CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

More HST spaces with Scotrail

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  1. Tulyar
    Member

    Expressions of interest to fit 4 extra spaces in the saloon of carriage C (removing fixed seats & fitting 6 tip up seats - 3m) plus fitting 3 spaces in each power car, closed on 24th

    Expect announcement of successful bidder soon. Coach C will happen fast, but the power cars will need some operational issues sorting out, with staff agreements, and that is not the main priority in current staff-management relations

    In other news a few revisions in detail for cycle sizing, the length limit for tandems on the new Oban activity carriages is now 2.55m (more sensible than the 2.2m originally being quoted). Booking still seems problematic though - please PM me any notes.

    There is also the detail that for some days the activity carriage is not attached to the relevant trains. One of the 3 carriages should go out on the late evening 'splitter' for Fort Bill/Oban (5 carriages) to come back on the early Oban-Glasgow, and then do a return run Oban & back at 10.34, coming out for servicing at 18.00 (all as a 3-carriage train). I'll try to monitor this with Real Time Trains, as they show the numbers of the units used. Again PM any reports

    There is an Edinburgh-Oban train path, but it is unlikely to be used for this carriage, as it is diesel and top speed 75 mph, and most passenger trains from Waverley are now 100mph, and many are electric, with a different performance that clashes with the slower train. I am keen though to press that the cycle spaces on all of the electric services across Central Scotland can take at least 2.4m in a tandem - or even Karen Darke/Ken Talbot's recumbents (if a few boarding & travel details don't derail this idea). A lobbying detail here?

    The Class 170 diesel trains can also manage a tandem, as could the new HST Coach C leaving only the Class 156 and 158 as th outliers

    Finally for the POP to COP challenge remember that the safety case for placing 2 bikes in the door vestibule space on the side opposite to the platform already exists for the electric trains (& some diesels), with managed loading - for previous POP return trips this has happened - 32 bikes & riders on a 6-coach Edinburgh-Glasgow train. This would translate to 40 bikes & riders per train on the current fast trains, regulated at Queen Street

    Posted 3 years ago #

  2. SRD
    Moderator

    @Tulyar for us clueless folk, what is an HST?

    I gather it is a train carriage (rather than the hubble space telescope or Canada's harmonised sales tax), but are all Scotrail trains HSTs?

    Thanks

    Posted 3 years ago #

  3. Tulyar
    Member

    HST's are 40 year old trains - that I helped to deliver for Edinburgh-London services in 1978 - reformed with 4-5 carriages in place of 8 - to deliver a fast intercity service for Scotrail - expect them to run for the next 10 years, before a replacement comes along - comfy seats & no engine under the floor. Plus 5000HP makes them slightly overpowered for the size of train....

    Posted 3 years ago #

  4. crowriver
    Member

    High Speed Train. Can do up to 125mph on the right bit of track.

    The big noisy diesel ones that are branded 'Inter7City' by Scotrail and have an engine either end, with carriages in-between.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  5. Morningsider
    Member

    Yet again fail to post an image - picture here.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  6. Arellcat
    Moderator

    @SRD, as far as Edinburgh travellers are concerned, we've only had a few different kinds of train up and down the east coast main line.

    In the 1960s we had the Deltics, those big, brutish square monsters in (latterly) BR blue, with two Napier diesel engines that made that spine-tingling, deep clattery roar while filling the air with blue smoke.

    Then in the 1970s and early 1980s we might have had the electric APT, all aircraft thinking, modern and grey and wedge shaped, that spent some time tilting into curves on the west coat main line but it never got beyond the prototype stage, and even as the project wore on, faults ironed out on an ever dwindling budget, politicians were still dithering about electrifying the route to Edinburgh.

    At the same time as boffins in white coats were designing the APT, other boffins in brown overcoats and flat caps were designing a simpler diesel equivalent, the High Speed Train, all sharp sticky-out chin, with an engine at each end. They were branded Inter-City 125 at first. Kenneth Grange styled the cabs; he also did the Kenwood Chef, the TX1 taxi, the Anglepoise Type 3, and loads of other things. The HSTs were so good that we exported them to Australia, then re-engined our ones, then refurbished them, and now redeployed here in a re-refurbished shortened version.

    When the ECML electrification came of age, we had to build a new train to use it, so Brush Traction designed the awesome but solitary class 89, which spent a few months doing London to Peterborough. But we decided we needed a multiple unit rather than loco hauling, so GEC and BREL took a lot of the bits of the APT and designed something better which became the class 91, a sort of squared-off electric HST that looked like a cross between a Rover Metro and a Hustler Highlander. The class 91s didn't get to travel all the way to Waverley until 1991, and even by 1989 they could only go as far as York. 1989 was also when the class 89 loco was taken off the ECML. It broke down spectacularly in 1992 and was withdrawn, but GNER brought it back in 1996 for services to Leeds. It broke down again in 1999, was repaired again, but was finally withdrawn in 2001.

    And so we ran the class 91s for 30 years, and then got Hitachi to build the class 800 Azuma trains, rounder, pointier, and harder riding, but at least the rheostatic braking is better than the class 91s.

    Posted 3 years ago #

  7. chdot
    Admin

    “

    In October 2006 GNER put 89001 up for sale, with a six-week deadline for bids. The AC Locomotive Group launched an appeal and fundraising effort to save the locomotive, which was ultimately successful

    “

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_89

    Posted 3 years ago #

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