Class 230 into revenue service

[uax6]

That has to be amongst one of the worst liveries to have adorned a train.....

 

Interesting to see that although the centre doors have been removed, the rainstrip is still there on the roof.

 

Andy G

[Covkid]

14 hours ago, Davexoc said:

Reported in our local rag this week that earlier during the summer, they were suffering from overheating problems due to pollen blocking the air filters. Daily checks on filters were initiated and more spare motor-gen sets made available. One unit failed at Bedford some time ago with some important LNWR people onboard, so I guess the problems are being ironed out...

 

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

If you see one of the "first generation" gensets close-up, it isn't difficult to understand why cooling is a challenge, but I know that Vivarail were working on some serious improvements in that area well over a year ago, so they may well be onto "second generation" (or beyond) by now.

 

Returned from a bike ramble round the Vale on one not long ago, and they continue to impress me with their quietness and general electric-trainness. Bike space is a bit "make it up as you go along" so might become contentious in the "rush hour", but that would be my only minor gripe. 

 

I put my bike in the space intended for a wheelchair, which is ideal, unless, of course, a wheelchair user needs it. There is another space opposite, which I think is where bikes are meant to go, but that has no means to secure a bike that I could find - the most bike-friendly trains have a bar and a sort of belt that fits round the bike to keep it from falling over or zooming-off down the carriage, and I now carry a short bungee cord in my pannier for use on those that don't have a belt.

 

 

 

The Vivarail 230s on the Marston Vale have had poor availability in August and the early part of September with at least one day when none of the three were available for traffic. As a time served railwayman I have been a little reticent of the project from it's announcement, mostly because the investment in these trains should actually be going into new build units with a long term future.  This is because the industry will always need non electric trains for secondary routes. Two years ago it was said that each 35 year old bodyshelled unit carried a price tag of around  2 million pounds - probably half the cost of a new equivalent at that time.

 

In the case of Marston Vale the East West Rail project theoretically means the 230s don't have a long life ahead before replacement by more permanent stock so the "short term" acquisition is fair enough in my view - dependant on performance, and that is where it seems to have gone a little awry. Vivarail seem to have outshopped the three 230s along with maybe a spare genset, then moved on the the TfW project. It seems they have admitted the Ford auto engine rafts are struggling to achieve the reliability but have apparently told the industry the engines will not be replaced on these, whilst Caterpillar engines are being built into the genset operated TfW examples.       

 

The "meet the manager" day which should have been aboard the service whilst shuttling between Bletchley and Bedford embarrassingly ended up with the participants travelling back to Bletchley on a rail replacement bus when the unit failed at Bedford.  Availability sdoes seem to have improved and perhaps Vivarail have committed extra resources to the Marston Vale trio since.  

Edited September 29, 2019 by Covkid
Correction

[Nearholmer]

As another long-serving railway person, I’m very enthusiastic about making good use of body shells that are in fine condition, and running gear that is barely half-way through a typical lifespan.

 

The prototype and first unit were given a pretty good thrashing on test, trial, and mileage/training runs, so possibly all this rather bitter experience over the summer proves nothing except that an even more hard-core proving regime would have been better, perhaps getting one into service for a year before the old ones went ........which is a real issue for small-batch production of anything, because the cost can’t be spread over very many units.

 

The same issues of ‘test’ apply to complete new-builds, of course, and not all of those go splendidly! Possibly, London Underground now has the best record on this (which wasn’t always so), but they are buying huge fleets, so the cost of ‘never ending’ pre-service test and trial can be spread over many cars.

[Pannier Tank]

5 hours ago, Covkid said:

 

In the case of Marston Vale the East West Rail project theoretically means the 230s don't have a long life ahead before replacement by more permanent stock so the "short term" acquisition is fair enough in my view - dependant on performance, and that is where it seems to have gone a little awry.

 

If the 230s are a "short term" solution, what was wrong with keeping the 150s / 153s? 

[Zomboid]

The 150s and 153s can now be used elsewhere. So overall an increase in capacity for the railway.

