South West Trains Fleet Developments
Christian Roth, Fleet Engineer of Stagecoach South West Trains recently addressed the RCTS at Woking on the plans in hand for fleet enhancements to provide capacity for the anticipated passenger growth. He spoke in the light of the Alliance which came into being in late April 2012 and was nearly two years old at the time of his lecture. The Alliance between South West Trains and Network Rail is currently unique and is allowing co-ordinated developments to be undertaken on the lines out of Waterloo.
His personal background is interesting. He is German and worked for Siemens until 2008; his last position being as MD for the UK operation before joining SWT. This meant that he had already some experience of events in this part of the UK having been involved in the design of the Desiro fleet back in 1998/9 and from 2000 onwards was involved in the supply of substations to provide the power for the new trains. From 2005 though as MD his main concern was the poor reliability of the Desiro fleet. He was quite blunt about the failings – the build quality was substandard and the maintenance was not good enough. In 2004 the Desiros were achieving about 21,000 miles between failures compared with 50,000 miles for the previous generation (the 458s were even worse at 4300 miles).
He was recruited into SWT in 2008 as the first effects of the recession were experienced and it was soon identified that the revenue would not reach the levels predicted in the franchise bid and in consequence there was a need to reduce costs. However the recession did not have the usual impact of reducing passenger numbers – in ‘94/5 there were 110m passengers on the routes into and out of Waterloo per annum and in ‘12/13 the equivalent number was 210m with about half of these numbers actually passing through Waterloo itself. So the trains are pretty well loaded and with growth of 2 – 3% per annum another 10 years may well see the numbers up between 35 and 40%. So in 2010 a proposal was made for more trains and the DfT wanted to just buy more new trains. However this did not make financial sense with revenue not reaching the bid forecast levels as the cost would have been of the order of £200m. Re-use of the class 460 and 456 fleets is going to cost £50m but well below the cost of new trains.
However 2010 was a general election year and the time limits on the engineering offers expired before agreement was reached and time was lost. A revised proposal was constructed and contracts were put in place at the end of 2011 for the 460/458 trains and in May 2012 for the 456 fleet.
Project 458
This has been a more difficult process than was expected. Alstom built the trains and had to design the re-engineering required; that aspect ran late with the new designs not ready to go to production at the time planned; then the supply chain took longer than expected so that now the process was running 11 months late overall. Once into the work it was identified that the wonderful airline design windows were hiding significant corrosion and to make the trains suitable for the long term this needed to be rectified which is responsible for about three months of the delay. However at the same time as the 458 contracts were let the last two tranches of Class 350 (each for 10 units) were let and these are only just coming on stream – so in reality the time takes was the same and the costs lower.
There are now 4 units back and this will rise to 7 in May and the project is now starting to right at the right speed on the production lines with the intention that the entire fleet will be available in March / April 2015.
Project 456
These have been pressed into service in a nasty unbranded green livery but the first refurbished SWT layout and livery unit was due for delivery on 2 May and they will generally match the 455 layout but the toilets will not be re-instated. This work is nowhere near as extensive as with the units above; delivery of the first refurbished unit was expected on 2 May and these should be completed by the end of 2014. Taken together this adds 8% to the capacity available, but this remains below passenger growth.
Maintenance Facilities
All of these units are going to be maintained at Wimbledon and so some additional facilities are needed. In total there are 30 extra units (was 121 and now 151) and the depot cannot be enlarged. Side pits have been introduced on one road and there is now a bogie drop facility and overall the aim is for higher availability with the intention to diagram 24 out of the 30 456 units and 32 of the 36 458/5 units.
Deployment of trains
The original plan was to simply go for a ten car service on the suburban lines and then regrettably there were problems arising from the operators not understanding the infrastructure and vice versa – under the Alliance this became clearer.
The main problems centre around extending platforms 1 – 4 at Waterloo. Except that at the end of the platforms are some very useful scissor crossings. If the platforms were longer the scissors would have to move. But then the track is curved so the track maintenance would be more complex. And you cannot have selective door opening at a terminus for the last two coaches. The complexity increased when it was identified that Wimbledon panel 1 controls Waterloo platforms 1 – 14. So if you extend the platforms and resignal then whilst that work is being undertaken you lose more than half the capacity of Waterloo – which is now so busy it could not manage on just platforms 15-19.
So a short term deployment plan has been put in place. The 456s are being used between Guildford to Ascot and on some Guildford – Waterloo service plus two peak busters in from Raynes Park. [This has had its own complications. Initially it was thought that two car sets could manage the service to and from Ascot – but a gapping risk requires two sets and Aldershot tunnel has to be taken at 5 mph due a clearance limitation].
The 458/5s cannot run to Reading due to power supply limitations and so class 450s are going onto the Reading line and the 458s displaced will be used on the main line. The plan is to get from 17 to 20 trains an hour in the peak on the Windsor lines.
So how will the suburban eventually move to 10 car trains? Some resignalling will be undertaken with Wimbledon panel 1 being split with a new panel 1B covering platforms 1 – 7 only. And the final key to the jigsaw was the most obvious of all – re-use the International Station. Long held back by the plans in connection with the Elizabeth House redevelopment agreement has been reached to use the platforms. Platform 20 is available and will be in regular use from the May timetable. Platforms 21/22 will be available from July. Platforms 23 and 24 need more design work to find a solution as something will need to be constructed over the “orchestra pit” to provide for passenger flow at one level (suburban passengers rarely have to go through passport and security checks(!)).
