ECML Electrification Class 91 Fleet March 2019 Service of 30 years

[Pandora]

This year of 2019 will mark 30 years of class 91 operation on the ECML some highlights:

 

3rd March 1989 91001 worked 1736 KX to Peterborough as first 91 revenue  service.

 

17th September 1989 91008 set  UK speed record of 161.7 mph.

 

 

91009 worked first revenue service from KX to Edinburgh (cannot find the date)

 

I'm staggered by the fact the 91 fleet arrived 20 years after the end of steam and another 30 years have flown by.

 

I have not heard of anything but do anyone know of any plans afoot by LNER or others to celebrate the achievements of the class 91.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Pandora

[kevpeo]

This year of 2019 will mark 30 years of class 91 operation on the ECML some highlights:

 

 

 

17th September 1989 91008 set  UK speed record of 161.7 mph.

 

 

 

Did the APT - P not set this with 162.2 in 1979? Kev.

 

Edit - no passengers on the APT run. So the 91 figure stands if that is what counts!

Edited January 12, 2019 by kevpeo

[Wild Boar Fell]

Did the APT - P not set this with 162.2 in 1979? Kev.

 

Edit - no passengers on the APT run. So the 91 figure stands if that is what counts!

 

The 91 has the 'Locomotive' Speed Record.

[Andrew F]

They are the unloved and unsung heros of the ECML. I can imagine them disappearing into history unnoticed (unlike the A4,Deltic and the HST) which is strange as they are so distinctive and make a lot of noise....and they're British.

 

 I was at school when they were introduced and remember seeing one on IC livery mk1's coming past the school . Time flies by so fast but it's nice to see and hear them still everyday.

[Mike Storey]

Unfortunately, their impact was somewhat overshadowed by all the problems we had with the Mark IV's upon entry into service, particularly door failures, aircon failures and quite a few TDM failures, that resulted in wrong-end running, and consequent lower speed running. That. together with the general opinion that Mark IV's were nowhere near as comfortable as the HSTs that they replaced, suggests some of the lack of hero worship that you may otherwise justify. To punters, it was just another train.

[TravisM]

This year of 2019 will mark 30 years of class 91 operation on the ECML some highlights:

 

3rd March 1989 91001 worked 1736 KX to Peterborough as first 91 revenue  service.

 

17th September 1989 91008 set  UK speed record of 161.7 mph.

 

 

91009 worked first revenue service from KX to Edinburgh (cannot find the date)

 

I'm staggered by the fact the 91 fleet arrived 20 years after the end of steam and another 30 years have flown by.

 

I have not heard of anything but do anyone know of any plans afoot by LNER or others to celebrate the achievements of the class 91.

I think you’ll find it was 91010 (now 91110) that set the speed record at 161.7mph (260.2 kmh) on the 17th September 1989 just south of Little Bytham on Stoke Bank.

[Oakydoke]

The Class 91 and IC225 sets are longer lasting than the Deltics, which only saw 20 years active service.

[Ray M]

Whats the mileage of the class 91`s.

i know the Deltics all did around 3 million miles in there 20 years.

[mjkerr]

Whats the mileage of the class 91`s.

i know the Deltics all did around 3 million miles in there 20 years.

A quick calculation shows about 8 million miles in 30 years

That takes into account 4 weeks out of service each year

The advantage with the Class 91 is no need to refuel, so very intensive weekly use

 

The fleet total is about 9 millions miles (based on availability)

[woodenhead]

The problem for the 91 was that it was neither a step change in comfort or speed for the paying passengers.

 

The expected higher speed 140mph never materialised and they weren't as comfortable as the HSTs so they just anonymously ran the services on the ECML.

 

A4s, Deltics and HST all delivered something noticeably different, the 91s introduced the issues of wiring a railway on the cheap.

[Pandora]

The Mark 4 coaching stock had the most appalling "mineral wagon" ride on introduction,  the vertical pitch was so harsh and severe you could be partially  ejected from the seat. I cannot understand how they ever passed acceptance trials , it took a lot of work by the engineers to tame the ride of the Mk 4s.

 

Back to the 91s.

 

I would like to see  a couple of them repainted in the liveries of previous ECML "racehorses" to mark the occasion.

 

A 91 in 1970s HST125 blue/yellow and another  in  a two-tone green Deltic livery would tick the boxes for me.

 

I have noticed a few faces in coach B recently,  logging up the miles (haulage)  so they are attracting a visible following before they eventually yield to the Azuma fleet.

