A Numerical Analysis Of Great Northern’s New Class 717 Trains
Great Northern is replacing forty-four Class 313 trains of three-cars with twenty-five Class 717 trains of six-cars to work all services out of Moorgate station and probably some out of Kings Cross station.
So 132 carriages are being replaced with 150, which increases the space by about six percent.
But how many trains are actually needed to work the various routes?
Moorgate To Welwyn Garden City
Moorgate to Welwyn Garden City is a 3 trains per hour (tph) service.
The trip takes 51 minutes, so this means a train can go from Welwyn Garden City to Moorgate and back in under two hours.
We get the number of trains as follows.
- 3 tph needs 6 trains.
- 4 tph needs 8 trains.
- 6 tph needs 12 trains.
Moorgate To Hertford North
Moorgate to Hertford North is a 3 tph service.
,The trip takes 50 minutes, so the needs for the Hertford North are as follows.
- 3 tph needs 6 trains.
- 4 tph needs 8 trains.
- 6 tph needs 12 trains.
Moorgate To Letchworth Garden City
As the extended train to Letrhworth Garden City takes 25 minutes from Hertford North, this probably means that the trains needed for the extended service are as follows.
- 1 extended tph needs another train.
- 2 extended tph needs another 2 trains.
Total Trains On The Northern City Line
So this gives the following totals for trains on the Northern City line.
- 3 tph on each route with 1 tph to Letchworth Garden City needs 13 trains.
- 4 tph on each route with 1 tph to Letchworth Garden City needs 17 trains.
- 4 tph on each route with 2 tph to Letchworth Garden City needs 18 trains.
- 6 tph on each route with 1 tph to Letchworth Garden City needs 25 trains.
I don’t think we’ll see six tph on both routes, as that could be too many trains for the tunnel to Moorgate, which probably has a capacity of less than 10 tph.
Kings Cross To Foxton
In addition, Great Northern run an hourly service between Kings Cross and Foxton, which could use the new trains.
The service takes 75 minutes.
So as the service actually starts and finishes at Cambridge, this probably means the round trip is three hours, so the service will require the following number of trains.
- 1 tph would require 3 trains.
- 2 tph would require 6 trains.
Conclusion
The mathematics say to me, that the number of trains ordered is enough for the following services.
- 4 tph from Moorgate to Welwyn Garden City – 8 trains
- 4 tph from Moorgate to Hertford North – 8 trains
- 2 tph extended from Hertford North to Letchworth Garden City. – 2 trains
- 2 tph from Kings Cross to Foxton and Cambridge – 6 trains.
Although this doesn’t mean that this will be the service pattern.
It’s just if Great Northern wanted to go from 3 tph to 4 tph on the Northern City routes and increase other services, they have ordered enough trains.
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Never On Sunday
There have always been things that were banned on Sundays or because of personal reasons, you never did on that day.
- A Welsh friend at Liverpool University called David Roberts didn’t use to drink on Sundays when I first met him. But we soon cured him of that!
- My late wife, who had been a Sunday school teacher in her time, wouldn’t go to the cinema on Sunday, as her mother thought it ungodly.
- For myself, I don’t think I went to a football match on a Sunday until I was about forty, as they were never staged on Sundays.
I also remember the first day, that C and myself went to the first 1000 Guineas at Newmarket on a Sunday. Now horse racing and most other sport on a Sunday is considered normal, just as it is in the rest of the world.
It also used to be that the Northern City Line didn’t run at weekends, despite having three stations that served The Emirates Stadium.
This morning before it rained, I took a trip to Harringay station to view the Wightman Road Bridge, by taking a 38 bus to Essex Road station and then going three stops to the North.
The line is getting new Class 717 trains, but I do feel that some work to improve the stations might not be a bad idea.
I actually wanted to buy a ticket on that dreadful machine from the Zone 6 boundary to Guildford, but unlike London Overground and some other companies ticket machines, it doesn’t sell such a useful ticket, which I wrote about in The Price Of Freedom.
More details of the Class 717 trains are given in this article in Rail Magazine, which is entitled New Govia Thameslink Railway trains to be Class 717s. This is said.
They are similar to the Class 700s being built by Siemens for GTR (of which 16 are in the UK), but they must have end doors as per safety regulations due to their operation in the Moorgate Tunnels. The design of this is at an advanced stage, with construction due to start this year.
I have felt that the Northern City Line, would be a classic application for an IPEMU for some time, as this would enable the Moorgate tunnels to be electrically-dead, as the trains would use batteries between Drayton Park and Moorgate stations. This would have the following effects.
- The third-rail electrification could be deactivated or even removed.
- The trains could also be 25 VAC only, if they wouldn’t be going into any other third-rail territory.
How would this impact tunnel safety regulations?
Whatever happens to this line, running a seven day a week service, will make the Northern City Line a valuable rail line in my part of London.
On a personal note, the line and Essex Road station in particular, will help me cut-out the dreaded Highbury and Islington station, with its long passageways and lack of lifts.
The Anonymous Widower 