Pacer and Sprinter replacement

[Batman]

Just out of interest, if the government were to place a bulk order to replace all 14x and 15x trains, how many 2 and 3 car 172's would be required?

 

[brad465]

Around 700(or slightly less if you cound all the 1 car sprinters to being merged 2 cars)

Plus maybe anymore or less needed

 

[HSTEd]

you would probably require a new order of small lightweight vehicles to replace Class 153s on various quiet routes, although I like the look of something like the Coradia LINT 27, although it is a bit long for British railways, but other than that, several hundred Turbostar carriages, Im currently working on the exact numbers myself.

 

[Batman]

you would probably require a new order of small lightweight vehicles to replace Class 153s on various quiet routes, although I like the look of something like the Coradia LINT 27, although it is a bit long for British railways, but other than that, several hundred Turbostar carriages, Im currently working on the exact numbers myself.

Do you think the government could commission Bombardier to design and build a single car version of the 172 wit through corridor capability (so it can be worked in multiples with other 172's) and the same seating capacity as a 153?

 

[anthony263]

Do you think the government could commission Bombardier to design and build a single car version of the 172 wit through corridor capability (so it can be worked in multiples with other 172's) and the same seating capacity as a 153?

I doubt it.

Also CSRE have their Pulsar units which they say are an ideal replacement for the pacers

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Just out of interest, if the government were to place a bulk order to replace all 14x and 15x trains, how many 2 and 3 car 172's would be required?

Where do you think that the order might be placed, noting the rules of the European Commission, which was discussed at length in a recent thread.? An order of this size is most certainly going to be of interest to many fleet builders. Who do you think would offer the most competitive bid, whilst having the capacity to meet all the constrictures connected with such an order.

 

[HSTEd]

Where do you think that the order might be placed, noting the rules of the European Commission, which was discussed at length in a recent thread.? An order of this size is most certainly going to be of interest to many fleet builders. Who do you think would offer the most competitive bid, whilst having the capacity to meet all the constrictures connected with such an order.

Surely the constrictures would pretty much require turbostars?

1) Existing design of multiple unit to enable the bulk of the order to be filled as fast as possible
2) Must be able to interwork with 15x and 17x series trains

Even without the loophole used by everyone else to favour domestic suppliers its pretty hard for anyone else to provide trains that fit that description.

 

[Yew]

It could be possible to convert a two car 172 to single car (with a streamlined end and a flat end) in the same way 155's where made into 153's. Since they have 1/4 and 3/4 doors instead of central ones there should be lpenty of cab space.

 

[Batman]

Where do you think that the order might be placed, noting the rules of the European Commission, which was discussed at length in a recent thread.? An order of this size is most certainly going to be of interest to many fleet builders. Who do you think would offer the most competitive bid, whilst having the capacity to meet all the constrictures connected with such an order.

I thought Bombardier would get the contract because it's common sense for any future DMU's to be compatable with existing 172's.

Any replacement for 153's would need to be compatable with 172's so that they could be worked in multiples. But simply puting a cab on the other end of each 172 unit would reduce mean that each unit would only have around 50 seats because of where the doors are located.

2 and 3 car 172's will be needed for 150, 155, 156 and 158 replacements, but maybe somthing different is required for 153's and pacers.

May we have to just live with the fact that single car DMU's will no longer be compatible with other DMU's (like 172's), if they are to be worked in multiples with through corridors on middle distance and regional routes?

 

[sprinterguy]

Hmmm...Ok, I'm going to have a crack at this in very simple terms:
I'm going to assume that each Pacer, 150 and 153 will be replaced by two car 172s, and that each 156 and 158 will be replaced by a three car 172.

So an operator by operator breakdown, with the London Midland cascade assumed to be largely completed, would look something like this (some of the 150 numbers might be slightly out, affecting the maths a little bit):
Northern:
176 x 2-car 172
98 x 3-car 172

EMT:
17 x 2-car 172
36 x 3-car 172

FGW:
58 x 2-car 172
16 x 3-car 172

ATW:
71 x 2-car 172
23 x 3-car 172

NXEA:
6 x 2-car 172
9 x 3-car 172

Might as well chuck in London Midlands' potential 26 additional 172 vehicles, which for the sake of argument I'm going to say are formed of 4 x 3-car 172 and 7 x 2-car 172.

And as for Scotrail:
93 x 3-car 172

Making for a total of:
335 x 2-car 172
279 x 3-car 172

Or thereabouts, which is ignoring SWTs' 158s and 159s of course. For some reason I seem to have run a little short of the total I was expecting...

