Greater Anglia's Stadler Flirt - Class 745 & 755

[beast66606]

2 minutes ago, Satan's Goldfish said:

Held at the Brandon level crossing by a 755/3 in service on it's way to Norwich at 0630 this morning. First time I've noticed a /3 with customers on the Breckland line.

 

There's been a /3 on the service most days for the last week or so, due to the way the units move between Yarmouth / Lowestoft / Cam / Stan A routes they can drop in at any time of the day and then vanish again after an out and back.

[DavidB-AU]

 

[beast66606]

Felixstowe / Ipswich services have started the day operated by 156417 - which leaves on Friday

 

05:40, Colchester - Peterborough required a reboot at Thurston.

[ruggedpeak]

13 minutes ago, DavidB-AU said:

 

Oh dear, I think he will riding the "old trains" for some time to come.

[DY444]

On 27/01/2020 at 19:21, Fenman said:

But it seems the Swiss-owned company with no experience of the U.K. market was much faster to delivery than the Canadian-owned company that’s probably supplied more trains to the U.K. market than anyone else.

 

Depends what you're looking at.  For instance most of the GWR 387s were delivered to Bletchley, did two trips to Crewe and two to Brighton and then were handed over to GWR.  If you're talking about the 710s then yes there was a lengthy delay but check out the failure rates relative to the Stadler units since entry into service.  The 710s are not brilliant by any means but I bet GA would rip your arm off right now to swap positions.

 

I have always held the view it is better to deliver late than to deliver on time and for the product to be unreliable.     

[4630]

Richard Clinnick from Rail is reporting on Twitter that Stadler are now 'sending in the cavalry' to help resolve the issue.  From the text I think it's referring to yesterdays sit down of a 745.

 

Link to Twitter

 

[Zomboid]

387s were the latest in a long line of electrostars though, whereas the Flirts are the first time Stadler have built a bi-mode unit for the UK. Aside from both being trains there's not a lot of commonality there.

[ruggedpeak]

10 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

The train came to a stand between stations on a very busy section of four-track main line.  There is no end-door egress from these trains meaning that the only option available is to de-train to one side or another.  In this location that would require shutting all four lines (for safety) for around an hour which would have caused much more dislocation and chaos than having one train blocking one line.  In the end and with the failure of the rescue loco to rescue the failure owing to coupling issues the only sensible decision was to evacuate train-to-train alongside which at least allows two lines to continue in operation. 

Anyone who thinks trapping people for hours due to the abject inability of the rail industry to respond to a simple and entirely predictable set of circumstances needs to be fired. The sensible solution was shut the lines and detrain, so GA/NR/whoever could then demonstrate their unique skillset in not being able to resolve the problem quickly and effectively.

[ruggedpeak]

9 minutes ago, 4630 said:

Richard Clinnick from Rail is reporting on Twitter that Stadler are now 'sending in the cavalry' to help resolve the issue.  From the text I think it's referring to yesterdays sit down of a 745.

 

Link to Twitter

 

Presumably because it is now starting to do reputational damage to Stadler. Not helped by GA/NR/whoever thinking it was a good idea to leave passengers stuck for hours unnecessarily due to technical failures. That decision was of course not Stadler's fault AFAIK but they will be suffering additional bad press from the inability of people on the ground to resolve these situations with the minimum of fuss to the punters. Not great for future UK sales of FLIRT's or other Stadler products.

 

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?

 

 

[russ p]

1 hour ago, Satan's Goldfish said:

 

Last time I was passing Riverside, both ploughs were facing the same direction. Do you connect to the first plough, turn around at Crown Point, then come back to put the 2nd on the other end?

 

That's correct,  I'm turning one of them today .

As there is two large logo 37s working it tomorrow shame I can't get the network rail stickers off them and replaced with independent snowplough Norwich! 

[russ p]

4 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

Presumably because it is now starting to do reputational damage to Stadler. Not helped by GA/NR/whoever thinking it was a good idea to leave passengers stuck for hours unnecessarily due to technical failures. That decision was of course not Stadler's fault AFAIK but they will be suffering additional bad press from the inability of people on the ground to resolve these situations with the minimum of fuss to the punters. Not great for future UK sales of FLIRT's or other Stadler products.

 

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?

 

 

 

No need for mk5s just power doors on mk3s absolutely nothing wrong with those coaches 

[beast66606]

45 minutes ago, 4630 said:

Richard Clinnick from Rail is reporting on Twitter that Stadler are now 'sending in the cavalry' to help resolve the issue.  From the text I think it's referring to yesterdays sit down of a 745.

