Hitachi trains grounded

[Mike_Walker]

1 minute ago, uax6 said:

 

Mr Vine is a terrible broadcaster, not a touch on JY, and seems to have an editiorial staff that is equally badly informed, his program is the only one of R2 that actually makes me want to throw the radio down the box steps....... I'm guessing they will wheel in Christian Wholmer as well, another badly informed fool. Roger Ford would be the bloke I'd call.

 

Andy G

Better off listening to The Goons on R4 Extra instead - probably makes more sense!

[eastglosmog]

The way some posters on our local website are complaining and pontificating, you would think GWR was responsible for the cracks and should be able to repair the all the Class 8**'s in 5 seconds or provide replacements for them all at the drop of a hat.  I despair of some peoples comprehension of problems at times!

[2mmMark]

1 hour ago, ess1uk said:

It’s ok

Jeremy Vine is going to sort it out today on Radio 2

That bicycling bellend!  I wouldn't give a penny-farthing for his thoughts.

[APOLLO]

Interesting photo re the amount of Aluminium welds on these trains. Quite complex up front.

 

 

Brit15

[Fat Controller]

11 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

As far as I can tell, at the moment we have no idea whether it's a specification, design, material, manufacturing, maintenance or some other problem.

Or a combination of several/ all of the above.

[ardbealach]

9 minutes ago, uax6 said:

 

Mr Vine is a terrible broadcaster, not a touch on JY, and seems to have an editiorial staff that is equally badly informed, his program is the only one of R2 that actually makes me want to throw the radio down the box steps....... I'm guessing they will wheel in Christian Wholmer as well, another badly informed fool. Roger Ford would be the bloke I'd call.

 

Andy G

Funny you should mention Wolmar -   This irrelevant piece of nonsense made it into the 'Letters to the Editor' in today's Times.   The problem is that people believe what Wolmar puts into print.  [Alisdair] 

[jonny777]

8 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

Funny you should mention Wolmar -   This irrelevant piece of nonsense made it into the 'Letters to the Editor' in today's Times.   The problem is that people believe what Wolmar puts into print.  [Alisdair] 

 

 

Which part of his description of the withdrawal of Blue Train services, and temporary restoration of the steam service, do you consider to be nonsense? 

 

 

[D1072]

The photo posted above by Apollo of the failed yaw damper bracket shows us why that issue is safety critical.

Those of us who are old enough, or who follow Class 52s will be aware of the West Ealing accident of December 1973 in which a loose battery box door struck a point motor and operating rods causing a derailment with multiple fatalities.    The shock absorber and bracket appear considerably heavier than the battery box door.

 

I have not seen any photograph or report which details the potential consequences of the jacking point fracture - but with cracks up to 285mm length reported this is obviously very serious.

Adding to what Bernard Lamb says about welding stainless steel - if you look up welding aluminium, there is a wikipedia article aimed at artisans (perhaps building vehicle trailer bodies in a garage or similar) which outlines the extra problems.    Having removed the protective oxide layer, you need to heat the aluminium to 150 to 200 degrees before commencing to weld under an inert argon blanket.  Oxygen is excluded because you don't want alumina forming in the weld, and you don't want the aluminium to catch fire.   

 

Having to conduct safety critical welding on a piece which is effectively underneath the bodywork, when you are dealing with molten metal is not going to be easy.    Aluminium melts at 660C, so you also have to think about what that means for metal recrystallisation in the heat affected zone around the weld - the bigger the weld the larger area will be affected.     So there is likely to be a lot of design work going on to produce a repair method.

 

There will almost certainly be a need for specially trained welders - I once worked with small high pressure steel vessels, where specialist welders only retained their certification for weeks.

[D410Monarch]

4 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

 

Which part of his description of the withdrawal of Blue Train services, and temporary restoration of the steam service, do you consider to be nonsense? 

 

 

Christian Wolmer is suggesting that to be able to re-introduce the older stock within 48 hours and restore the service isn't the way to do it now , why not ? that sounds like exactly what we could do with right now ,surely better than cancelling everything with no solution in sight ?

