Who needs double deckers?

Nigel Evans our Ribble Valley Tory MP wrote in his recent election manifesto that the Tories would promise “the biggest road-building programme ever for Lancashire”.

I wrote and told him that the fabled Northern Powerhouse hadn’t got a chance with that kind of idiocy around.

Single decker is far better on regional routes anyway. You only really need a DD on massive cross-continental routes that take a couple of days plus.

The commuter services I’ve seen get on just fine with double-decker carriages

It will now be used as a political football to reinforce their message that they suddenly care about you lot up North, I wouldn’t hold my breath!

You’d still expect Victorian stations to be able to cope with the new three carriage trains. Trouble is lots of the platforms were fenced off and allowed to fall into dis-repair when they were only servicing the sprinters, Network Rail should have re-opened these old platforms to cope with the (late) arrival of the new 3 carriage trains.

They’re having to rebuild those lost sections they demolished a decade ago all over Wales! It’s one of the reasons we still have the old converted lorry chassis trains running. They were meant to be decommissioned at the beginning of last year but you still hear them squealing along every day. The new trails are parked up waiting for all the platforms to be re-extended. They do rotate which of the new ones are in use where they fit but there’s always at least half of them parked up for no reason.

It will now be used as a political football to reinforce their message that they suddenly care about you lot up North, I wouldn’t hold my breath!

That’s exactly what it is.

There’s been a few articles over the last couple of days in the Manchester Evening News noting that not a lot is going to change anytime soon.

They’ve highlighted the various infrastructure failings.

The new trains are parked up waiting for all the platforms to be re-extended. They do rotate which of the new ones are in use where they fit but there’s always at least half of them parked up for no reason.

Not passed testing, not got sufficient drivers trained for them all, not got space on the network to accommodate them, not got long enough platforms. There are plenty of reasons that they’re there.

They had no choice but to keep some of the Pacers. Either you use Pacers and at least have a semblance of a service or you have no service at all.

Dunno what the rest was supposed to mean, Scotrail isn’t all that. Doesnt have cut and shut buses rolling about so I guess that’s something.(we got rid of all our ancient stock when it kept going on fire)

You’ve just taken most of the East Coast Inter City 125 stock which is older than the Pacers so I wouldn’t crow too much.

Saying that, 125’s are ace.

Had wandered why the brand new trains seemed to be parked up all the time at Skipton (For going on 6 months I reckon). Said before though, we’re lucky on the Airedale Northern line as the stock is decent and usually on time. Couldn’t really work out why we were getting a bunch of new trains when our older (but by no means old) Siemans had just been refurbed and are still nice trains to travel on.

It’s one of the reasons we still have the old converted lorry chassis trains running. They were meant to be decommissioned at the beginning of last year but you still hear them squealing along every day. The new trails are parked up waiting for all the platforms to be re-extended. They do rotate which of the new ones are in use where they fit but there’s always at least half of them parked up for no reason.

They arent lorry/bus chassis. Or even converted wagon chassis. The first lot were built using a body design that made it look a little like a bus body. They are not modified buses, the bodies are totally different, but do have some fittings the same, as the company (Leyland) built buses.
They have not been scrapped yet, due to the manufacturers of the new rolling stock not keeping their promise of delivery last year, so the older rolling stock has been reprieved for up to a year to cover the late delivery of the new stock.Its either Pacer trains or no trains in both Wales and Northern.
The rail operating companies cannot really be held responsible for this, it is the manufacturers who have not kept to their Contract.
There are many new trains stored at the moment, as the introduction plan has gone awry due to late delivery. Each train has to do a certain mileage before entering passenger service, 5000 miles springs to mind, though it may be lower. This is to ensure any faults are sorted before they enter service. Recently, Bombadier of Derby sent out a new train that had over 100 faults on delivery. The train operators are again at the mercy of the manufacturers, who are doing a shoddy job.
Drivers also need training. The newest trains are far more technically challenging, and faults have been found in software that makes the trains immovable, so, drivers have to do a more indepth course on running and diagnosing faults on the new trains, to ensure a reliable service.

You’ve just taken most of the East Coast Inter City 125 stock which is older than the Pacers so I wouldn’t crow too much.

I was talking about the old 303’s which had a nasty habit of exploding or catching fire. I’d take a Pacer over one of those!