 

Link to Twitter

 

 

Specialist engineering team from Stadler apparently (according to local news this am)

[woodenhead]

Watching the Geoff Marshall video shows the concept is fine and the trains themselves are good but there is clearly an engineering issue.

 

Is the issue maybe though, not necessarily the train but the testing, have GA been forced to implement the new trains before they are acceptable because of the need to cascade.

 

This looks like an APT thing to me, trains built, need thorough testing and in order to meet the needs of others (PR and the Government in the case of the APT) the trains acceptance testing has been cut short.

[caradoc]

43 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

Anyone who thinks trapping people for hours due to the abject inability of the rail industry to respond to a simple and entirely predictable set of circumstances needs to be fired. The sensible solution was shut the lines and detrain, so GA/NR/whoever could then demonstrate their unique skillset in not being able to resolve the problem quickly and effectively.

 

36 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

Presumably because it is now starting to do reputational damage to Stadler. Not helped by GA/NR/whoever thinking it was a good idea to leave passengers stuck for hours unnecessarily due to technical failures. That decision was of course not Stadler's fault AFAIK but they will be suffering additional bad press from the inability of people on the ground to resolve these situations with the minimum of fuss to the punters. Not great for future UK sales of FLIRT's or other Stadler products.

 

As a retired railwayman who dealt with more train failures than I care to remember, I can assure you and the other critics on here that no-one in the rail industry thinks 'it is a good idea to leave passengers stuck for hours'. When a train comes to a stand nobody can possibly know how long the incident will last; As mentioned elsewhere in this topic, sometimes a simple (albeit slow) reboot is enough to clear the fault; Or if a total failure, assistance will be provided to move the train, as was indeed attempted here although without success; Again, nobody could know that that procedure would fail until it was tried. In other words, this particular train failure was anything but 'simple and entirely predictable'.

 

So instead, to detrain the passengers, close all four lines of a very busy railway- For how long ? Bearing in mind staff and equipment would have to be on site to safely evacuate passengers, some possibly elderly or disabled, some no doubt with luggage, onto the ballast, in winter, and then escort them, stumbling along the ballast while avoiding rails, cables, drains, AWS magnets, TPWS grids, OLE masts, red bonds, etc; To where ? How far away from the train was the nearest place passengers could leave the railway ? And once they are off the railway, if the access point was not at a station, then what do you do with them ? To think that such a train evacuation can be carried out with the 'minimum of fuss to punters' is, quite frankly, ludicrous. And apart from those on the train, how much disruption would be caused to the thousands of other 'punters' while the railway was shut for an unplanned, indefinite and probably extended period ? Bear in mind also that every single train already en route towards the location would have to be stopped in a platform - Is that even possible, if not yet more passengers would be stranded, for an unknown period. 

 

No-one, including me, doubts that being stuck on a train for such an extended period was an unpleasant and frustrating experience, but it was not dangerous, and thankfully such problems are extremely rare. There will certainly be a full investigation into this incident, involving Network Rail, Greater Anglia and Stadler, and it may well be that, knowing now how the incident unfolded, some things might have been done differently; But nobody, not even railway staff, can see into the future, and they can only deal with each successive additional problem as and when it occurs, and to the best of their ability, and I am sure that this was done here.

 

 

[Siggie in the east]

1 hour ago, russ p said:

 

No need for mk5s just power doors on mk3s absolutely nothing wrong with those coaches 

I agree. Chiltern have done it with mk3s, powered plug doors, a dvt and 68s and they're brilliant. DVTs are a bit dated but they work.

[Fenman]

2 hours ago, DY444 said:

 

Depends what you're looking at.  For instance most of the GWR 387s were delivered to Bletchley, did two trips to Crewe and two to Brighton and then were handed over to GWR.  If you're talking about the 710s then yes there was a lengthy delay but check out the failure rates relative to the Stadler units since entry into service.  The 710s are not brilliant by any means but I bet GA would rip your arm off right now to swap positions.

 

I have always held the view it is better to deliver late than to deliver on time and for the product to be unreliable.     

 

I'm talking about the fleet of Bombardier EMUs that was supposed to have been delivered to GA...

 

Paul 

[Sir TophamHatt]

2 hours ago, russ p said:

 

No need for mk5s just power doors on mk3s absolutely nothing wrong with those coaches 

Apart from the rotten chassis - absolutely nothing wrong!

[The Stationmaster]

13 hours ago, russ p said:

I'm taking the ploughs for a test on Thursday,  could be interesting if one fails ahead of it and behind... check mate!

