The Anonymous Widower

Could Avanti West Coast Run A Lumo-Style Service Between London And Liverpool?

Avanti West Cost’s Class 807 Trains

Avanti West Coast will be introducing their new Class 807 trains by 2023.

One of the routes, on which they will run, will be between London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street stations.

These trains are members of Hitachi’s AT300 family, with these characteristics.

• Seven cars.
• 453 seats
• 125 mph operating speed, with 140 mph possible under in-cab signalling, where the track allows.

They have been designed to be able to achieve or better times from the Class 390 trains, which have the advantage of tilt.

The Seats In The New Trains

Seats are important to passengers and there has been criticism, that some of the seats in Hitachi trains are like ironing boards.

But, so far nothing has been said about the seats on the new Class 807 trains.

453 seats in seven cars of a Class 807 train is 64.7 seats per car.

These are comparison figures for other trains.

• On a nine-car Class 801 train, there are 611 seats or 67.8 seats per car.
• On a five-car Class 801 train, there are 302 seats or 60.4 seats per car.
• On a five-car Class 810 train, there are 301 seats or 60.2 seats per car.
• On a five-car Class 803 train, there are 406 seats or 81.2 seats per car.
• On a nine-car Class 390 train, there are 469 seats or 52.1 seats per car.
• On an eleven-car Class 390 train, there are 589 seats or 53.5 seats per car.

Note.

1. The Class 390 trains or Pendolinos have less seats per car, than the Hitachi trains. Is this because of all the space taken up by the tilting mechanism?
2. As the seats per car for a Class 807 is between the five- and nine-car Class 801 trains, it would appear that the seat density is not much different to the trains on LNER and Great Western Railway.
3. Lumo’s Class 803 trains on their low-cost service would appear to have a higher seating density. But  Lumo says that they have redesigned the seats for more comfort.
4. In The Seat Of Aurora, I looked at a report from Modern Railways on the seats in the Class 810 trains, which the writer found were much more comfortable.

It would appear that the two latest fleets of Hitachi trains have seats that are designed for more comfort.

Consider.

• First Group own seventy percent of Avanti West Coast.
• First Group own hundred percent of two train operating companies; Great Western and TransPennine Express, who run versions of Hitachi AT300 trains, so they probably have a lot of bottom-level feedback.
• In the current Class 390 train upgrade, Avanti West Coast are replacing all the Standard Class seats, the company must care about seat quality.
• First Group own hundred percent of Lumo, who have acquired new trains with comfortable seats.

I would be very surprised if the seats in the new Class 807 trains for Avanti West Coast were not custom-designed for their routes.

The Unusual Length Of The Class 807 Train

These are the length of the Class 390 and Class 807 trains.

• Class 390/0 – nine-car – 217.5 metres
• Class 390/1 – eleven-car – 265.3 metres
• Class 807 – seven-car – 182 metres

Note.

1. A ten-car Class 807 train would be 260 metres.This could be convenient, if more eleven-car Pendolinos were needed.
2. The Class 807 train is thirty-five metres shorter, than the nine-car Pendolino.

As eleven-car Class 390 trains commonly run London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street, why would they need the Class 807 train to be shorter?

I think there is a clue in this picture.

It shows a Class 390 train in Liverpool South Parkway station.

• At the time, Liverpool Lime Street station was closed for track remodelling.
• Liverpool South Parkway was acting as Liverpool’s main terminus.
• To accommodate the Pendolinos a temporary platform extension was built in the station.

Could it be that shorter trains were ordered to avoid the expense of lengthening the platforms at Liverpool South Parkway and perhaps other stations, that Avanti West Coast might serve?

The Current Service Between London Euston And Liverpool

The current London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street service is as follows.

• There is one train per hour (tph)
• The service calls at Milton Keynes Central, Stafford, Crewe and Runcorn.
• All of the stations can accommodate an eleven-car Pendolino.
• Trains take around an average of two hours and twelve minutes.
• The first Northbound train leaves at 07:07 and the last at 21:07.
• The first Southbound train leaves at 07:00 and the last at 20:48.

Services are generally run by eleven-car Class 390 trains, which gives a capacity of 589 passengers per hour.

I always think, there a need for a later train back to London, but then that could be said of many places.

