Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

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Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Nawdic »

From Octo er the current incumbent will continue to operate the Greater Eastern franchise as the preferred operator.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/bett ... -announced
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by JamieLei »

COMPLETE replacement of the rolling stock with brand new trains...!
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Pilot »

So, I've found this article on the rolling stock replacement, looks like Stadler will be entering the British Market for the first time. One thing I'm not quite sure I understand is that it appears they will only be getting 10 12-Car Units to replace the 15 Class 90 + Mk3 rakes. However, if the infrastructure is improved to allow less trains to run the same frequency, then I imagine it's only a positive.
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Leanden »

Just leaving this here...
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Ameecher »

Pilot wrote:So, I've found this article on the rolling stock replacement, looks like Stadler will be entering the British Market for the first time. One thing I'm not quite sure I understand is that it appears they will only be getting 10 12-Car Units to replace the 15 Class 90 + Mk3 rakes. However, if the infrastructure is improved to allow less trains to run the same frequency, then I imagine it's only a positive.
There are that many sets of mk3s? I thought there were only 10 or 11. Frankly the GEML is better suited to good quality EMU stock of 444 standard or similar.
Be interesting to seem the sadler stuff trundling around the Broads.
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Pilot »

Ameecher wrote:There are that many sets of mk3s? I thought there were only 10 or 11.
Having had a look today, there seems to be 10, 9-Car sets doing the Liverpool Street - Norwich trains today. From a little bit of internet research, GA appear to have 130 Mk 3s, which would lead to 14 sets and a few spare carriages, and they also appear to have 16 DVTs and 15 Class 90s. I did my previous maths based on them being 8 car sets.

Whilst they've ordered 10 new units to replace these, surely these are going to need maintenance at some point, or will fail occasionally, so they could really do with a couple of Unit's spare in my opinion. Of course, I'm no expert on that front, this is purely my opinion from what I know and can see.
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by jonnie47 »

would replacing class 156/153 with 3 car diesel/electro units be cost effective on the wherry and bittern lines for example?
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Leanden »

jonnie47 wrote:would replacing class 156/153 with 3 car diesel/electro units be cost effective on the wherry and bittern lines for example?

With the commitment to free wifi on all trains, the 156/153 dont have the capacity to be retrofitted for this function so unfortunately they are no good for the new franchise.

Not gospel, just my reasoning :P
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Ameecher »

The disability regulation is more a death knell for the dogboxes for sure.

Ridership on the local lines around Norwich is up a lot in the last decade or so and more capacity everywhere can only encourage more usage, roads around there aren't great and the railways are pretty direct and compete well with car journey times and are vastly superior to bus transit times. Lease costs could lead to the farebox needing to contribute more though and that could reverse the trend.
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Pilot »

Leanden wrote:With the commitment to free wifi on all trains, the 156/153 dont have the capacity to be retrofitted for this function so unfortunately they are no good for the new franchise.
Northern have committed to free WiFi on all trains by 2019, and they appear to be getting more 156s, so it must be possible!

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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Redirect Left »

Pilot wrote:
Leanden wrote:With the commitment to free wifi on all trains, the 156/153 dont have the capacity to be retrofitted for this function so unfortunately they are no good for the new franchise.
Northern have committed to free WiFi on all trains by 2019, and they appear to be getting more 156s, so it must be possible!

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Surely any train can be fitted with wifi? All you need is an aerial to pickup the 2-4G signal and convert it to wifi (I'm assuming that is how train wifi works, satellite/mobile data to WiFi?) - a few Wireless Access Points.
I'm sure all trains have the spare space modern WAPs would use? I mean it'd be odd to see an ancient Pacer with WiFi capability but still using BUS SEATS*.

I also fully expect the Disability Regulation to have grandfather clauses added to it, so it doesn't affect Pacers until a later date. I'm still doubtful enough cascading will occur to fully get rid of Pacers before the time is up.

