Farewell to the InterCity 125?

[editor]

Sites for the seriously obsessed:

125 trains: http://www.125group.org.uk/
APT: http://www.apt-p.com/aptindex.htm

The APT looked well cool too.

And for the really seriously spoddy, there's some grainy APT footage here:
http://www.apt-p.com/APTGalleryFilmVideoLFA.htm

 

[Crispy]

Sites for the seriously obsessed:

125 trains: http://www.125group.org.uk/
APT: http://www.apt-p.com/aptindex.htm

The APT looked well cool too.

And for the really seriously spoddy, there's some grainy APT footage here:
http://www.apt-p.com/APTGalleryFilmVideoLFA.htm

*Goes to buy bobble hat, flask and clipboard for the ed's birthday*

 

[editor]

Hold on - those sites are way too spod-tastic, even for me!

I never got into train spotting - it seemed such a pointless activity, although I did once write down the numbers of the rusting locomotives at Barry scrapyard.

We used to go there when I was a kid and play on the locos, although and I was too young to really take it in - or take any pictures!

Even though I was a young 'un, I still felt the sadness of seeing these once-beautiful locomotives left to rust away.

 

[nino_savatte]

Any idea what's going to replace them?

My first ever journey on a 125 was from Paddington to the Reading festival in 1977. One minute I was in London and the next I was in Reading. On the line out of Kings Cross (I used to live on the Beds/Herts border), we had to make do with the auld style diesel trains and the line hadn't been electrified yet, so this was quite impressve.

 

[Roadkill]

WCML Pendos do tilt but are limited to 125mph. I don't think there are any plans to up that to 140mph. Bloody pity, considering all the money that's been spent on the line improvements.

The WCML upgrade is a perfect example of why privatisation was such a disastrous idea right from the start.

BR managed to upgrade the ECML in the '80s on time and within a fairly lean budget. Admittedly, they had to cut some corners to keep the cost down, which is why the catenaries tend to fall down in very high winds even now, but the fact remains they did it. Meanwhile, the initial proposals for the WCML upgrade, including 'moving block' signalling, were totally unrealistic and the costs soon spiralled beyond control. Even this, from a source not exactly hostile to the privatised railways, makes the point:

Railtrack's original cost estimate for the project was £2.5 billion for upgrading track along the route and installing a new radio transmission-based moving block signalling system. However, during the next five years the cost of the project rose gradually towards £10 billion while at the same time reducing in scope from 140mph top speed to 125mph. Moving block signalling was also abandoned early on.

Part of the rationale for privatisation was that the private sector is meant to be better at managing its costs than the public sector. The rail privatisation fiasco demonstrates just how mistaken this assumption is. Meanwhile, the taxpayer has coughed up several billion pounds more for the upgraded WCML than BR could have done the job for, and the service is still shit. Oh, and fares have rocketed too.

On top of all that - and not on the WCML itself - on some cross-country routes, journey times are now slower than they were back in the days when the engines in the editor's picture were hauling the trains...

 

[cybertect]

rusting locomotives at Barry scrapyard.

a rather popular location for the Cardiff Universities Photographic Society in my time there, IIRC

 

[DG55]

WCML Pendos do tilt but are limited to 125mph. I don't think there are any plans to up that to 140mph. Bloody pity, considering all the money that's been spent on the line improvements.

Do they really actually tilt though? The last I heard, they couldnt tilt until they had done major upgrades on the wcml. Saying that, the last time I read about the wcml + pendos was when they were first being rolled-out.

Perhaps it has been upgraded and have begun to tilt since? If they have, then why are they still limited to 125?

It feels a bit like grappling at straws with the pendos though, I mean, heres me waffling on about how they arent travelling at 140mph, but thinking about it, thats only a speed increase of 15mph? Whats the point!

I mean seriously, how long does it take to acheive a 15mph increase in speed.

 

[icemachine]

Do they really actually tilt though? The last I heard, they couldnt tilt until they had done major upgrades on the wcml. Saying that, the last time I read about the wcml + pendos was when they were first being rolled-out.

Virgin phased in tilting services from June of 2004, although I believe a full tilting schedule wasn't introduced until a few months later. I've travelled on a couple of Pendos between Euston-Liverpool and Watford-Brum, really a fun experience.

140 shouldn't really be a big deal considering APTs once managed 162mph during testing on 1970s BR infrastructure. But as Roadkill mentioned, signalling is the obstacle.

