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59 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Anyone who has split or attached SR EMUs of certain generations knows all about jumpers. 27-way, anyone?

True, excuse the omission by one who never worked "on the juice".

 

John

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3 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

The Southern were always pretty slick at joining and splitting EMU's, not been on an EMU that has joined or split for many a year.

Hi,

 

Still done quite a lot on the Southern Region from what I gather, GWR do it with Class 80xs and Class 387s regularly (although not between the types).

 

Simon

Edited by St. Simon
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12 minutes ago, St. Simon said:

Hi,

 

Still done quite a lot on the Southern Region from what I gather, GWR do it with Class 80xs and Class 387s regularly (although not between the types).

 

Simon

 

A while ago I saw an interesting move at Oxford; A 5-car 800 from the Worcester line arrived in Platform 3 but stopped way back at the north end of the platform. Shortly after another 800 arrived from the south into Platform 3, the two coupled and departed with a minimum of fuss. The folk on the platform where an Up train would normally stop did not seem concerned that the first set was nowhere near them so presumably this is a regular move. 

 

 

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I have travelled on several 800's that joined at Plymouth, they get about 10 minutes to join, on the Southern the train would probably be at the next station in that time, especially in the days of slam door stock.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

I have travelled on several 800's that joined at Plymouth, they get about 10 minutes to join, on the Southern the train would probably be at the next station in that time, especially in the days of slam door stock.

 

 

On those old SR units it was a simple case of hooking up and connecting a few hoses and jumpers or doing the same in reverse.  Today, you have complex systems involving auto couplers (which as Hobby says above) don't always like coupling or even uncoupling on curves whilst the the computers on the two units have to talk to and agree with each other which often they don't.

 

Up thread there was discussion about software updates.  I think we are now up to something like version 60 on the 80x units.  This doesn't always mean they had errors, some are for things like platform lengthening which affects the ASDO (Automatic Selective  Door Opening) and obviously attempting to couple units with differing software updates in such circumstances could prove problematic.  Software updates can take several hours to install (and subsequently test) so with 93 units in the GWR fleet it's obvious it takes some time to do a fleet-wide update.

 

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4 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

A pity they can't do the updates the way Microsoft updates Windows - one hardly notices except that every so often one gets a message not to switch off. And the updates are usually OK.

J

Those updates that always happen when you least want them to, that require a shutdown and restart to complete and can go disastrously wrong.

 

So no, I don't think we want a train doing it's own updates, better to have someone connect to the onboard computer(s), initiate an update and then run a whole host of checks to confirm the vehicle is still safe to use.

 

Leaving a system to look after itself when it has critical implications is not a way to go.

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5 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Anyone who has split or attached SR EMUs of certain generations knows all about jumpers. 27-way, anyone?

Absolutely.  And not a day goes by when we don't miss the ease and speed with which those could be split and joined.  I think 20 seconds was the record for a split at Worthing with a join being completed (outside the rules) in even less since the driver of the attaching portion drove straight onto the lead unit rather than stopping short as required and shunting up.  

 

Not a jumper but a person (or persons) behaving very badly indeed resulted in the Down Slow being blocked at Earlsfield for around 30 minutes this morning.  Some trains were diverted to the Down Fast.  Yours truly was on mic. duty and made sure to announce that this was "Due to an incident between this station and Wimbledon" i.e. not specifying the location as is currently the standard and not knowing much more about what form of disruption was being caused by "Disruptive passengers".  

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1 hour ago, Mike_Walker said:

Up thread there was discussion about software updates.  I think we are now up to something like version 60 on the 80x units.  

 

TMS version 81 now! (The last major update appeared to show a jump from v67 to v81. I didn't dare ask where the other versions went...)

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I wasn't serious about the Microsoft approach as I am aware of the safety issues.  But it would be nice if it could work that way - and work properly - my desktop started to refuse to accept any updates because of a minor corruption of the software. I don't think that would be a good idea on a train.

But if it is causing units to be out of service or unable to couple perhaps there needs to be a more disciplined approach as to when and how updates are done.

