3-car trains start running in January

[Deleted]

I noticed today that there were 3 lots of "B90/B92" running as 3-car sets:

72+85+16
23+11+92
13+??+??

Also noted in service was 154 & 155

all working Bank - Lewishams.

[uzairjubilee]

Was on the DLR for about an hour yesterday going to various places.

Not one three car train?

[Deleted]

As far as I know, none scheduled at weekends at the moment.

[flippyff]

Jul 25, 2010 14:28:26 GMT @reganorak said:

As far as I know, none scheduled at weekends at the moment.

Sorry to bump an old thread but while waiting at Shadwell yesterday (Sunday) I noted a three car running to Lewisham just after the Jubbly had had another meltdown. I don't know how many other three car trains were running.


Simon

[dazzmcguinness]

Managed to get a snap of one of the trains running along the Stratford International extension when I was at West Ham the other day: darrenmcguinness.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/mcguinness-on-how-the-olympics-will-change-east-london/

Why have they chosen three cars rather than more? Surely if there was demand for it then they would have an even four?

'McGuinness

[andypurk]

Jan 31, 2011 22:54:39 GMT flippyff said:

Jul 25, 2010 14:28:26 GMT @reganorak said:

As far as I know, none scheduled at weekends at the moment.

Sorry to bump an old thread but while waiting at Shadwell yesterday (Sunday) I noted a three car running to Lewisham just after the Jubbly had had another meltdown. I don't know how many other three car trains were running.

All the Lewisham branch trains I saw on Sunday were 3 car (and this was before the Jubilee line problems started).

[andypurk]

Feb 1, 2011 0:00:48 GMT @dazzmcguinness said:

Managed to get a snap of one of the trains running along the Stratford International extension when I was at West Ham the other day: darrenmcguinness.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/mcguinness-on-how-the-olympics-will-change-east-london/

Why have they chosen three cars rather than more? Surely if there was demand for it then they would have an even four?

Probably down to the costs of even more platform extensions. Some of the three car locations will be very hard to extend to four cars (for example Bank and Tower Gateway). Also, even now, there are a few of stations where only two cars fit (for example Cutty Sark) and Selective Door Opening is used for the three car trains; this would be impossible with four car trains.

[Chris M]

I think there was also some concern over the weight of four car units on some of the viaducts - it is a light railway and so the structures are designed to this requirement.

Any capacity enhancement beyond 3 cars is, I think, going to have to come from either increased frequencies and/or a radical redesign of the rolling stock barring a very expensive civil engineering operation to lengthen stations, sidings, platforms, etc, as well as strengthen viaducts.
A fully articulated single-unit train of about the same length as the current three-car trains would offer I'd guess around an extra ½ to ¾ of a current car's capacity. However this would reduce flexibility (currently 1, 2 or 3 car trains can run according to the demand for a specific service). I'd guess that articulation exists that could cope with the tight corners and gradients (many articulated trams cope with at least the first perfectly fine) but this is just a guess.
Also it will be a while yet before the system gets a significant order of new trains - the oldest are only about 20, the youngest a couple of years. I don't know the design life of the stock 20 years would be the absolute lowest figure I could imagine. Also there is no money around at present, and although the latest batch are to a different design to the B90/B92/B2K stock all are just evolutions of the original P86 cars from the system opening.
As a radically different design wasn't chosen this last time the present concept must be doing it's job, so a new design would need to show very significant benefits.

[norbitonflyer]

Feb 1, 2011 5:04:11 GMT Chris M said:

I think there was also some concern over the weight of four car units on some of the viaducts - it is a light railway and so the structures are designed to this requirement.

...................
A fully articulated single-unit train of about the same length as the current three-car trains would offer I'd guess around an extra ½ to ¾ of a current car's capacity.

Although the overall weight would be lower, more articulation means higher axle loadings. (two 3-part artics have only eight bogies, whereas a DLR train of three 2-part artics have nine)

Could the viaducts really not cope with eight cars (two four-car trains passing each other)? In nearly all cases a train that long would be long enough that it would not all be suppoted by a single span. And I remeber before the Beckton branch was opened the new vehicles trains were all stored in a long line on the viaduct there, so it was certainly strong enough.

[Chris M]

I don't know - I'm no structural engineer!
From your comments about the storage of trains, any viaducts unable to cope would presumably be ones on the original system rather than the Beckton extension. I could also be I'm confusing it with something else as the discussion I'm remembering had all sorts of suggestions, including double-decker trains (obviously ruled out because of the massive cost of all the infrastructure works that would be necessary, particularly expanding the tunnels).

I suppose the DLR way would be to be build parallel routes, although this would be expensive, time consuming and not always easy to find space (the Delta junction area would require some particularly creative routing I suspect!).