 

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/R00802/2020-01-30/detailed

Simples Russ - just get in there and start pushing - that should clear the line

 

12 hours ago, uax6 said:

One thing which seems not very useful on the Basil's is that it takes about 20mins to reboot them.... Yes that is 20 mins. Who on earth designed the software to require such a long reboot time? Its probably ok on a quiet railway in the foothills of the Alps, but over here that is just going to screw traffic.

 

I do wonder what actually gets put in the tender documents as a specification....

 

Andy G

That is amazing - you could reboot a Class 373 Eurostar quicker than that.  It does seem that once again there has been a rather poor case of specification or an over relience on everything being perfect on the day the train enters public service - which would be quite a novelty when you think about it.

[admiles]

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

 

 

As a retired railwayman who dealt with more train failures than I care to remember, I can assure you and the other critics on here that no-one in the rail industry thinks 'it is a good idea to leave passengers stuck for hours'. When a train comes to a stand nobody can possibly know how long the incident will last; As mentioned elsewhere in this topic, sometimes a simple (albeit slow) reboot is enough to clear the fault; Or if a total failure, assistance will be provided to move the train, as was indeed attempted here although without success; Again, nobody could know that that procedure would fail until it was tried. In other words, this particular train failure was anything but 'simple and entirely predictable'.

 

So instead, to detrain the passengers, close all four lines of a very busy railway- For how long ? Bearing in mind staff and equipment would have to be on site to safely evacuate passengers, some possibly elderly or disabled, some no doubt with luggage, onto the ballast, in winter, and then escort them, stumbling along the ballast while avoiding rails, cables, drains, AWS magnets, TPWS grids, OLE masts, red bonds, etc; To where ? How far away from the train was the nearest place passengers could leave the railway ? And once they are off the railway, if the access point was not at a station, then what do you do with them ? To think that such a train evacuation can be carried out with the 'minimum of fuss to punters' is, quite frankly, ludicrous. And apart from those on the train, how much disruption would be caused to the thousands of other 'punters' while the railway was shut for an unplanned, indefinite and probably extended period ? Bear in mind also that every single train already en route towards the location would have to be stopped in a platform - Is that even possible, if not yet more passengers would be stranded, for an unknown period. 

 

No-one, including me, doubts that being stuck on a train for such an extended period was an unpleasant and frustrating experience, but it was not dangerous, and thankfully such problems are extremely rare. There will certainly be a full investigation into this incident, involving Network Rail, Greater Anglia and Stadler, and it may well be that, knowing now how the incident unfolded, some things might have been done differently; But nobody, not even railway staff, can see into the future, and they can only deal with each successive additional problem as and when it occurs, and to the best of their ability, and I am sure that this was done here.

 

 

 

Well said Sir!

 

The trouble is it's much easier to be an armchair critic and go off half-cocked!

 

I have the utmost respect and sympathy for the GA staff at the coalface who are having to deal with the issues surrounding the new GA fleet.

[DY444]

49 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

I'm talking about the fleet of Bombardier EMUs that was supposed to have been delivered to GA...

 

Paul 

 

They have been held up by the fact that the first in breed (the 710s) were late.  Now the 710s are in service and performing better than the Flirts it is not unreasonable to suppose the subsequent Aventras will perform better from the start than the Flirts too.  Bombardier now have a reputation for being late, Stadler are rapidly gaining a reputation here for trains that don't work very well.  I know which of the two I'd rather have.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

 

 

As a retired railwayman who dealt with more train failures than I care to remember, I can assure you and the other critics on here that no-one in the rail industry thinks 'it is a good idea to leave passengers stuck for hours'. When a train comes to a stand nobody can possibly know how long the incident will last; As mentioned elsewhere in this topic, sometimes a simple (albeit slow) reboot is enough to clear the fault; Or if a total failure, assistance will be provided to move the train, as was indeed attempted here although without success; Again, nobody could know that that procedure would fail until it was tried. In other words, this particular train failure was anything but 'simple and entirely predictable'.

