Class 317 questions

[Royston Vasey]

First question! Waiting for a Liverpool St-bound pair of 317s to couple at Cambridge a week or two ago, I watched the crew attempting to join the Tightlocks and it took about four attempts to get them to stick. This in the end took quite a bit of force and ended in a very obvious and pretty violent shudder of both end coaches, to the extent that the two moved about 2-3 feet towards the buffers and the unit being driven into the stationary unit seem to leap clean into the air before returning to the rails.

The crew took it in their stride with little more than a few humorous digs at the driver/unit, but I wondered if, particularly on a more severely curved rails, joining units ever leads to minor derailments?


Second question is how much truth is there from the following Wiki quote... Any of the NXEA guys know anything of the AWOL 317511? Pics??

317511 has not been seen in public service since prior to refurbishment in June 2006. It is suggested that it was refurbished and almost instantly upon return subject to an arson attack at Enfield Lock. The evidence of it being refurbished came when 317 502 was set fire to on a Hertford East service and a coach was severely damaged. This coach appears to have been sent to join 317511 which supposedly lurks somewhere in Ilford Car Sheds with yet another burnt out coach, and the good coach from 317511 (77014) was placed on 317502. Until recently, this was able to be noticed that between the two coaches on 317502 there is the last 3 numbers of the unit number. The 317511 coach still clearly displaying "511" although the front end has been changed accordingly. On Friday 9th August 2008, 317 502 was released in new the National Express livery, thus all carriages now showing '502'.

 

[O L Leigh]

Tightlocks can be a bugger to couple up and thankfully we never have to do it on a curved line very often. The usual problem is that you don't get both the "telltales" showing at the back of the coupler heads to prove that both locking pins have dropped to secure the couplers. Sometimes you just have to back off and smack it a bit harder. However, sometimes even that is not enough and you have to resort to some pretty extreme measures to get the pins to drop fully. If you don't do this you risk a train dividing en route, which is not something you want to comtemplate with gangwayed stock like Cl317's.

You just have to hope that the unit you're coupling to hasn't had an air compressor failure or something similar that means it's only being held on the parking brake, as it's not really enough to prevent it from being shoved around (it's equivalent to 25% of a Step 1 brake application). I've had to do this a couple of times, once with a red signal at the back of the other unit (plus it was on a curve) and the second time there was a set of stops at the back. Thankfully the first one went together a dream saving me from a "SPAD in rear", but the second was a real trial. I just couldn't risk smacking it hard enough to get the "telltales" out without shoving the thing backwards into the stops (I'd already pushed the thing back a good 3 feet in my attempts up to that point). In the end I had to get down and blow some air from the good unit into the duffer using the emergency schrader connection so that there was enough brake pressure to allow me to smack it good and proper.

You'd never throw a unit on the floor just from the coupling forces. However, I'm given to believe that Scharfenburg and BSI autocouplers don't require such rough handling.

Surprisingly that Wiki entry seems to be largely accurate. 317511 has been hors de combat for a good little while. It did suffer an arson attack (not sure it was the Enfield Lock unit, as I was sure that was repaired and returned to traffic) and was stored for a little while until the same thing happened to 317502 down at Hertford East. Instead of being down two units, 511 donated it's undamaged DTOS(A) to 502 which has been running as a hybrid ever since. The remaining three vehicles from 511 together with the DTOS(A) from 502 have been stored on the Plessey Roads at Ilford and are being used as a source of spares for the rest of the fleet. That said, it has been keeping up with many of the updates that the rest of the fleet has been getting and has even been "de-branded".

I believe that the fire damaged vehicles from both units have been back to Wabtec for repair. The reason that 511 has not been returned to service appears to be that it is not required in traffic. Given the length of time that has been OOU and the extent to which it would seem to have been stripped I can't honestly believe that it will ever turn a wheel in revenue-earning service again, especially as there is likely to be a new-build of EMU's for the StanEx service and a cascade of Cl317's to other services as a result.

I took this last May.

O L Leigh

 

[Royston Vasey]

Excellent post O L Leigh, thanks for the insights. Tightlocks obviously pretty temperamental at times. Surprised 511 hasn't been called into use elsewhere for NXEA or other franchises, what with FCC resorting to 377s on Thameslink for example.

 

[Juniper Driver]

I've always managed to couple/uncouple (touchwood) although on a 159 at Salisbury this year I couldn't uncouple and had to get the Salisbury Driver to do it for me :? as I don't couple/uncouple 159's that often.

 

[O L Leigh]

I've had one or two refusals.

One was a pair of Cl317's that I was booked to bang together at Liv St to work down to Hertford East in the height of the evening peak. I had to smack the buggers as hard as I could and managed to get both "telltales" out, but there was a gap of at least an inch between the connector blocks that I was never going to be able to do anything about. In the end I just had to unhook the unit again and take it as a 4 car.

The second time was a similar scenario with a pair of Cl315's at Chingford. Try as I might I couldn't get one of the locking pins to drop to lock the coupler shut, so every time I shut off power the units would drift apart again. I hit the thing hard, soft and even crept up on it dead slow in the hope that the pin might drop if the coupler was closed gradually. That one ran as a 4 car in the end too.

