Are the layovers at Ashford long enough?
The document says "by 2035". The 171s could be reused elsewhere, but the document also notes that it would make sense to replace the 165s alongside other fleet decisions.
This is an option, yes, although it seems questionable value if this is the only use of them. Being able to move the transition between battery and pickup to the other side of a junction is one thing, adding a completely different apparatus for a few minutes charging at the signal is quite another.
Especially as this isn't some "sleepy" line with 2 or 3 car DMUs. Aren't some rush hour services 10 car 171s? Replacing those with the equivalent of an 8 or 12 car 377 would require quite a bit of juice both to power them and to charge the batteries on the existing 3rd rail part of the route.
If we ignore what they do off the third rail, would there be enough power for those services if say a 377 ran them? Trying to understand where precisely the problem is.
The advantage of Uckfield over Marshline is the train has 20 odd miles in and out of London to recharge so you could manage recharge rate (and thus impact on the tarction system) unlike Marshline where you would need high rates of recharge to minimise turnround times.
Marshlink services also get to charge between Ore and Eastbourne which is only 4mi shorter than the stretch fron Hurst Green Jn to London Bridge.
The document shows that the financial case for extending services was evaluated as extensions of North Downs services to Oxford, Portsmouth or Brighton. The main reason for the options not being value for money was the costs or running a more intense timetable on the routes that those extensions use. Therefore the analysis does not cover the potential case for merging the Redhill-Tonbridge shuttle with the third hourly North Downs line train which was considered as a stand alone option. Seems like a pretty big oversight to me, but maybe it was not considered since it could only increase rather than reduce the case for the rolling stock strategy conclusion of the report.
I can't see a case for 3tph east of Guildford (or Shalford). An hourly stopping shuttle between Reading and Shalford can be provided with two units. The current 2tph timetable is a great compromise between the ability to run through to Gatwick every half hour while not running an empty stopping train between Guildford and Redhill, and I don't think improved acceleration is going to save a unit. Therefore, there is nothing to extend to Tonbridge, nor a lot of cross Redhill travel.
I think that the hourly service between Redhill and Tonbridge is making journeys from the North Downs much less attractive than if there was a through service, costing revenue. A 40 minute connection, as it was when I used it 10 years ago, is not nice for connecting to southeastern services from Tonbridge. Sending the battery stopper to Tonbridge rather than Gatwick might cut costs and solve this issue. There is an intense service between Redhill and Gatwick without the GWR services.
Why would you have a 40 minute connection when one of the services runs every half-hour?
It certainly wouldn't be a good idea to remove through services from the North Downs Line to Gatwick having just finally devised a timetable that gets 2tph there. Gatwick is fundamental to maintaining demand on the North Downs Line.
Which of course is the point of the experiment between Greenford and West Ealing. The very short section of track used for recharging the battery is "live" only when occupied by a train.
It's certainly an option
I'm not sure this makes as much sense, although cross-crewing would be helpful. However GWR have their own potential requirements for a Bi-Mode fleet, so a joint order for GTR and GWR would also be a possibility.
For GWR routes apart from the North Downs line, any bi-mode units will only need to be OHLE compatible, whereas for the North Downs line they would only need to be 3rd rail compatible (as would any new units for the Uckfield and Marshlink lines) – so they wouldn't necessarily be on the same platform. From that point of view, it would make more sense to move the North Downs line into the Southern operation so that that unique fleet type is all in the same place, increasing flexibility for deploying trains and crew.
One GWR unit at Redhill overnight. Definitely no scope for a maintenance depot there.
Having two separate fleets of BEMU, one OHLE for GWR and one 3rd rail for Southern (now incorporating the NDL), would impact any extension beyond of the current NDL service beyond Reading though, such as the proposal to head up towards Oxford.
Most modern trains are designed in a modular fashion, so having a single Class with 3 subclasses (AC only Bi-Mode, DC only Bi-Mode and Dual-Voltage Bi-Mode) would likely be the most sensible solution.
The study fairly firmly indicates that an extension of NDL services at either end is unlikely.
It's extremely unlikely that there would be any case for extending that service to Oxford anyway, especially as capacity at Oxford is going to be increasingly stretched and so terminating additional trains there would be difficult.
I'm not convinced by that as I don't think that Guildford really has the siding space either to run the service. One interesting snippet in the study is the possibility of running overnight, and presumably avoiding the need to berth at Redhill at all.
I agree. What would be the calling pattern between Reading and Oxford? Is there room or need for those extra trains?
Platform 7 and the Festival Line westbound, and platform 15 and the dive under eastbound doesn't seem particularly awkward, but not sure it is the best use of capacity or rolling stock.
The 3rd rail BEMU could also be used by Southwestern?
The class 756 are planned to run from Heath to Bridgend and back on battery. That's a similar distance to the Uckfield line.
It’ll be great for level boarding!
This is true. But if something were ever to happen (perhaps to link up with East West Rail), or perhaps if the units were ever to be redeployed, not having AC equipment on would limit their potential operational locations
If only the powers that be had listened to you then, we would have some nice BEMUs going up and down over the North Downs Line, to Uckfield and over the Marshlink. Hopefully the response to this recent publication will be to actually order some BEMUs
you are aware that power supplies can be upgraded if/where necessary right?
There was a fast and a slow service which left Reading 30 minutes apart, and the slow service would just would just miss the connection to Tonbridge, and the fast train would not be far behind it. The fastest service between Reading and Redhill is now slower than it used to be, because one train an hour is faster west of Guildford, and the other east.
