
An email from the MD to all Southeastern staff yesterday said that DfT had “started to talk to us” about the franchise extension, so it does not seem to be a done deal yet, though neither side is likely to want not to agree this. He said that they were discussing an initial extension from 23 June 2019 to 10 November 2019, with an option for up to a further five periods to 1 April 2020.
With Keith Williams having said that franchising has got to change, why doesn’t Grayling put all renewals on hold, rather than commit to new arrangements, such as the new EMT franchise.