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Hitachi trains grounded


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2 hours ago, Afroal05 said:

 

The last advice was 4 days per unit and up to 12 months to return the full fleet.

 

 

If that's correct, then the previously impractical suggestion of bringing back some HSTs starts to look more practical. Whilst checking over the HSTs, carrying out any remedial work and retraining crews isn't something that can be done overnight, so not a solution for a short outage of a few days, even if it takes say three months to reintroduce the HSTs, it's better than a year without a full fleet of 800s.

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1 minute ago, RJS1977 said:

 

If that's correct, then the previously impractical suggestion of bringing back some HSTs starts to look more practical. Whilst checking over the HSTs, carrying out any remedial work and retraining crews isn't something that can be done overnight, so not a solution for a short outage of a few days, even if it takes say three months to reintroduce the HSTs, it's better than a year without a full fleet of 800s.

 

Question is who is going to pay for all that work? Certainly the leasing companies who currently own the Mk3s / Mk4s etc are not going to shell out cash on something that will only be needed for 6-9 months.

 

Train operators meanwhile are being run as management contracts and would require DfT authorisation / finance to instruct leasing companies to do the work.

 

That means the Government will have top cough up - and although inconvenient having the 800s out of action is no Pandemic and in any case Government policy is to cut what they spend on rail not increase it!  Rail use may have increased significantly over the past 20 years but 80% of journeys are still made by road not rail (hence the Government stance that its passengers who should stump up most of the revenue and not the Treasury). Its also worth remembering that the Government would need to give an exemption to said Mk3 stock as it doesn't meet disability rights legislation so is illegal to use on scheduled train services at present.

 

Yes some money might be forthcoming from Hitachi - but only after Laywers have slugged it out in court and that is going to take months if not years to be settled.

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1 hour ago, johnofwessex said:

If we had the 'worse case scenario' does Hitachi have enough money to cope with it or could the company go bust?

The parent company has quite large assets although I don't know how big the debt pile is. They have been selling bits off for years to keep other bits going.

The fun comes with how the group is structured financially as it appears it could be a myriad of subsidiary companies.

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6 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

The parent company has quite large assets although I don't know how big the debt pile is. They have been selling bits off for years to keep other bits going.

The fun comes with how the group is structured financially as it appears it could be a myriad of subsidiary companies.

Most Japanese companies that you've heard of have lots of significant subsidiaries in all sorts of industries, and their corporate structure is, to any Westerner, inscrutable.

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There have been numerous references above to various alternative items of rolling stock which people suggest might be brought back after dusting off the cobwebs.  At the end of the 6pm news on Radio 4 the BBC cheerfully reported that Steam Trains are coming back to the main lines this week.  However it turned out to be a report not about the 800s but the resumption post-covid of railtours and they interviewed a chap about a special which will be hauled by Tornado on the Settle-Carlisle.

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1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Question is who is going to pay for all that work? Certainly the leasing companies who currently own the Mk3s / Mk4s etc are not going to shell out cash on something that will only be needed for 6-9 months.

 

Train operators meanwhile are being run as management contracts and would require DfT authorisation / finance to instruct leasing companies to do the work.


I personally don’t think this part of the topic should become a debate, there are too many options and unknowns etc and it would all by hypothetical and surmising.

 

But remember two key things. Firstly, we are in different times and the train operators are now working under direct DfT instruction at the moment. Secondly, the GWR 800 and LNER 800/801 fleets are operated on a daily payment scheme. Hitachi are required to supply each company with x units for y diagrams. If they fall short they pay a stiff penalty payment for every unit they are short every day-that was described to me by a very senior manager as one area that the DfT did get right with the order! The GWR 802s and TPE sets are similar but different as they were a separate order from the TOC not DfT, through a leasing company.

 

The fact is Hitachi will be quickly racking up a large bill for over 100 sets short every day. Now there may be other clauses that kick in in times like this, who knows?
 

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The last time we faced a crisis in regards to developing the correct train for the future of UK railways in the 1970s we had to quickly find a back up plan, and that was the HST. That stop gap solution worked and is still working.

