Hitachi trains grounded

[black and decker boy]

Suggestion elsewhere that GWR are being loaned some 387s from C2C and some 802 (not yet clear if TPE or HT).

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, Coryton said:

 

The speed reductions applied after the Hatfield crash were pretty disruptive and widespread.

Of course they were, the whole network nearly shut down. A reliable source (my boss, sadly since deceased, whose brother was a TOC MD) at the time said that Virgin were taking so little at the ticket office they couldn't even pay the wage bill, let alone pay leasing costs on trains etc. It was a dreadful time. This is at least confined to certain routes only, however starved of service they may be. 

[Ian Hargrave]

Thanks to our forum’s four professional gentlemen for a timely reminder of the consequences of the Hatfield disaster. .However,we are but four days into the current crisis with no end in sight and optimism being  in short supply. We don’t know the extent or seriousness of the problem and the effects it potentially could have on the long term future of the rail industry in the UK.So I’ll suspend judgement until,hopefully,all series 800 are returned to safe revenue earning service with a secure future for all involved in its production and in service maintenance.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Ian Hargrave
Altering text

[stewartingram]

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

No problem, they just have to stick a few more blobs of ally weld on the brackets and it’ll all be fine 

You forgot the WD40, supposed to cure everything! (Biggest Bodger's favourite tool).

[w124bob]

5 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

Hmmm .... wonder what NBL did about galvanic corrosion in 1958 when they put Alupac cab units on to steel frames ? 

Was never a problem as the engines let go first!

[Bernard Lamb]

6 hours ago, phil gollin said:

.

There is no SPECIFIC problem of corrosion between aluminiun and steel, THERE IS A GENERAL PROBLEM between any two different metals (and sometimes even different alloys).  

 

And has been taught to engineering students since at least the early 60's (and known about before).

 

 

All this should be basic bread-and-butter knowledge to a designer.

 

.

 

 

That knowledge did not prevent the, very expensive, cock up at Dungeness  nuclear power station and the almost similar one at Torness that was avoided by a stroke of luck. Other examples are available, but they are two that I had some involvement in. It is but human nature that people will from time to time get things wrong. Fortunately in this case no one died.

Bernard

[40F]

A short set of coaches ex EMR ? on the way to Laira to help out. Should be arriving/arrived at Laira about now

Two short GWR 800s out today 800 006 800 009  

[Banger Blue]

17 minutes ago, 40F said:

A short set of coaches ex EMR ? on the way to Laira to help out. Should be arriving/arrived at Laira about now

Two short GWR 800s out today 800 006 800 009  

They were their normal length i.e 5 cars. I appreciate you probably meant 5 cars as opposed to the 9 car variant.

Don’t want the wibble merchants thinking that duff coaches have been knocked out of a fixed formation!

 

There were originally 3x 800 out on the Reading - Newport shuttle but one (014 I think) failed an inspection after having gone back to Stoke Gifford (planned visit).

 

Is that confirmed about the short set of coaches for use by GWR or has someone seen a stock move heading westwards and put 2+2 together and got 7?

[charliepetty]

The Pacers are Back.  (Or could have been if they were not dumped).

 

They could have released some 195s, 170s and 158's to help out.

 

 

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Just seen in the BBC news channel on the “flying banner” that GWR trains are expecting long delays to service for weeks.

 

That is on the BBC though.....

Probably been told by some guy from RMWeb............

[Gilbert]

43 minutes ago, 40F said:

A short set of coaches ex EMR ? on the way to Laira to help out. Should be arriving/arrived at Laira about now

Two short GWR 800s out today 800 006 800 009  

41117 44047 42100 42220 41063 today at Bristol...

[Gilbert]

18 minutes ago, Banger Blue said:

 

There were originally 3x 800 out on the Reading - Newport shuttle but one (014 I think) failed an inspection after having gone back to Stoke Gifford (planned visit).

 

 

1L18 was stopped at BPW - I also think it was 014

[Gilbert]

XC stand ins...Paignton extended to Swindon,

HST BTM- Swindon shuttle.

