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Progress on Avanti West Coast's 805/807s Hitachi AT300 sets

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59CosG95

59CosG95

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Railperf said:
Here is the more complex answer to the power supply issues from a good known source:

"The government's direct involvement has been a forced reduction in the scope of the power supply upgrades along the Crewe - Preston section, and that's in addition to the poor supply capacity north and south of Carlisle as others have mentioned. The "new" feeder at Willow Park (close to Newton-le-Willows, and replacing the old Parkside feeder) was supposed to support autotransformer feeding all the way to the neutral section at Crewe Coal Yard; work started, as evidenced by the newer added insulators at the top of the structures, but got stopped by the government as a cost saving measure. The result is that the section between the neutrals at Crewe Coal Yard and just north of Weaver Junction (both Runcorn and Warrington routes) is still being fed by an old arrangement of conductors and circuit breakers. This has always been a weak section, I'm sure that drivers of (class) 90- and 92-hauled trains along here can confirm that. One problem that it is fed through old oil-filled circuit breakers, which can only see a limited number of trips (30?) before the oil must be changed; clearly this is a maintenance cost that Network Rail could do without. A related problem is that the poor supply is distorted by pairs of 90s, particularly those accelerating along the Down Slow Line north from Crewe where much of the train is still on the climb out of Basford Hall yard; and this distortion can cause premature overload circuit trips (the "distance protection" on the feeder sees a waveform distortion and assumes it's a line fault, not a freight train).

Of course this whole area would have had its feeder arrangements altered when work on HS2 was carried out in the Crewe area, but we know what's happened to that....."
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I'm sure other OLE-minded folk can divulge more details here, but as far as I can recall:
  • The new connection at Frodsham is live
  • The new ATFS at Crewe (situated nr the existing on on the Manchester lines) was built but remains un-commissioned and mothballed
  • All the AT sites between Crewe & Weaver Jn were built but never commissioned
  • RC/BT (Return Conductor/Booster Transformer) operation persists between Whitmore (Staffs) & Weaver Jn (essentially in the area nominally fed by Crewe)
  • AT feeding is in operation south of Whitmore (inc. Northampton Loop but exc. the West Midlands, which was outwith WCPSU's scope) as far as Bourne End (Herts)
    • Bushey ATFS (Herts) was meant to AT feed from Bourne End to North Wembley but that got mothballed, like Crewe. Work recently restarted, then paused again
  • AT feeding is in operation north from Weaver Jn to Euxton Jn (essentially Willow Park ATFS's feeding area) and from Carnforth north to Great Strickland (essentially Oxenholme ATFS's feeding area).
    • The section fed by Catterall (i.e. Euxton - Preston - Lancaster - Carnforth) is still RC/BT but ATF supports went up on the masts.
    • IIRC a new 400kV grid feeder is planned nr Penwortham, and that would presumably pave the way for ATFs in the Preston area)
    • Beyond Gt Strickland, RC/BT feeding persists north all the way to Glasgow. Harker ATFS (between Carlisle & Gretna Jn) has had its AT equipment installed but never commissioned.
    • North of the Border, Elvanfoot FS was mooted for AT feeding which never materialised.
 
9

92002

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800001 said:
It’s not on delivery, it’s heading back across to continue more testing. Unit is still not accepted by Avanti, and is still a Hitachi test train.
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Certainly was delivered from Merchant Park today and put in a good mileage in the process.
 
LNW-GW Joint

LNW-GW Joint

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59CosG95 said:
I'm sure other OLE-minded folk can divulge more details here, but as far as I can recall:
  • The new connection at Frodsham is live
  • The new ATFS at Crewe (situated nr the existing on on the Manchester lines) was built but remains un-commissioned and mothballed
  • All the AT sites between Crewe & Weaver Jn were built but never commissioned
  • RC/BT (Return Conductor/Booster Transformer) operation persists between Whitmore (Staffs) & Weaver Jn (essentially in the area nominally fed by Crewe)
  • AT feeding is in operation south of Whitmore (inc. Northampton Loop but exc. the West Midlands, which was outwith WCPSU's scope) as far as Bourne End (Herts)
    • Bushey ATFS (Herts) was meant to AT feed from Bourne End to North Wembley but that got mothballed, like Crewe. Work recently restarted, then paused again
  • AT feeding is in operation north from Weaver Jn to Euxton Jn (essentially Willow Park ATFS's feeding area) and from Carnforth north to Great Strickland (essentially Oxenholme ATFS's feeding area).
    • The section fed by Catterall (i.e. Euxton - Preston - Lancaster - Carnforth) is still RC/BT but ATF supports went up on the masts.
    • IIRC a new 400kV grid feeder is planned nr Penwortham, and that would presumably pave the way for ATFs in the Preston area)
    • Beyond Gt Strickland, RC/BT feeding persists north all the way to Glasgow. Harker ATFS (between Carlisle & Gretna Jn) has had its AT equipment installed but never commissioned.
    • North of the Border, Elvanfoot FS was mooted for AT feeding which never materialised.
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Do we know if any of the AT shortfall will be progressed in the CP7 timeframe?
There's a lot of investment not delivering any benefits there.
I do remember the northern section (north of Gt Strickland) being axed because of the decline in expected freight traffic (in line with the end of port-to-power station coal traffic).
 