 

Personally I'm completely behind the idea of getting the maximum use out of perfectly serviceable equipment. So if the modified D stock can do a job about as well as a brand new train and at half the cost, then I'm all for it. Let that other stack of money go towards something else useful (even if that isn't the railway).

 

But I've only worked on the railway for 16 years, so what do I know?

[Nearholmer]

There’s also the little issue of ‘customer experience’.

 

The 230 feels like a modern, quiet, smooth, airy train, with good, wide doorways (or a blasted evil heap of junk, if it’s failed, obviously!).

 

The 150 and 153 always felt as if they were making heavy work of the run, noisy things, and certainly the one I rode on most recently was exceedingly grubby, worn and stuffy, and the doorways of the 153 are annoyingly cramped and inconvenient.

 

Now, clearly, reliability trumps everything else, and the 150/153 could be given a serious internal refurb ( the 153 despately needed it), but the odd fact is that the supposedly ancient 230 looks and feels more modern. In a ‘blind trial’, i’d wager that customers would believe it to be the younger train, even if both were in smart condition.

[Pete the Elaner]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

There’s also the little issue of ‘customer experience’.

 

The 230 feels like a modern, quiet, smooth, airy train, with good, wide doorways (or a blasted evil heap of junk, if it’s failed, obviously!).

 

The 150 and 153 always felt as if they were making heavy work of the run, noisy things, and certainly the one I rode on most recently was exceedingly grubby, worn and stuffy, and the doorways of the 153 are annoyingly cramped and inconvenient.

 

Now, clearly, reliability trumps everything else, and the 150/153 could be given a serious internal refurb ( the 153 despately needed it), but the odd fact is that the supposedly ancient 230 looks and feels more modern. In a ‘blind trial’, i’d wager that customers would believe it to be the younger train, even if both were in smart condition.

D stock was electric & 230s are DEMU, so the bogies are already designed for electric motors.

Engines can be tuned to work much more efficiently in a narrow range of conditions. This works quite well for running a generator.

150/153 are Diesel Hydraulic. The demands on the engine will be different. An engine which is required to work over a larger range of conditions will never be as good at its optimum.

Maybe the door layout is more suitable for current regulations & if it was deemed necessary to refurbish the Sprinters anyway (which may have been the case), maybe the D stock was seem as a suitable alternative?

I was damning of them when I heard about the project but have been pleasantly surprised when I travelled in one.

[Matt.S.]

On 28/09/2019 at 12:44, Davexoc said:

Reported in our local rag this week that earlier during the summer, they were suffering from overheating problems due to pollen blocking the air filters. Daily checks on filters were initiated and more spare motor-gen sets made available. One unit failed at Bedford some time ago with some important LNWR people onboard, so I guess the problems are being ironed out...

That would seem to be an oversight, certainly we would anticipate jetting off 15x radiators at every fuel point to keep pollen from causing the engines to return to idle due to overheating. 

[DY444]

7 hours ago, Matt.S. said:

That would seem to be an oversight, certainly we would anticipate jetting off 15x radiators at every fuel point to keep pollen from causing the engines to return to idle due to overheating. 

 

Some of the key players behind Vivarail have got vast experience of UK operating conditions and yet they don't seem to have applied that to this project.  The (admittedly refreshingly honest) published report into the fire during test running showed some real naivety in terms of power pack design and maintenance practice for rail operation and now we have them seemingly caught out by the effects of running through the UK countryside on summer days.

 

Hitachi seems not to have fully understood the impact of a UK summer either in respect of hardware design, software design and maintenance despite introducing "Japanese levels of engineering excellence" ([c] DfT).

 

It looks to me that the design teams either didn't talk to maintenance people at the sharp end about environmental things to be wary of or didn't listen to what they said. 

Edited October 3, 2019 by DY444

[corneliuslundie]

If you think that is the worst livery around you can't have travelled very far with your eyes open, or looked at some northern bus liveries. To my mind it is quite pleasant compared with a lot of others, though now of course we seem to be reverting to white for everything, which then shows up the dirt beautifully. And that green won't fade like BR blue did.