 

I know of an individual who has logged 500,000 miles   with 91009 locomotive

Edited January 13, 2019 by Pandora

[Pandora]

A quick calculation shows about 8 million miles in 30 years

That takes into account 4 weeks out of service each year

The advantage with the Class 91 is no need to refuel, so very intensive weekly use

 

The fleet total is about 9 millions miles (based on availability)

From other sources the class 91fleet is rotated to have  26 in daily service, 5 off-service and mileage aggregates to  approximately 27,000 miles per day which is approaching 10 million miles per year for the fleet of 31 locos

Edited January 13, 2019 by Pandora

[Pandora]

Unfortunately, their impact was somewhat overshadowed by all the problems we had with the Mark IV's upon entry into service, particularly door failures, aircon failures and quite a few TDM failures, that resulted in wrong-end running, and consequent lower speed running. That. together with the general opinion that Mark IV's were nowhere near as comfortable as the HSTs that they replaced, suggests some of the lack of hero worship that you may otherwise justify. To punters, it was just another train.

The late 1980s was the era of Sprinterisation of passenger services and the run down of locomotive hauled services,  there was much to sample before time ran out such as Class 20s to Skegness, Class 50s out of Waterloo to name a couple,  memories were still fresh of the run down of the Deltics and even the Westerns.  Foreign travel to Belgium France etc were new to the agenda, I can recall overhearing conversations about   working diagrams  for far off places.  The new  class 91 simply arrived as a backdrop to a stage of old actors  being retired to Vic Berry and worse

Edited January 13, 2019 by Pandora

[Nimbus]

The Mark 4 coaching stock had the most appalling "mineral wagon" ride on introduction,  the vertical pitch was so harsh and severe you could be partially  ejected from the seat. I cannot understand how they ever passed acceptance trials , it took a lot of work by the engineers to tame the ride of the Mk 4s.

Wasn't the passenger comfort aspect the part which was procured from abroad, iirc?

 

Deja vu all over again?

 

The Nim.

[Hesperus]

I have not heard of anything but do anyone know of any plans afoot by LNER or others to celebrate the achievements of the class 91.

 

The rather nice repaint into IC Swallow has passed you by?

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/139576527@N07/31996013908

Edited January 13, 2019 by Hesperus

[keefer]

Wasn't the passenger comfort aspect the part which was procured from abroad, iirc?

 

Deja vu all over again?

 

The Nim.

The Swiss SIG bogies were chosen instead of the BREL T4. They had a good reputation, but did not like British track.

In the Ch4 documentary 'Running to Time', Geoffrey Freeman Allen mentioned a good foreign design was no guarantee & it wouldn't be the first time such a bogie failed to perform as well as expected.

A similar situation happened with the Blue Pullman - the Metro-Schlieren bogies were notorious for bad riding, bad enough on a normal train but all the worse for being on a luxury service.

And has been pointed out, the new high-speed trains seem to repeating the process.

Edited January 13, 2019 by keefer

[keefer]

'Running to time' is on YouTube:

 

Im sure i've seen another video (maybe from Railscene?) looking at the first 10 years of the fleet. IIRC included the locos' first HGR, modifications to coupler dampers etc and also mentioned the 91+HST rakes

[russ p]

The Swiss SIG bogies were chosen instead of the BREL T4. They had a good reputation, but did not like British track.

In the Ch4 documentary 'Running to Time', Geoffrey Freeman Allen mentioned a good foreign design was no guarantee & it wouldn't be the first time such a bogie failed to perform as well as expected.

A similar situation happened with the Blue Pullman - the Metro-Schlieren bogies were notorious for bad riding, bad enough on a normal train but all the worse for being on a luxury service.

And has been pointed out, the new high-speed trains seem to repeating the process.

Wasn't there something to do with BREL not supplying T4s because they didn't get Mk4 contract?

[Bomag]

The Mark 4 coaching stock had the most appalling "mineral wagon" ride on introduction,  the vertical pitch was so harsh and severe you could be partially  ejected from the seat. I cannot understand how they ever passed acceptance trials , it took a lot of work by the engineers to tame the ride of the Mk 4s.

 

 

At the time of introduction I regularly talked to colleague in RCE Eastern who bemoaned the problems in respect of the limitations on felting the track due to the limited capability of the overhead to accommodate vehicle movement (even more than those I dealt with on the GEML). The maximum permissible kinematic vehicle movement on the ECML was apparently less than that for a T4 at 140 mph. The SIG bogies had less dynamic movement at 140mph than the T4; to do this they needed to be stiffer. The upshot was that when running at 125mph the ride was worse than a T4 and even worse than a BT10 in areas where track geometry was 'challenging'. I was told that by turning the bogies round 180 degrees and modifying the dampers etc they got the ride to something closer to the T4 but limited the stock to 125 mph.

