Hitachi trains grounded

[phil-b259]

22 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

That is pretty much what happens. Trains which run lines covered by both systems have both systems on board.

 

 

Which costs more and provides more potential points of failure.

 

Therefore if units do not need ATP - they don't get it.

 

Similarly where manufacturers offer EMUs as Bi-modes, although all the internal wiring will be fitted, things like 25KV transformers, Pantographs, pick up shoes and most importantly the necessary dual voltage software won't be fitted if the customer only specifies on electrical system.

Edited May 15, 2021 by phil-b259

[Gibbo675]

2 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Steel rusts - Aluminium doesn't

 

Steel is heavy thus imposing grater loadings on the track and requiring more power to move it along. Aluminium is light so kinder on the track and less energy intensive to run.

 

Especially when its plastered over with vinyl, another good idea which also helps conceal cracks in aluminium.

[newbryford]

2 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

 

Especially when its plastered over with vinyl, another good idea which also helps conceal cracks in aluminium.

 

 

Vinyl also does a good job of concealing rust

 

[phil-b259]

3 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

 

Especially when its plastered over with vinyl, another good idea which also helps conceal cracks in aluminium.

 

Aluminium has proved perfectly satisfactory for planes - and those are subject to far more stress generally than trains.

 

It also has been used very successfully to make to load bearing monocoque bodyshells for the British Rail designed Class 313/314/315/507/508 EMUs.

 

If designed and built correctly Aluminium trains are no more likely to develop issues than steel based designs. As such your continued jibes at the use of the material are totally unwarranted. The issue with the 800s is in the detailed design - not the material used!

 

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

And Routemaster buses are almost entirely aluminium, and the oldest of those is more than sixty years old.

[Gibbo675]

15 minutes ago, newbryford said:

 

 

Vinyl also does a good job of concealing rust

 

Sorry old lad common sense is banned, as I will shortly be for daring to have an opinion !!!

[phil-b259]

Just now, PhilJ W said:

And Routemaster buses are almost entirely aluminium, and the oldest of those is more than sixty years old.

 

As was the metropolitan lines 'A Stock' IIRC

 

However in both cases I believe that there was a very strong steel underframe  / chassis and as such the load bearing requirements of the Aluminium body was less than would be necessary for a true all aluminium train / vehicle.

[PhilJ W]

Not forgetting the C and D stock the latter of which is being rebuilt and updated for use elsewhere.

[rodent279]

13 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Aluminium has proved perfectly satisfactory for planes - and those are subject to far more stress generally than trains.

 

It also has been used very successfully to make to load bearing monocoque bodyshells for the British Rail designed Class 313/314/315/507/508 EMUs.

 

If designed and built correctly Aluminium trains are no more likely to develop issues than steel based designs. As such your continued jibes at the use of the material are totally unwarranted. The issue with the 800s is in the detailed design - not the material used!

 

 

 

 

Uncle Roger made a comment in MR, many years ago, when the APT was still a thing. Can't remember quite what it was relation to, but he made the observation that aircraft bodyshells get stretched, pushed and pulled, whereas rail vehicles get the living daylights battered out them.

[Gibbo675]

10 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Aluminium has proved perfectly satisfactory for planes - and those are subject to far more stress generally than trains.

 

It also has been used very successfully to make to load bearing monocoque bodyshells for the British Rail designed Class 313/314/315/507/508 EMUs.

 

If designed and built correctly Aluminium trains are no more likely to develop issues than steel based designs. As such your continued jibes at the use of the material are totally unwarranted. The issue with the 800s is in the detailed design - not the material used!

 

 

 

 

My dear fellow,

 

Not many trains ride around on aluminium axles as far as I'm aware, that would save some un-sprung mass.

 

Also that I'm not ware of many welded aluminium aircraft.

 

As far as the usage of aluminium goes, do look a few pages back at the motorcycle that I designed and built from aluminium that rides upon 40mm OD, 37mm ID EN16T axles. I even welded it up myself !

 

 

 

Gibbo.

[phil-b259]

1 minute ago, Gibbo675 said:

Sorry old lad common sense is banned, as I will shortly be for daring to have an opinion !!!

 

Depends on what you opinion is.

 

If its that aluminium is not suitable for rail vehicles then expect it to be ridiculed.

