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Greater Anglia's Stadler Flirt - Class 745 & 755


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  • RMweb Gold
36 minutes ago, NXEA! said:

No worries! Will keep checking other fora and flickr to see if anyone posts the gen for now. 

 

I suspect it was a shunt move around the depot area, no-one mentioned anything about drags on any of the main lines today and not much escapes our notice !

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10 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

 

I suspect it was a shunt move around the depot area, no-one mentioned anything about drags on any of the main lines today and not much escapes our notice !

Ah right, fair enough! To be honest I'm not sure why it would've gone to Trowse for a shunt manouevre, and the whole formation was facing Norwich when I saw it, so unless the 37 ran round it seems to have come from somewhere? The Tractor went back to its perch in Norwich station sidings around 3pm this afternoon. I did note 08480 parked by the station as well, but that doesn't appear to have been involved in any way. 

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  • RMweb Gold
1 hour ago, Bad79 said:

Has anyone noticed how loud the engines are now getting when running on fuel? I dont know if its one unit or a couple but they/it sounds louder than 37's they replaced. Least you can hear 5 miles up the track when your train has left norwich you can hear it before you see it....

 

Russ was that you today with the MK3s when you were in the rear loco?

 

I was on 402 which lead for most of the day 

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  • RMweb Gold

It might have been asked earlier in this thread but I was wondering if the Class 745’s replaced the Class 153’s, 156’s, 170’s on a like for like basis?  The 3 car versions replacing the 153’s and the two car Class 170’s and the 4 cars replacing the 156’s and 3 car 170’s?

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6 hours ago, jools1959 said:

It might have been asked earlier in this thread but I was wondering if the Class 745’s replaced the Class 153’s, 156’s, 170’s on a like for like basis?  The 3 car versions replacing the 153’s and the two car Class 170’s and the 4 cars replacing the 156’s and 3 car 170’s?

 

Not reallly, 3 and 4 car Basils seem to be used on all routes, except maybe the Sudbury twig, the units seem to be a pool rather than the old days were generally Norwich / Cambridge would be 170 etc.  (I assume you mean the 755s rather than the 745s.)

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I mostly see 4 car sets on the Breckland line, only very occasionally has it been a 3 car.

 

Ref 'are they louder?' ; I visited Brother-in-Law a week or so ago, his garden backs onto the Sudbury twig at Bures, and the comment was made then that they suddenly seemed to have gotten louder over the last couple of weeks (3 car units). However when held by the barriers at Brandon level crossing earlier this week and a 4 car was setting off from the station, it didn't sound any louder than normal. So has something been changed on the 3 car units? Or do the engines have to work harder as there's only 2 rather than 4?...

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32 minutes ago, Satan's Goldfish said:

I mostly see 4 car sets on the Breckland line, only very occasionally has it been a 3 car.

 

Ref 'are they louder?' ; I visited Brother-in-Law a week or so ago, his garden backs onto the Sudbury twig at Bures, and the comment was made then that they suddenly seemed to have gotten louder over the last couple of weeks (3 car units). However when held by the barriers at Brandon level crossing earlier this week and a 4 car was setting off from the station, it didn't sound any louder than normal. So has something been changed on the 3 car units? Or do the engines have to work harder as there's only 2 rather than 4?...

They sound like a hoover really loud. they used to just have a high pitched noise . If you can remember the class 170's used to be loud when they had leafs over the vents. That is how they sound...

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  • RMweb Gold
1 hour ago, Satan's Goldfish said:

I mostly see 4 car sets on the Breckland line, only very occasionally has it been a 3 car.

 

I've seen most (if not all, haven't checked) of the 3-cars on the Brecks -sometimes several different ones in a day

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  • RMweb Premium

Is it as simple as they are now running on more engines? Maybe the AC restrictions meant that to conserve fuel they ran on a reduced number of lumps? The one I saw at Ely certainly didn't appear to start more than three engines....

 

Andy G

Edited by uax6
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  • RMweb Gold

They have a really annoying habit of all the fans stating up and shrieking,, two were doing it at Norwich this afternoon. 