[Deleted]

So, with a little more than a year gone since the introduction of 3 car services, does anyone know the percentage of services which now run 3 car? Are all routes both able to and running now running in 3 car formation?

[Chris M]

Three car trains are still not in operation on the Beckton branch. Everything appears to be complete platform wise, but I suspect that they wont start running in service until the works at Custom House (converting the east end stairs into escalators) is completed. I've not seen anything official about this though, and don't know what the expected finish date for the Custom House works is.

Most Bank-Lewisham services seem to be 3 cars, and a few peak Bank-Woolwich ones too, but the latter are still mostly two car.

[Deleted]

I travel on the Woolwich branch daily - the only time I've ever seen 3-car trains is when they temporarily change the timetable to/from Canning Town to cope with some extravaganza at Excel. Quite often at peak times the 2-car trains to Bank completely fill up at Woolwich Arsenal, so there is little or no further passenger room at any other stations.

Roll on the Stratford International extension. That will at least give us more options as far as Canning Town! (And for me will be a change-free route to West Ham.)

[Deleted]

Mar 30, 2011 10:36:05 GMT Chris M said:

Three car trains are still not in operation on the Beckton branch. Everything appears to be complete platform wise, but I suspect that they wont start running in service until the works at Custom House (converting the east end stairs into escalators) is completed. I've not seen anything official about this though, and don't know what the expected finish date for the Custom House works is.

3 car trains on the Beckton branch are expected to start in May. The Custom House works are due for completion in November.

[Ben]

As a brief comment on Chris's post a bit up, a fairly cheap (proportionally) way of providing a bit of extra capacity could be to build middle coaches to lengthen each 2part to 3part carraige. You'd get the extra capacity of having extra floor space, whilst maintaining some flexibility by retaining 2 units per train. Also you wouldn't have to install a drivers system on the parts, so it wouldn't be as expensive as a regular DM.

[Deleted]

Apr 2, 2011 18:40:58 GMT @docklands said:

3 car trains on the Beckton branch are expected to start in May.

Any news on when we can expect 3 car trains on the Woolwich Arsenal branch?

[davidp]

3-car trains on the Lewisham to Bank service at weekends seem the norm now. However the DLR are only running 2-car trains this weekend on that line - The Beckton branch is shut so I am presuming trains cannot get out of Beckton Depot and that Poplar just hasn't enough units to provide a full 3-car service. Anyone confirm?

Also possibly connected with this is that the x5 minute service continued until about 10:30pm on Saturday - it normally drops to x10 mins from about 7:30 pm.

[Chris M]

Certainly yesterday trains would have been unable to leave Beckton depot as there was at least two worksites on the track between Cyprus and Gallions Reach, one of which involved replacing rails on the westbound with RRVs running on the eastbound. I presume there would have been other worksites as well as otherwise I'd have expected the service to run to Custom House or Prince Regent - if there was sufficient stock.

[davidp]

Apr 3, 2011 10:08:20 GMT @lthrtim said:

Apr 2, 2011 18:40:58 GMT @docklands said:

3 car trains on the Beckton branch are expected to start in May.

Any news on when we can expect 3 car trains on the Woolwich Arsenal branch?

The current print version (but not as yet the on-line version) of The Wharf newspaper is reporting that all DLR services will be 3-car by the end of the year. And yes, I know that as we've discussed on here before that there aren't enough units to operate 3-car trains on all of the proposed services so I wonder if there will be a decrease in frequency on the Beckton and/or Woolwich lines when 3-car trains are introduced?

It also reports that the services from Stratford International towards Canning Town and beyond will start this summer; that trains will operate up to every 8 minutes and will operate to Woolwich Arsenal, Beckton or just to Canning Town.

[Chris M]

Apr 17, 2011 12:03:59 GMT davidp said:

Apr 3, 2011 10:08:20 GMT @lthrtim said:

And yes, I know that as we've discussed on here before that there aren't enough units to operate 3-car trains on all of the proposed services

Were the DLR to get enough new units that all services could be three-cars in length, would the existing depot space be sufficient to store them all?

[davidp]

Were the DLR to get enough new units that all services could be three-cars in length, would the existing depot space be sufficient to store them all? [/quote]

Others could probably answer that theoretical question with more authority but I think the point is that they are not getting any more units than are currently in stock. So if all services are to be provided by 3-car trains, then there must be some frequency cuts somewhere.

[radbod]

Trying to work out why people think that there aren't enough LRVs to run 3 car on all services. There are 149 LRVs. Even allowing for 6 LRVs out for faults/maintenance there are more than enough.

3 car service is planned for the 3rd May on the Beckton route.