 

[HSTEd]

I thought Bombardier would get the contract because it's common sense for any future DMU's to be compatable with existing 172's.

Any replacement for 153's would need to be compatable with 172's so that they could be worked in multiples. But simply puting a cab on the other end of each 172 unit would reduce mean that each unit would only have around 50 seats because of where the doors are located.

2 and 3 car 172's will be needed for 150, 155, 156 and 158 replacements, but maybe somthing different is required for 153's and pacers.

May we have to just live with the fact that single car DMU's will no longer be compatible with other DMU's (like 172's), if they are to be worked in multiples with through corridors on middle distance and regional routes?

My position is that we need to order Turbostars to replace everything that has two or three vehicles, and that we should order either lightweight single element vehicles or those articulated "Bombardier Talent" style things or something froM stadler to replace 153s.

The Bombardier Talent is effectively an articulated bogie Pacer with air con..... sounds quite good for rural/quiet routse that dont deserve a pair of 23m vehicles.

 

[pdq]

Apologies for the (probably) naive question. For a potentially large order like this, can the specs not be set as part of the tender, and the units built by more than one manufacturer to those specifications, like the Networkers built by BREL and ABB?

 

[Batman]

My position is that we need to order Turbostars to replace everything that has two or three vehicles, and that we should order either lightweight single element vehicles or those articulated "Bombardier Talent" style things or something froM stadler to replace 153s.

The Bombardier Talent is effectively an articulated bogie Pacer with air con..... sounds quite good for rural/quiet routse that dont deserve a pair of 23m vehicles.

But there would still be issues that need to be adressed about working units in multiples and not creating micro-fleets where a TOC only needs a small number of single car DMU's.

It may be easier to use platform extensions as a solution to issues regarding some short platforms, and to simply replace all services that are currently worked by a single 153 (remeber that a large number of them are not single car units, since they work in multiples, eiter with other 153's or other DMU's) with 2 car 172's.

 

[sprinterguy]

It could be possible to convert a two car 172 to single car (with a streamlined end and a flat end) in the same way 155's where made into 153's. Since they have 1/4 and 3/4 doors instead of central ones there should be lpenty of cab space.

But not much space for passengers. There's no way you could make a single car unit with the same capacity as a 153 in the present day. Look at it this way:
The DMSL vehicle of a 170 or 172 typically seats about sixty people. Then assume that the cab at the inner end of the vehicle would pretty much take up the same number of seats as the disabled toilet. And then you would have to add in the toilet itself behind this cab. The toilet reduces seating capacity in the carriage by about 12-15 seats. So you end up with a carriage that would only seat about 45 people, maybe 50 at a push.

Better to order two-car units to replace 153s, single car units are a bad idea on a rail network seeing continual passenger growth.

 

[HSTEd]

You risk giving the operators an excuse to demand higher fares and greater subsidies than they would otherwise be able to obtain because they will be carting two carriages of air around rather than one on the more rural routes such as trains from Lincoln to Peterborough.
In addition such lightweight vehicles as the Talent would be ideal for all these branchline reopenings that people keep agitating for that will likely not be able to justify two 23m vehicles immediately.

 

[jopsuk]

Of course, if you replaced all the 14xs and 15xs in a single program, the new fleet could have modern couplers allowing for proper SDO etc- the same coupler perhaps as the 171s and all the Electrostars, which the 170s could presumably be fairly easily fitted with as well.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

CSRE have their Pulsar units which they say are an ideal replacement for the pacers

Kingfisher 200262 would be able to give you chapter and verse with regard to the Pulsar units from CSRE, as he has stated their suitability as replacements, but I feel that some design that allows the joining of two train units with a connection facility is essential.

 

[island]

Where do you think that the order might be placed, noting the rules of the European Commission, which was discussed at length in a recent thread.? An order of this size is most certainly going to be of interest to many fleet builders. Who do you think would offer the most competitive bid, whilst having the capacity to meet all the constrictures connected with such an order.

France and Germany manage quite well to work the procurement rules and award contracts within their own countries. It is clearly possible.

 

[HSTEd]

Apologies for the (probably) naive question. For a potentially large order like this, can the specs not be set as part of the tender, and the units built by more than one manufacturer to those specifications, like the Networkers built by BREL and ABB?

To whoose design?
British rail owned the Networker design as I understand it, so they contracted out construction to variations of that design as was seen in the Networker and Sprinter programmes, however the intellectual property was all sold off, through a series of steps, to Bombardier, which is why they are the only ones who produce Sprinter compatible multiple units at the moment.