Was actually quite happy to see the old Sprinter and Turbostar stock down in Leeds last time I was there, no shame attached to those (and a **** load easier to get a bike on). Anyway, the 125’s came from Great Western, hence the extensive refurb required (not a patch on East Coast last time I was on one).

The point that keeps being made is that it’s not that simple; due to the Victorian infrastructure we can’t have double decker trains as the tunnels aren’t high/wide enough, and reboring them is prohibitive, even if you could raise all the bridges.

Don’t need to raise bridges just lower Track 🙂

We Used to be good at this stuff in the 1800s but now seem Incapable or unwilling to think of innovative solutions.

That’s because in the 1800s we had a vast pool of cheap, exploitable labour that we had no duty of care for.

It could be done but it would be cheaper to rip it all up. There is a vast difference between digging down a couple of feet for overhead wires and digging the sort of clearances a double decker and wires (because why wouldn’t you?) would require. Which, as it happens, may well require a wider loading gauge and so would need to be extended out the way as well.

We Used to be good at this stuff

And as well as an expendable workforce, the Victorians  cared little if your house or village was in the way.

Problems on Northern:

It’s a toxic, broken company in which every single department is hostile towards the others.

Training is abysmal. There’s no training resources – everything given to staff was produced by previous holders of the franchise apart from the CAF (builders of the new trains) training stuff put together by Northern which is laughably poor. About 80% of the problems with the CAF trains are user error. This is the first significant fleet of new trains ordered without a simulator for training and assessment. There is no manual given to drivers for these trains, they are instead told to carry their course notes around with them for reference. The course notes are shockingly poorly written and full of errors and omissions.

The actual build quality of the CAF trains is bad. Cab doors that come open at 100mph.
Door locks that need superhuman strength to open. AWS alarms that will cause drivers to fail their hearing tests on medicals they are so loud. Emergency alarm buttons that come off in your hand virtually every time. Wipers that last a month before expiring. The electric trains cause interference problems with the overhead lines even when they’re just stabled, affecting other trains.

Further to training, at some larger depots only a fraction of drivers are competent in their own rostered work, leading to rostering inefficiencies and the ‘shortage of drivers’ excuse. This is BS of the highest order – at one of the traincrew depots that’s the most afflicted, the number of drivers required (establishment) is 182 and the actual number of drivers, including a dozen trainees, is 228. By no stretch of the English language is that a shortage of drivers. It’s a shortage of competence. At that depot there are over 5,000 training days outstanding before all drivers are fully competent in their own work. This is a figure that was in only triple figures fifteen years ago.

Maintenance of trains – the largest maintenance depot used exclusively by Northern is at Newton Heath in Manchester. The entire culture there is, at best, patching things up so they never quite run out of work. Even the brand new trains are quickly filthy because the cleaners, and their supervisors and managers, are so used to spending a quarter of their allotted time or less performing their booked cleaning tasks that even a brand new train in service for a week looks filthy when it comes off depot because it’s never seen a hoover or a cloth, only a litter-pick. This culture is ingrained and I hope that the OLR lift the lid on Newton Heath depot in a meaningful way.

Arriva came in in 2016 with a franchise agreement that was unrealistic and an extremely aggressive fiscal management policy. There were huge cuts in budgets and industrial relations suffered. Don’t be taken in by the infrastructure projects being delivered late or not happening – Northern still had to, and did, put together a trainplan that was viable by way of the number of trains and staff they had to be able to ‘diagram’ them sufficiently. Unfortunately the number of trains out of service or failing in service due to poor maintenance causes the short-formed trains that make travelling a misery, and the fact only a fraction of the workforce are competent in a their rostered work leads to the huge inefficiencies and ‘shortages’ of drivers which are bunkum – while trains are cancelled with this excuse there are dozens of drivers sat playing cards in mess rooms unable to do their work because they’re not trained.

Was actually quite happy to see the old Sprinter and Turbostar stock down in Leeds last time I was there, no shame attached to those (and a **** load easier to get a bike on). Anyway, the 125’s came from Great Western, hence the extensive refurb required (not a patch on East Coast last time I was on one).

Think a lot of the LNER HSTs are going to EMR. I was lucky enough to travel on one of the last HST services up to Edinburgh and then got an Azuma back. Yes the Azuma is nice and quiet and well lit and has lots of nice stuff but the comfort of the 40 year old HST was something else. Same with the new CAF Northern units. Got one into work this morning. Rock hard seats vs the sofas on the 158s. How is a man meant to get 45 minutes kip to and from work each day?!