London Banter - View Single Post - Train-home ban for big bike ride

Colin Rosenstiel · June 20th 05, 07:46 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article , (David
Splett) wrote:

I'm not sure things are quite that simple, sadly.

With SWT, AIUI the trains were purposely designed with this feature.
Furthermore, they are worked by guards.

WAGN suffer from a number of factors:-
- None of their trains, AIUI, were designed with selective operation
of doors, and to fit such equipment would be very expensive and
difficult. It would also probably be quite unreliable being retrofitted
to existing trains. Then there is the issue that all of WAGN's trains
are operated only by a driver.

I take you point about lack of SDO equipment but DOO should be no bar to
SDO operation.

- Only a small number of their platforms can take more than 8
carriages (Finsbury Park, Stevenage, Hitchin, St. Neots, Huntington,
Peterborough, Cambridge plus perhaps one or two others - all with quite
a bit of inconvenience). This makes regular operation of 12-carriage
trains very hard.
- Certain platforms can only take 4-carriage trains - Meldreth,
Shepreth & Foxton, plus stations north of Cambridge except Ely.

Actually, _stations_ North of Ely can take longer trains (e.g. Downham
Market) but the power supply doesn't support trains longer than 4 cars.

Similarly, some stations can only take 6-carriage trains - for example
Welham Green.
- 12-carriage trains would have to use only Platforms 1 to 8 at King's
Cross, which at peak times are already full to capacity with GNER
trains, et cetera.

You can't have used King's Cross much at rush hours recently. Lots of
Cambridge and Peterborough trains leave from platforms 1-8.

It is possible to attach and detach en-route (as happens with certain
peak-hour departures to Cambridge and Kings Lynn), however this causes
big problems if one part gets delayed for any reason, or if a driver
isn't on hand at exactly the right time. Also, coupling is quite
troublesome - I used to travel up to London on a train which coupled at
Royston, which was often late because of this operation.

The class 365 units seem to be a right bugger to couple up. The Royston
coupling is now performed at Cambridge AIUI, to make assistance more
available if there are problems. I can see why Southern insisted on
changing all their Electrostar couplers.

Hope this is of interest.

HAND,

--
Colin Rosenstiel