EDIT:

The loophole used by every other country in europe is that they must choose the tender that is most economically advantageous rather than the best simple "value for money".
This allows them to accuont for the economic benefits of keeping manufacturing within the country.

 

[anthony263]

Kingfisher 200262 would be able to give you chapter and verse with regard to the Pulsar units from CSRE, as he has stated their suitability as replacements, but I feel that some design that allows the joining of two train units with a connection facility is essential.

I did read that the pulsar units could be fitted with cabs that have gangways

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Even without the loophole used by everyone else to favour domestic suppliers its pretty hard for anyone else to provide trains that fit that description.

To return back to my point concerning the rulings of the European Commission, much as we would like to view this with the "Gallic" pseudo-interpretation, what exactly is the current European Commission definitive ruling about the procurement rules and tendering process that will culminate in the placement of such a very large order.

Was this not cited in the recent Siemens v. Bombardier order placement that received so much discussion?

 

[swt_passenger]

Are there far too many threads on Pacer replacement in the 'Rolling Stock' part of the forum now, which is why this has had to be posted in 'Infrastructure'? :roll:

 

[HSTEd]

To return back to my point concerning the rulings of the European Commission, much as we would like to view this with the "Gallic" pseudo-interpretation, what exactly is the current European Commission definitive ruling about the procurement rules and tendering process that will culminate in the placement of such a very large order.

Was this not cited in the recent Siemens v. Bombardier order placement that received so much discussion?

Well its a bit confused at the moment, but let me put it this way:
Italy continues to blatantly show favouritism towards Fiat and Ansaldo, France blatantly shows favouritism towards Alstom and Germany, to a lesser extent, favours Siemens.
If anyone brought up a case against us for doing this they would set a precedent that most of the EU would rather not set.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Are there far too many threads on Pacer replacement in the 'Rolling Stock' part of the forum now, which is why this has had to be posted in 'Infrastructure'? :roll:

It was only through reading your posting that I realised this "Pacer" thread is indeed on the Infrastructure Forum, which I access occasionally. I suppose it is now too late to have it relocated to the correct forum, considering the number of the postings that have been made upon it . As someone recently stated, there should have been only a master Pacer Replacement "superthread" on the forum.

Still, I note that it did not stop either of us from making postings upon this thread.

 

[I like Class 153]

I don't like the sound of Sprinter replacement as I like them but Pacer yes

 

[northwichcat]

Network Rail's plans for CP5 (subject to government funding) are to electrify North TPE (bar York-Scarborough) and cascade down some 185s as Pacer replacement. There would also be Pacers directly replaced by EMUs on local services as a result of that electrification. Also for the Valley Lines to be electrified replacing Pacers and releasing 150s to replace Pacers elsewhere.

The 319s arriving at FGW will probably result in their small 143 fleet being replaced. However, the 319s aren't likely to result in more than a handful of 142s being withdrawn in the North - if indeed any are replaced.

150s aren't due for wholesale replacement until the 2019-2024 CP.

 

[tbtc]

Are there far too many threads on Pacer replacement in the 'Rolling Stock' part of the forum now, which is why this has had to be posted in 'Infrastructure'? :roll:

I have previously emailed Mod to suggest that we have one "Pacer Replacement" thread, one "HS2" thread etc.

As for the topic in hand, my thoughts are

• A 2/3/4 coach version of the same unit would be ideal (we don't want lots of tiny classes like 180s, much more efficient to have one massive one)
  
• Pacer/Sprinter replacement needs to be compatible with existing units (look at the nonsense of 221s and 222s (both built by Bombardier in Bruges not working with each other)
  
• Ideally, electrification would mean fewer new DMUs were needed. However we will never wire up every branch so there is still a need for a large number of new DMUs

 

[HSTEd]

Well a small articulated unit could perhaps be built to use as many Turbostar/Electrostar parts as possible, with traction motors from the latter and an engine from the former or whatever to reduce the "micro fleet effect".

Problem is a 2 carriage 172 is too large but a 1 carriage 172 would be too small.

 

[Nym]

Hang on, in a time with good rail growth that will be accelarated by new stock and more frequent timetables (as virgin has shown) why not over provide for the first few years of service, then more passengers will travel and the provision will be correct, rather than underprovided?

 

[HSTEd]

Hang on, in a time with good rail growth that will be accelarated by new stock and more frequent timetables (as virgin has shown) why not over provide for the first few years of service, then more passengers will travel and the provision will be correct, rather than underprovided?

Arent there routes where it would take passenger growth of several hundred percent to obtain a reasonable passenger loading on a two carriage 170?