[Hobby]

7 hours ago, Ian Hargrave said:

As maybe...but for the best LNER current situation I suggest you look on their website. There are no services north of Edinburgh and KX-LDS service is severely curtailed. As has been posted earlier here,it seems that two 91sets are in preparation for a return to service over the next two days to cover the Yorkshire service.No quick fix here too I imagine though because Azumas are newer I imagine the impact probably won’t be as severe but nonetheless tough enough. For the GWR and its passengers, crews and maintenance personnel this is developing into a calamity and not of their making. Wonder what the bill for all this will finally be....and who will pay. 

 

Went to Leeds today, was there for an hour and saw three different Azumas. 

 

3 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

The speed reductions applied after the Hatfield crash were pretty disruptive and widespread.

 

Too tight! We never got south of Exeter for ages. 

[Coryton]

1 hour ago, Ian Hargrave said:

Thanks to our forum’s four professional gentlemen for a timely reminder of the consequences of the Hatfield disaster. .However,we are but four days into the current crisis with no end in sight and optimism being  in short supply. We don’t know the extent or seriousness of the problem and the effects it potentially could have on the long term future of the rail industry in the UK.So I’ll suspend judgement until,hopefully,all series 800 are returned to safe revenue earning service with a secure future for all involved in its production and in service maintenance.

 

No we don't know what is yet to come, but it would seem rather unlikely that this will somehow spread to directly affect both passenger and freight across pretty much the whole UK network in the way as Hatfield did.

 

 

[Gilbert]

and in vaguely relevant other news...4 91s went to Newport Simms today..

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

5 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

(The Italian manufacturer AnsaldoBreda (an inexperienced newcomer to the industry) won the contract to supply the trains for the new service. After requesting qualifications from a host of train builders, AnsaldoBreda was eventually selected because of their competitive pricing. The price per seat of their trains was about half that of Siemens’ ICE trains, or Alstom’s TGV trains.)

Sounds all too familiar. I was in a meeting with Railtrack late in 1997 for completely remodelling and resignalling from Slade Lane through Stockport to Cheadle Hulme. They said that they wanted it commissioned at 1999 Christmas and New Year holiday period. The judgement of myself and our Pway/OLE colleagues was that it would take about half as long again as they were proposing. I offered completion at Christmas 2000 as we didn't have a job contracted for commissioning during that holiday period at the time. Tongue in cheek I asked the Railtrack side how much they were willing to pay me for warking on the Millennium Bank Holiday.

They said that a foreign company had offered to meet the timescale so we pulled out of the talks. 

The company turned out to be the signalling part of Ansaldo. Despite their promise to do the work by 1999, there is still infrastructure built by the LNWR in the 1880s involved in signalling trains through Stockport. What eventually was done took about 7 years, cost an absolute fortune and was about a quarter of the scope of what we were offering to do in three years.

 

6 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Large-scale problems with the infiltration of water in the trains;

The trams that Ansaldo built for West Midlands PTE were far from watertight. What's more the rain had a direct route to the electrical systems in some of them.

[BoD]

1 hour ago, stewartingram said:

You forgot the WD40, supposed to cure everything! (Biggest Bodger's favourite tool).

No.  It shouldn’t move so you need Duck Tape.

[31A]

On the BBC Look North for the North East and Cumbria, they covered this with a bit more interest than just the ECML being disrupted, as the plant at Newton Aycliffe is within the area that they cover, and they said that the cracks had been found on trains built in Japan but not on ones built in Newton Aycliffe.  They didn't elaborate as to whether the Newton Aycliffe ones were built better, or to a different design (or it might just be that those ones are slightly newer), but may explain why there seems to have been a greater effect on GWR.

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

On 10/05/2021 at 09:45, number6 said:

One of my favourite reads is Summer Saturdays in the West by David St.John Thomas and Simon Rocksburgh-Smith - which details the running of summer Saturday trains. Spoiler: Mostly chaos but got there in the end. 

