Class 442 - Finally back in service on the LSWR.

[Ron Ron Ron]

The refurbished Class 442 Wessex is finally carrying passengers again on the SWR network.

Test runs in passenger service on the Southampton, Bournemouth and Weymouth line, before moving onto the Waterloo - Portsmouth services.

 

This video shows the new interiors, with new first class seating and refurbished seats in standard. The latter were installed new when they were fitted out for the Gatwick Express service.

 

 

 

[Godfrey Glyn]

Great to see the 442s back, in my opinion one of the best looking EMUs and certainly much more comfortable than the 444s which replaced them. Saw these two sets coming through Eastleigh last week, they look OK, certainly the design has lasted well. I gather they haven't replaced the old motors yet which seems bit of a shame if they are hoping to improve the reliability, the old motors will have been looked after but they were inherited from even older EMUs. Looking at the last photo it is clearly authentic to have one bus on the bridge over the track, despite what Graham Muz says!!

 

all the best

 

Godfrey

[phil-b259]

A coat of paint and new seats does nothing to help unreliable (and obsolete) air conditioning, door opening mechanisms (also obsolete), change the fact that the internal wiring in each vehicle is bespoke (done as the shop floor saw fit during the inital build) making repairs / fault finding a pain or the fact that the traction gear is power hungry + inefficient and has a nasty habit of exposing any deficiencies in S&T / traction bonding arrangements which more modern stock can live with.

 

What the 442s desperately needed was a full strip down to bare metal inside and out then a rebuild with completely new systems (doors, air con, traction gear) and a standardised wiring arrangement across all vehicles. 

 

As as such I fear that despite all the warm enthusiasts words or PR put out by SWR their future service record will not live up to all the hype.

[phil-b259]

15 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

The refurbished Class 442 Wessex is finally carrying passengers again on the SWR network.

Test runs in passenger service on the Southampton, Bournemouth and Weymouth line, before moving onto the Waterloo - Portsmouth services.

 

This video shows the new interiors, with new first class seating and refurbished seats in standard. The latter were installed new when they were fitted out for the Gatwick Express service.

 

 

 

 

 

Talk about SLOW door opening times - two fairly narrow end of carriage doors that open with all the speed of an arthritic snail combined with constrained internal passageways will translate into much extended station dwell times.

 

Three decades on since they were built t the railway has only got busier and we should be trying to reduce any scope for delay - not bringing it back!

[Southernman46]

Yay - just in time for the 5 days of strikes next week - thanks very much RMT/SWR for resuming this idiotic conflict - good job I'm on AL and haven't got to experience the usual fecking WOE line chaos that results west of Salisbury ............................

[The Stationmaster]

Atlantics return to Britain's rail network (think about it)

[Ron Ron Ron]

59 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Atlantics return to Britain's rail network (think about it)

 

That must be a slightly veiled reference to some ancient tea making device?

[Suzie]

3 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

That must be a slightly veiled reference to some ancient tea making device?

4-4-2 ?

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, Suzie said:

4-4-2 ?

 

...or 488 ? 

[Enterprisingwestern]

19 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

A coat of paint and new seats does nothing to help unreliable (and obsolete) air conditioning, door opening mechanisms (also obsolete), change the fact that the internal wiring in each vehicle is bespoke (done as the shop floor saw fit during the inital build) making repairs / fault finding a pain or the fact that the traction gear is power hungry + inefficient and has a nasty habit of exposing any deficiencies in S&T / traction bonding arrangements which more modern stock can live with.

 

What the 442s desperately needed was a full strip down to bare metal inside and out then a rebuild with completely new systems (doors, air con, traction gear) and a standardised wiring arrangement across all vehicles. 

 

As as such I fear that despite all the warm enthusiasts words or PR put out by SWR their future service record will not live up to all the hype.

 

19 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 

Talk about SLOW door opening times - two fairly narrow end of carriage doors that open with all the speed of an arthritic snail combined with constrained internal passageways will translate into much extended station dwell times.

 

Three decades on since they were built t the railway has only got busier and we should be trying to reduce any scope for delay - not bringing it back!

 

I wouldn't apply for the post of SWT promotions and publicity manager just yet Phil!

 

Mike.

[TheSignalEngineer]

22 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

 

I wouldn't apply for the post of SWT promotions and publicity manager just yet Phil!

 

Mike.

My son was in London doing an MSc in Transport Planning around the time of Privatisation. One project the Department had involved him in interviewing passengers at Waterloo coinciding with the fiacso of SWT increasing the number of trains and getting rid of lots of drivers. Fortunately he stands about 6'6" tall and is built like a brick outhouse. He needed to be, standing on the concourse asking passengers about the quality of the service whilst wearing an SWT sweatshirt.

[jim.snowdon]

21 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 

Talk about SLOW door opening times - two fairly narrow end of carriage doors that open with all the speed of an arthritic snail combined with constrained internal passageways will translate into much extended station dwell times.

 

Three decades on since they were built t the railway has only got busier and we should be trying to reduce any scope for delay - not bringing it back!

Although that matters rather less on services with only a few stops, such as those for which they were originally built, where the speed between stops is more significant than the dwell time at those stops, especially if there are no stops (such as Clapham Junction) in the most congested parts of the line.

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

“the traction gear is power hungry + inefficient “

 

Hmmmm ....... the reason it was re-used last time round is that, on services with very few stops, it isn’t.

