Let's not be eager for new trains yet
I refer to your article Blow for rail passengers as trains plan is delayed, March 1, regarding the delay for new trains on the Great Western Line.
This is not a bad thing. The trains mentioned are the new design of super high-speed train designed by Hitachi in Japan. These are an electric/diesel hybrid which some sources say will be under-powered.
The South West will have to wait a long time for electrification to happen south of Bristol. I take a magazine called Modern Railways each month and there is a section in it called Informed Sources, written by Roger Ford whom I understand is a qualified engineer. He has done all his sums and says that this train is underpowered for what it will be expected to do.
The plans to electrify the Great Western at the moment concern the London to Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, Oxford and Newbury routes only. No mention has been made on the route to the South West. Even when it does it may only go as far as Exeter or at an outside chance Plymouth. This will leave Cornwall out on a limb.
Yes the new train is a hybrid but an underpowered one. This means that once off the electrified network it will be much slower than present trains.
When people say they want new trains, what do they want? The present HST is a 30-year-old train but has been greatly updated in the last few years. It was the best train ever built for British lines. It has excellent ride qualities and is fast and reliable. The lines serving the South West are probably at their maximum for speed owing to much curvature with the exception of Bristol to Taunton. Once off the 125mph sections any train will be still limited to present line speeds.
I suggest that we should not be too keen to get new trains in just yet as it will mean no improvement to services and maybe slower services. Certainly for Cornwall.
I think that this delay is a move to overcome the shortcomings of the new trains. Of course there is also the question of the financial constraints of the present times.
Rodney Crook
Exeter
Comments
by Noam Bleicher, Oxford
Monday, March 08 2010, 8:44AM
“Another point about new trains is that they are almost certainly going to be more cramped and uncomfortable than the present offering. The HSTs in your part of the world have already been stuffed full of mainly airline seats with no view out of the window, but at least have decent legroom.
THe next generation of IEP trains is bound to be even worse, as exemplified by the two major train orders of the past ten years - Cross-Country's Voyagers which have so little room in Standard Class you can't even use a laptop, and Virgin's Pendolinos, which have windows so small you have to crane down to look through them, and they're normally obscured by a luggage rack anyway.”