modfather

156/153 in model form share couplers, engine, gearbox, gangways brake frames and bogies.

After that they are both very different beasts. 153's are tempremental things at the best of time.

Bear in mind both cab ends are formed differently as a result of their construction.

Bit of a curveball - does anyone in the southern hemisphere turn wheels down?

 Working overseas! Hardly a week goes by without one of my wife's British based oil industry engineers being given a better offer else where....and she works for an American company. The same goes for computer techs, several of whom have been snapped up by Chinese owned organisations recently. My son is at Medical school, several years from qualifying, yet there are overseas companies who want to 'keep in touch' for when he qualifies. Brain Drain is as strong as ever in the UK.

 

Mike Wiltshire

Yup, I've just left my place at Stoke Gifford TMC to work in Auckland for CAF rail... the 800's, AM class units here I come!

Thanks.

 

Sounds like Gbrf will be the 'operator' then so it would be their safety documentation for train operation and someone else's for the technical stuff relating to the  test programme (Serco have done it for Hitachi in the past but maybe Hitachi are doing it themselves now as they're altogether a much bigger presence than they were a few years back?).

Test teams have been a mix of Hitachi, DB Minden, Alstom, and Brecknell Willis, amongst others. 

Mike -

Gbrf drivers,

hitachi test staff who take responsibility for the train.

I can't recall the ADD max height.

I'm coming from Bristol Uk. Landing 15th of May.

I've been offered a job at the CAF depot at a point where I'm not happy with my job, the house I was buying fell through and I'm not long out of a ltr. No time like the present!

The 80x fleet also uses a gps and preprogrammed input.

Wiri, Auckland soon. I'll be bringing a crate of 2mm and n gauge over though.

Looks like I'll be headed to Auckland imminently to maintain trains in sunnier climes.

All advice on the move welcome!

While stood at Peterborough earlier, actually just using the loo, I heard a train passing and stuck my head out of the door (I was washing my hands by this time ) just in time to see a GWR liveried IEP set pass through attached to a plain white set.

T3 is grey

T4 is green

You also can't make a 9 car from two 5 car sets.

For a start you need two unpowered, inside bearing fitted trailers...

Interesting thing I heard the others day, apparently the 800s will have no capability for hot food (as in microwaved hot rather than cooked hot) and will be the end of the Pullman service.

 

So we have slower trains, with worse seating (in 1st at least) and worse food.

What a farce

Apart from the ceramic hobs, grill and convection ovens?

There's only three choices of kugel designed catering fitted...

That would be lovely but I'd prefer a dummy dellner.

(No one wants a real dellner, they are hateful things to work on compared to a BSI)

The crew doors are interlocked slam doors with inflatable air tight portal seals.

The saloon doors are a sliding pocket type, forced against a soft portal seal by four actuators, once the train passes the low speed threshold.

Of the stock I have previously worked on;

14x - the doors do the job, but have lots of issues with settling and they wear out fairly quickly compared to others. If they are opened/closed on low air pressure they don't lock, despite appearing to. 

150 - good, simple above door mechanism, one ram, one adjuster for the local door, one regulator for the saloon. Limited obstacle detection, but very rugged. Until the bottom runners snap or the pockets get a bit mucky and need cleaning out... 

153 - fine, although over complicated, with far too many microswitches. There's one switch that will close the door with no detection, which apparently hurts a lot when you are testing according to one of my colleagues.

158 - far too over complicated, rarely understood well. If you have any problems past centre over locking pressure, you may as well give up now - the four hard stops and four turnbuckles per door leaf require a huge amount of patience to get right. If in doubt, don't change components, ignore your modern VMI, set it up to the BREL manual then test to the modern spec to check. 

14x and 158 always seem to get themselves out of sync, no-one cares why, open and close them all to fix!

HST - simple to check but theres a fair degree of measuring and testing the latches as per any other mk2/3 door, nothing complicated, even CDL once you understand it isn't too scary.

 

No, I need to see if any information has been released before I discuss what they do have though.

Slam doors

that for a laugh. Slam doors need a lot of test and inspection and there's usually more of them. The 800 doors are proven and seem to be a really well considered solution.

The Doncaster depot has been built and I believe that the various test sets that are out and about on the ECML are based there. IIRC it's on the site of the old Carr loco facility.

 

Jamie

It's a lovely depot to work in, scenic vistas of concrete sleeers as far as the eye can see and 66's left idling outside the mess room!

What happens to the 'nose cones' when they couple together? Are they just left off and hooked back on by hand, or something more technical?

 

andy

They open and slide back into the nose area. Remotely controlled from the cab.

Quite a few due to the loss of HST servicing work.

 

Nope, because it isnt a transfer, some staff have gone across but are classed as new starters, Hitachi are not part of the Railway Pension Fund, the staff lose all travel benefits etc so its apretty poor deal for them.

 

Some looked at it, thought better of it and are staying put at GWR st Philips Marsh.

Again, there are no/minimal redundancies due to the new work load on depot. It's really upset the old timers who have stayed on for a slice of the pie.

I left to learn modern traction and have the oppourtunity to step up the ladder. SPM is very dated nowadays by industry standards.

They aren't mk3 style leather seats. A little bit of Google-fu shows 2+1 dark fabric.

http://www.mbob.co.uk/rforum/800first.jpg

Would any be eligible for transfer under TUPE?

No - the bias of work at SPM is for units so the work does not replace theirs.

Spm are currently after staff due to an increase in 14x, 15x and 16x C4 workload.

The IEP units for ECML and GWML will have a traffic light on each seat indicating reserved, reserved later in journey or not reserved - much easier than trying to find an unreserved seat from the display on a Pendolino.  So all they are missing is a pressure sensor like the ones that trigger car seat belt warnings. 

They also have a dot matrix display for each seat, I can't remember the supplier name, I just remember a pair of funny Belgian guys offering the training course.

May I offer a definite answer?

The GWR fleets will have it fitted, the other fleets will have a blanking plate fitted in both the speedo and input panel locations.

Both fleets will have ETCS capability, with it being left isolated until live. It currently provides a speedometer on the main screen. 

Good rumour making.

004 is on stoke Gifford. No fire here unless I've missed something watching driver training.

Maybe if you could write order from the etch part number as per the wagon kits?

This could then be extended to all the conversion kits as they appear.