D-train in Pennsylvania

[DavidB-AU]

230002 at the Rockhill Trolley Museum, being tested for Pop Up Metro. 230011 is there too but not visible.

 

 

[lmsforever]

Shame the company failed it would have been a good sales stream also like the livery.

[adb968008]

If the 230 looked like that in the UK it might have been more successful.

 

As usual, we make the technology, but fail to capitalise it, and see it exported.

[Mike_Walker]

But, in a sense Vivarail lives on as part of GWR.  Mark Hopwood told us that he got "the mother of all bog-off deals".  They went to buy 230001 plus the rapid charger and associated bits plus Vivarail's IP and the administrators said "you can have the lot" or words to that effect.  So, GWR are now not just the proud (?) owners of what they wanted but 80 odd D78 vehicles* quietly rotting at Long Marston and the VR works near Southam.  They have also taken on a number of key Vivarail technical people. 

 

This is to support the Greenford battery trial but GWR now has the capability to do much more.

 

*  If all else fails they are probably worth more as scrap than GWR paid for the whole deal!

[adb968008]

45 minutes ago, Mike_Walker said:

But, in a sense Vivarail lives on as part of GWR.  Mark Hopwood told us that he got "the mother of all bog-off deals".  They went to buy 230001 plus the rapid charger and associated bits plus Vivarail's IP and the administrators said "you can have the lot" or words to that effect.  So, GWR are now not just the proud (?) owners of what they wanted but 80 odd D78 vehicles* quietly rotting at Long Marston and the VR works near Southam.  They have also taken on a number of key Vivarail technical people. 

 

This is to support the Greenford battery trial but GWR now has the capability to do much more.

 

*  If all else fails they are probably worth more as scrap than GWR paid for the whole deal!

 

What we really need, is the battery pack productising in a scaleable way. So that It can be used on a wide variety of traction, not just railways, and sold globally.

 

I hope that is the preference, to some scrap it quick sale and risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater on a quick flip it return.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by adb968008

[Mike_Walker]

We already have the method of producing battery packs for rail operation.  As with road transport, the two main Achilles Heels are range and charging.  The former is likely to be largely overcome by a new generation of solid state batteries which, I'm told (by a fellow member of our local cricket club who is heavily involved in designing EV power trains), should become a reality in about five years.  Charging these (which will take a fraction of the time Lithium-Ion batteries need today) will require totally different charging systems which is the main reason the roll out of chargers today is so slow, why invest in a network that will be obsolete in no time.  The government can say what it likes but the private sector that actually has to pay for it takes a different view.

 

The Greenford Class 230 trial is not to prove battery operation, that is already proven, but to test the Vivarail developed ultra-rapid charger works long term.  It's been shown to work successfully in test conditions - the train docks with the conductor rails which are then energised automatically - but the Greenford trial is to see what happens with this particular equipment in full scale daily use.  The charger feeds the train at 600A which is incredibly high (in contrast a Tesla rapid charger is 200A) and the trial is to see what level of effect this has on the batteries.  L-I batteries degrade quite rapidly when subjected to repeated regular rapid charging.  The Vivarail system charges the train each time it docks over the charging rails which means in this trial 10 minutes or so every hour.

 

The senior management at GWR are keen to exploit battery operation as widely as possible and quite a list of possible applications has been drawn up internally which is why the company wanted to salvage what it could from the Vivarail collapse with the backing of the DfT.  If the Greenford trial turns out as hoped then there will be many more battery trains at work not just on GWR but across the network using VR's technology in either repowered existing trains (there are three Class 230s currently with no future that could be converted easily) or incorporated into new-builds.

 

Of course,  if solid state batteries do arrive as expected then it's an all new ball game!