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Class 378's to be shortened to 4 cars and used on GOBLIN?

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Electrojuniper

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Well, NR did a great job of producing diagrams through various engineering possessions! Ran 3 hours later. Nice to see second unit out and about on the GOB line.
 
Railperf

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One of the diesel 172s appears to have failed today - based on the diagrams that the 2 x 378s were supposed to be working and assuming they stayed on diagram!
 
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plcd1

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Railperf said:
Has one of the 378s failed?
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Err don't know for certain. Mixed comments on Twitter as to whether and when 378206 was out and about today. There do seem to be repeated failures with the 172s. I assume they are on minimal attention given their impending departure. AFAIK the final 378 has to be out and about from Monday. Checking theit twitter feed the user group has had confirmation from TfL today that next week's weekday service is covered by 3x172 and 3x378s. If I've been paying attention we've lost the 8th, 7th and 6th 172s with the 5th and 4th units going off sub lease this weekend.

From then on the timetable is at risk of longer intervals and then it has to step down to half hourly when the final three 172s go (15th March apparently). Nothing yet on the TfL website about all of this but apparently local announcements have been made about the longer intervals between weekday trains (not just the weekend service).
 
Railperf

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Both 378s out today with 172004 and 172007 for company. The 15.27 at Leyton Midland towards Barking was packed to the rafters!!
 
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plcd1

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Milo T.K said:
4th class 378 is gonna be shortened dunno the unit though
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Goodness - have they found a spare one locked away in a cupboard or something? I thought the 5-car fleet was running on a knife edge already without taking yet another unit out. Apart from giving a bit of maintenance float for the GOBLIN I don't see what the point is to be honest if it's going to tip the rest of the Watford/NLL/WLL/SLL/ELL routes into problems. We've already seen dreadful problems recently with cancellations and faulty trains wrecking the service. The ELL fell over one afternoon this week due to a failed train.

While it would be unpopular it would be far more sensible for TfL to simply cancel the GOBLIN service on Sundays or part of Sundays to give Bombardier a fighting chance of maintaining the three 4 car units until the 710s can actually be put into meaningful service (if they ever will be).
 
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swt_passenger

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CyrusWuff said:
The last 172 working was yesterday. As of today, they're down to a half hourly service using three shortened 378s.
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I think the 4th unit (if it happens) would be a maintenance spare? Doesn’t look to me as though it would allow an increased frequency over 2 tph...
 
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causton

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Yes, the 378 fleet is very overworked. Seen from LO a few cancellations due to 'more units than usual needing repairs' and that is on a weekend... unless they are wisely cancelling them today to avoid trouble during the peak times during the week!
 
yorksrob

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Just been reading about this situation. The thing that bothers me is -

Why didn't tfl just borrow some of the unallocated 319 units made redundant from Thameslink ?
 
Esker-pades

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yorksrob said:
Just been reading about this situation. The thing that bothers me is -

Why didn't tfl just borrow some of the unallocated 319 units made redundant from Thameslink ?
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Because the time, money and resources it would take to train existing drivers on rolling stock that would be used for a few months is prohibitive.
 
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hwl

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yorksrob said:
Just been reading about this situation. The thing that bothers me is -

Why didn't tfl just borrow some of the unallocated 319 units made redundant from Thameslink ?
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The once a page reminder on "Why didn't they just get X old stock":
No DOO cameras
 
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plcd1

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Time to be a bit more bothered as the line has been suspended for hours today after a 378 sustained apparent pantograph damage at Barking. Platform 1 seemed to be blocked out of use and there is a photo online of a 378 on the viaduct at Barking having its passengers evacuated. One 378 towed it out and took it to Willesden. There now appear to be two trains running on the GOBLIN giving a spectacular service level of a train every hour or so. Even Romford - Upminster manages better than that.

Let's hope the damaged unit can be repaired quickly or else the nonsense with this line just gets worse by the week.

EDIT - the damaged train was repaired quickly and service fully restored for the end of the PM peak period.
 
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Ethano92

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FelixtheCat said:
Because the time, money and resources it would take to train existing drivers on rolling stock that would be used for a few months is prohibitive.
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In all fairness, although it has also been said before almost every page, the trains are over a year late now, it would've been worthwhile if they started a while ago but obviously with a stock that has DOO cameras. Can't expect them to have that level of forward thinking I guess.

Either way, all we can do is hope that the 710s get here at some point as Bombardier have quite a few other trains to build after that but they'll probably go a lot more smoothly if many issues are resolved with this unit.
 
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Jonny

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Ethano92 said:
In all fairness, although it has also been said before almost every page, the trains are over a year late now, it would've been worthwhile if they started a while ago but obviously with a stock that has DOO cameras. Can't expect them to have that level of forward thinking I guess.

Either way, all we can do is hope that the 710s get here at some point as Bombardier have quite a few other trains to build after that but they'll probably go a lot more smoothly if many issues are resolved with this unit.
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Especially as many of them are needed to meet the PRM deadline - especially if someone (presently in opposition) decides to enforce it.
 
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hwl

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Ethano92 said:
... but obviously with a stock that has DOO cameras.
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What stock with DOO cameras - there isn't any spare.

Retrofitting old stock* with the cameras and monitors would be a UK first at the time they would have had to commit to design work.

* without a camera / monitor options available off the shelf from the manufacturer. E.g. Southern 377/3s converted from SE 375s by adding the cameras + monitors and changing the couplings.

The LNWR 350s will be the first retro fitted stock but the first unit is only now starting the conversion.
 
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