A Possible Service From December 2022

Wikipedia says this.

• There will be two tph.
• The second service will call at Liverpool South Parkway station.

If two tph were to be run by Class 807 trains, this would give the following.

• A capacity of 906 seats per hour.
• This is a 54 % increase in capacity.

But if only the Liverpool South Parkway service was run by a Class 807 train and the other service was still run by an eleven-car Class 390 train, this would give the following.

• A capacity of 1042 seats per hour.
• This is a 77 % increase in capacity.

And all without expensive and disruptive platform extensions at Liverpool South Parkway station.

According to Wikipedia, the plans will need to be approved by the Office of Road and Rail.

How Fast Will A Class 807 Train Travel Between London Euston And Liverpool?

The Class 807 trains will have these features.

• The trains will have no diesel engines or batteries. This must save weight and that means better acceleration.
• The trains will have no tilt mechanism.. This must save weight and that means better acceleration.
• The trains will have a new nose. Is it more aerodynamic, which would cause less drag and increase operating speed?

Would these features mean the Class 807 trains can match the performance of the Class 390 train, despite not having tilt?

There are also improvements on the West Coast Main Line, that have not been fully reflected in the timetable.

I did a full analysis about how a two-hour journey time might be achieved in Will Avanti West Coast’s New Trains Be Able To Achieve London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street In Two Hours? This analysis led me to these conclusions.

• I am convinced that the new trains are designed for a two hour journey between London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street stations.
• Refurbished Class 390 trains should also be able to do the same time.
• I also calculated that nine trains would be needed for the two tph service, if they can arrange a fifteen minute turnround at both ends of the route. So would, the Class 807 trains be used on the Liverpool service to release newly-refurbished Class 390 trains to boost Blackpool and Birmingham services?

Alternatively, if the two services are run using eleven-car Class 390 trains for the current service and seven-car Class 807 trains for the one via Liverpool South Parkway, Avanti West Coast would need five of each train.

• They could fit in thirty minute turnrounds at both ends of the route.
• The mixed pair of trains would give a 77 % increase in capacity.
• The Class 807 service would be a two-hour trip.
• If the Class 390 service couldn’t match the time it could use current timings.

Whatever is done, it would be a flagship service between London and Liverpool.

The new trains will pay for themselves many times over, if this is the case, as a two-hour journey will surely attract passengers.

Organising The Service

If you really wanted to make the service simple and passenger-friendly, you would have dedicated platforms for the trains at both ends of the route.

• In Liverpool Lime Street station trains seem to have used one platform for many years. Currently, they seem to be using Platform 9.
• Surely, a similar arrangement could be setup at London Euston.

The service could also be setup with contactless ticketing, if that was felt the way things should be done.

Going The Whole Way

Suppose, that the London Euston  and Liverpool Lime Street service is very successful for any number of reasons.

• The two hour journey time.
• The all-electric service.
• The doubling of the frequency.
• The availability of more seats.
• The expansion of Merseyrail into England’s first battery-electric Metro, which I wrote about in Chancellor To Fund £710m Merseyrail Expansion.
• The cost of driving, due to a mileage charge on all journeys.

Will this lead to a need to expand the service?

If it does, the obvious way would be to lengthen Liverpool South Parkway station and run longer trains.

An Eleven-car Class 390 train would carry 589 passengers.

Adding three-cars to a seven-car and the train would still be shorter than an eleven-car Class 390 train, but it would carry around 650 passengers.

This would add an extra ten percent capacity to the route.

This would surely provide the capacity until High Speed Two arrives towards the end of the decade.

I do wonder if Avanti West Coast are using the London Euston  and Liverpool Lime Street service to experiment with how they might run High Speed Two services.

Conclusion

As a two tph service run by Class 807 trains in two hours would be over 4,500,000 seats in each direction, I feel that this will be a very popular and intensive service.

I feel that Avanti West Coast will need to apply lessons learned on sister company’s Lumo’s service between London Kings Cross and Edinburgh.

September 14, 2021 Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Avanti West Coast, Euston Station, FirstGroup, Great Western Railway, High Speed Two, Liverpool Lime Street Station, Liverpool South Parkway Station, Low-Cost Trains, Lumo, TransPennine Express | 7 Comments