I was stuck in the middle of it as a young lad on a family holiday trying to get home from St Austell to Birmingham. Possibly one of the best days I ever had for trainspotting but my mother wasn't impressed by 11 hours on a train.

Edited May 11, 2021 by TheSignalEngineer
typo

[TheSignalEngineer]

8 minutes ago, 31A said:

On the BBC Look North for the North East and Cumbria, they covered this with a bit more interest than just the ECML being disrupted, as the plant at Newton Aycliffe is within the area that they cover, and they said that the cracks had been found on trains built in Japan but not on ones built in Newton Aycliffe.  They didn't elaborate as to whether the Newton Aycliffe ones were built better, or to a different design (or it might just be that those ones are slightly newer), but may explain why there seems to have been a greater effect on GWR.

 

Weren't the bodies built in Japan for the trains to be assembled at Newton Aycliffe?

[MarshLane]

3 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

Suggestion elsewhere that GWR are being loaned some 387s from C2C and some 802 (not yet clear if TPE or HT).

 

I have been told three 387s from C2C to assist GWR with capacity as the London Paddington - Didcot workings are extended to Swindon from tomorrow (Driver Only Operation PAD-Didcot, with a guard on board Didcot-Swindon).

 

802s possibly one from Hull Trains, but I gather there is a lot of nervousness as nobody wants to transfer them, then have defects discovered. TPE won't be running north of York tomorrow at all - I believe they could be in single figures for available units now, so none available to transfer, and all are vulnerable to issues to be found.

 

2 hours ago, Banger Blue said:

There were originally 3x 800 out on the Reading - Newport shuttle but one (014 I think) failed an inspection after having gone back to Stoke Gifford (planned visit).

 

Is that confirmed about the short set of coaches for use by GWR or has someone seen a stock move heading westwards and put 2+2 together and got 7?

 

GWR expect to have two 800s available for traffic tomorrow, running the Reading - Newport shuttle, after today's third unit was discovered to have defects.  The XC HST that was on hire today is not available the rest of the week, due to being needed for XC maintenance swap outs.

 

The problem *appears* to affect the bi-modes more than the pure electric sets, from the info I'm being given - but why I dont know.  Discussions are ongoing between DfT, Hitachi, ORR, RSSB and affected TOCs, but the mood in such meetings is said to be far from positive. I gather there is a hope that some sets may be allowed back in to service but with a significant speed restriction, as there is no safety implication to the train itself - but whether ORR will allow that remains to be seen.

 

In terms of numbers, as of lunchtime today GWR had 91 sets (out of 93) stopped, LNER had 24 out of 65 stopped, TPE was 4 (I gather this has risen further now [Clarification: 5 units stopped, plus two for other maintenance as of 2200 10/5/21] ) out of 19 stopped - All Hull Trains are OK and are currently in service.  The ongoing change in numbers is, I am told, because the cracks are VERY difficult to see.

 

Rich

 

Edited May 10, 2021 by MarshLane
Updated information.

[MarshLane]

2 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Weren't the bodies built in Japan for the trains to be assembled at Newton Aycliffe?

 

Yes. Although the 802s for GWR, TPE and HT were built in Italy.

[Coryton]

3 minutes ago, MarshLane said:

The problem *appears* to affect the bi-modes more than the pure electric sets, from the info I'm being given - but why I dont know.  

 

 

The obvious (and therefore probably wrong) answer is that some of the coaches in a bi-mode are heaver than in a pure electric.

 

4 minutes ago, MarshLane said:

I gather there is a hope that some sets may be allowed back in to service but with a significant speed restriction, as there is no safety implication to the train itself - but whether ORR will allow that remains to be seen.

 

 

Having followed all this thread, I'm still non the wiser. What is the problem with running a train with cracks, if there's no safety implication to the train itself? Bits flying off and hitting something?

[Gilbert]

1 minute ago, Coryton said:

What is the problem with running a train with cracks, if there's no safety implication to the train itself? Bits flying off and hitting something?

I believe this to be the case...