[Deleted]

By my reckoning there are 44 sets in service at the moment in the morning peak. At 3 cars each thats 132 vehicles. That only leaves 5 sets available for the Stratford International service, although the 4 currently on the Woolwich to Canning Town shuttle will be used on the Stratford International service making 9 sets available for the new route(s). Perhaps, you're right there will just about be enough vehicles but it doesn't leave much flexibility if things go wrong.

[davidp]

Apr 18, 2011 11:42:35 GMT @docklands said:

By my reckoning there are 44 sets in service at the moment in the morning peak. At 3 cars each thats 132 vehicles. That only leaves 5 sets available for the Stratford International service, although the 4 currently on the Woolwich to Canning Town shuttle will be used on the Stratford International service making 9 sets available for the new route(s). Perhaps, you're right there will just about be enough vehicles but it doesn't leave much flexibility if things go wrong.

I thought it was 45 sets on the morning peak run, so that would 135 vehicles if all were 3-car worked. An x8 minute service between Stratford International and Canning Town would (I think) require at least 3 extra trains increasing the pvr to at least 48 units/144 cars. And whilst half of these could join the current x16 minute service between Canning Town and Woolwich, I was under the impression that the other half were going to run to Beckton needing (I think) a further 3 trains, making a grand peak run out of 51 units/153 cars.

As Docklands has indicated, the maximum number of 3-car trains you can have at the moment is 49. (94 units of B90/B92/B2K stock forming a maximum of 31 3-car trains and 55 units of B2007/B2009 stock forming a maximum of 18 3-car trains).

[radbod]

There are 149 LRVs. By around 0700 there are 46 trains in service. This is made up of 9 trains on TOG - BEC, 16 trains on BAN - LEW, 9 trains on STR - CAW/LEW and 12 trains on BAN/CAT - WOA.

So, 18 LRVs + 48 LRVs + 23 LRVs + 24 LRVs = 113. When TOG - BEC goes 3 car, that makes 122.

When STI opens, don't be expecting the overall frequency to and from Beckton and Woolwich Arsenal to double.

[davidp]

Apr 22, 2011 17:50:03 GMT @radbod said:

There are 149 LRVs. By around 0700 there are 46 trains in service. This is made up of 9 trains on TOG - BEC, 16 trains on BAN - LEW, 9 trains on STR - CAW/LEW and 12 trains on BAN/CAT - WOA.

So, 18 LRVs + 48 LRVs + 23 LRVs + 24 LRVs = 113. When TOG - BEC goes 3 car, that makes 122.

When STI opens, don't be expecting the overall frequency to and from Beckton and Woolwich Arsenal to double.

Indeed, I'm not expecting any increase in frequency to Woolwich Arsenal, I didn't say anything about that.

But by the end of the year, all trains on all lines will be 3-car trains, so without any frequency increases, the existing lines would require 46 3-car trains and there are only enough units to form 49 3-car trains so if the Stratford International to Canning Town (and beyond) x8 min peak service requires an additional 3 trains, that's it, no spare trains, no breakdown or maintenance cover and none to operate a peak time Beckton to Stratford International service which earlier DLR publicity suggested would happen. Not without frequency REDUCTIONS anyway.

[pib]

3 car service on Beckton leg due to start Tuesday 3rd May.

[pib]

Beckton 3-car delayed till Mon 9th. (Hopefully)

[Deleted]

Ah, thanks. Obviously why I didn't see any in service this morning on the Beckton branch, apart from 'empties' running to Beckton depot at the end of the morning peak.

[Deleted]

Well if it was the “first day of three carriages trains to Beckton”, things got off to a bad start this morning.

Arrived at our station on the Beckton line around 6.45 to find an unusually long time to the next train (and with another one apparently one minute behind it, strange). But meantime along came a three carriage “Special” empty train going towards Canning Town, tooting past us all slowly. Eventually our train comes along (only two carriages), we all get in, and it just sits in the station for some minutes. No announcements. Finally on we go, stopping more than once along the way. Get to Prince Regent, and we sit and wait there as well, when there is finally an announcement, that there is a defective train at Custom House. In time a train rolls very slowly in to the opposite platform – it is that three carriages Special again, now going the other way, same driver, and stops. Apparently it has changed direction at Custom House, and presumably was the cause of the problem. But still we all sit and wait.

Finally we get going. There’s another proper train to Beckton stopped behind the Special, while going our way a third train has caught us all up as well, but the two behind must have no passengers, we have collected them all. I'm 20 minutes late.

Now whose idea was it to go out and play Choo-Choos with this three carriage Special train, which then caused all sorts of problems, right in the middle of the rush hour, to all the real passengers? And were things still advertised as a Good Service while all this was going on?