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Southern Class 377 air conditioning

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CP&SLJR

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6 Feb 2015
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I have noticed recently that lots of them seem to have issues with air conditioning. While complete failure is more common than it was it is still unusual. But coaches being warmer than they should be has become really common. I’m Guessing this is because there are multiple units per coach and only one of them has failed?

Is Southern suffering with a specific issue with these units?

Incidentally Southern used to publish a spreadsheet on its website of performance indicators that a lot of information about the status of HVAC on its units but it doesn’t seem to any more.
 
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MrPIC

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30 May 2015
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If I remember correctly, electrostars have 2 HVAC units per coach, one over each pair of doors (plus an additional unit if there's a cab). If one fails then it will certainly get warmer as there's only one unit left to cope.
 

RichardKing

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Is Southern suffering with a specific issue with these units?

Generally speaking, Southern seems to be suffering from a hell of a lot of unit faults recently, culminating mostly in peak-time short forms, but also cancellations at times. I know for the majority of the time this can be put down to 377s being borrowed to cover faulty 313s, but there still seems to be an increase in faults in the former.

I know the 171s have part supplier issues, leading to - again - many unit faults...I don't think this is the case for 377s though.
 

CP&SLJR

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Thanks I had noticed the cancellations and short forms too, but didn’t realise unit availability was the root cause.

Is there any particular reason? The 377 are normally impressively reliable and I thought they all had a major overhaul 2-4 years ago?

Incidentally encountered an Overground class 378 last night with faulty AC. Wasn’t quite as stuffy as they have more opening windows and they had actually been opened by staff, something you rarely see on Southern even when there is a fault.
 

TrainBoy98

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Surprisingly Southern seem to have gotten better - I use them daily and for at least the last few weeks they had the hoppers unlocked and open (this just being the coastal routes though, I'm not sure if they do it elsewhere). Sadly with only a couple per coach it still gets quite warm, even if the AC is working.
 

Metal_gee_man

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Plenty of class 375s running round with broken AC and windows open in SE land, It must be an Electrostar thing where they aren't properly maintained, but saying that I think most of Southerns and SouthEasterns fleet are so heavily utilised that the maintence schedule on things like the air con or the constantly breaking down toilets falls to the wayside.
 

aleggatta

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HVAC on 377's can work very well, Having carried out heat and cool tests on them, most issues simply don't have the depot time available to rectify/swap out modules, added to this, if one of the ACM's is out on a unit, it instantly loses half of the HVAC system (Heating and cooling) due to lack of available auxiliary power. Also, the only reason HVAC can stop a unit from running is if the cab air con is not working, so fleet availability is not going to be compromised for an HVAC issue.
 

pompeyfan

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4,181
To be fair, Desiros can be just as bad, they end up with pockets of hot air between a door vestibule and an internal gangway on a 450, 444 on the whole are either all or nothing.

During winter the 450s develop ACU faults which means some constantly pump out freezing cold air. You can tell from the outside as the inside tubes are a bit more dull than usual.
 

superkev

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1 Mar 2015
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west yorkshire
Sadly maintaining Air Con on any units does not seem to be given much priority by hard pressed maintenance staff by any train companies. Some are better than others my local operator Northern seem particularly poor.
K
 

Fincra5

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6 Jun 2009
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Another problem is when 1 HVAC (of 2) in a coach is defective. The remaining HVAC is left running but can't fully cool down a coach. So On-Board staff open the Hopper Windows, which increases the work load of the remaing HVAC and then that too fails.
 

DarloRich

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Fenny Stratford
The southern units we get on the wcml service are fantastic. The air con has been on arctic setting recently and it is very pleasant. Miles better than the 350's.
 
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