*I will never know why Northerns last refit didn't replace the bus seats on some Pacers.
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Dave »

Wasn't the 144e that they did fitted with it? It's where you fit the equipment. Certainly on the SCUDs you might struggle to find a space for them.
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Leanden »

My understanding also is that they use satellite and mobile data (primarily t-mobile).

So i suppose theoretically you are right, any train could be retrofitted with it
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Dave »

To get all the networking thrown together and with enough capacity to service an 80 seat train, you'll need more than just the satellite data receivers. You'll probably need to wire the whole train with boosters, and of course for multi car units you need to find a way to get the two cars to talk to each other, or provide an access point per vehicle.

And let's not forget how hard Virgin have found providing wifi to customers on newer trains, with a lot more money to play with. Not convinced.
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Redirect Left »

Dave wrote:Wasn't the 144e that they did fitted with it? It's where you fit the equipment. Certainly on the SCUDs you might struggle to find a space for them.
Urgh. Annoying i've not seen the 144e still! Is is still rumbling around? If so, it doesn't appear to be anywhere near Huddersfield, Leeds or Wakefield most of the time. Has their been any further updates regarding spreading that out amongst all 144s?

Northern have WiFid the 321s & 322s they operate, on the Leeds-Doncaster & Leeds-Skipton-Bradford Forster Square-Ilkley route. Oddly they're generally faster and more reliable than those on VTECs fleet that passes by the area too. There are no visible signs of WiFi equipment in carriages, so I'm assuming the 32(1/2)s had some spare cupboards or floor boxes with extra space in them. It's also 100% cheaper than VTECs slower and less reliable WiFi. Perhaps Virgin use a different carrier than Northern, or simply don't have an optimum amount of WAPs / recievers for its high passenger capacity trains.

I find it hard to type 'Virgin' when referring to VTEC, seeing as they own so little of it, I naturally want to say Stagecoach :p
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by JamieLei »

Sticking wifi on a train isn't a problem. At the bare minimum, duct tape an iPhone to the ceiling, write the Personal Hotspot password on a post it next to the door, and your train now has wifi.

It's getting good reliable wifi that's the problem. Unlike buses that go through urban areas, there's a dearth of good coverage which means that train wifi tends to have SIM cards from every operator, along with complicated routers for managing data streams through whichever one has the best coverage.

The standard of wifi on an intercity train necessarilly has to be higher. On a Northern 333, it's going to be mainly people on their phones watching the odd YouTube and browsing Facebook. On a Virgin Train, it's businesmen with their laptops out trying to download 20MB presentations and working over the cloud. I've done a lot of LENNONing from 222s!
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Redirect Left »

JamieLei wrote:it's going to be mainly people on their phones watching the odd YouTube and browsing Facebook.
Youtube is blocked on Northerns WiFi (at least on 321s). Same on Arriva buses. Arriva also blocks Imgur, and other high bandwidth sites and all links to it.

Arriva blocks things to the point where it is an irritation, Northerns is fairly light in the blocking area and not really an annoyance. I haven't used Virgins enough to notice anything being blocked.

Northerns trains maintain and internet connection through tunnels, the majority of the time anyway. I'm wondering how that is achieved. Simply the length of the train and the speed of it passing through the tunnel not being enough to cause noticeable issue, or if they've put a cable that emits the mobile/satellite data in the actual tunnel, or what.?
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Pilot »

Redirect Left wrote:Northerns trains maintain and internet connection through tunnels, the majority of the time anyway. I'm wondering how that is achieved. Simply the length of the train and the speed of it passing through the tunnel not being enough to cause noticeable issue, or if they've put a cable that emits the mobile/satellite data in the actual tunnel, or what.?
I've noticed Standedge Tunnel seems to have had something put in the tunnels for signal. In fact, Standedge Tunnel actually has the best signal between Manchester and Leeds!
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Re: Abellio wins Greater Anglia franchise

Post by Dave »

kamnet wrote:Why not just run their own powerline-based ISP?
They don't own the infrastructure and the vast investment they'd have to make wouldn't be worth it since they'll probably lose the keys in five years.
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