 

Who knows, this could be the very start of a whole raft of technical issues to plague the IETs. Time we reopened RTC post Brexit and produced a new "stop gap" for the next 50 years!

 

A new bimodal HST power car with coaches between that can be varied depending on route. The UK is not Europe or Japan, our needs are different. Send them back.

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9 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Was up in GW land this afternoon and saw two IETs in service on the Reading - Newport route; 800006 and 800009. So a few are still about.

 

Only 1 today - 800009

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9 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

 

This course of action may not be possible due to the likely axis of the cracks and the orientation and access issues with regard the sections and shapes involved. Frilling holes at the end of cracks was also tried on the class 40 bogies and didn't work overly well with them either !

 

Oh, I totally agree - my post was simply confirming that end drilling is a recognised way of stopping crack propagation - or at least that's the intention...

 

What this business does show, though, is that sometimes theory doesn't always work out. The idea of using aluminium to keep weight down is good, but it's susceptible to damage too, as we can see.

 

Thinking 'outside the box', as it were - is it possible that resonance is at play here? Obviously harmonics can be set up as a consequence of the wheel/rail interface (think 'singing' of the rails as trains approach at speed), and if a node of vibration happens to be in way of these jacking points, with built in stress concentrations due to the welding process when fitting the brackets, then it's conceivable that this is the start of the cracking.

 

Occam's Razor springs to mind...

 

Mark

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21 minutes ago, class26 said:

I wonder (with tongue firmly in cheek) if whilst the fleet is out of action might this be the perfect time to replace those dreadful seats ? 

Didn't someone post up thread somewhere that in order to do any repair welding, much of the interior decor would have to be removed?

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6 hours ago, MarshLane said:


I personally don’t think this part of the topic should become a debate, there are too many options and unknowns etc and it would all by hypothetical and surmising.

 

But remember two key things. Firstly, we are in different times and the train operators are now working under direct DfT instruction at the moment. Secondly, the GWR 800 and LNER 800/801 fleets are operated on a daily payment scheme. Hitachi are required to supply each company with x units for y diagrams. If they fall short they pay a stiff penalty payment for every unit they are short every day-that was described to me by a very senior manager as one area that the DfT did get right with the order! The GWR 802s and TPE sets are similar but different as they were a separate order from the TOC not DfT, through a leasing company.

 

The fact is Hitachi will be quickly racking up a large bill for over 100 sets short every day. Now there may be other clauses that kick in in times like this, who knows?
 

I would have thought that the penalty clause can only be enforced if Hitachi are found to be at fault.

As you say that you do not want a debate on the subject am I correct in thinking that you have a horse in this race?

As an outsider, but a person with direct hands on experience of very large engineering contracts, I find it interesting and would like those who can contribute first hand information to continue to do so.

It seems odd to me that you claim not to want a debate but then you state the case for one party.

Bernard

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10 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

 

 

The method of building trains in the way the 800's have been constructed is to me inherently dangerous as the longitudinal welds offer a perfect "Pea Pod" stress raise in which the entire structure could easily unzip in a crash. Worse still the brittle fracture characteristics of aluminium as were shewn in the method of failure of the structure of the DVT involved in the Great Heck incident. From what I can see of the construction process in the various videos posted, the sections that are welded seem to have a single pass 12-15mm single vee butt weld holding them together, even with a similar weld on the back side of the extruded section, the cross section of weld material will be less than the section of the extrusions joined.

 

 

 

IIRC the mkIV are steel? The accident that had the body peel apart along the welds was the turbo at paddington (or was it the networker at peterborough?). As to a aluminium body train built like a nuclear bunker (just to prove it can be done right) look at the pendo at greygrig? (sorry, my spelling is off due to lack of sleep lol).

 

There was a comment passed about the 91 and mkIV not lasting as long as the HSTs, but this is purely due to economics.  The main transformers were build to last only so long, and they have, the last spare having been used. They could have gone on for a lot longer, but it would have needed ordering new parts for a 30 year old design.

The miles the 91s have clocked up in the 30 years up and down the ECML has been incredible. The HST could not have done it just due to the simple fact of needing to refuel.

