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Greater Anglia's Stadler Flirt - Class 745 & 755


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  • RMweb Gold
20 minutes ago, Titan said:

A demonstration of the effectiveness of sanding stopping a sliding train on a 1:16 down hill grade:

 

https://youtu.be/mgfzdvkcCao?t=405

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think I would have liked to have been in the cab of that!

Sad to see its last run a scene now lost forever in the uk , hope the lads got what they wanted in terms of redundancy or new jobs

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  • RMweb Gold
1 hour ago, Titan said:

A demonstration of the effectiveness of sanding stopping a sliding train on a 1:16 down hill grade:

 

https://youtu.be/mgfzdvkcCao?t=405

 

 

 

Thanks for showing that.  It's also a timely reminder that 'Big K' closed 4 years ago this week - 18th December 2015 - the end of deep coal mining in the UK.

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7 hours ago, david.hill64 said:

Actually the reverse. Sand improves adhesion which allows the braking force to be transmitted through the contact patch without causing the wheels to slide. 
Wheelflats are caused by a locked wheel leaving an area of low adhesion and entering one of normal adhesion. The sliding friction at the interface then causes a metallurgical transformation of the steel in the wheel. The resultant compound, martensite, is hard brittle and cracked. It then spalls from the wheel leaving a depression that becomes a flat under the rolling action of the wheel. 
It is perfectly possible to have a flat on only one wheel of an axle if only one rail is heavily contaminated but flatting both is more likely. 

Sanding, for both acceleration and braking has been normal for modern trams for as long as I can remember. But, tramways do not normally have track circuits and signal engineers to cope with. The trains I had responsibility for on the Docklands Light Railway, which were more like trams, did not have sanding, and did suffer from flatting, usually as a result of the ATO equipment getting confused. It's where I came across the martensite problem. The friction at a sliding contact patch not only heats the wheel locally but is enough to cause the metal to smear, creating a flat spot. The resulting scar on the tread is a martensite patch that will them flake out leaving a deeper scar, making the flat even worse, as well as being a pain to turn out. The real oddity was finding narrow martensite trails right round the treads.

 

Getting back to sanding, It was forbidden on the London Underground after a District Railway train disappeared from track circuits near Ealing Broadway a very long time ago (1912 comes to mind), and although every BR loco had sanding, it is something over which signal engineers do seem to get rather apprehensive. The growth in the number of multiple unit trains, with the capability to have sanding distributed over the whole train, combined with the move away from tread braking, probably would not have helped.

 

Jim

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2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Presumably not a problem for axle counters though?

No, which is one of the reasons why axle counters find favour. 
Neither track circuits nor axle counters are required with ETCS 2/3 but are provided for back up. 

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2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Presumably not a problem for axle counters though?

No, which is one of the reasons why axle counters find favour. 
Neither track circuits nor axle counters are required with ETCS 2/3 but are provided for back up. 

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  • RMweb Gold
20 hours ago, russ p said:

Years ago its was frowned upon for some reason  to use sand to retard a slide

I was used especially when loose shunting heavy rakes of wagons with a 350 

Or with class 9s in poor rail conditions. 

We were taught to  pulse the sand to help clear blockages and save sand and air

Exactly so Russ.  On the Welsh Valleys sand was used basically to improve (or in many cases achieve) adhesion for the traction unit and principally when hauling on some valleys because when used for braking it could simply lead to skidding (hence pulsing the sand in order to also avoid a continuous trail of it on the rail head).    Don't forget (I'm sure you won't) that with loose coupled trains on incline working the bulk of the friction to retard movement comes from the wagons and they are basically running on dry rail because it has been 'cleaned' before most of them reach it.

 

Incidentally one point which had  not been mentioned when I drafted this response - Jim has raised it since - is that applying sand can lead to track circuits failing to detect a train (depending on the type of track circuit) and this was a major concern in the early days of track circuiting on the GWR often with Instructions to Drivers not to use sand when on track circuited sections of track.  With low unsprung weight it is, I suppose, a possibility that this could happen nowadays on a train applying sand.

Edited by The Stationmaster
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  • RMweb Gold

Great Moulton

20 December 2019

37611, Pegasus, and 745103 on 5Q09, 11:50, Parkeston H.S. - Norwich C.PT. T.&R.S.M.D (13:27) - unit move

 

Weather was horrendous, torrential rain, lots of standing water, I had to cross two Fords caused by field run off, was diverted due to a bad smash but a 37 under load was worth it.

 

 

DAS845470.jpg

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3 hours ago, Satan's Goldfish said:

 

I don't know if it's because I'm used to seeing the 755/4, but the 755/3 still look a bit... odd. Nothing wrong with them, just different.

I'm the same. When the 755/3 was testing on the sudbury a few nights back I got a photo of it from the psb and all I could think was, I need to add another carriage or my OCD is going to kick off! :(

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  • RMweb Gold

You would think a small single cabbed loco at one end of the train would have been a better idea than that pod thing,  at least they could be swapped over to increase flexibility 

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2 hours ago, russ p said:

You would think a small single cabbed loco at one end of the train would have been a better idea than that pod thing,  at least they could be swapped over to increase flexibility 

 

I do wonder if it is future proofing, will just removing the pod and one bogie create a straight electric, with very few new parts and minimising waste?

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In another universe, Felixstowe to Peterborough & Nuneaton would get wired for freight purposes. Not going to happen in this one though.

 

I would say that there's enough electric mileage on the routes that these will run that it's worth having the electric stuff on a DMU. (Braintree/ Harwich/ Walton? as well as Ipswich to Stowmarket and Stansted to Ely). And if they end up with a different operator who wants pure electrics then that's a viable option for the future.

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  • RMweb Gold
6 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

In another universe, Felixstowe to Peterborough & Nuneaton would get wired for freight purposes. Not going to happen in this one though.

 

I would say that there's enough electric mileage on the routes that these will run that it's worth having the electric stuff on a DMU. (Braintree/ Harwich/ Walton? as well as Ipswich to Stowmarket and Stansted to Ely). And if they end up with a different operator who wants pure electrics then that's a viable option for the future.

 

They just seem very complicated and probably expensive for a local train 

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  • RMweb Gold
8 minutes ago, russ p said:

 

They just seem very complicated and probably expensive for a local train 

Be careful what you wish for, if they don't get the Stadlers to work on the branch lines we'll end up with these:

 

Class-484001-Island-Line-1024x675.jpg

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41 minutes ago, russ p said:

 

They just seem very complicated and probably expensive for a local train 

 

They probably said the same when a Met-Camm replaced a tank loco and a couple of suburban coaches!

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  • RMweb Gold
4 hours ago, Zomboid said:

In another universe, Felixstowe to Peterborough & Nuneaton would get wired for freight purposes. Not going to happen in this one though.

 

Unless capacity is a issue, if it went all electric traction, just send it down the GE mainline and round London.  If they did wire up from Ipswich to Nuneaton, a high number of Intermodal stuff from Felixstowe goes north via LIncoln, so they’d have to wire that up as well.

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13 hours ago, ruggedpeak said:

Be careful what you wish for, if they don't get the Stadlers to work on the branch lines we'll end up with these:

 

Class-484001-Island-Line-1024x675.jpg

 

I'd be very happy with one of those shuttling between Sheringham and Cromer at the moment.

Edited by Pete 75C
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