Washout at Dawlish

[Mike_Walker]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

Not only with reference to Dawlish-resilience.  The seats (even the supposedly-better ones on the 802s) are still woeful and have forced at least the two of us to abandon the use of IETs for travel between London and Cornwall.  The lack of catering facilities on a journey of up to six hours - disregarding the Covid-effect for now - is also offputting.  There could have been proper provision as on the LNER units but instead there are largely redundant kitchen areas occupying half a car and a trolley if you're lucky for both classes.  The chance of finding anything as substantial as a sandwich is pretty remote and the hot water doesn't last more than a couple of hours though could be replaced from the kitchen - which in our experience it isn't.  So you can bring your own or go without.  Not an attractive offering in any way I'm afraid and somewhat short of fitness-for-purpose.  

It must be understood that the seats in the GWR 80x fleet were specified by the DfT not the operator.  When procuring the 802s it was intended to have a better seat but the DfT stepped in and insisted they had to be the same as those in the DfT procured 800s. They have had new covers fitted across both fleets but that was because the originals wore badly.

 

Similarly it was the DfT's insistence that a trolley service was provided on GWR services rather than a buffet.  However, many travellers prefer this particularly those who like to work during the journey and are reluctant to go to a buffet and leave laptops etc unattended.

 

GWR fought hard to retain Pullman service on selected services to the West and Wales which is now the only silver service dining on any TOC.  Not cheap but excellent quality if you get the chance to sample it.

 

For many years GWR has been operating under  Direct Award and therefore under tight control from the DfT something we shall see even more of under GBR.  Sadly we have civil servants in the DfT who think they know more about designing and operating trains than railway professionals.  

[Siberian Snooper]

My recent experiences of the GW trolley service is that it stays put and you have to go to it, which rather defeats the object.

 

 

[boxbrownie]

15 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

One problem over an extended period of time is that the UK has largely lost its ability to design and build trains for its particular needs and circumstances. 
 

When the Warship class was redesigned from a perfectly good German design it failed to live up to expectations in the UK.  But the products of York, Swindon and Derby (with honourable mentions to other locations) generally worked and did so well for long periods of time. 
 

The global marketplace has seen off most of our skilled train construction. We assemble these days, or we import.  Many hundreds of perfectly good class 66 locos cane from Canada. Most multiple units of recent times have come from Germany or Spain with some local assembly and fitting out. 
 

Would we have better “Dawlish Resilience” had British engineering designed and built for British conditions successors to the hugely-successful and largely Dawlish-proof British HSTs?  
 

 

Didn’t they have to “fiddle” with the internals layout because of the U.K. loading gauge being substantially smaller than the German gauge?

[fezza]

If the government really wants a major switch to long distance rail, new stock needs to focus on comfort and convenience, not just speed. Not long ago I went on an Austrian train with a restaurant car, a crèche, corridor compartments, comfortable seats - and it seemed capable of anything the winter weather could throw at it. In Britain we are stuck with this Japanese rubbish - looks nice but is absolutely useless and does nothing to encourage rail travel.

[Mike_Walker]

6 minutes ago, fezza said:

If the government really wants a major switch to long distance rail, new stock needs to focus on comfort and convenience, not just speed. Not long ago I went on an Austrian train with a restaurant car, a crèche, corridor compartments, comfortable seats - and it seemed capable of anything the winter weather could throw at it. In Britain we are stuck with this Japanese rubbish - looks nice but is absolutely useless and does nothing to encourage rail travel.

Agreed, but you have a situation where the DfT specifies everything under the instruction of the Treasury which equates to "as cheap as possible" and there's no prospect of that changing anytime soon especially when politicians and civil servants travel around the country in chauffer driven limos and don't care what us prols have to endure as long as they can say "look how many new trains we've supplied you".  Other recent events mirror such thinking.

[jcredfer]

6 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

Agreed, but you have a situation where the DfT specifies everything under the instruction of the Treasury which equates to "as cheap as possible" and there's no prospect of that changing anytime soon especially when politicians and civil servants travel around the country in chauffer driven limos and don't care what us prols have to endure as long as they can say "look how many new trains we've supplied you".  Other recent events mirror such thinking.

 

Ummm.....   "Look at how many Christmas get togethers we can have...   at your expense."   

 

 

[Gwiwer]

7 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Didn’t they have to “fiddle” with the internals layout because of the U.K. loading gauge being substantially smaller than the German gauge?

Correct. 
 

7 hours ago, fezza said:

In Britain we are stuck with this Japanese rubbish - looks nice but is absolutely useless and does nothing to encourage rail travel.

Also correct

[corneliuslundie]

Mind you stock from other countries has not been fault free recently either.

Roger Ford explained the seat procurement procedure some years ago. I suspect that it has not changed.

At least the Hitachi HS2 stock won't have to cope with Dawlish!

