Tag: Rolling Stock

WANTED: more toilets, through-gangways and a better view out of the window!

If Northern are going to order more new trains, shouldn’t the opportunity be taken to improve the passenger experience? If you are sitting at the wrong end of one of the Northern’s new 3-car trains, it’s a  walk through two coaches to reach the loo. That may be adequate for short commuter journeys but with the nature of rail travel changing with a greater proportion of leisure travel by families and elderly people, plenty of toilets should be a must. It’s even more difficult when – as we are now seeing again – trains are getting crowded. Toilet waste that used fall disgustingly onto the track is now retained for disposal later. This means train toilets are complex machines; having only one risks having none in case of failure. We thought Northern might go for an upgrade with the new battery-diesel trains they are looking at. We also thought consideration might be given to providing through gangway connections so that when 2-car or 3-car trains are coupled together both staff (for ticket checking and customer service) and passengers can get from one end to the other. We even thought (maybe this was a long shot) changing the seating layout might be considered giving more passengers the choice of watching the scenery, a time-honoured pleasure of rail travel.

Our understanding is that no such upgrades are intended.

A cost-saving but also, we might argue, a missed opportunity. Class 196 (West Midlands) have end-gangways, and 197s (Wales) also have 2 toilets in units of more than 2 carriages. The Northern, WMR and TfW trains are all built by CAF.

Header Image: “195120/002 at Hebden Bridge 28/07/20” flickr photo by Aaron 56125 https://flickr.com/photos/aaronsrailwayphots/50538657731 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

Update sounds like better news on Northern’s metal fatigue problem

Update 10 June – Northern and CAF engineers have now carried out temporary modifications to yaw dampers on their new trains, and a permanent solution will follow. Immediate good news is that most of the trains are now quickly and safely coming back into service. Northern’s recent (10 June) press statement is here, but if you want to know what the heck is a yaw damper, read on below!

Metal fatigue hits new trains (from our recent newsletter). At the end of May we understand about 30 of Northern’s CAF-built new trains were out of service including some of the “195s” used on our line. The problem is cracks on the brackets attaching a gadget called a yaw damper to the train body. A yaw damper is designed to stop the bogie wobbling from side to side as it rolls along. This transmits an oscillating force to the mounting and body, leading to metal fatigue, and ultimately cracking Lightweight aluminium used in construction is more prone to metal fatigue than steel. Yaw damper problems have also hit Hitachi high speed trains run by LNER, GWR and TransPennine Express, though it was cracks in jacking points that took those trains out of service recently. The issue is not new. British Rail had to redesign damper mountings on our familiar Class 158 units 30 years ago. It’s about designing components to reduce concentration of stress – avoiding sharp corners etc. Have modern train designers not learnt lessons?

Repairs will take time. It’s fortunate that with fewer passengers, for now, Northern can manage with shorter trains. As we write this most Calder Valley trains seem to be correct.

UPDATE: More at Train operator Northern issues update on Class 195 and 331 fault (railadvent.co.uk)

How good is your train?

BRAND new “Class 195” trains already working Calder Valley-Manchester/Chester services began phasing in to York-Halifax-Blackpool in December.

We remain concerned about the need for more peak-hour strengthening. Units can be coupled together but platform lengths at Leeds (notably short bays like P10) are a limitation. New “Platform 0” and lengthening of P1-6 will help, but it will be another year before these works are complete. The evening peak is highly stressful for commuters and staff coping with overcrowding. There used to be four trains from Leeds to Calderdale between 1700 and 1730 but with standardisation of the hourly pattern this is now just three (1712 to Manchester, 1717 via Brighouse and 1727 to Halifax). Surely strengthening is essential but, it seems, often does not happen.

On the Leeds-Brighouse-Manchester-Wigan service, use of 3-car Class 158s marks progress, but a miscellany of  more old-fashioned types continue including single “153s” coupled to a 158, impairing acceleration and limiting maximum speed.  To us, the new trains look ideal for this line with smart acceleration between frequent stops. The new Bradford-Huddersfield “shuttle” is usually a single-car “153”. Pacers (fingers crossed) seem to have gone.

