ECML Azumas

Right lads, can anybody tell me what the 5 car Azuma sets are all about ?
There was a service on Leeds - London yesterday consisting of 2 x 5 car sets fastened together. As I looked it was plain that there was no connection except the coupling which means 2 full sets of onboard staff are required. That should help the costings

 

No different to the 5 car Voyagers that Virgin have been lashing together up and down the WCML for c.20 years, so it obviously works.

 

AIUI the five coach sets are for the Lincoln, Harrogate and Middlesbrough trains. There will not be splitting. There are threads about this on Railforum.

 

I forget whether the 2 x 5-car workings on the GWML were a temporary or permanent arrangement. It certainly seems crazy unless the train is to divide to serve different destinations, and even then a design with corridor connection through the end would have been better.

 

The 5 car 801s are I believe the pure EMU version of the Azuma. I travelled in a pair last night, and am booked in one in a few weeks time. Like others, i find the idea of short units on a trunk route bizarre, see limited opportunity for splitting, and great potential for short units to substitute for long ones.


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The new order cometh, Lincoln Central on a very wet Friday last.

 

Or maybe not if Britfoamer's photo at Lincoln is anything to go by.

 

The GWR 5 car sets are being used to avoid dragging empty seats around.

For example on of peak services, train will split at Cardiff with only one 5 car set going on to Swansea - the set sitting at Cardiff being joined to he next up service from Swansea to for a 10 car train to London.

Similarly at Plymouth, off peak trains going into Cornwall will only be a single 5 car unit, the other 5 car set being used to bolster the next London bound service.

In both cases some peak services will be formed of a single 9 car unit.

I am not sure what LNERs plans are but given trains to Harrogate also serve Leeds, similar tactics could be used.

As regarding splinting trains to serve different destinations - doing so has the key benefit of allowing more places to benefit from though services where there is insufficient track capacity to give both their own dedicated service. The downside is of course trains have to be shorter once the split has taken place. The joining / splitting of trains from to the Sussex and Kent coasts has been going on for decades precisely to get round capacity problems towards London hat preclude separate services being run.

LNER could for example run a Doncaster - Grantham all stations stopper which combines with another unit from Lincoln at Granham for the run to Kings Cross thus only using a single train path over the 2 track Digswell viaduct just outside London

Finally, as regards walk through passenger gangways on the ends of units - these are only really possible on trains with a maximum speed of 110mph. Why? well anything that goes faster is classed as a 'high speed train' an requires a much stronger front end with enhanced collision protection to protect passengers - and having a big rectangular hole in the end structure pretty well makes it impossible for the design engineers from complying with the regulations.

Given the 800s have a top design speed of 140mph* then end gangways re quite simply a no starter - just as was the case for the 125mph rated Voyagers


* The HMRI / ORR will NOT permit 140mph running without the train being driven via an in cab signalling system. An in cab signalling system is due to be fitted to the ECML south of Peterborough with ALL lineside signals TOTALLY REMOVED while the GWML is due to get a in cab system 'overlaid' on the existing system of lineside signals to permit higher speeds (in the same manor as the Pendalino in cab system allows operation up to 135 mph)

 

As I understand it:

2x5 car units need 2x catering and guard/conductor
They can't be gangwayed between sets and be 125mph
The GWR plan was to run 2x5 and split and attach (e.g. 5 cars to Swansea and WSM, detaching at Cardiff and Bristol). Last I heard there were problems and thet are running 2x5 all the way to WSM. Again I've no idea if this will change

My understanding too

Patrick

 

Technically the directive (?) was for 190kph, 118mph, I believe. It also means the front third of a driving coach must be non-passenger carrying above this speed. There was talk about seeking a derogation to increase this to 200kph (124 mph) but I heard no more.

Patrick

 

Lineside observation has noted a number of 2x5 sets in service.

 

Is it possible that LNER's plan on splitting trains will include the Aberdeen to Edinburgh section?

5 car between ABZ-EDI that joins a southbound service at Edinburgh for the road to London?

 

At the moment they are just running in. But since writing that I now think the plan does involve 2 x 5s splitting at Leeds with one five car staying and one heading off to/coming in from Harrogate or Bradford depending on the hour.

 

I think you'd find the junction for Lincoln is at Newark, and that Northgate is also better placed for joining/splitting.

As a user of the line, all I will say is that the flexing of capacity to meet assumed demand on an inter city route is a high risk strategy, and will cause problems whenever trains are misformed. The pain of a short formation (1 x 5 car in place of 2 x 5 car or 1 x 9) is obvious; the disruption to reservations (not an issue on the Brighton line) from misformation is also customer unfriendly. The theory - a reversion to pre-HST ways of working - is good; I am not at all convinced that the practice will be.

 

I tend to agree. If the off=peak pattern is as I think, one five car unit will have around one hour 20 to do the round trip from Leeds to Bradford/Harrogate. Obviously for x per cent of the time that is no problem. But it would be interesting to see what the risk analysis says the value of x is. Only on Monday, a train hit a land rover at Rigton LC closing the line for five hours. Such incidents can happen on a semi-rural line.

Anyway, it looks as if none of this is happening in the December timetable.

 

I suspect you have been spoiled, having had Voyagers, 9 & 11 car Pendolino's and TPE's with 3 car 185's and 4 car 350's for many years now, short forming and reservations being all over the shop are an everyday occurrence in the NW.

 

But those are all fixed formation. This is about the added risks from splitting.

 

The voyagers and 185's aren't, they are often split around with delays and buggered up reservations abounding (the favourite being the missing coach!). However, a lot seems to depend on the coupling systems as I have never experienced a problem combining or splitting voyagers, however the method for the 185's often seems to just be crash them into one another ever harder until they stick, whilst I have seen separation only achieved by way of use of an experienced technician and a big lump of wood, watched by about 200 passengers on Preston station!

Likewise the splitting at Crewe for N Wales & N West services has worked reasonably well and saved paths darn south.

Perhaps we just deal better with change in the north west (or are more used to being given the pooey end of the stick! )!

 

I probably have. But I suggest that makes the ECML a model for other to aspire to, not the other way round