Back to the future
The venerable High Speed Train is going to continue as the backbone of the rolling stock fleet for years longer than anyone expected. Paul Clifton looks at just how far it can be modernised
‘T
he HSTs will have to be refurbished. They’ve got to last longer, whatever the government decides about the Intercity Express Programme, and whatever it plans to do about electrification.’ Russell Evans is head of network strategy for First Great Western. So he should know. His
job is to liaise with Network Rail and the Department for Transport about the development of the railway. ‘The current climate is one of cost-efficiency. And we know that life-extending the existing trains is going to be cheaper than buying new ones.’ If IEP is cancelled in the October spending review – as most
people in the industry expect – trains designed in the early 1970s are going to be running well past 2020 and possibly up to 2030. Sixty-year-old vehicles on the flagship services of the country’s
major rail arteries? Seriously? ‘Even if IEP goes ahead, we have lost more than a year on the
planned schedule,’ Evans explains. ‘HSTs were due to be replaced at the end of the current First Great Western franchise. That can’t happen now. And if electrification goes ahead from 2016, HSTs will have to continue until that process is complete and new electric trains are running. Then there’s the question of what trains to run beyond the wires, whether that turns out to be west of Newbury or west of Plymouth. So we are working on the assumption that the HSTs will have to begin a new programme of life extension during the remaining years of the franchise.’ The two big issues with running the trains beyond 2020 are the
fitting of retention toilets and the use of electrically operated doors. After that date, it will no longer be acceptable for the contents of the toilets to be dumped straight onto the track. And it will no longer be acceptable to open the carriage door by lowering the window and sticking your arm out to twist the external handle. Not least because opening the doors that way could never comply with disability legislation. ‘We’re looking at an idea from one of our depot engineers,’
PAGE 16 SEPTEMBER 2010
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