[FraserClarke]

23 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

This irrelevant piece of nonsense made it into the 'Letters to the Editor' in today's Times

 

He is I'm sure quite right - and completely missing the point...  I'm sure the same could have been done by GWR/LNER had this problem happened 1 month after they introduced the class 80x... then it would be dead easy to just pull a few more of the HSTs / Class 91s etc and keep using them for a few months more. Five years down the line it's a different matter...

 

(Blue trains were introduced in November 1960, so presumably by December 1960 the "former steam service" was still pretty much intact!) 

Edited May 11, 2021 by FraserClarke

[Afroal05]

16 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?

 

Yes it was 800014 that failed. It depends what we define as a 'planned visit'. 1L18 was not originally planned to terminate at BPW and it should have worked 1B17 back out of Reading. Unfortunately 800014 is carrying a diesel only restriction at the moment and would not have been able to complete the diagram without running out of fuel. 1L18 was terminated at Bristol Parkway and slung onto Stoke Gifford for fuel. After fuelling it required a prep and during this a technician found cracks that they were not happy with and that was game over for '014.

Planned that it was known at 0500 that it wouldn't have enough fuel for the day and the trip to depot was arranged but unplanned in that any passengers travelling would have expected 1L18 to run through to Reading!

 

Whilst I know nothing concrete, the arrival of some mk3 HST stock and all Exeter and Plymouth crews being asked if they still signed HST slam door stock (as they are treated as different traction for crew knowledge purposes) it might be a fair assumption that a new 2+4 might be created to create another resource in Devon and Cornwall where there is now little to no room for failure amongst the GWR fleet. Perhaps 2+2 does equal 2+4?

 

15 hours ago, MarshLane said:

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

There are indeed some 387s on their way from C2C, 387301-306 are the numbers being bounced around. There was a hope that they could run under their own power onto the GWML today but I believe this is not possible because of a section of North Pole depot that they would have to traverse isn't energised. (My geography of track in London is poor though so I cannot verify that). Allegedly ROG have no 57s available to go and collect them and it may require GWR and 57306 to make a collection from East Ham. This would push their arrival back by a day or so and it isn't expected to see them in service before Thursday at the earliest.

 

There are 3x short formed diagrams in the Thames Valley today to release enough units for 3x 12 car formations working an hourly SWI-DID-RDG-PAD service which started today.

Interestingly the GWR paperwork that signed them off to work to Swindon appears to say they are approved for use through to Cardiff for the next few months. 

 

As for the XC HST - it is still on the SWI-BRI circuit today, it was expected to be swapped out so that the set that was at Neville Hill could end at Laira for powercar maintenance. I believe Neville Hill kindly did the exam so it may be the HST stays on the Swindon circuit all week. The 1030 BRI-SWI HST was well loaded this morning and it would be uncomfortable on a Voyager so I hope the HST stays.

 

2 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

There's a photo doing the rounds on a private railway staff FB group that shows one unit where the yaw damper (I think it's called) detached from the body underside, with what appears to be the bogie frame fractured. The item is a lengthways shock absorber. I have a relative who is a railway fleet engineer and he says they have been aware of this problem for over 6 weeks.

 

If there's any Lost Boys on here (Phil b?) you can see the picture on that group.

 

The yaw damper cracks and the lifting point cracks are two separate things. A number of units were stopped for yaw damper cracks over the last few weeks and the public wouldn't have really noticed (there was the odd shortformed service because of it) but the lifting point cracks are the pandemic that has shut the rest of the fleet down.

But both sets of cracks are causing chaos together - there were 5 units cleared for traffic on Sunday that didn't have lifting point cracks, 2 were then stood down for yaw damper cracks.

 

The situation is still incredibly fluid and one moment there's a suggestion there will be 47 units with a dispensation tomorrow and then it's 8 and then it's back to just '006 and '009 chugging around.

 

The units that are abandoned at Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford and Oxford are to be inspected over the next few days and a decision on where they can move and how fast they can go.

[ardbealach]

2 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

 

Which part of his description of the withdrawal of Blue Train services, and temporary restoration of the steam service, do you consider to be nonsense? 