Having only one toilet on the new trains is surely a serious design error. Dare we hope for a later order of extra coaches with more facilities for services taking commuters to work, students to college, families to the seaside or historical attractions, and hens and stags on happy weekends?

 

Depot Problems

Performance issues taking the shine off a new timetable are, sadly, not news. Calderdale commuters have been suffering early morning cancellations due not just to staff shortages but to “problems at the depot”, “train late leaving depot” (so it’s late because it’s late!), “trains needing more maintenance than usual” and the rest. New trains require new procedures, such as emptying of toilet retention tanks (thankfully, the deposit of human excreta on the track is to be phased out). Did no-one plan for this? Northern’s main Yorkshire train depot, Neville Hill, is stuck out on the wrong side of Leeds and not big enough. Many empty stock workings have to come through Leeds to get anywhere useful to pick up early bird commuters. We hear serious talk of building a new depot somewhere less inconvenient. Somewhere in the Wakefield area springs to mind as accessible to much of West Yorkshire.

 

New Trains

Our picture of a new Northern train is good news. But Northern’s franchise is effectively bankrupt, performance has been abysmal and committed new services have not been delivered. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps seems to agree with regional leaders like Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham that this can not go on. Arriva Rail North will (in some sense) be “stripped of the franchise”, meaning either takeover by a government-owned company, or a management contract awarded to Arriva itself. Extra Calder Valley services linking to south Manchester and the Airport, should have been introduced in the current timetable but are on hold. Mytholmroyd and Sowerby Bridge have had their service cut with May’18 improvements taken away. The Brighouse (and Elland) line is desperate for a better service. Failure of the franchise must not mean letting the railway collectively off the hook. A lot of Northern’s problems stem from late delivery of Network Rail infrastructure projects and, critically, failure at the Department of Transport to approve capacity works in Manchester. Transport for the North as calling again for those works to be approved. HADRAG has also written (again) to the Secretary of State (see inside). We say that whoever is running the trains must be charged producing a timetable that works, and using imaginative solutions to give our line its fair share of benefits. —JSW

Brighouse Pacers dodge axe

With delayed introduction of new trains, the hated Pacers, 1980s bus bodies on a rail wagon, have a short stay of execution. Routes still blessed with these heritage vehicles include the Bradford-Brighouse-Huddersfield shuttle, until spring 2020. “Enjoy” them while you can! Meanwhile, the Leeds-Brighouse-Manchester-Wigan route, now denied modern Class 170 “Turbostars” (our loss is Bridlington-Sheffield’s gain) will soldier on with 3-car “158+sprinter” combo units, meaning poorer acceleration and lower maximum speed, as well as poorer design than a 170 for getting people on and off in quick time.

Performance plummets as new trains enter service

NORTHERN’s new Class 195s entered CV line service on 21 October, nine trains planned to cover nine “diagrams” meaning almost all Leeds-Manchester/ Chester services. Maybe this was over-ambitious. What about extras for peak-hour strengthening, as the new trains can not be coupled on to the old ones? The expectation was new trains on our line would be at least three cars but on the first day a post on the HADRAG Facebook page reported the 1719 Manchester-Leeds, usually a 3-car “158”, had been just a 2 car “195”, with people standing all the way to Hebden Bridge. A 195 has no more seats than an equivalent 158. Standing space should be more comfortable, but if peak-hour strengthening does not happen people are going to be very cross.

Performance took a dive in late October— too many delays and cancellations, how much directly due to the new trains not entirely clear, but there were door problems and other issues. That said, the 195s seem reasonably well designed with a light ambience, a good number of tables (if you can get to one) to work at or look out of the window, and wide vestibules for quick boarding and alighting. 3-pin sockets tucked between seats annoyingly lack USB points, so you have to carry charger as well as cable. We are told this could be rectified in later units. Litter bins are not easy to find and look rather small. And just one toilet for three carriage is no easy fix.