 

Comparability of couplings is a different matter - though given H&S rules want all couplings of passenger units to be 'automatic' (i.e. done from the cab with none of this going between - even to connect cables / pipes) as well as the increased sophistication of control systems over time generally you are always going to end up with some differences as new generations of trains come on stream.

[RJS1977]

6 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

As was the metropolitan lines 'A Stock' IIRC

 

However in both cases I believe that there was a very strong steel underframe  / chassis and as such the load bearing requirements of the Aluminium body was less than would be necessary for a true all aluminium train / vehicle.

 

The Routemasters had separate front and rear sub-frames, there was no 'chassis' as such.

 

That's why building the RMLs (and later the ERM conversions) was simply a matter of adding an extra section into the vehicle.

[rodent279]

3 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

My dear fellow,

 

Not many trains ride around on aluminium axles as far as I'm aware, that would save some un-sprung mass.

 

Also that I'm not ware of many welded aluminium aircraft.

 

As far as the usage of aluminium goes, do look a few pages back at the motorcycle that I designed and built from aluminium that rides upon 40mm OD, 37mm ID EN16T axles. I even welded it up myself !

 

 

 

Gibbo.

They tend to glue them these days, don't they?

[Gibbo675]

1 minute ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Depends on what you opinion is.

 

If its that aluminium is not suitable for rail vehicles then expect it to be ridiculed.

 

Comparability of couplings is a different matter - though given H&S rules want all couplings of passenger units to be 'automatic' (i.e. done from the cab with none of this going between - even to connect cables / pipes) as well as the increased sophistication of control systems over time generally you are always going to end up with some differences as new generations of trains come on stream.

Only if you allow changes to happen willy-nilly as has been allowed to happen, back to common sense there old lad.

 

Why not get as many different styles of electrical plugs and sockets fitted to you house and appliances and see how you get on.

 

That is the allegory. Period.

[Gibbo675]

Just now, rodent279 said:

They tend to glue them these days, don't they?

Only because they new ones are carbon fibre but that would be an off topic composite.......err no, sorry, conversation.

[phil-b259]

1 minute ago, Gibbo675 said:

 

Not many trains ride around on aluminium axles as far as I'm aware, that would save some un-sprung mass.

 

 

Correct - though a rather pedantic observation in the overall scheme of things as naturally it will be necessary to use a variety of materials to create the finished product.

 

4 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Also that I'm not ware of many welded aluminium aircraft.

 

 

 

This is true though I imagine for sound engineering reasons. However it doesn't mean the aluminium itself is a poor choice of metal - and the BR units I mentioned earlier didn't fall apart after a couple of years despite being welded aluminium!

 

[phil-b259]

7 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

 

Why not get as many different styles of electrical plugs and sockets fitted to you house and appliances and see how you get on.

 

 

That did actually sort of happen for quite a while - the culprit being Mobile phones each with their own unique charging socket requiring new adapters each time you got a new one!

 

More recently the industry (apart from Apple) has standardised on USB-C, but that was only after the EU Forced manufacturers to do so, given a free reign then I'm sure they would have done what Apple did and develop propriety interfaces.

 

Its interesting to note that BR developed the BSI automatic coupler - which was fitted to the entire Sprinter and Pacer fleets - but again this was when you had a national body coordinating such things. As with so many other things railway related that sort of coordination was seen as a 'barrier to innovation' by the privatisation loving free marketeers so after 1994 matters such as couplings were left to whatever the TOC or leasing company felt like doing.

 

 

[Gibbo675]

10 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Correct - though a rather pedantic observation in the overall scheme of things as naturally it will be necessary to use a variety of materials to create the finished product.

 

 

This is true though I imagine for sound engineering reasons. However it doesn't mean the aluminium itself is a poor choice of metal - and the BR units I mentioned earlier didn't fall apart after a couple of years despite being welded aluminium!

 

 

1 minute ago, phil-b259 said:

 

That did actually sort of happen for quite a while - the culprit being Mobile phones each with their own unique charging socket requiring new adapters each time you got a new one!

 

More recently the industry (apart from Apple) has standardised on USB-C, but that was only after the EU Forced manufacturers to do so, given a free reign then I'm sure they would have done what Apple did and develop propriety interfaces.

 

Its interesting to note that BR developed the BSI automatic coupler - which was fitted to the entire Sprinter and Pacer fleets - but again this was when you had a national body coordinating such things. As with so many other things railway related that sort of coordination was seen as a 'barrier to innovation' by the privatisation loving free marketeers so after 1994 matters such as couplings were left to whatever the TOC or leasing company felt like doing.