 

 

The Blue Train problem  - although serious at the time - only affected the Glasgow Suburban north lines.   It wasn't nationwide.  It was also at a time when the previous steam service had just been withdrawn and steam locomotives were still available, along with the redundant steam passenger rolling stock, to run the revised service until the problem was resolved.  You may recall that the later rationalisation of the mid sixties  had all that spare stock scrapped.  Today there is no spare similar stock and locomotives lying around which can be pulled into service.

 

The irrelevance in the letter - which seems to me to be pushing on the  door of 'nationalisation is better' agenda - and I am not getting into a debate on the politics of that topic - does not add anything to the present problems of highly sophisticated rolling stock and the TOCs  have to deal with the problems. [Alisdair]

[jonny777]

10 minutes ago, D410Monarch said:

Christian Wolmer is suggesting that to be able to re-introduce the older stock within 48 hours and restore the service isn't the way to do it now , why not ? that sounds like exactly what we could do with right now ,surely better than cancelling everything with no solution in sight ?

 

No he isn't suggesting that at all. 

 

You need to learn to read between the lines. 

 

He is using the analogy to make his point, which is a subtle nudge towards the private vs nationalisation argument. The letters editor will love this kind of thing, because it is his/her job to stimulate a lively discussion. 

[Flittersnoop]

20 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

The Blue Train problem  - although serious at the time - only affected the Glasgow Suburban north lines.   It wasn't nationwide.  It was also at a time when the previous steam service had just been withdrawn and steam locomotives were still available, along with the redundant steam passenger rolling stock, to run the revised service until the problem was resolved.  You may recall that the later rationalisation of the mid sixties  had all that spare stock scrapped.  Today there is no spare similar stock and locomotives lying around which can be pulled into service.

 

The irrelevance in the letter - which seems to me to be pushing on the  door of 'nationalisation is better' agenda - and I am not getting into a debate on the politics of that topic - does not add anything to the present problems of highly sophisticated rolling stock and the TOCs  have to deal with the problems. [Alisdair]

Is "Sophisticated" now a synonym for complicated and under-engineered?!

 

As for Wolmar's letter; this episode makes a strong case for trains being designed and paid for by the companies that will use them - nationalisation did at least achieve that, and would again.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Flittersnoop

[Banger Blue]

29 minutes ago, Afroal05 said:

There are indeed some 387s on their way from C2C, 387301-306 are the numbers being bounced around. There was a hope that they could run under their own power onto the GWML today but I believe this is not possible because of a section of North Pole depot that they would have to traverse isn't energised. (My geography of track in London is poor though so I cannot verify that). Allegedly ROG have no 57s available to go and collect them and it may require GWR and 57306 to make a collection from East Ham. This would push their arrival back by a day or so and it isn't expected to see them in service before Thursday at the earliest.

 

57306 will pick the units up from Wembley tomorrow to bring them to Reading TCD. Waiting full details from ROG but expected back at Reading around 1330 ish.

There is work required on them when they arrive.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Banger Blue

[65179]

8 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

Is "Sophisticated" now a synonym for complicated and under-engineered?!

 

As for Wolmar's letter; this episode makes a strong case for trains being designed and paid for by the companies that will use them - nationalisation did at lest achieve that, and would again.

 

I think the first point has been dealt with upthread regarding the cost of warm storage and how quickly even 1970s stock degrades without it.

 

Your nationalisation point only holds true if the same arms length for management + tight control on the purse strings arrangement that the old BR had was reintroduced. Without that nationalisation would just mean more interference by DfT which is unlikely to have the desired impact.

 

Simon

[The Stationmaster]

3 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

 

No he isn't suggesting that at all. 

 

You need to learn to read between the lines. 

 

He is using the analogy to make his point, which is a subtle nudge towards the private vs nationalisation argument. The letters editor will love this kind of thing, because it is his/her job to stimulate a lively discussion. 

Quite likely but of course that shows the ignorance of both Wolmar (as he regularly does anyway) and the Letters Editor for one very simple reason - it would be no different at all of the railway was nationalised.  On BR we had - under Govt pressure as well as common sense - trimmed resources down to a level looked at agahst by those running other state owned railways in Europe; putting it another way BR was sweating its assets.

