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DY444

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  1. The 450s and 444s both had bogie modifications as they were hammering the track to bits. I have no idea whether the mods were the same as the 350s but the track access charges for both 450s and 444s were reduced after they were done which suggests the results of the mods were significant.
  2. Admittedly that would be a classic modern day railway move. Abandon Waterloo in 2007, leave it unused for years, spend a fortune reworking it for Waterloo domestic services, then decide to use it for international again requiring another fortune to be spent to undo what you spent the previous fortune on. Even if you think that's going be approved (which it isn't) then you've got another issue which is that only the few remaining 373s are in gauge for HS1 - Waterloo. So that needs another fortune to fix. There's no getting away from one inconvenient truth. It's St.Pancras or nowhere and although there is no doubting its splendour as a building, operationally it is a disaster. There are insufficient platforms for any of the service groups that use it. It might be possible to add additional East Mids platforms to the west and/or Kent platforms to the east but I don't see any way of expanding the international platforms. The only thing I can think of is that the 2 unused outer platforms at Stratford become turn round servicing points. Once all the punters are off an inbound at St. P you work the empties away to one of the two platforms at Stratford. Cleaning, re-tanking, catering restock etc all take place there, then you work the empties back again to St. P for immediate boarding. Doing that with a few trains across the day might free you up enough platform space to fit a few more services in.
  3. It is still possible to run St Johns/New Cross - Charing Cross in both directions but it's far easier from an operational perspective in the down direction than the up as going up requires just over a mile on the reversible line 7. Although it is reversible, Line 7 is heavily used by down trains so I suspect using it in the up direction would likely be something only done in extremis.
  4. Without knowing what you are proposing to do it is difficult to comment. However it seems to me that one obvious suggestion is to try the change well before the show ensuring you make a note of the original values of anything you change so you know what to go back to.
  5. There are Digitrax and Loconet fora on groups.io. Some of the contributors on there know the systems inside out right down to bit and byte level. Otherwise I've been using Digitrax since 2000 and know a bit about it and loconet's inner workings so there's a vague chance I may know. What is the problem?
  6. If it is quieter it will probably be because it only has one motor per powered bogie rather than the typical two on a UK emu. I watched a video of it slowing down on the dynamic brake and it sounded pretty loud to me or at least no quieter than any other emu using the dynamic brake. Always hard to tell with dynamic brakes how much is motor and how much is blower but I'm assuming the generated power was at least party employed charging the battery and not just being dissipated
  7. The boiler was obviously retained so it could work with the aforementioned air braked Mk2 stock, and heat it when required, which, as we know, is what happened for a while before it moved to South Wales.
  8. I haven't had the "pleasure" of an IET on the GWML but I've done a handful of trips up the ECML, all on 801s, and the ride was terrible at speed. It felt like continuous hunting to me. I've not been on a bi-mode but I've seen reports that the GU sets can move relative to the vehicle body and make a banging noise when they do.
  9. With the whole GWR allocated IET fleet, irrespective of ownership, suffering benefitting from "Japanese levels of reliability" ([c] DfT at contract award), I suspect it's a question of turning out any unit that will actually run.
  10. No they haven't. The power systems and heat management systems will have been designed to accommodate the power inherent in a fast charge. The batteries however are still subject to the laws of physics and the properties of the chemical compounds they employ. Engineers (except those on the NASA Space Shuttle programme obviously) will be familiar with the truism that is the cost, time, quality mantra. Current technology batteries have a recharge time, charge range, service life equivalent. You cannot improve one without degrading one or both of the others. The optimum state of charge for maximum service life is 20-80% so that chops 40% off your range. The optimum rate of charge for maximum service life is as slow as possible. The best service life is thus achieved charging slowly and keeping the state of charge between 20 and 80% so you can't have fast charging and high range if you want maximum service life with present battery technology. A scaleable battery that offers all 3 is the holy grail and we're not there. If any routinely fast charged BEMU battery gets anywhere near the claimed battery life I shall be very surprised.
  11. Yes, as long as the coaches weren't the aforementioned WCML Mk2 Pullmans with their as-built electrical system.
  12. Classes 81-87 eth didn't rectify to DC, it was supplied as AC. Don't know about later AC classes. The original restriction on the WCML Mk2 Pullmans only being able to be heated by an AC locomotive was because the coaches had transformers directly across the train supply.
  13. No. Only one loco can supply ets. Most ets locomotives had a protection mechanism which stopped them supplying the train if the train circuit was already live. Iirc the only ones that didn't were the SR classes. There is a real world example of locomotives regularly working trains they couldn't properly supply power to. The locomotives were the Class 50s and there were special instructions relating to them working trains with an eth index greater than 48 on very cold or very hot days to avoid overloading the somewhat under nourished eth generator. Nothing I'm aware of about 37/4s working trains with high eth indices though.
  14. I watched that series when it was broadcast. There's another shot later of the 56 going the other way at exactly the same place with the logo the right way round.
  15. I have no idea if a 37 hauled a rake of HST trailers in that period but they certainly hauled complete HSTs in BR days as there is photo evidence. So imo it could easily have happened and is therefore reasonable. No doubt the "that never happened" brigade might get exercised by it but they can't possibly know it didn't so who cares. It's entirely plausible so imo it's fine
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