Never had a refusal to uncouple though. We have ways and means of getting a Tightlock open.

O L Leigh

 

[jopsuk]

I've often seen them take a couple of goes to couple Networkers at Cambridge- can't be comfortable being on board on those mornings- and it delays my train (which, to stay almost on-topic, is a 317 NXEA service due to leave three minutes later) How long is routinely allowed for coupling and uncoupling?

 

[O L Leigh]

There are time allowances given for things like coupling and uncoupling, but I can't find them quickly. In fact, I'm not sure I have a copy of the times at all. However, such things take as long as they take. If you have a problem then it takes longer. At least non-gangway stock is slightly quicker to bang together because you don't have the extra hassle of making or unmaking the gangway as well.

O L Leigh

 

[delt1c]

Hi peeps
Sitting in the caravan up here in Aviemore , please be carefull with the beloved 317's as I will back commuting in 2 weeks time back to liverpool St, have to say it is rather boring here with mainly 170's , 1 HST a day and a 67 on the sleepers. Saying that i am in no rush to return

 

[Royston Vasey]

The 365 I was on last night at CBG coupled like a dream. Barely a shudder

Totally off topic, but also in residence a 170 still in full Anglia livery and branding :roll:

 

[rail-britain]

There are time allowances given for things like coupling and uncoupling, but I can't find them quickly

Rules of the Route usually has some basic time allowances for this
I have noted that it has been removed from some stations, where units used to couple or uncouple in the past, presumably where all the TOCs no longer have that requirement

 

[P156KWJ]

Tightlocks can be a bugger to couple up and thankfully we never have to do it on a curved line very often. The usual problem is that you don't get both the "telltales" showing at the back of the coupler heads to prove that both locking pins have dropped to secure the couplers. Sometimes you just have to back off and smack it a bit harder. However, sometimes even that is not enough and you have to resort to some pretty extreme measures to get the pins to drop fully. If you don't do this you risk a train dividing en route, which is not something you want to comtemplate with gangwayed stock like Cl317's.

You just have to hope that the unit you're coupling to hasn't had an air compressor failure or something similar that means it's only being held on the parking brake, as it's not really enough to prevent it from being shoved around (it's equivalent to 25% of a Step 1 brake application). I've had to do this a couple of times, once with a red signal at the back of the other unit (plus it was on a curve) and the second time there was a set of stops at the back. Thankfully the first one went together a dream saving me from a "SPAD in rear", but the second was a real trial. I just couldn't risk smacking it hard enough to get the "telltales" out without shoving the thing backwards into the stops (I'd already pushed the thing back a good 3 feet in my attempts up to that point). In the end I had to get down and blow some air from the good unit into the duffer using the emergency schrader connection so that there was enough brake pressure to allow me to smack it good and proper.

You'd never throw a unit on the floor just from the coupling forces. However, I'm given to believe that Scharfenburg and BSI autocouplers don't require such rough handling.

Surprisingly that Wiki entry seems to be largely accurate. 317511 has been hors de combat for a good little while. It did suffer an arson attack (not sure it was the Enfield Lock unit, as I was sure that was repaired and returned to traffic) and was stored for a little while until the same thing happened to 317502 down at Hertford East. Instead of being down two units, 511 donated it's undamaged DTOS(A) to 502 which has been running as a hybrid ever since. The remaining three vehicles from 511 together with the DTOS(A) from 502 have been stored on the Plessey Roads at Ilford and are being used as a source of spares for the rest of the fleet. That said, it has been keeping up with many of the updates that the rest of the fleet has been getting and has even been "de-branded".

I believe that the fire damaged vehicles from both units have been back to Wabtec for repair. The reason that 511 has not been returned to service appears to be that it is not required in traffic. Given the length of time that has been OOU and the extent to which it would seem to have been stripped I can't honestly believe that it will ever turn a wheel in revenue-earning service again, especially as there is likely to be a new-build of EMU's for the StanEx service and a cascade of Cl317's to other services as a result.

I took this last May.

O L Leigh

unfortunately we had a split train en-route once, 2x 153s in multiple on the Robin Hood line back in 2002, Central Trains and their passengers weren't happy!

 

[djw1981]

Hi peeps
Sitting in the caravan up here in Aviemore , please be carefull with the beloved 317's as I will back commuting in 2 weeks time back to liverpool St, have to say it is rather boring here with mainly 170's , 1 HST a day and a 67 on the sleepers. Saying that i am in no rush to return

Just be thankful that FSR 170's are working well, because if they are not you could end with a 2car 158 on that route - urgh!

 

[westcoaster]

never had a problem uncoupling althought sometimes you have to squeeze up to the other unit then press uncouple, you get a large clunck sound and you know you are sorted, once saw two silverlink 321's trying to couple, driver had tried 4 times from one unit and they would not go together he crept up, normal, hard all to no avail, went on the other unit to try from there, coupled 1st time.