8

800001

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92002 said:
Certainly was delivered from Merchant Park today and put in a good mileage in the process.
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Well if it has been delivered to Avanti I stand corrected.
My understanding was it remained a Hitachi test train. As any units getting delivered to Avanti are also deliver wrapped in the Avanti livery.
 
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9

92002

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800001 said:
Well if it has been delivered to Avanti I stand corrected.
My understanding was it remained a Hitachi test train. As any units getting delivered to Avanti are also deliver wrapped in the Avanti livery.
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Any train delivered from the factory, whether brand new or returned for work will probably not be accepted to the fleet. In all probability the mileage test may or will have been returned to zero for a another test free milage to accumulate. Livery is not really a sign of acceptance and is invariably applied at the depot.
 
8

800001

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92002 said:
Any train delivered from the factory, whether brand new or returned for work will probably not be accepted to the fleet. In all probability the mileage test may or will have been returned to zero for an another test free milage to accumulate. Livery is not really a sign of acceptance and is invariably applied at the depot.
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You are mistaking what I am classing as delivered.

I, and many others class a delivery move as a unit being delivered and accepted by the customer.

So as I stated earlier the move today was not a delivery move, mearly a positioning move from the factory to Oxley on behalf of Hitachi so they can continue testing.

As for livery, again you are mistaken. Units leaving Hitachi now for delivery to Avanti, depart with livery applied after doing the relevant mileage acceptance overnight on the ECML.

I won’t comment any further on it, as this could go round and round in circles.
 
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Richard123

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Nicholas Lewis said:
Under normal feeding it ought to be sufficient but NR will want to cover at least an N-1 condition (loss of one of the grid infeeds for example at Crewe) to maintain normal service an adjacent infeed) which could would effective double the area being fed and thus the number of trains so there is a risk of overloading the remaining feeder and it tripping on overcurrent.
It is surprising that ECML is the recipient of a vast power upgrade and that North end of WCML which carries far more traffic is left in some places on the 1960's kit and at best the early 1970s distribution equipment. The problem with electrification is that its often not really obvious on train running that the system is running with an outage but at some point probability will conspire that a double outage occurs in the same area and then no electric trains will be moving.
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The WCML has seen vast spend on traction power over the past two decades since the start of WCRM; well over a billion to my memory, maybe double that in today's money. Most control periods had multi-hundred million pound upgrades in the business plan.

However the technology used there is clearly not cheap and there are significant stretches still untouched.

ECML's upgrade only started more recently, and based on the NR business plans a fraction of the budget spent on WCML.

Even on ECML, it seems work stopped on the Scottish section during Covid, perhaps related to the DfT view that passenger traffic would not return and timetables could be slimmed. Boats and ha'pennies of tar perhaps?
 
Peter Mugridge

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805 009 was at Euston at around midday today ( well.. technically yesterday now... Monday 15th )...

...in platform 10.
 
9

92002

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800001 said:
You are mistaking what I am classing as delivered.

I, and many others class a delivery move as a unit being delivered and accepted by the customer.

So as I stated earlier the move today was not a delivery move, mearly a positioning move from the factory to Oxley on behalf of Hitachi so they can continue testing.

As for livery, again you are mistaken. Units leaving Hitachi now for delivery to Avanti, depart with livery applied after doing the relevant mileage acceptance overnight on the ECML.

I won’t comment any further on it, as this could go round and round in circles.
Click to expand...
You are of course entitled to you view, even if it is flawed.
 
8

800001

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805012 currently on its delivery run to Oxley, running as 5Q32 Merchant Park to Oxley.

807004 is the latest unit to make an appearance outside at Merchant park, under going static testing. This is in full Avanti livery.
 
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bengolding

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Can anyone advise how many Standard and First Class seats are on these 5 and 7 car sets?

Will the coach numbering correspond to Voyagers and presumably there is no capacity on board for Standard Premium given Limited First capacity?
 
dk1

dk1

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bengolding said:
Can anyone advise how many Standard and First Class seats are on these 5 and 7 car sets?

Will the coach numbering correspond to Voyagers and presumably there is no capacity on board for Standard Premium given Limited First capacity?
Click to expand...
It's shown on Wikipedia for both classes.
 
dk1

dk1

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Nicholas Lewis said:
Well given XC are promised the 221's the quicker the better otherwise its going to get cosy during the summer on XC.
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Haven’t the 221s got to have some work done before joining XC? I can’t see they’ll be making much of an impact this holiday season.
 
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