Of course it is all a matter of taste. Bring back lake, as used on the Rhymney Railway.

Jonathan

[Davexoc]

11 hours ago, DY444 said:

Hitachi seems not to have fully understood the impact of a UK summer either in respect of hardware design, software design and maintenance despite introducing "Japanese levels of engineering excellence" ([c] DfT).

 

It looks to me that the design teams either didn't talk to maintenance people at the sharp end about environmental things to be wary of or didn't listen to what they said. 

From my experience with the Japanese, they aren't all they're cracked up to be. If the cause and effect isn't in the book, they can struggle.

 

As for design, the rail industry is not alone on that front. Someone with CAD is taske with fitting all the bits in a given space, but it is only when the maintenance guys have to work on it they find that the component that ought to be most accessible and they would prefer at the front is buried behind all the other gubbins that shouldn't need touching, but now have to removed....

[Covkid]

3 minutes ago, Davexoc said:

From my experience with the Japanese, they aren't all they're cracked up to be. If the cause and effect isn't in the book, they can struggle.

 

As for design, the rail industry is not alone on that front. Someone with CAD is taske with fitting all the bits in a given space, but it is only when the maintenance guys have to work on it they find that the component that ought to be most accessible and they would prefer at the front is buried behind all the other gubbins that shouldn't need touching, but now have to removed....

 

 

Yes.  That is also how I understand it. I believe Hitachi have the intercoolers overlaid over the front of the radiators.  So when the radiators need cleaning to remove pollen and other crud, the intercoolers need unbolting first. Not sure whether the Generator Unit rafts are designed by Hitachi or MTU but that is a serious maintenance issue during Spring and Summer. 

 

Britain's trains have used underfloor diesel engines and radiators for well over 80 years if we consider GWR's AEC powered cars, so there is enough history to consider. 

[Zomboid]

Intercoolers have to be in front of the radiators, in terms of airflow. If the air hits the radiators first it gets heated up and the intercoolers will be much less effective.

 

It obviously comes with compromises, but if you're going to put an intercooler behind the radiator you may as well not bother having it at all. And to get nearly 1000hp from an underfloor engine you probably need the benefit of intercooling.

 

I doubt many of those 80 years are relevant, pretty sure the first generation DMUs didn't even have turbocharging.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Zomboid

[Davexoc]

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

Intercoolers have to be in front of the radiators, in terms of airflow. If the air hits the radiators first it gets heated up and the intercoolers will be much less effective.

 

It obviously comes with compromises, but if you're going to put an intercooler behind the radiator you may as well not bother having it at all. And to get nearly 1000hp from an underfloor engine you probably need the benefit of intercooling.

 

I doubt many of those 80 years are relevant, pretty sure the first generation DMUs didn't even have turbocharging.

Surely you could stack them side by side instead of on top of each other and achieve the same with careful design....

 

Can't think of any turbocharged 1st Gen units. Anyway with the time it took to change gear on them, the turbo boost would have dropped right off....

[russ p]

The 114 parcels units had turbocharged Leyland  TL11s quite brisk and fun to drive , I believe a 111 was briefly fitted with rolls Royce turbo engines

As I have said on another thread gear changes could be done faster than prescribed 

[lmsforever]

I expect the passengers are happy with the new units after years of crap units like the 150 and,what was inflicted on them prior to them.Watched a dvd of a trip on a 230 and was impressed good conversion .Always liked to travel on them when on the district line seats very good and excellent ride quality better than riding on a Met unit bouncing around over points etc.

[Zomboid]

7 hours ago, Davexoc said:

Surely you could stack them side by side instead of on top of each other and achieve the same with careful design....

Space is probably the issue there. They need to fit an awful lot of stuff under those vehicles, and that would pretty much double the amount required for the radiators (plus airflow space). I've no idea what the design is, but I'd be surprised if you could do that without at the very least making something else highly inaccessible.