 

A train on a “fast” service gets through the resistance notches and on to weak-field relatively quickly, and thereafter is highly efficient.

 

If used on services with a lot of stops, yes, it will be in resistance notches, making toast, for a high proportion of the time, so a lot depends on the services they are used on.

 

No regen, but again that is of far less significance on services with few stops.

[Zomboid]

The Portsmouth line isn't especially non-stop, though if they do actually provide the new traction kit then that won't matter too much.

 

They are pretty power hungry, but that's how you get a high power output.

[jim.snowdon]

2 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

The Portsmouth line isn't especially non-stop, though if they do actually provide the new traction kit then that won't matter too much.

 

They are pretty power hungry, but that's how you get a high power output.

So, for those not familiar with the Portsmouth line timetables, what is the usual stopping pattern for the services on which they are going to be used?

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

I don't think there have been "fasts" on the Portsmouth Line for a long time now, the best being "semi", and it is both a steep and twisty route. Its not like going to Southampton, which is relatively flat and straight. So, I think Zomboid is right, not the ideal line for a resistance-controlled train in this day and age, if power efficiency was the first priority.

 

I'm out of touch with SR EMUs, these were "the latest thing" when I left BR(S), so I don't know how the installed power compares with other classes, but 300+hp/car ought to allow decent performance on the gradients.

 

REPs were more fun, though!

 

 

[Not Captain Kernow]

The 442s previously covered off-peak workings on the Portsmouth direct and were taken off because of the frequent stops, long station dwells and not particularly great acceleration from what I remember.

 

The standard "fast" stopping pattern at that time was Waterloo, Woking, Guildford, Haslemere, Petersfield, Havant, Southsea and Harbour.  The current fast pattern has all of those and adds Godalming as well.  Be interesting to see how well they perform this time!

Edited June 16, 2019 by Not Captain Kernow
spelling correction!

[jim.snowdon]

Nonetheless, they will spend most of the time running "off notches", ie with all the resistances cut out. The current drawn will simply be a function of the train's balancing speed on the varying gradients. With the motors running in full series, or full parallel, including the weak field steps, they are really quite efficient, so that the power consumption is very largely down to that required to overcome air and rolling resistance. That is a function of the train, not its traction equipment.

 

Jim

[Not Captain Kernow]

The bigger problem will be the loading times at Woking and Guildford in particular.  Haslemere and Petersfield in the peaks produce good loads as well, all trying to squeeze through those end doors.

[jim.snowdon]

The significance of longer loading times depends on the time available before the next train requires that platform. Neither Woking nor Guildford are exactly two platform stations, and there is probably not a lot of difference between the loading times for a 158 and a 442, or a 444 for that matter. They all have relatively narrow doorways, two to a carriage. The busiest of all of the stops, in terms of headways and platform occupation times is going to be Woking.

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

That is what might be called a pure railwayman's view.

 

To a commuter using busy trains for fairly short trips, having to get in and out of end-doors only is a right PITA, and has always caused discontent (except at Tunbridge Wells, where the commuters had an incredibly well self-ordered regime for boarding the old DEMUs, which the casual traveller breached at peril of being "accidentally" winded with a jab to the solar plexus from a tightly rolled copy of the Daily Telegraph).

[Zomboid]

9 hours ago, Not Captain Kernow said:

The standard "fast" stopping pattern at that time was Waterloo, Woking, Guildford, Haslemere, Petersfield, Havant, Southsea and Harbour.  The current fast pattern has all of those and adds Godalming as well.  Be interesting to see how well they perform this time!

For comparison, the fasts on the Bournemouth line stop at Woking or Basingstoke (both on Sundays), Winchester, Southampton Airport and Southampton Central over the same kind of distance. Things slow down a bit after Southampton, and they're essentially all stations after Poole, but still a lot more high speed weak field running.

 

They have pretty poor acceleration too - even compared to how I remember the old MK1 units, and certainly of measured against a 450/ 444. It'll be interesting to see how they do at maintaining schedules on the Portsmouth line.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

It strikes as a non informed non local observer, that the benefit of having some trains to run extra services provided fairly cheaply is a complete waste of time due to all the foregoing massive problems that have been mentioned. As the option would seem to be no trains or extra services, I think this is most peoples preferred option?

 

Mike.

[Fenman]

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

For comparison, the fasts on the Bournemouth line stop at Woking or Basingstoke (both on Sundays), Winchester, Southampton Airport and Southampton Central over the same kind of distance. Things slow down a bit after Southampton, and they're essentially all stations after Poole, but still a lot more high speed weak field running.

...

 

Whereas when they were introduced (and presumably therefore what they were designed for) the “fasts” ran non-stop between Waterloo and Southampton Airport (cunningly timetabled to take exactly 59 minutes. In those pre-Chunnel days BR advertised that, door-to-door, if you were starting in central London it was faster to fly London-Paris via Southampton Airport rather than trekking all the way out to Heathrow). 

 

Like many mainlines, the InterCity-style service on the L&SW has been killed in favour of semi-fast commuter traffic. 

 

The Wessex Electrics were such a huge advance in passenger comfort over the REP/TC combo, particularly with the hushed quiet and the aircon, that I have very fond memories of them. 

 

Paul

Edited June 17, 2019 by Fenman

[stovepipe]

Apparently they have a new AC traction package, so not sure if all that stuff upthread actually applies?