And IETs don't have to swim. In the latest issue of Welsh Railways Archive due out shortly (only available to WRRC members I am afraid) there is a description by Martin Connop Price of a trip to Cwm Mawr and back. He says of the return journey:

"When I returned to the train at Coedbach the shunting was almost done, and the rain resumed. Before long photography was hopeless, and as we headed back to Burry Port across Kidwelly Flats the track was submerged in at least a foot of water, and the locos were generating a bow wave worthy of any ferry. On enquiry I was told that when it really seemed difficult they might stop to check the depth, but they reckoned they would manage provided it didn’t get much deeper than 2 feet!" 

Jonathan

 

[rodent279]

The issues with car body structural failures is nothing new-our very own, homegrown, British designed & built class 158's suffered similar problems.

And traction equipment not coping with British weather isn't an imported problem either, as referred to earlier, in the form of the class 317/455/465 and snow debacle. Even class 310's, normally very reliable, were prone to icing up in cold weather.

At the other end of the scale, those HST's that could sail through the worst that Dawlish could throw at them, had problems with our ferociously hot British summers in their earlier years.

Edited December 9, 2021 by rodent279

[Mutley]

21 hours ago, fezza said:

In Britain we are stuck with this Japanese rubbish - looks nice but is absolutely useless and does nothing to encourage rail travel.

Are you serious?  Do you have any idea of the extreme weather conditions that Japanese trains have to endure?  The Japanese Rail system is amongst the most efficient and reliable in the world.  I'd suggest the problem is not with the build quality of the trains, it's with the cheapskate DfT and their specifications.

[DY444]

12 minutes ago, Mutley said:

Are you serious?  Do you have any idea of the extreme weather conditions that Japanese trains have to endure?  The Japanese Rail system is amongst the most efficient and reliable in the world.  I'd suggest the problem is not with the build quality of the trains, it's with the cheapskate DfT and their specifications.

 

Interesting theory.  So you actually believe that Hitachi designed and delivered trains:

 

- constructed from a grade of aluminium known to be susceptible to cracking

- with an engine raft with compromised cooling air flow

- with an engine thermal management algorithm that a first year undergraduate would be embarrassed about

- where non-critical systems can immobilise the train

- where an arbitrary limit is placed on GU restart attempts

- with a flawed coupler and drag box design due to fe analysis mistakes

- a TMS with functions that don't match the documentation

 

and probably many others I've forgotten because the DfT told them to?  As I said an interesting theory but not one I subscribe to.  I think we have a manufacturer that for whatever reason over promised and seriously under delivered.

 

As for cheapskate then I recommend a perusal at the relative lease costs of the DfT procured IETs compared to literally every other fleet.   The DfT paid top dollar and frankly hasn't got anything like value for it.

[Mutley]

10 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

Interesting theory.  So you actually believe that Hitachi designed and delivered trains:

 

- constructed from a grade of aluminium known to be susceptible to cracking

- with an engine raft with compromised cooling air flow

- with an engine thermal management algorithm that a first year undergraduate would be embarrassed about

- where non-critical systems can immobilise the train

- where an arbitrary limit is placed on GU restart attempts

- with a flawed coupler and drag box design due to fe analysis mistakes

- a TMS with functions that don't match the documentation

 

and probably many others I've forgotten because the DfT told them to?  As I said an interesting theory but not one I subscribe to.  I think we have a manufacturer that for whatever reason over promised and seriously under delivered.

 

As for cheapskate then I recommend a perusal at the relative lease costs of the DfT procured IETs compared to literally every other fleet.   The DfT paid top dollar and frankly hasn't got anything like value for it.

I bow to your expertise.

 

Just saying that Hitatchi build trains for their home market that have to endure a lot more than what is thrown up at Dawlish.

[Titan]

11 minutes ago, Mutley said:

I bow to your expertise.

 

Just saying that Hitatchi build trains for their home market that have to endure a lot more than what is thrown up at Dawlish.

 

Well unless those conditions include ingress of even more salt water than at Dawlish, they are not comparable, apples and oranges and all that.

[phil-b259]

30 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

Interesting theory.  So you actually believe that Hitachi designed and delivered trains:

 

- constructed from a grade of aluminium known to be susceptible to cracking

- with an engine raft with compromised cooling air flow

- with an engine thermal management algorithm that a first year undergraduate would be embarrassed about

- where non-critical systems can immobilise the train

- where an arbitrary limit is placed on GU restart attempts

- with a flawed coupler and drag box design due to fe analysis mistakes

- a TMS with functions that don't match the documentation

 

and probably many others I've forgotten because the DfT told them to?  As I said an interesting theory but not one I subscribe to.  I think we have a manufacturer that for whatever reason over promised and seriously under delivered.

 

As for cheapskate then I recommend a perusal at the relative lease costs of the DfT procured IETs compared to literally every other fleet.   The DfT paid top dollar and frankly hasn't got anything like value for it.

 

I think the point here is that because the DfT knew nothing about designing trains they were unable to pick up on these flaws.  Had the HST replacement programme (which was what the IET started life as) been left to the railway industry to manage then its quite possible that some or all of these flaws would not have occurred.