 

In addition to the above comments about sensor errors for the doors there was the defective loo seals - if the train passed another in a tunnel at full speed (e.g. Stoke) the pressure would cause the retention toilet seals to occasionally fail with explosive results!

[Hesperus]

The engineer on the program implied that BR went for the proven SIG bogie rather than the experimental BREL T4 but I imagine there were several factors.

[TravisM]

When I was working on the railways, I spoke to a retired senior engineer and he said that the 91/Mk IV program was a bit of a rushed job to get a “flagship” train after the APT debacle which actually I thought was a good train but BR should have switched off the tilt and bunged it onto the East Coast instead of scrapping it. I believe a lot of APT technology went into the IC225 project to save time.

 

Shame BR couldn’t uprate a new batch of Class 90’s to 125mph or even 89’s and more Mk III’s for the East Coast as they were all great or proven designs.

Edited January 14, 2019 by jools1959

[Bomag]

When I was working on the railways, I spoke to a retired senior engineer and he said that the 91/Mk IV program was a bit of a rushed job to get a “flagship” train after the APT debacle which actually I thought was a good train but BR should have switched off the tilt and bunged it onto the East Coast instead of scrapping it. I believe a lot of ATP technology went into the IC225 project to save time.

 

Shame BR couldn’t uprate a new batch of Class 90’s to 125mph or even 89’s and more Mk III’s for the East Coast as they were all great or proven designs.

 

I was told that even with the faster acceleration of 89+Mk3bs over HSTs that the CBR of the project (civils + trains) was less than that promised to the treasury.  The 91+Mk4 bid was supposed to cost the same as the 89+Mk3bs but gave a better CBR as they used top speed of 140mph to calculate the reduced journey times. Reduced journey times not only attract more passengers it also means each set can do more services leading to a lower number of sets needed to run a set timetable.  I have no idea if they talked to S&T about signal spacings before or after the order was made.

[TravisM]

The 140mph (225kph) speed limit was dropped because the whole of the East Coast needed to be resignalled to allow it. The signal overlaps were too short and the treasury thought that the cost was too much for a 20-30 minute shaving off the London to Edinburgh timings.

[Pandora]

I was told that even with the faster acceleration of 89+Mk3bs over HSTs that the CBR of the project (civils + trains) was less than that promised to the treasury.  The 91+Mk4 bid was supposed to cost the same as the 89+Mk3bs but gave a better CBR as they used top speed of 140mph to calculate the reduced journey times. Reduced journey times not only attract more passengers it also means each set can do more services leading to a lower number of sets needed to run a set timetable.

Under BR the ECML electrification was delivered  to time and budget, the spoiler being the non-implementation of the 140 mph linespeed, the Cost Benefit Analysis probably had  credibilty. A stark contrast to the West Coast Upgrade and GWML schemes, the WCML upgrade was so out of control in costs to the point where budgets were abandoned.

[Pete the Elaner]

Under BR the ECML electrification was delivered  to time and budget, the spoiler being the non-implementation of the 140 mph linespeed, the Cost Benefit Analysis probably had  credibilty. A stark contrast to the West Coast Upgrade and GWML schemes, the WCML upgrade was so out of control in costs to the point where budgets were abandoned.

I can understand that.

Projects in many industries often have to be falsified with cuts in order to get them passed, then to do them properly, they go over-budget. I have heard of cases where something has been approved but at a lower cost than what the proposal stated, without any consultation for this change.

The alternative of 'if we do it like this, we can save xxx' is great for getting a project done but leaves you with something sub-standard. It sounds like this was how the ECML electrification was completed.

 

I can also understand why 140mph running was dropped. Even if the signalling was upgraded, a 140mph train would catch a slower one more quickly. What is the point of maintaining a train for 140mph if it then spends half its journey times doing a reduced speed on double yellows?

I am not as familiar with the ECML, but have been on the WCML many times on a service which runs fast (100mph) to Leighton Buzzard. This takes the fast lines as far as Ledburn (just S of Leighton) because it passes about 3 slower trains on the slow lines.

Once at Leighton, 2 Pendolinos whizz past within 5 minutes. If they could move faster, they would simply catch up the 100mph service more quickly, so what would be the point of paying the extra for signalling upgrades & higher maintenance?