 

 

It is the part of my truth that you have not commented upon that I find most revealing.

 

Do you not like my motorcycle or is it a little too welded in an aluminium sort of fashion for your liking ?

[Talltim]

On 13/05/2021 at 09:28, phil-b259 said:

 

We have been through this before MANY times!

 

Producing 'the drawings' is the easy(ish part) - but even then I doubt anyone would have actually done detailed design work. More like a scoping exercise to examine the potential costs (and confirm officialy what everyone knew privately) so it could be rejected.

 

In short its a non starter because:-

 

(1) The Voyagers ARE NOT WIRED UP TO TRANSMIT TRACTION POWER ALONG THEMSELVES. As such you would need to undertake a complete strip down and re-wire plus replace all the control gear and computer systems on ALL existing vehicles - which costs mega bucks.

 

(2) The jigs to make the vehicles themselves have long since been destroyed and therefore Bombardier would need to make them up again from scratch at considerable expense.

 

If you want bi-modes, particulalry InterCity vehicles then the ONLY way it stacks up financially is new builds.

And they were talking about new build, as a hypothetical for GWR instead of the IEPs. Thus there would be no need for a strip down and it may have been worth building new jigs for a full fleet build.

Your post would be rude even if they were talking about converting the existing trains, but as they weren’t it’s both rude and irrelevant.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Talltim

[Talltim]

On 13/05/2021 at 17:49, boxbrownie said:

One of my Uncles worked at Dexion, there for life he was......Hemel Hempstead?

I worked there as a temp a few times. Was an interesting mix of high and low tech. I do have a memory of items going through the powder coating heater and catching fire, while hanging from a conveyor up near the ceiling 

[Talltim]

5 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

The American railroads have one dtanda4d coupling system and as farcas I know one standatd Multiple working system that has I thinknbeen around since the 1930's and still works.

 

Jamie.

 

 

That works ok for freight, it’s when you include all the controls for doors, PA etc it gets more complicated. 
That doesn’t mean you can’t have one standard tho, and the data side of it could use standard networking protocols (obviously that wasn’t a thing when autocouplers for units were introduced here), meaning that the functions are separate from the carrier and not dependent on a specific physical configuration of connections

[Gibbo675]

9 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

All the Really Good Ideas™ today seem to revolve around extracting rents from assets like IP and patents. That is the reason there are so many coupling systems and why none of the companies involved are willing to compromise. 

 

4 hours ago, Talltim said:

That works ok for freight, it’s when you include all the controls for doors, PA etc it gets more complicated. 
That doesn’t mean you can’t have one standard tho, and the data side of it could use standard networking protocols (obviously that wasn’t a thing when autocouplers for units were introduced here), meaning that the functions are separate from the carrier and not dependent on a specific physical configuration of connections

Hi Chaps,

 

It is my observation of what is written in both of the above comments is that they are both ostensibly correct as stand alone postings. However when the issues identified within each of the postings are juxtaposed then these issues appear, to me at least, to be incompatible just like said coupling systems.

 

I find that a most interesting philosophical point.

 

Gibbo.

[Hobby]

11 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

You hit the nail on the head. 4’ 8 1/2”just too narrow. 

 

At the risk of going completely OT I'd suggest the loading gauge is more the issue than the gauge in this case, over the Channel they've proved that SG is fine with decent clearances.

[DY444]

9 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

(In fact the GWML is fitted with both TPWS and ATP as TPWS was installed first, so was already there, and any units/locos limited to 75mph or less have no need for ATP),

 

Not true.  ATP was fitted to the GWML first, several years before TPWS was developed.

[rodent279]

9 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Correct - though a rather pedantic observation in the overall scheme of things as naturally it will be necessary to use a variety of materials to create the finished product.

 

 

This is true though I imagine for sound engineering reasons. However it doesn't mean the aluminium itself is a poor choice of metal - and the BR units I mentioned earlier didn't fall apart after a couple of years despite being welded aluminium!

 

My understanding is that the aircraft industry doesn't trust welds, as cracks can propagate along a rapidly, causing it to fail. A single rivet failing isn't in itself likely to be serious, and is easier to detect.

That's how it was explained to me, anyway.

I'm sure I've heard of aluminium parts such as wings being glued together on aircraft?