To make better use of the resource the current connections to and from the Windsor lines need remodelling to allow for parallel moves to maximise traffic flow, effectively as I understand it re-instating the Windsor reversible line with remodelling at Queenstown Road, the flyover built for International trains will be retained.
Back to the main line suburban – with capacity to run trains and the scissors crossover moved to the other side of the Vauxhall curve then platforms 1 – 4 can finally be extended. But with the crossovers further away from the platforms the performance will not be so good in terms of efficient train movement – on a very crowded railway. Other limits in the area are that land costs in Lower Marsh would be high, so widening is not easy. Westminster Bridge Road also limits the space in that direction.
And Waterloo station is going to find it hard to cope with all of the people once the trains can deliver them. Passenger flows around the station can choke very easily even now – outside in York Road any delays on the Jubilee (rare now but historically significant) lead to a crowd spilling onto the road. How will they flow work from the “International” platforms to the Underground – the escalators to the Northern / Bakerloo are already pretty crowded. And it is going to get worse. The bridge to the Shell building is coming down and the Underground entrance in the Shell building will vanish, along with the Shell building, so more passengers will be coming into the main station to access the Underground.
Solutions will need to be found. However one of the benefits of the Alliance is that they are willing to look at the future and reckon the current round of improvements will work until around 2036/8 – so the investment is worthwhile. Beyond that period a more radical solution will be needed but a lot then depends on the impact of the proposed “Crossrail 2” as that may significantly alter the suburban demand in the South West and may well allow more of Waterloo to be handed over to long distance services as suburban routes are redirected.
Once all of the above is in place then the 450s will return to the main lines and the 458/5s will return to Reading line. However there will not be enough trains and so an order for another 30 new five car trains has been proposed to DfT in recent weeks and the intention is to move the fleet allocation at Wimbledon to 181 trains. It is understood that all of the usual suspects (which I interpret to cover Siemens, Alstom and Hitachi) are interested in supplying. Fitting these into Wimbledon is going to require further investment – stabling sidings across the network.
AC Traction Project
It is considered that the class 455 units have another 15 years of life and so the solution to Wimbledon is to extend the standard maintenance cycle on the 455 units from 10,000 to 15,000 miles, so the current 91 units have less frequent visits.
There are four critical components to the units: Traction, Alternators, Doors and Shoegears.
So the converting to AC traction and control with integrated circuits is better and more reliable than camshafts and physical hardware. Static invertors will replace the motor alternators – so again less physical kit. Both of these will reduce fitter time on each depot visit.
The solution to the doors is to allocate more fitter time on each depot visit making sure the doors can manage the extra 50% period between depot visits.
Before turning to the shoegear there was a digression to wheelsets. The UK tend to fit oversized wheelsets – much more so than other operators. This arose from a high level of flats and the subsequent need to strip more metal of the tyres to get a circular wheel. If flats can be identified earlier the amount of metal to be taken off by the lathe will be that much smaller, rather than the standard 5mm. So Wimbledon has been equipped with laser measurement of the wheelsets and the laser measurement will be extended to the shoegear which will replace a visible check giving a more consistent review of the need to change the shoegear. Overall Wimbledon will probably need more fitters and so SWT will continue to employ three per annum and have employed an Apprentice Manager to ensure proper training and development. With many new trains coming into the London area it will no longer be easy to recruit fitters from elsewhere so SWT need to develop their own.
The aim with 455s will be no external change but a new train under the skin. They should then have at least a fifteen year life – maybe longer and comments elsewhere may mean that at the end of that timescale conversion to ac supply might really be a possibility.
The Future
So by 2017 the aim will be for the South West Trains to a 10 car suburban railway and in the short term there is a real focus now on infrastructure performance in the inner suburban area. Between Wimbledon, Richmond and Waterloo there is a real need to raise the reliability in the infrastructure to remove delays – there is little spare capacity and no recovery time if anything goes wrong – so the focus is on the track and signals. The train fleet is now the best in the UK and reliability is better than Berlin or Paris.
Briefly Christian then looked further ahead. CP7 will be complicated by the development of Crossrail 2 which will lead to significant changes in the operation of Waterloo – but until we know where it will serve planning for it is difficult. Longer term the main line either needs more or longer trains to meet demand. 16 coach trains are a possibility but in cab signalling will allow 32 trains per hour on the current infrastructure – the idea of fifth line into Waterloo has been rejected as unworkable.
The diesel fleet will continue without change until 25kv electrification has been confirmed – then with the main line running at 110 mph there will be no paths for the diesels. He believes that just Basingstoke to Southampton Docks is unworkable. AC electrification is worthwhile if combined with all routes south of Guildford tunnel and Woking and westwards to Weymouth and Salisbury (with the diesels continuing to Exeter).
They had looked at removing the buffet areas in the 444s but this would cost between £5m and £7m and would need re-instating at the end of the vehicle leases – so was not good value for money.