 

[pembrokestephen]

Do they really actually tilt though? The last I heard, they couldnt tilt until they had done major upgrades on the wcml. Saying that, the last time I read about the wcml + pendos was when they were first being rolled-out.

Perhaps it has been upgraded and have begun to tilt since? If they have, then why are they still limited to 125?

It feels a bit like grappling at straws with the pendos though, I mean, heres me waffling on about how they arent travelling at 140mph, but thinking about it, thats only a speed increase of 15mph? Whats the point!

I mean seriously, how long does it take to acheive a 15mph increase in speed.

It's the old law of diminishing returns, I'm afraid. As stuff gets faster and faster, it gets increasingly more expensive per mph to keep it as safe, and efficient. There's all kinds of stuff we take completely for granted where trains are concerned that actually poses all kinds of huge technical challenges in the implementation...and some of that stuff is really very mundane indeed. Things like the tendency of the catenary wire to lift off the pickup because of airflow at very high speeds, for example.

 

[T & P]

It would have been far easier (and come to think of it, probably not more expensive) to rip the bloody line and associated equipment altogether and lay a new one afresh.

True high speed (186mph or 300kph) is not that difficult to achieve ffs! Other countries manage it just fine. Spain is upgrading line after line and will eventually have a very impressive nationwide network of high speed and medium high speed lines (186mph & 155mph respectively). Their Madrid-Barcelona-French Border line will in the next few years become the fastest traditional train line service in the world with top speeds of 350kph (218mph).

But rather than messing about with existing lines they have simply build new tracks altogether for much of the route. Which is what it should have been done here.

 

[DG55]

Yes, but I mean that 15mph is only at a reletively low speed compared to other countries, and even compared to BR with the ATP.

But isnt the cost of rebuilding the line just too expensive? It'll just spiral out of control like with any project. If they wanted to go ahead with this, im sure they would more rather build that new line which was proposed a while ago, which goes kinda north central, or somthing.

 

[icemachine]

It seems Britain's railways suffer because of their Victorian roots, and the way most subsequent work has been based on improving existing infrastructure as a way of saving money rather than rebuilding from scratch. No new major routes, just a few miles of improvements or avoiding lines here and there. Now it's too late and our crowded little island is too expensive a backdrop on which to build new lines. Even with the ballooning WCML upgrade costs, it was still cheaper than just building a new railway. Years and years of public enquiries before so much as a sleeper can be laid (how long ago did the Chunnel open...and where are we with the CTRL?) - it's just too painful to watch.

All a bit depressing really, isn't it?

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

It seems Britain's railways suffer because of their Victorian roots, and the way most subsequent work has been based on improving existing infrastructure as a way of saving money rather than rebuilding from scratch. No new major routes, just a few miles of improvements or avoiding lines here and there. Now it's too late and our crowded little island is too expensive a backdrop on which to build new lines. Even with the ballooning WCML upgrade costs, it was still cheaper than just building a new railway. Years and years of public enquiries before so much as a sleeper can be laid (how long ago did the Chunnel open...and where are we with the CTRL?) - it's just too painful to watch.

All a bit depressing really, isn't it?

Blame the Luftwaffe. France, Germany and Japans high speed networks were easier to build after being bombed to shit in WW2. Granted, the political will needs to be there (and yes, its not been in here for many years) but we suffer in this island from having the oldest railway system in the world.

 

[Isambard]

125s are a HUGE part of my life.

From when they first replaced the Deltics on the ECML, to them coming to the local Great Western and to this day taking me home. The Thames Valley bridges, Didcot, the Vale of White Horse, the warm stone buildings of Bath.

I was just thinking the last time I travelled on them a few weeks ago how lucky we are to have em compared to the Virgin shite.......

SF. No. WW2 has nothing to do with it. The high speed networks were started in the 70s in mainland Europe when WW2 damage was no longer an issue. And as mentioned many of the lines are total new builds where there was no railway before.

 

[editor]

125s are a HUGE part of my life.

...43 posts about inter-city 125s in just a couple of days and they LAUGHED at us when this forum was proposed!

The nerds are taking over...

 

[pembrokestephen]

...43 posts about inter-city 125s in just a couple of days and they LAUGHED at us when this forum was proposed!

The nerds are taking over...

Oi! 'koff...