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I think that it was Ladbroke Grove where the Turbo peeled apart. However the impact forces of being hit by an HST were totally different to Grayrigg where, fortunately there was nothing coming in the opposite direction.

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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It is wrong to be discussing compensation at this stage as the cause of the problem is not known, it could be Hitatchi,  or the specification being wrong or the track. 

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3 minutes ago, ColinK said:

It is wrong to be discussing compensation at this stage as the cause of the problem is not known, it could be Hitatchi,  or the specification being wrong or the track. 

As maybe on this forum but it hasn’t stopped government ministers from doing exactly that.

 

 

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8 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Question is who is going to pay for all that work? Certainly the leasing companies who currently own the Mk3s / Mk4s etc are not going to shell out cash on something that will only be needed for 6-9 months.

 

 

 

What is unusual in this case is the stock has not been withdrawn for very long, and many were just switched off.  How many have been robbed for spares?  it could be all that is required to return some sets to service is an A exam and a good clean, hardly a massive expense, and something that would really be a running expense rather than a capital expenditure.  I expect a lot of drivers are being paid to twiddle their thumbs right now, so training them up would not be as expensive as it would ordinarily as no extra cover would be required to operate services whilst the driver is being trained.

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1 hour ago, eastglosmog said:

Didn't someone post up thread somewhere that in order to do any repair welding, much of the interior decor would have to be removed?

Repair welding in the same sense as you could do it for a steel structure is likely impossible. You might be able to do something as a short term measure while a proper solution is devised. Welding aluminium is never easy and will not solve the issue which is that the stresses the component is being asked to bear are greater than it can support. Either you need to reduce the loads or beef up the part so that it can do what it needs to.

 

If it goes the same route as the 158's then the bodies will need to be completely stripped, the affected areas cut out and a new section welded in. You might argue that at the same time they could knock 3m off the length of each car which would resolve some of the other issues. (Removes tongue from cheek).

 

So yes the interior is likely to have to be stripped out unless in the last 30 years somebody has found a cheaper alternative.

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15 minutes ago, ColinK said:

It is wrong to be discussing compensation at this stage as the cause of the problem is not known, it could be Hitatchi,  or the specification being wrong or the track. 

Actually it isn't because Agility trains provide trains under a train service contract. If they cannot provide the required number of trains then they are penalised. Arguably it is the only thing DafT got right with the procurement.

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9 minutes ago, Titan said:

 

What is unusual in this case is the stock has not been withdrawn for very long, and many were just switched off.  How many have been robbed for spares?  it could be all that is required to return some sets to service is an A exam and a good clean, hardly a massive expense, and something that would really be a running expense rather than a capital expenditure.  I expect a lot of drivers are being paid to twiddle their thumbs right now, so training them up would not be as expensive as it would ordinarily as no extra cover would be required to operate services whilst the driver is being trained.

It is normal when trains are coming off lease for the maintenance regime to be reduced so that work that isn't essential to keep the trains safe in the short term is not carried out. If you need to return them to service for what is an indeterminate amount of time then rather more than an A exam may be required.

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Outside the box thinking

 

I wonder if anybody has thought of asking Lotus or someone at Boing/Airbus about bonding? Might be easier if a replacement section was just glued into place. Planes have been glued together since WW1, some still flying now.

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11 minutes ago, cheesysmith said:

Outside the box thinking

 

I wonder if anybody has thought of asking Lotus or someone at Boing/Airbus about bonding? Might be easier if a replacement section was just glued into place. Planes have been glued together since WW1, some still flying now.

BREL (or a later naming thereof) came up with a generic design of vehicle that used glued and huck-bolted sections. Taipei Brown line mrt has some examples.

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Glued together ? - Tony Wright would solder them up and add tons of lead, without any problems !!!!!!!

 

What about Pendolinos ?  lots pass my house every day, mostly empty since covid. Can a few be used at least on the ECML ? - Or has the WCML passenger loads increased up to Glasgow & Edinburgh (passengers re routed) ?  Just a thought

 

There are / were some spare Pacers at the new Springs Branch Wigan depot (not been for a while) - Free to a good owner !!!!

 

Brit15

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