Hitachi Supertrain

[johncas]

What routes will this train run on I saw on the news they said east coast and London to Wales there will be a Electric version and a Non electric diesel version and a duel power version for routes like say the Midland Mainline which are non electric but electric from Bedford.
So will the midland mainline get some or are we keeping HST'S and Meridians it's always the Midland line which gets nothing

[TheTazman]

I am glad someone else started a post about this new train. I for one am very disappointed with that new train. I do not feel it has the right to even be on our railways. Its just looks like a piece of plastic rubbish. I doubt that this replacement will ever do more mileage than the HST has accumulated over the years.

HST is by far the best train ever built!

I am not slagging off your post or anything like that. I feel that we brits have a much better understanding of trains than they do in japan.

[Ryosuke]

I am not slagging off your post or anything like that. I feel that we brits have a much better understanding of trains than they do in japan.

whow, slow down!

hitachi has lots of experience in building the shinkansen units and as far as i know no other country runs its passenger rail transport as good as the japanese do.
if for any reason the quality of the train leaves something to be desired for then you should blame the one who ordered it because they decide how much they spend on it, how good the quality will be and what comfort it will have. if the operating companys order cheap . then they will get it.
i also have the feeling that the japanese operators tend to order higher quality and service their network and trains better than the europeans do because their rail system seems to run fairly well.

[mendes]

I had a Hitachi Video recorder years ago. It was rubbish and packed in after about 18 months.

[Riche]

I had a Hitachi Video recorder years ago. It was rubbish and packed in after about 18 months.

Which proves what exactly?

[arabiandisco]

Whilst I believe that the "Supertrain" will be utterly pants, that will be because of the DFT's ridiculous specification, and will in no way be a reflection on Hitachi.

The Japanese know how to build things properly, to an extent that not even the Germans can match. But the DFT are insisting that they build it out of tin foil...

[johncas]

TheTazman Wrote
as far as i know no other country runs its passenger rail transport as good as the Japanese do

Right there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0A9-oUo ... re=related
I thought the London tube at rush hour was busy

[bgstrowger]

TheTazman Wrote
as far as i know no other country runs its passenger rail transport as good as the Japanese do

Right there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0A9-oUo ... re=related
I thought the London tube at rush hour was busy

If they tried that on the tube, they'd get punched

[batling]

My god - is that perceived as normal?? the passengers don't seem too bothered...

common sense left us quite some time ago


Regards
Ant (with head in hands )

[158881]

Yep, anyone who is looking forward to this train is going to regret it

They wont be better than a HST and will be just a plastic piece of tat

Just look at some of the trains we have around how poor the build quality on these are!

[Ryosuke]

My god - is that perceived as normal?? the passengers don't seem too bothered...

common sense left us quite some time ago


Regards
Ant (with head in hands )

the japanese railways transport more people than india, germany, the uk and france together while at the same time accumulating less delays than the swiss alone.

[MoonKid47]

Lets face it, Japan has one of the best puclic train systems going. Its practically the best in the world and a prime example of what should be done.

The Shinkansen (Bullet) trains run on near-enough dedicated tracks to ensure they reach the top speeds and have as few delays. They also have dedicated segregated branch lines which can minimalise delays to other journeys. Say if we take Liverpool - Norwich for example, if a train breaks down in Hope Valley it will affect all services, whereas a Liverpool - Manchester, Sheffield - Nottingham, Nottingham - Peterborough and Peterborough - Ely / Norwich would have much less effect, even though the customer may have to change more.

Japan have us by the balls on trains, and even they are something like 4 private companies now and still running Bullet's around us, so are France and Germany with ICE and TGV.


Also in a recent survey read in the Metro, Britain pays something like 1.7 time the average fare per mile compared to every other European country...

[BR7MT]

Yep, anyone who is looking forward to this train is going to regret it

They wont be better than a HST and will be just a plastic piece of tat

Just look at some of the trains we have around how poor the build quality on these are!

One thing the Hitachi trains will not suffer from is poor build quality! If anything the weak link may be assembling them in the UK, but that depends on how well the factory is set up in this country and whether the work force are given the proper tools and encouragement to produce a high quality fit out.

The specification of the trains is the thing that will hamper them in the long term. For that the blame lies solely with th DfT and their consultants.

Regards,

Dan

[MoonKid47]

Heck one of our factory's dropped a Class 222 from the jacks, i wouldnt really trust a British manufacturing firm after something like that, Desiro and Hitachi FTW!

[mattvince]

Heck one of our factory's dropped a Class 222 from the jacks, i wouldnt really trust a British manufacturing firm after something like that, Desiro and Hitachi FTW!

The incident in question happened in a train maintenance facility, not a factory - and thus could have happened to any manufacturer's train. IIRC it was a failure of the supporting jacks, and not a design or construction flaw of the train itself. Be careful when making statements like the above - it could be considered to be defamation.

As to building a Japanese-style network - the problem is a failure of government planning policy, combined with bad (and occasionally scandalous) government transport policy, dating back over ninety years. Add in some rash decisions made by certain ministers of recent times, and very possibly the over-generous provision of funding to Network Rail made by Tom Windsor (former Rail Regulator), and you end up with the "highest" fares in Europe. That said, we apparently also have some of the lowest fares in Europe. A radical thought - can meaningful comparisons be drawn if we cannot trust the exchange rates? All these comparisons are based on current exchange rates: however, if (hypothetically) the effect of the "Brown Bubble" (in financial services) has been to distort exchange rates - such that Sterling is over-valued - then a return to normal exchange rates could see the comparisons of fares fall flat. Ultimately, the only true test of fares should be that of affordability - comparing income to fares. Would we really want a network where any journey other than that between two stations next to each other requires changing multiple times? It hardly makes it accessible to those of limited mobility, increases journey times considerably, and would require timetables designed for absolute connections at the expense of journey times (plus would be almost impossible to make work perfectly). And then there is the cost - more trains running shorter distances with a net increase in turnaround times, plus 'padded' journey times to make connections work requires more trainsets and traincrews - thus the cost of running the railway (and thus fares) becomes astronomic. What of, as an alternative to reducing the impact of delays, instead try minimising the causes of delays in the first place. And the UK has tried splitting routes into 'more manageable' chunks before now - which is why you cannot go directly from Birmingham to Loughborough any more, for instance (for which you can thank the SRA). And the Japanese do run lots of through trains on the 'classic' network, over some quite complex networks, comparable to our own network.

Actually, Japan has something of the order of 150 private railway companies (1998 figures), although many of these are small municipal operators running on lines abandoned by the former Japanese National Railways. Rail transport is also helped by the fact that the best part of the 128m population is concentrated in only 30% of the land-mass, little or no domestic oil reserves, and a near-total rebuilding of the economy after WW2.