The S Wales to Manchester 197 services will be doubled up, so they are planned as 5 car sets with the 3 car having 1st class.
They will run in five (2+3) car sets and share the Manchester to Cardiff services with the 7? extra Mk4 loco hauled sets. Exactly what happens west of Cardiff isn't confirmed. When it was going to be 197s exclusively it was going to be five cars Manchester to Swansea with the two car gong forward into West Wales.
Two cars won't be enough during bank holidays and in the summer.
It's not as bad as it looks on paper. I've set in the standard seats and the legroom is decent - as good as if not better than the current fleet.
Two cars aren't likely to be appearing my themselves anywhere that's likely to be busy.
Can we hold you to that Craigy !!!!
You only need to look at the numbers being ordered for reassurance. As has been pointed out many times, the overall size of the fleet is increasing massively.
That would cost a lot more, on a route that's not exactly renowned for it's profitability. I agree that if a new fleet was required for the route it would be easiest just to get extra 197s, but given all the crews already work 153s, and the maintenance staff are already familiar, in this case the status quo seems to work out ok.
I was thinking that relatively few 2 car units would be needed (compared to total fleet size) to get rid of the old 153’s. The Heart of Wales might attract more leisure traffic if it had modern air conditioned trains.
I took this picture, from what I could see it seemed reasonably spacious and light. Even if the layout might be a bit cramped, the ambience and body shape should help. I don't like how small those windows are though, and the lack of tables concerns me, I don't think TOCs fully realise how crucial they are in attracting families and groups onto trains.there's 197 3 car stop markers on Pembroke dock branch so 3 cars might be on the lines west
The HOW has 3 diagrams but that includes some work from Crewe-Shrewsbury and before Covid some Swansea-Cardiff work to get the sets back to Canton. You could probably cover this with an additional 3 197s (2 cars each)
Why do those 'accessibility' seat plans contain so much less information than the detailed layout diagram for the 197s? Admittedly there is a lot of clutter on the latter that is unhelpful for passengers, but the position of window pillars and to-scale seat spacing (so you can get an idea of legroom) would be useful when booking seats. Although I note that TfW seem to have gone the opposite direction to LNER during COVID and stopped offering seat reservations altogether, they aren't the only operator to provide seat plans that are lacking useful information.
What ambience? As far as I can tell from the detailed seat plan (see link above), even first class does not have segregated vestibules (there appears to be a partion door between first and standard, but not between the first class saloons and the doorway). One of the bays in 1st is partially blocked by a window pillar too.
Seat pitch (spacing) on a 197 in airline seating is given on the diagram as 820mm. That is better than a 158 but less than a 175 (84cm by my tape measure) and even TfW have admitted that legroom is not quite as good as a 175.
2-car units are expected to remain the norm on the Cambrian lines west of Machynlleth. These can be quite busy particularly in summer. Admittedly the suituation may have changed now that more mark 4 sets are coming, but it also seemed likely that Milford Haven - Swansea would be reduced from the current mix of 2 and 3 coach 175s to 2-car on every single service (I think somebody said that the number of 197s fitted with first class would not be sufficient to both provide first class on all Holyhead-Cardiff services and allow the 3-car portion of the Manchesters to continue to Milford Haven).
There are also increased demands on the fleet though, in the form of the additonal Liverpool services (extension of Manchester Airport workings to Bangor might also require an extra diagram, as might filling in the last few gaps to go hourly to Aberystwyth?). Together with doubling up the Manchester-Swansea those extra services accounted for most of the 26 additonal units and, when you consider that there are three south Wales class 158 diagrams, the number of ETCS fitted units ordered (21) is no different to the current number of units available for the Cambrian.
I think that is a case of logic triumphing. If the five car arrives at Swansea or Carmarthen for the split, it might be 3+2 or 2+3 so being able to run the 3 car to Pembroke dock, instead of shunting the units around would be beneficial.
I'm very tall. If 197 legroom is acceptable for me (and it is) it's really not something people need to worry about.
Don't make any assumptions about the Cambrian just yet. In real terms there should be more units available for the Cambrian than is the case now. Also, supposing TfW have somehow got their sums wrong (which I don't personally believe, but I'll humour it just in case) then adding ETCS to some of the non-fitted 197s is a much, much simpler task than it was with the 158s.
Effectively it's the same number of units as the 158s (given that three 158s are used where ETCS is not required) and they seem to have just about enough 158s to cover the diagrams so in terms of number of units they might well have their sums right. It is number of seats, toilets, table bays (particularly ones aligned with windows), segregated vestibules, floor area devoted to standees (far too much of this due to wide doors) and possibly carriages (in summer) that I think are out.
It's the same number of units if the timetable across the TfW network is the same as now. But there's a full recast coming.
274 vs 190, for a net gain of 84, per the diagrams and figures I linked to in my previous post.
Those are the diagrams I'd originally gone looking for, thanks.
Junction - Bangor return is easily done in the same time as the Junction - Llandudno - Junction - Llandudno - Junction shuttle move that Manchester services have long operated, so it's just the additional Llandudno-Liverpool services that need to be considered there.
Those diagrams are much better, thanks. With regards to the vestibule doors, I completely agree, that's the main issue with 1/3 2/3 doors, they're very loud with those exposed doorways. 170-style sound barriers might help, but from what I can see they're not fitted. On legroom, I am very tall as well, and I find the 175s unusually comfortable to travel in the airline seats. I doubt 2 cm will make much difference in all honesty, but the extra capacity will, the Marches route is getting ridiculously overcrowded. On a different note, I wonder what those First Class seats are. They're obviously not the same as Standard, but they don't look like the same sort fitted to the Class 80x. Could be wrong though.
I've expanded on this, for example adding a comparison with 158s for the Cambrian, over in the wider discussion topic.
Have any first class seats for the class 197s been sighted? TfW have cancelled/postponed my planned visit to see the mock ups, but I don't think they have a mock-up of first class do they?
003 has ERTMS fitted, though it's been running around with it isolated - it's mostly been on the Crewe - Shrewsbury training circuit.
Saw the working go past Crewe webcam and there was a two car in multiple. GBRF seem to running one from Craven Arms and there are TfW coded ones running crew training to Shrewsbury. Seems Crewe is the place to be
It's Freightliner not GBRF. 197003 has been doing the Crewe to Shrewsbury runs recently.
