@samuelmorris +
@JonathanH
1. Extra 7cars is short term measure till they get ETCS + some software / Heathrow Tunnels sorted at which point more 9car are needed, but this should be easily managed given the 9cars floating around OOC. It would be sensible to go 9car on the current 7car western routes get them bedded in then go for Heathrow branch to de-risk things a bit.
2. As far as it understand it the newly shortened 7car going east was to do with the Ilford being practised in bedding 7car units in reliably and getting milage in at quicker rate than out west. It also sent bedded in units out west which might highlight what are train vs infrastructure issues better and help with snagging.
3. With the big opening phases 2.5 years behind lots of 9cars needed for mid 2021 and Abbey Wood -Paddington opening as well as all the testing before hand (realistically 8-10 test units) after this there isn't much float as they are already running the Reading/Maidenhead routes with 345s which wasn't part of the original plan
Thanks - how much 9-car testing on the west side is going on? I note that there are still diagrams during the day for running empty 345s but the level of activity there was before the December timetable change seems to have dropped off.
Are the following just driver training rather than testing?
5G50 1008 Old Oak Depot to Reading
5G51 1133 Reading to Maidenhead Carriage Sdgs
5G52 1305 Maidenhead Carriage Sdgs to Reading Sig. T1732
5G53 1358 Reading Sig. T1732 to Old Oak Depot
5G56 1038 Old Oak Depot to Reading Sig. T1732
5G57 1226 Reading Sig. T1732 to Maidenhead Carriage Sdgs
5G58 1402 Maidenhead Carriage Sdgs to Reading
5G59 1433 Reading to Old Oak Depot
The above are permanently timetabled. The below are Q paths and obviously STP schedules can be set up.
5G54 2008 Old Oak Depot to Maidenhead Reversing Sdgs
5G55 2140 Maidenhead Reversing Sdgs to Old Oak Depot
5G60 2038 Old Oak Depot to Maidenhead Reversing Sdgs
5G61 2213 Maidenhead Reversing Sdgs to Old Oak Depot
It looks like there was a 345 at Heathrow on Saturday testing all day
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...8/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=ZZ
(the inbound working replaced by
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/O81666/2020-01-18/detailed)