Those who follow Railway Eye (an online sort of Private Eye for train geeks may have noted that a bendydpendolino has done a trial run on the East Coast and the general mood of people who run the railways is that IEP is a train which only the DfT and Japanese Embassy want to put on the rails.
Captain Deltic (aka Alycidon) ahs done some sums and noted thet the 'Avaiilable now - proven design' trains from Alsthom, with their acceleration better than existing 140mph stock
Railway Eye has captured an amusing hiccough in the press releases from Hitachi and DfT
Informed sources has done some sums
I make this four vehicles a week from a single production line and it provides the opportunity to run a reality check on the employment claims for the plant. Hitachi put at his at ‘500+’ although politicians have talked of 700.
Comparing productivity at other factories I would expect each IEP vehicle to involve between 2,000 and 3,000 man hours. With a 37.5h hour working week that gives a direct workforce of between 215 and 320 for a single shift.
Add engineering, procurement and administration staff plus some research and development staff to the upper figures and ‘500+’ looks about right. Add a second shift and the ‘at least 700 permanent jobs’ quoted by a DfT spokesman becomes feasible.
But for how long? The IEP delivery schedules for Greater Western and East Coast could be met by one production line – say 30 months work.
That won’t justify a 42,700 square metre assembly plant. However, the delivery timescale and quantity of the Crossrail rolling stock fleet would match IEP, filling that second production line.
So have others
With ETCS (Cab signalling with rolling block) allowing both tilt and 140mile/h running Alstom’s simulations based on the trial runs suggest that 50min could be knocked off the London-Edinburgh Journey time. Meanwhile, several Intercity West Coast franchise bidders are considering six car ‘Pendoninos’ as Voyager replacement.
Remember that the bogies of the current IC225 trains were tested on ECML at 150mph running under a Mk3 (HST) coach pulled by HST power cars, and several 140+mph runs have been done with special signalling clearance on this route.
Of course this is HS2 without the £32bn bill but we shouldn't be say such heinous things!
Then for the really frugal one only needs to use Chiltern from Birmingham to London to see Mk 3 (HST) coaches converted to automated sliding plug doors, and checked out for at last another 40 years of structural integrity in the bodyshell - and you can fit 140mph bogies too.
Someone needs to close the toyshop?
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