 

As for Hitachi - if you are confronted with a customer who clearly doesn't know what they are doing but wants to buy your product AND makes it clear there will be lots of repeat orders - where is the incentive to make life harder for yourself by trying to upgrade the specifications or make less profit by upgrading the materials used?

 

There is also the point that the whole reason the DfT undertook the IET programme in the first place was the dogmatic insistence that everybody in the railway industry was trying to rip them off and that having the Government be the one specifying and leasing trains they would get a much better deal for taxpayers even though Government procurement of virtually everything has a track record of being overpriced, not working as intended, needing lots of modifications netting suppliers huge sums in variation orders, etc

 

Inconvenient facts like several official inquires into train leasing costs which laid the blame for high prices on the Governments love of stupidly short 7 year franchises were ignored while the DfT also ordered trains like the 700s without tray tables and charging sockets yet demanded stock ordered by franchised operators must include these features!

 

 

Edited December 10, 2021 by phil-b259

[DY444]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

I think the point here is that because the DfT knew nothing about designing trains they were unable to pick up on these flaws.  Had the HST replacement programme (which was what the IET started life as) been left to the railway industry to manage then its quite possible that some or all of these flaws would not have occurred.

 

As for Hitachi - if you are confronted with a customer who clearly doesn't know what they are doing but wants to buy your product AND makes it clear there will be lots of repeat orders - where is the incentive to make life harder for yourself by trying to upgrade the specifications or make less profit by upgrading the materials used?

 

 

In my view it is a question of where do you draw the boundary in terms of responsibility.  "The customer is always right" is oft-said but is nonsense.  Sometimes the customer doesn't know what he is talking about and you, as a supplier, have to make a decision as to whether you are going to exploit that or guide them towards something more sensible.  Sometimes there is no option like the now infamous case of the DfT specifying a performance envelope which required the suspension of the laws of physics.  If you go on the record with the customer in pointing out deficiencies in or consequences of a requirement and they insist on it anyway then you are covered.  If you just do it then you risk both your reputation and the ongoing relationship with the customer. 

 

There are some defects in the IET which are simply not down to the DfT.  I mentioned the engine thermal management algorithm.  That imo is not something the DfT should have had any dealings with.  Of all the ways of doing it (short of not having anything at all), the contractor (and probably his engine supplier) chose for some inexplicable reason to do it in a way that maximises the risk of immobilising the train and damaging the engines.  I have a suspicion that they thought it would rarely be required so they didn't put much thought into it.  Then they managed to design an engine raft with compromised cooling - so a flaw in one place leads to the exposure of a flaw in another.  I have no idea what, if any, design reviews were carried out with the customer but there's only a certain level of detail you can get into with a complex system. 

 

I blame the DfT for many things, naivety and over paying chief amongst them, but every defect is not down to them.  According to reports Hitachi have done themselves no favours in their approach to the issues (eg engineers you've been talking to for ages suddenly being unable to speak English), and it is a certainty that any future contracts with them will pay a lot more attention to engineering detail than has been the custom hitherto.  To be honest I was surprised they are preferred bidder for the HS2 fleet but there we are.  I presume a tighter specification and the presence of Alstom might act as a counter balance.  I guess we'll see.

Edited December 10, 2021 by DY444

[mdvle]

Not much to see yet from the drone footage, but the NR contractor has started work on the new rockfall shelter extension to Parsons Tunnel.

 

 

[Miss Prism]

 

(probably a Duke on an up postal)

 

[Re6/6]

 

[Dunsignalling]

Bloody silly place to put a railway in the first place!

Edited December 16, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Bucoops]

57 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Bloody silly place to put a railway in the first place!

 

Why else do you think it's called the Get Wet Regularly?

[Gwiwer]

57 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Bloody silly place to put a railway in the first place!

Yes. GWR stands for “Gets Wet Regularly”

[boxbrownie]

34 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Yes. GWR stands for “Gets Wet Regularly”

My Uncle who was an LNER man always told me it was Green Wet and Rusty………..then again he said LNER was Late and Never Early Railway……and he was top link 

[Dunsignalling]

All that said, one wonders how much the seawall section of the South Devon coastline might have changed over the past century-and-three-quarters had the railway infrastructure not been there to protect it.

 

Would Dawlish even exist by now?

 

John

Edited December 16, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

All that said, one wonders how much the seawall section of the South Devon coastline might have changed over the past century-and-three-quarters had the railway infrastructure not been there to protect it.

 

Would Dawlish even exist by now?

 

John

Valid point.  Yes Dawlish would exist but it might look more like Teignmouth / Shaldon with a large river-mouth (where there is currently just a tiny and channeled stream) separating two sides of the town which lie on higher ground.  

[rodent279]

So you could argue that the railway is a (very expensive to maintain) sea wall?

 

I do wonder whether the long term solution is going to be to bite the bullet and cover the railway in properly, maybe with a top promenade deck that pedestrians can walk along.