Apparently they have been running too hot and burning valves and melting pistons.

Seems odd as the engines are proven deutz units so it must be something to do with them been enclosed or mismatched cooler groups

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4 hours ago, russ p said:

They have a really annoying habit of all the fans stating up and shrieking,, two were doing it at Norwich this afternoon. 

Apparently they have been running too hot and burning valves and melting pistons.

Seems odd as the engines are proven deutz units so it must be something to do with them been enclosed or mismatched cooler groups

i can see the acle branch from my house and i am sure i can still hear them when they are at stracey arms. they are louder than the 37s. These are ment to be an improvment really??? lads to keep them in service turn the fans up to max, then we can had the keys in because of the coronavirus then as we forked up the order they will be some elses problem . i can see it comming how they can exit

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Not the first time a proven engine has struggled in rail traction application with too small a cooler group. It will be interesting to see how they cope with the desert heat that we will, know doubt, be in in a couple of months time...

 

Difficult to see how a bigger cooler group can be shoe-horned into that tiny power car, is there space under the cars either side to mount extra rads?

 

Andy G

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  • RMweb Gold

I bought a copy of Roger Senior's 'Train Doctor' book from Invicta Models the other day.

 

In the intro it states "We have become used in the last ten years to new fleets that produced excellent reliability 'straight out of the box' or at least over a very short timescale".

 

:lol:

 

The good old days, eh?

 

 

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More like the problems with the engines is either restricted airflow around the engine due to the smaller loading gauge, or as we found out at work, the modern German engines are poor, build down to a price, and it shows with anything and everything going wrong, upto a rather impressive leg out of bed and another that blew its engine whilst coming back from having anew one fitted. 

 

They would have been better sticking a cummins in them lol. 

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Sounds like the install/ Quality is about on  a par with the NBL/MAN locos of the '50s....

 

Why do we think that German engineering is so good? Theres not one BMW out there that has working indicators....

 

Andy G

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I can't understand why the power is in the middle,  surely it would have been better having it at one end in a coach similar to a thumper or a 210. It would not have needed all the armour plating on a central walkway like it has ended up with for the public to walk through 

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  • RMweb Gold
5 hours ago, uax6 said:

Sounds like the install/ Quality is about on  a par with the NBL/MAN locos of the '50s....

 

Why do we think that German engineering is so good? Theres not one BMW out there that has working indicators....

 

Andy G

They only build what customers ask for/are prepared to pay for. To be fair, a number of British engine makes didn't exactly come out of the Modernisation plan covered in glory, either.

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1 hour ago, russ p said:

I can't understand why the power is in the middle,  surely it would have been better having it at one end in a coach similar to a thumper or a 210. It would not have needed all the armour plating on a central walkway like it has ended up with for the public to walk through 

The idea o believe was that the power module and one bogie could be removed to make straight EMUs.

 

It'll probably never happen, but I can understand the thinking.

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43 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

The idea o believe was that the power module and one bogie could be removed to make straight EMUs.

 

It'll probably never happen, but I can understand the thinking.

 

I could see the logic if they weren't ordered for lines that will NEVER be electrified. 

I don't really understand why there are so many bimode ones diesel only trains would have made far more sense for 90% of GA services 

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  • RMweb Gold
On 17/03/2020 at 20:36, beast66606 said:

 

I suspect it was a shunt move around the depot area, no-one mentioned anything about drags on any of the main lines today and not much escapes our notice !

 

They were been dragged from store on MNR

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1 hour ago, russ p said:

 

I could see the logic if they weren't ordered for lines that will NEVER be electrified. 

I don't really understand why there are so many bimode ones diesel only trains would have made far more sense for 90% of GA services 

 

There was pressure from Government for train operators in the franchise process to show some environmental benefits - so need to reduce diesel running under the wires.

 

Nick

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  • RMweb Gold
34 minutes ago, stivesnick said:

 

There was pressure from Government for train operators in the franchise process to show some environmental benefits - so need to reduce diesel running under the wires.

 

Nick

 

But other operators at the same time bought trains that actually suited their needs

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