[Nearholmer]

They make everything accessible by having the entire gen-set readily demountable. The issue is around the volume of the gen-set module and the need to fit engine, alternator, and cooling into that space.

[Covkid]

6 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Space is probably the issue there. They need to fit an awful lot of stuff under those vehicles, and that would pretty much double the amount required for the radiators (plus airflow space). I've no idea what the design is, but I'd be surprised if you could do that without at the very least making something else highly inaccessible.

 

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

They make everything accessible by having the entire gen-set readily demountable. The issue is around the volume of the gen-set module and the need to fit engine, alternator, and cooling into that space.

 

 

This is the whole point surely ?

The GWR initiated the idea of attaching truck and bus engines to the sole bar of a coach to make it into a diesel railcar.  This was back in the 1930s IIRC and the concept  of diesel, gearbox, final drive continued into the 1960s - a break, then 2nd generation DMUs in the 1980s mostly with a hydraulic transmission. During that period there has been experience a plenty with keeping engines cool, and there are plenty of first gen DMUs preserved and second gen DMUs in service.

 

Clearly Vivarail have opted for a modular underfloor raft swapability and their publicity claims a pack can be changed in ten minutes.  Theoretically, then all four packs under a two car class 230 can be changed in under an hour, so with two units needed to maintain the Marston Vale service I would expect a failure of one unit to cause cancellation to one round trip while the unit had it's packs changed. That is assuming the third unit was already out of service.

 

Draw you own conclusions    

[Zomboid]

If they've any faith in their product then they won't have fitters sitting around just waiting to change a gen set on the off chance. So when it becomes necessary it'll take considerably longer than 2 hours to get the staff mobilised and everything sorted out and the unit back in service. The quoted time is more relevant to planned swaps.

Edited October 4, 2019 by Zomboid

[Nearholmer]

Covkid

 

leaving aside the debate about the 230 for a minute, the use of essentially the same engines in light rail cars and road vehicles goes back a whole lot further than the 1930s, with Daimler applying his engines in both applications in the late 1880s. Daimler-engined light rail-cars were quite widespread in the 1890s.

 

Kevin

Edited October 4, 2019 by Nearholmer

[mikejames]

out of interest

the next set of units are for transport for wales

and are already late on the basis of what I understand.

I read that they were supposed to be being tested to/from evesham

but altho paths appear in real time trains, nothing seems to he happening.

has anyone any news or information?

regards

mike james

[Fenman]

42 minutes ago, mikejames said:

out of interest

the next set of units are for transport for wales

and are already late on the basis of what I understand.

I read that they were supposed to be being tested to/from evesham

but altho paths appear in real time trains, nothing seems to he happening.

has anyone any news or information?

regards

mike james

 

It's turning into a characteristic of British rolling stock suppliers: have you looked at how far behind schedule Bombardier is with their new units for Greater Anglia? Embarrassingly, Swiss-built Stadlers ordered at the same time are now running on lots of GA lines (and very, very nice they are too, from a passenger perspective. Better than the crummy Electrostars that GN are operating).

 

Paul

[russ p]

Does anyone know what the service l8ife of a genset is and how does that compare with the transit? 

[DY444]

On 04/10/2019 at 01:07, lmsforever said:

I expect the passengers are happy with the new units after years of crap units like the 150 and,what was inflicted on them prior to them.Watched a dvd of a trip on a 230 and was impressed good conversion .Always liked to travel on them when on the district line seats very good and excellent ride quality better than riding on a Met unit bouncing around over points etc.

 

Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise.  Passengers have varied requirements but in my experience they are fairly universal in their desire for the advertised train service to run.  Since the introduction of the new units there have been far too many occasions when it hasn't due to train faults.  The last set of reliability figures I saw are truly woeful making the horrendous early days of Class 74 for example look like a triumph.  It doesn't matter how good the interior of a train is if it can't reliably provide the required level of service.   

Edited October 5, 2019 by DY444