New Trains Down Our Way

YES, that’s a brand new train taking the curve into Halifax, snapped from Shaw Lane bridge in July. That was a trial run, but now the “Class 195s” are in service on Manchester and Chester trains, and expected on the Blackpool route in December.

Entry to service was not without hitch. We hope causes of recent delays and cancellations across Calder Valley services (not just the new trains) will be quickly resolved.

We also trust there will be enough extra carriages to relieve overcrowding. The benefits of a new modern will be lost on passengers who are still crammed like sardines.

And we’ve asked for the new trains on the Leeds-Manchester -Wigan service that goes through Brighouse. This route was promised modern (albeit second hand) Turbostar trains from Scotland but these have gone to the Bridlington-Sheffield route instead. It’s not good enough for the Brighouse line to struggle on with older sprinter-type trains when higher performance units would be better suited to a pattern of frequent stops.

Timetable development is a major issue. The railway collectively finds itself unable to keep promises such as extra trains on our line including ones to the south side of Manchester. Instead of bringing comprehensive improvements the December timetable looks like a kick in the teeth for Sowerby Bridge and Mytholmroyd station users who lose most of their trains to York and Blackpool. Northern have made changes to repair some of the damage, but we fight on for a better deal for the whole line.

Read our recent paper with reasonable demands for improvement and realistic ideas for implementation at this link.

With the future of the train company in doubt, we are pressing West Yorkshire Combined Authority (Metro) and Transport for the North to come up with a strategy to provide the comprehensive, modern, reliable Calder Valley line service that the Northern franchise was supposed to deliver.

New Trains Worry

We’ve been seeing lot of aging “Pacers” recently, whilst waiting patiently for the brand new trains promised to be on Calder Valley services this year. The new “Class 195s” have been under test and a problem has been found with couplings. We gather the engineers have a solution but it means further delay. This follows disappointment that the “Class 170” trains from Scotland, second hand but pleasantly modern, are not now likely to be deployed on the Leeds-Brighouse-Manchester route. As far as we know officially the Pacers are still expected to go by the end of this year, and the brand new trains should come our way.

Hell to pay if they don’t arrive! Again, we are pressing Northern for confirmation of intent.

 

Header Image: “A spanking new 195 113” flickr photo by 70023venus2009 https://flickr.com/photos/70023venus2009/40723003743 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-ND) license

New Trains: Stating The Obvious

People are so used to being on the “Cinderella Line” that if you tell them brand new trains are coming they tend not to believe it. But Northern’s promise when Arriva secured the franchise (late 2015) was new stock for Calder Valley services via Bradford to Manchester and on to the Airport, Chester and Liverpool, plus the established York-Blackpool service. All these services would be branded “Northern Connect”, the franchise’s new regional express product, by December 2019. We sincerely hope all of this happens though our priority (and we believe Northern’s) is a service that works for existing users. It seems new kit can not be expected to work out of the box. The new “Class 195” diesels from Spain are being tested and de-snagged as we write but fingers crossed we might see some of them on CVL trains to Manchester and Chester before the summer solstice. Meanwhile we already have the Leeds-Brighouse-Manchesters going through to Southport. This service was promised modern “Class 170s” from Scotland. The 170s are already familiar on the Harrogate line and are good trains to travel on, a step up from the Class 158s and a giant leap from the crummy “150s” that still make our line look like a 1980s throwback. But apparently there was a “gauging problem” meaning the 170s don’t quite fit on the Calder Valley Line. Though we also hear that work has been done to make sure TransPennine Express new trains do fit. Latest we hear is the 170s will be used (instead) on Hull-Sheffield Northern Connect services. So either the Calder Valley line will see even more of the new trains (come on, let’s be optimistic), or else have to soldier on with 1980s “sprinter” and “express” stock for some time. Oh, and by the way, the hated Pacers, still very much around, really will be going, but the longer it takes to commission the new trains, the longer the old will stay in service.

Which is, perhaps, stating the obvious.

Header Image: “Northern Scotty” flickr photo by JohnGreyTurner https://flickr.com/photos/johngreyturner/45494410864 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license