Getting up to 80 updates seems a bit ridiculous, even if some of them are simply updating prerecorded messages. If as is constantly stressed the units are tested to death before being introduced why so many changes?

And re incompatibility between the software of 800 variants, I wonder if anything was said about this in the specification.

J

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1 hour ago, Afroal05 said:

 

TMS version 81 now! (The last major update appeared to show a jump from v67 to v81. I didn't dare ask where the other versions went...)

Someone flushed in the station 

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11 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Anyone who has split or attached SR EMUs of certain generations knows all about jumpers. 27-way, anyone?


Never much fun if they had been joined at Portsmouth Harbour and you then had to split at Woking where they would invariably be on the non-platform side!  You needed one arm to hang on while the other two arms were used to detached the jumpers...

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4 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

Getting up to 80 updates seems a bit ridiculous, even if some of them are simply updating prerecorded messages. If as is constantly stressed the units are tested to death before being introduced why so many changes?


Hi,

 

The updates aren’t necessarily ‘fixes’ for errors, some will be updates to enable features or to reconfigure elements as a result of requests from the operators.

 

For instance, when my colleague and I were working on APCO, I think we asked for (and got) a couple of software updates as we realised that elements could be reconfigured to work better, the software wasn’t broken or wrong, we just found that we could improve it.

 

Simon

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1 hour ago, ess1uk said:

Are all sets back in traffic now?

Far from it!  As far as GWR are concerned only just over 2/3 of the fleet are available - don't know about LNER but it's probably not dissimilar.  Two additional GWR sets were stopped last week after the cracks were found to have grown. 

 

We are talking months, possibly years, before this is resolved as it is now thought that due to the nature of the problem all will eventually develop cracks and require repair.  

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7 minutes ago, Mike_Walker said:

Far from it!  As far as GWR are concerned only just over 2/3 of the fleet are available - don't know about LNER but it's probably not dissimilar.  Two additional GWR sets were stopped last week after the cracks were found to have grown. 

 

We are talking months, possibly years, before this is resolved as it is now thought that due to the nature of the problem all will eventually develop cracks and require repair.  

I suppose that once there is some idea of how the cracks develop over time, the repair could be factored into the normal maintenance cycle, though.

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2 minutes ago, 62613 said:

I suppose that once there is some idea of how the cracks develop over time, the repair could be factored into the normal maintenance cycle, though.

Possibly, but the problem is such that the repair required is so invasive it will need to be carried out at a specialist facility.

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Not sure of the source, but I've seen a report that GW estimate the necessary rectification programme will take at least 18 months to implement across their whole fleet.

 

John

Edited by Dunsignalling
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The problem with these multiple units that it only needs one vehicle to have the cracks and that disable the whole unit. The alternative of remarshalling serviceable vehicles into a unit, is as far as I am aware, a non starter.

 

 

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On 26/05/2021 at 14:04, Mike_Walker said:

On those old SR units it was a simple case of hooking up and connecting a few hoses and jumpers or doing the same in reverse.  Today, you have complex systems involving auto couplers (which as Hobby says above) don't always like coupling or even uncoupling on curves whilst the the computers on the two units have to talk to and agree with each other which often they don't.

 

Up thread there was discussion about software updates.  I think we are now up to something like version 60 on the 80x units.  This doesn't always mean they had errors, some are for things like platform lengthening which affects the ASDO (Automatic Selective  Door Opening) and obviously attempting to couple units with differing software updates in such circumstances could prove problematic.  Software updates can take several hours to install (and subsequently test) so with 93 units in the GWR fleet it's obvious it takes some time to do a fleet-wide update.

 

So is this added complexity actually progress? 

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7 hours ago, john new said:

So is this added complexity actually progress? 

It's all to to with safety, the various auto-couplers avoid staff needing to go between vehicles when splitting and joining units.

 

A big opportunity was missed in not imposing greater compatibility at privatisation, but that bird has long since flown.  

 

John

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