 

So instead, to detrain the passengers, close all four lines of a very busy railway- For how long ? Bearing in mind staff and equipment would have to be on site to safely evacuate passengers, some possibly elderly or disabled, some no doubt with luggage, onto the ballast, in winter, and then escort them, stumbling along the ballast while avoiding rails, cables, drains, AWS magnets, TPWS grids, OLE masts, red bonds, etc; To where ? How far away from the train was the nearest place passengers could leave the railway ? And once they are off the railway, if the access point was not at a station, then what do you do with them ? To think that such a train evacuation can be carried out with the 'minimum of fuss to punters' is, quite frankly, ludicrous. And apart from those on the train, how much disruption would be caused to the thousands of other 'punters' while the railway was shut for an unplanned, indefinite and probably extended period ? Bear in mind also that every single train already en route towards the location would have to be stopped in a platform - Is that even possible, if not yet more passengers would be stranded, for an unknown period. 

 

No-one, including me, doubts that being stuck on a train for such an extended period was an unpleasant and frustrating experience, but it was not dangerous, and thankfully such problems are extremely rare. There will certainly be a full investigation into this incident, involving Network Rail, Greater Anglia and Stadler, and it may well be that, knowing now how the incident unfolded, some things might have been done differently; But nobody, not even railway staff, can see into the future, and they can only deal with each successive additional problem as and when it occurs, and to the best of their ability, and I am sure that this was done here.

 

 

Agree absolutely.  Having become involved - while off duty as it happens - in assisting evacuation from a failed HST (fire on the power car due to vandalism) it is not a simple task and it can require a lot of qualified people to do it properly particularly if passengers have to be walked over any distance because they can, and will, wander off anywhere.  you really need a decent cess path as well because having to walk in the four foot is simply far too dangerous.  and the situation usually is that those staff simply do not exist (and they didn't in BR days either unless you were very lucky).  And yes it does have to be managed because if you don't - as happened on one occasion in the past  - you could end up with a passenger getting killed because they did the wrong thing and did it too soon because there weren't enough staff there to stop them bailing out on the wrong side.

 

Nowadays it is probably easier to bring another train alongside and try to transfer passengers across but that too has its problems - again you need staff and you still have the danger and awkwardness (impossibility for some) of getting people down from the failed train and in thios case up to the other one - luggage, small children, old people,  and all.   The key to it all is very simple - safety of the passengers must come first.

[DY444]

3 hours ago, Zomboid said:

387s were the latest in a long line of electrostars though, whereas the Flirts are the first time Stadler have built a bi-mode unit for the UK. Aside from both being trains there's not a lot of commonality there.

 

For 387s read GA, SWR etc batches of Aventras.  The point being that the 387s show that Bombardier can produce subsequent batches of units and virtually put them straight into service out of the factory so there is no reason to suppose this won't happen with subsequent Aventra builds too.  Would it really surprise anyone if by the end of the year GA's Aventras have entered service and are performing ok whilst the Flirts are still struggling?  Bombardier probably believe they have sorted the worst issues now whilst Stadler clearly have problems and have to get the Flirts right whilst GA try and maintain the service.  In my view that is not a straight forward proposition.   

Edited January 29, 2020 by DY444

[The Stationmaster]

8 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

For 387s read GA, SWR etc batches of Aventras.  The point being that the 387s show that Bombardier can produce subsequent batches of units and virtually put them straight into service out of the factory so there is no reason to suppose this won't happen with subsequent Aventra builds too.  Would it really surprise anyone if by the end of the year GA's Aventras have entered service and are performing ok whilst the Flirts are still struggling?  Bombardier probably believe they have sorted the worst issues now whilst Stadler clearly have problems and have to get the Flirts right whilst GA try and maintain the service.  In my view that is not a straight forward proposition.   

But let's not forget that although it didn't hit the headlines the recent batch of 387s going into service with GWR did have problems - because something was done the way it had been done on previous builds.   Wile it didn't hit services noticeably  - because there were more than enough sets to cover the diagrams - there was a problem and it had to be resolved (which it was) and according to GWR it had led to a few failures in traffic.

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, caradoc said:

How far away from the train was the nearest place passengers could leave the railway ?

A couple of hundred metres at worst to the platform at Maryland.  From where they could have readily been picked up by either a timetabled service or special train once the lines re-opened.  From the location and a little industry knowledge I would have said 45 - 75 minutes total shut-down.  That is not a decision to take lightly (and once again not knowing for certain that the passengers can be cleared in that time) therefore all reasonable options would be attempted before blocking the entire job.

 

As things were about half of the total service was disrupted.  With a line block for something in the region of an hour the entire service for the rest of the day would have been affected.  

[Siggie in the east]

2D79 has just declared itself a failure approaching Boss Hall Jn on the up ESK. 37611 scrambled as 1Z99 from Colchester to attend with Tena pads as the 755 has had an incontinence issue and let all its fuel out into the 4ft.

 

Thanks