 

[T & P]

"The VII Urban75 Loughborough Junction spotting meet was the most successful yet"

 

[editor]

"The VII Urban75 Loughborough Junction spotting meet was the most successful yet"

Oy! Tell those fuckers to get out the way - I can't see the number of the DMU!

 

[pembrokestephen]

Oy! Tell those fuckers to get out the way - I can't see the number of the DMU!

Tsk It's not even a DMU, come on, editor, get with it...



*well, I used to get on one of those bloody 50-year-old wooden jobs to go to work every day. That's my excuse, anyway*

 

[editor]

Tsk It's not even a DMU, come on, editor, get with it...

What is it? An EMU? A DEMU? If that baldy tosser shifted his arse I could see.

 

[pembrokestephen]

What is it? An EMU? A DEMU? If that baldy tosser shifted his arse I could see.

It's a Southern Region EMU. I could make a few guesses about which type, but a) I'd look even more like a nerd, b) it's a long time since my trainspotting days, and c) I can't be arsed.


Oh, bugger, there's my credibility gone

 

[icemachine]

Oh, bugger, there's my credibility gone

I think this is a credibility-free thread

 

[davesgcr]

Its a 4 CIG .....(1957 stock)

All gone - to the great train yard in the sky.

ps - dont grieve yet -- the HSTs have lots of life left in them - lots of em have been life extended and as they are versatile (they are tough British engineering and electronics/ chip free) - light and with newish engines can go nearly everywhere in the UK - even to Aberystwyth - so they will be around for a while yet.

Any replacement is still a "concept" and the industry debate may even turn to wider electifciation with the tightening oil situation - in at least some parts of the country .

The only ones junked have been those irreperably damaged in prangs like Southall and Ufton Nervett.

PS I am allowed to be nerdy as I pay the mortgage with the "knowledge"

 

[bigmac]

Its a 4 CIG .....(1957 stock)
All gone - to the great train yard in the sky.

As a self confessed complete and utter train nerd I feel compelled to point out that there are in fact two CIGs still running on South West Trains on the Brockenhurst to Lymington branch. Yes, I know they are 3 CIG (3 car) units but they used to be 4 CIG before having a coach removed in order to comply with recent regulations due to the short platforms on the Lymington branch.

 

[davesgcr]

Quite right re the 3 CIGS - and they run ECS from Bournemouth to swop over via Eastleigh to turn the sets and equalise wheel wear.(I didnt want to pollute the main thread whiuch was 125 related) - so slam doors are still on the main lines - just - but dont carry passengers.

 

[guinnessdrinker]

Electrodiesels are a bit of an embarrassing bodge: all the time you're electrically powered, you're carting around 30 tons of pointless diesel generator, and when you're using the diesel generator, you're normally running on a fraction of the power that the sparks give you, not to mention the fact that at that point, you're carting around quite a tonnage of pointless transformer.

you would only carry enough fuel to go through those bits you can't electrify.

 

[laptop]

you would only carry enough fuel to go through those bits you can't electrify.

all the time you're electrically powered, you're carting around 30 tons of pointless diesel generator, and when you're using the diesel generator, you're normally running on a fraction of the power that the sparks give you, not to mention the fact that at that point, you're carting around quite a tonnage of pointless transformer.

Emphasis to highlight your particular question...

 

[guinnessdrinker]

Emphasis to highlight your particular question...

that's true enough, but what is the solution if you can't electrify part of it?

 

[laptop]

that's true enough, but what is the solution if you can't electrify part of it?

Diesel, I'm afraid. Pending fuel cells or something.

Or a new tunnel - something for the Welsh Assembly to get het up about. "If France can get one, why not us?"

Not that I've looked into the clearances in the tunnel. After all, if there's room for fibreglass-rod-insulated trolley wire, all you really need to keep dry is that, and a lining on the top three feet of the tunnel should do it...

 

[oneflewover]

Without getting this thread to derailed, i'll get it back on track.

Not sure what it has to do with with Alistar Darling, the TOCs will just go for the best option for them.

Now that Grand Central Trains have been given leave to run trains from the North East to London (they will run Voyager type units), GNER will not have any purchasing/hiring to do. Virgin have done all their procurement, it only leaves FGW. IMHO they will, when ready, go for the Hull trains, MML, Virgin route and opt for DMUs.

Incidentally, GNER have just gained a HST set, Ex Virgin from the leasing companies for refurbishment.