 

Anybody who knew their jobs could have done what was done on Glasgow's north side when the blue trains got into trouble with transformer problems.  There were  masses of spare resources around Scotland let alone elsewhere on BR, staff had only just changed over to new traction so could easily revert, redundant Firemen probably hadn't even been moved on although soem would have left but there were plenty of others to get in from elsewhere if they couldn't be found locally, the steam railway infrastructure was fully intact because there hadn't been time to remove it.

 

Now roll that forward to the late 1980s or BR in the 1990s when resources were much tighter, cascades of stock were commonplace as part of a national plan, traincrew resources were tight on much of the railway, and the circumstances iunder which some things such as platform extensions had to be done in a different way because of changes to the law of the land.  I could - and ona number of occasions did - rewrite the entire WR HST timetable overnight because of various problems (usually infrastructure) but I would have had considerable difficulty magicking a complete replacement for it without cancelling such thinsg as London commuter services to create a pool of stock and traction - but even then the timetable would be very f different with slower trains which automatically meant fewer trains even if I could exactly replicate the number of HST diagrams.  Even if today the WR directly replaced its Class 80X diagram with an HST/DMU mix the IET timetabe wouldn't work, and it would lead a lot more than an overnight rewrite to sort all of it.

 

 As ever Wolmar is effectively talking nonsense because he is talking completely out of context and comparing apples with kiwi fruit.

[Dunsignalling]

The root of the problem may be that engineering design may have become too clever by half.

 

Industry these days is financially driven, with designers and architects having become adept at the creation of equipment and structures that conform to the loadings and lifespans specified by their masters/clients and costed to satisfy the bean-counters, with a bit extra for safety but not much to cover changing demands. 

 

Perhaps we need to revisit the old principle of "if in doubt, make it stout and out of stuff you know about" that served railways so well for their first 150 years. It ain't Formula One, guys.

 

John

Edited May 11, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Siberian Snooper]

4 hours ago, Shedmaster said:

Hi All, Good Morning,

 

Could I ask what the issues are with regards to welding a vehicle please? Simple description preferred....
 

On some of the ARC/YEOMAN ‘JHA’ wagons I used to work with, there was ( I think ) a label stating something like ‘before any welding, phone this number’. So, considering that was a vehicle withOUT any sophisticated electronics or computers, why does it matter? Obviously, I can appreciate you wouldn’t just take the risk of damaging this stuff but I suspect there is some sort of risk attached to the welding process?

 

Many Thanks in advance,

 

Kindest Regards,

 

Shed.

 

Welding can play havoc with roller bearings.

 

[woodenhead]

3 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

 As ever Wolmar is effectively talking nonsense because he is talking completely out of context and comparing apples with kiwi fruit.

He's doing it for the 'Likes' and getting some airtime on TV as it's all been taken up with the Pandemic and other politics.

 

He is preaching to people who want to whinge and will really like what he is saying even though they don't understand the cost of maintaining fleets of ready to roll spares and that the railways were never really denationalised, just outsourced.  From what I recall, the franchising ended when the TOCs had their patronage decimated in March 2020 and the Government took back control of what was being run and when.

[david.hill64]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

ISTR that the 158s were BR's first MUs with aluminium shells, and there was a lot of difficulty in their construction by BREL, including Sunday press items allegedly quoting a frustrated project manager. At least the design and construction seem to have weathered the first 30 years quite well.

My recollection is that the first class 158's also suffered from early failures of the yaw damper brackets due to fatigue cracking. Weld repair of cracks in aluminium is a fruitless exercise. Aluminium, unlike steel, doesn't have a fatigue limit: every cycle of stress causes fatigue damage. In steel, below a certain level of stress, the material can withstand an infinite number of stress cycles. In aluminium you have to make sure that the fatigue stresses are so low that cracking cannot develop. Welding (almost) always introduces small defects that act as stress raisers. If you weld repair an area that is already cracking you will achieve at best a temporary solution.

 

IIRC the affected 158s had to be withdrawn, stripped down, the affected area cut out and a new, stronger, section welded in. A lot of computer modelling was done by BR Research to ensure the repair would be robust (my bridge partner at the time was the head of that section and used to regale me of the progress between hands of cards).

