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Greater Anglia's Stadler Flirt - Class 745 & 755


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On 29/01/2020 at 08:54, ruggedpeak said:

Reinforces my earlier point about going back to loco hauled services. Maybe GA would have been better with a TPE type set up with say 88's and Mk5's?

 

 

Hardly, the mk5s were horribly late and their introduction was far from trouble-free either.

Edited by Christopher125
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10 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

I am sure the NNR could lend them a B12 and a Quad Art.

Problem solved.

Jonathan

Careful suggesting such things, we wouldn't want to introduce comfort to the railway, would we?

 

Andy G

 

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4 hours ago, Pandora said:

Surely the answer is resscue with like for like,  the failed Flirt rescued by another Flirt?

 

Not authorised to work in multiple yet - which obviously needs addressing as soon as possible

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1 hour ago, beast66606 said:

 

Not authorised to work in multiple yet - which obviously needs addressing as soon as possible

Not authorised to work in multiple,  ,   you could not make this up,  when something fails on open road ,  it can  be declarared as a clear the line emergency, anything  can haul anything to clear the line so long as the couplings fit together, the Rule book permits haulage   of dead  stock (without brakes) providing it is a run on level or downhill track to the recess point.

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They can only be rescued by a loco that has an air drier fitted to its air system. 

The long ones aren't even fitted for multi working which begs the question why not fit them with conventional drawgear rather than a delner.

About the only decent feature of these trains is that when hauled by a loco the loco has proper control of the brakes 

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18 hours ago, russ p said:

The long ones aren't even fitted for multi working which begs the question why not fit them with conventional drawgear rather than a delner

Long term everything on the Anglia network (other than freight) will be dellner fitted, so chances are if they need rescuing the nearest train will also be dellner fitted. "Conventional" drawgear is less likely to be any use.

 

Though since they can't multi the 12 cars, I wonder why they didn't put a 390/ 800 style fairing over the coupler.

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21 hours ago, russ p said:

 

The long ones aren't even fitted for multi working which begs the question why not fit them with conventional drawgear rather than a delner.

 

 

This is not new situation.

 

Before the 700s showed up Thameslink had some 387s, which although looking the same in terms of bodyshell to the 377 fleet operated by Southern, were totally incompatible with them.

 

As is increasingly the situation, it was the fact that the 387s had a completely new (next generation) electrical / computing system that couldn't talk to the much older software fitted to the 377s.

 

Consequently while a 387 and a 377 could mechanically couple to clear the line - they could not work in multiple together and the defective unit would have to be hauled dead (and IIRC unbraked.)

 

Another example is the 700 fleet itself - being fixed formation 8 and 12 car units they are not fitted with true multiple working as their sheer length means you won't get two units running together in anything other than a 'clear the line' situation. Thus while two units can couple (and being of the same generation of unit, are electrically compatible) its not quite the same as true multiple unit working where you get two 4 cars running round as an 8 car train all day.

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4 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Long term everything on the Anglia network (other than freight) will be dellner fitted, so chances are if they need rescuing the nearest train will also be dellner fitted. "Conventional" drawgear is less likely to be any use.

 

Though since they can't multi the 12 cars, I wonder why they didn't put a 390/ 800 style fairing over the coupler.

 

You hit the nail on the head there mate, freight.  These is still a substantial amount of it on the Anglia region and if one of these trains fails in front of a freight it could be pushed out of the way by a freight if they had buffers and couplings without having to get a fitter to turn up and put an emergency coupling on it 

Since privatisation the railway has gone mad with non compatible couplers and similar couplers but at different heights 

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There's a non negligible amount of freight around, but once you get towards London where disruption would be worst, the nearby trains will mostly be the new Bombardier units. Having those and flirts able to rescue each other without adapters would seem to be the sensible course of action.

 

And BR set off down this road with sprinters.

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1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

There's a non negligible amount of freight around, but once you get towards London where disruption would be worst, the nearby trains will mostly be the new Bombardier units. Having those and flirts able to rescue each other without adapters would seem to be the sensible course of action.

 

And BR set off down this road with sprinters.

 

Before that even, with Class 313 of 1976 having Tightlock couplers, while the contemporaneous Class 312, working over much the same routes, did not !

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2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

There's a non negligible amount of freight around, but once you get towards London where disruption would be worst, the nearby trains will mostly be the new Bombardier units. Having those and flirts able to rescue each other without adapters would seem to be the sensible course of action.

 

And BR set off down this road with sprinters.

 

The current bombardier units on the shenfields probably wont be able to rescue stadlers as even if the couplers are the same height the braking systems are completely different. 

When new all sprinters and 14x units carried adaptor couplings and main res adapters to release parking brakes

The first 150s and 151s had PBL air brake which could be operated by any air braked loco

Going away from this system was a retrograde step. The two 150s were converted to westcod2e and the 151s withdrawn 

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1 hour ago, ruggedpeak said:

Fortunately this was ticking over at Colchester

 

 

IMG_20200203_1957429.jpg

 

I'm on that Wednesday and Thursday afternoon at least cab lights are bright to read by but little cabs no good for sitting there hours.  Hope I get a job

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4 hours ago, ruggedpeak said:

Need to park it somewhere else - wind was blowing the diesel fumes up the platforms!

 

Having the loco in a state where is can be left shut down and reliably started if/when needed would be a good idea.

 

In Europe locos tend to be plugged into a electrical ground supply, presumably to keep the batteries topped up and for engine heaters in winter.

 

As well as not chucking out diesel fumes for hours on end there must be a reasonable saving on fuel costs.

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5 hours ago, admiles said:

 

Having the loco in a state where is can be left shut down and reliably started if/when needed would be a good idea.

 

In Europe locos tend to be plugged into a electrical ground supply, presumably to keep the batteries topped up and for engine heaters in winter.

 

As well as not chucking out diesel fumes for hours on end there must be a reasonable saving on fuel costs.

 

And how does the driver keep warm when its shut down, it also takes about 15 to 20 min to get up and running which in the peak can mean a considerable bottleneck 

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20 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Probably shows that a 50+ year old 37 isn't the ideal tool for that particular job.

No doubt it could be fitted with shore supplied pre-heaters and domestics, but at a cost (and it would need to park by a shore supply).

 

And what would be the ideal tool then? As noted it needs to be ready to go within minutes, be fitted with the right sort of coupler, etc.

 

Given that GA / Stadler presumably don't regard having a 37 hanging round at Colchester as a permanent solution to the 745/ 755 woes, what else is there that would do the job any better.

 

Granted  in  this environmentally conscious having the ability to plug a loco into a shore supply is undoubtedly the right thing to do - but providing said shore supply and retro fitting is not cheap and thus struggles to get past the Bean counters.

 

Its the same with airports - Heathrow is trying to get Government grants to pay for adding high capacity shore supplies that enable aircraft engines to be shut down while parked (as opposed to idling) rather than fund the works all on their own.

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Just now, phil-b259 said:

And what would be the ideal tool then? As noted it needs to be ready to go within minutes, be fitted with the right sort of coupler, etc.

Probably something more modern which can be left with the engine off, rather then idling for hours on end (burning diesel, creating fumes and glazing the cylinder liners).

 

Not that we have them over here, but when I was in Finland I saw an old (Soviet built IIRC) diesel loco which had an auxiliary engine that was used (under load) to keep the loco ready to go and they only started the main engine about 2 minutes before departure.

 

So a 37 that has to be left running isn't the ideal tool, though I'm not saying that we actually have a better one immediately available.

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