 

So I think that Hitachi is in for a very expensive time to do a redesign and replacement exercise on all affected fleets. I would guess that some clever people are going to do some complex stress analysis and fracture mechanics analysis to determine how big the cracks can be before they represent a real risk of failure. We may well find that an enhanced monitoring regime will enable affected units to return to traffic safely until modifications can be carried out.

 

 I was confused by the references to fatigue cracking of the jacking points. There shouldn't be any stress in these except when in use. Looking at the photos it seems that the jacking point and yaw damper attachment are in the same piece. For the reasons given by Jim Snowdon early in this thread there will be a lot of high frequency low amplitude forces transmitted from the bogie through the yaw damper. I strongly suspect these will be the issue. I can understand that the general public can understand a jacking point but will not have the foggiest idea about yaw damper fixings.

 

As to the question of whether the design should have been better, obviously it should have been. But I have a lot of sympathy with Hitachi. Under the current approval regime they must, by law, comply with the EU Technical Standards for Interoperability and subordinate euronorms called up by these standards.  If the design complies with these standards (and it must), the assessment body is not allowed to question the design. If we go back to BR days enforcement of standards was subject to contract law and failure to comply could only result in worst case as a civil matter. Nowadays failure to comply is a criminal offence. If BR didn't like an aspect of the design then this would have been picked up in design scrutiny and a redesign mandated. Provided BR had a genuine reason the contractor would always comply. Whilst the current suite of euronorms provides a coherent and usually sufficient suite of standards I think we have lost that level of group knowledge that BR had and the industry is poorer for that. If the current suite of standards fails to account for Network Rail's crappy track quality then an issue is inevitable.

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

37 minutes ago, Afroal05 said:

There are indeed some 387s on their way from C2C, 387301-306 are the numbers being bounced around. There was a hope that they could run under their own power onto the GWML today but I believe this is not possible because of a section of North Pole depot that they would have to traverse isn't energised. (My geography of track in London is poor though so I cannot verify that). Allegedly ROG have no 57s available to go and collect them and it may require GWR and 57306 to make a collection from East Ham. This would push their arrival back by a day or so and it isn't expected to see them in service before Thursday at the earliest.

 

 

and all for the want of less than half a mile of electification. If they had done Acton Wells Jcn to Acton East Jcn as part of the CrossRail work they would have been able to swap units around between the two halves without the tunnel being open, been able to shift the 387's from GWR land to Ilford and back without the use of a diesel loco for any work they need that's outside the scope of Reading, and possibly had some freight or open access benefit as well....

[jonny777]

4 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Quite likely but of course that shows the ignorance of both Wolmar (as he regularly does anyway) and the Letters Editor for one very simple reason - it would be no different at all of the railway was nationalised.  On BR we had - under Govt pressure as well as common sense - trimmed resources down to a level looked at agahst by those running other state owned railways in Europe; putting it another way BR was sweating its assets.

 

 

 

Well possibly, but the point about a newspaper letters page is that if it was always filled by pedants arguing the fine detail of a subject, the majority of the readers would soon get bored; and few would be brave enough to throw themselves into a lion's den and write replies. Not good for circulation figures.

 

If, on the other hand, the contributors are being somewhat economical with the actualité, it will encourage those with robust views into an exchange of letters; which is precisely what the letters editor is looking for. 

[Ian Hargrave]

55 minutes ago, D410Monarch said:

Christian Wolmer is suggesting that to be able to re-introduce the older stock within 48 hours and restore the service isn't the way to do it now , why not ? that sounds like exactly what we could do with right now ,surely better than cancelling everything with no solution in sight ?

 
Can I make a well meant suggestion as this is your first post on this forum which is that you read back through this thread where you will discover cogent reasons why this simply is vey difficult and in many cases cannot happen?

[Supaned]

29 minutes ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

and all for the want of less than half a mile of electification. If they had done Acton Wells Jcn to Acton East Jcn as part of the CrossRail work they would have been able to swap units around between the two halves without the tunnel being open, been able to shift the 387's from GWR land to Ilford and back without the use of a diesel loco for any work they need that's outside the scope of Reading, and possibly had some freight or open access benefit as well....

 

Perhaps this episode might focus minds to get that done to make things far simpler in future, especially if it's only a short stretch