Class 800 upgrades to address performance and reliability issues

43096 · 24 Jul 2019

coppercapped said:
If you are referring to the trains issued to the TOCs under the IEP contract, you are wrong. That is solely and entirely the DfT's doing.

That doesn’t apply to the 802s though.

And to be brutally honest, the contractual model is irrelevant to the people who matter most - the paying punters. They want a train to turn up at the right time with the right number of carriages. Too many forget this basic truth.

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northernbelle · 24 Jul 2019

The hysteria on here is absolutely hilarious, as is the usual boring rollout of the anti "WorstGroup" drival.

There is clearly a design fault leading to these problems for which Hitachi has liability to resolve. That said, a high number of other fleets suffered overheating problems yesterday and the problems were far from unique to the IETs.

The 80x fleet has been specified to operate on their routes whilst meeting certain peformance criteria - this is what Hitachi are contracted to deliver and therefore need to sort themselves out to do so. There are dedicated posts at GWR to manage this supplier relationship, but redesigns and retrofits take time to implement (30 years in the case of finally replacing tempramental Valentas in the HSTs).

No doubt some on here could negotiate the cost, draw up the redesign and have it installed on 93 trains by next week. No, thought not.

northernbelle · 24 Jul 2019

43096 said:
That doesn’t apply to the 802s though.

And to be brutally honest, the contractual model is irrelevant to the people who matter most - the paying punters. They want a train to turn up at the right time with the right number of carriages. Too many forget this basic truth.

It would matter to the customer if they knew their train was going to turn up more reliably as a result of the contract mechanisms.

broadgage · 24 Jul 2019

I thought that the overheating issues were well known by last summer. Hitachi have therefore had at least a year to rectify this.
Why would anyone have to "negotiate the cost" ? Surely Hitachi should rectify design faults entirely at their own expense, without need for negotiation.
Or should paying customers simply accept the new trains are unreliable, and that 5 car formations in the summer holiday season are the new normal.

northernbelle · 24 Jul 2019

broadgage said:
I thought that the overheating issues were well known by last summer. Hitachi have therefore had at least a year to rectify this.
Why would anyone have to "negotiate the cost" ? Surely Hitachi should rectify design faults entirely at their own expense, without need for negotiation.
Or should paying customers simply accept the new trains are unreliable, and that 5 car formations in the summer holiday season are the new normal.

I meant in terms of negotiating the supply and manufacturer of retrofit components - it doesn't just happen overnight.

TractiveEffort · 24 Jul 2019

northernbelle said:
I meant in terms of negotiating the supply and manufacturer of retrofit components - it doesn't just happen overnight.

And not forgetting the train is a huge amalgamation of parts from well over 100 suppliers. The process to implement any change to a rail vehicle is long and drawn out, for even something simple, that’s irrelevant of the company requesting the change.

So, design a change, justify it on safety, performance or cost saving grounds have it approved for trial by the Engineering bodies, the owner and the operator, run a trail of sufficient length and depth to ensure the mod is safe and an improvement. Analyse the trial, let the other parties analyse the trial, draw up costs and a programme to obtain the material, then finally, plan the mods in.

It’s not like fitting alloy wheels to your car....

Dave1987 · 24 Jul 2019

northernbelle said:
I meant in terms of negotiating the supply and manufacturer of retrofit components - it doesn't just happen overnight.

These were supposed to be and were billed as "state of the art trains" that would smash records for reliability through being designed in an era of CAD and CFD. Certain people have been defending these things until they are blue on the face despite the enormous costs.

Dave1987 · 24 Jul 2019

TractiveEffort said:
And not forgetting the train is a huge amalgamation of parts from well over 100 suppliers. The process to implement any change to a rail vehicle is long and drawn out, for even something simple, that’s irrelevant of the company requesting the change.

So, design a change, justify it on safety, performance or cost saving grounds have it approved for trial by the Engineering bodies, the owner and the operator, run a trail of sufficient length and depth to ensure the mod is safe and an improvement. Analyse the trial, let the other parties analyse the trial, draw up costs and a programme to obtain the material, then finally, plan the mods in.

It’s not like fitting alloy wheels to your car....

Why were these problems even there in the first place? We have computing power to simulate every conceivable situation the trains might encounter.

irish_rail · 24 Jul 2019

northernbelle said:
The hysteria on here is absolutely hilarious, as is the usual boring rollout of the anti "WorstGroup" drival.

There is clearly a design fault leading to these problems for which Hitachi has liability to resolve. That said, a high number of other fleets suffered overheating problems yesterday and the problems were far from unique to the IETs.

The 80x fleet has been specified to operate on their routes whilst meeting certain peformance criteria - this is what Hitachi are contracted to deliver and therefore need to sort themselves out to do so. There are dedicated posts at GWR to manage this supplier relationship, but redesigns and retrofits take time to implement (30 years in the case of finally replacing tempramental Valentas in the HSTs).

No doubt some on here could negotiate the cost, draw up the redesign and have it installed on 93 trains by next week. No, thought not.

Hysteria is overblown is it??? Try telling that to those on a 5 vice 10 IET travelling from Cornwall to London on one of the hottest days of the year , possibly without a seat and almost certainly without access to refreshment...

TractiveEffort · 24 Jul 2019

Dave1987 said:
Why were these problems even there in the first place? We have computing power to simulate every conceivable situation the trains might encounter.

No idea, I’m not a designer.

northernbelle · 24 Jul 2019

irish_rail said:
Hysteria is overblown is it??? Try telling that to those on a 5 vice 10 IET travelling from Cornwall to London on one of the hottest days of the year , possibly without a seat and almost certainly without access to refreshment...

Yes, hysteria is overblown. The same few posters keep trolling out the same tired arguments and adopt the same repetitive finger pointing exercise, demonstrating little understanding of how this situation has actually come about nor how it can be resolved.

How many WoE services ran 5 vice 10 today? I know there were 5 sets short formed across the 800/802 fleet today - I saw a good number of the WoE diagrams go past me during the day and they all seemed to be 9 or 10 car sets barring one up working this morning (suitable for a 5 car anyway).

I am one of those who have travelled on far too many 5 vice 10 IETs recently and realise that big efforts need to be made to sort it out, but post after post of 'WorstGroup did this' and '(s)Hitachi did that' is frankly dull, often wide of the mark and actually doesn't give the detail of what's going on, which I'm sure is actually what most of us are interested in.

irish_rail · 24 Jul 2019

northernbelle said:
Yes, hysteria is overblown. The same few posters keep trolling out the same tired arguments and adopt the same repetitive finger pointing exercise, demonstrating little understanding of how this situation has actually come about nor how it can be resolved.

How many WoE services ran 5 vice 10 today? I know there were 5 sets short formed across the 800/802 fleet today - I saw a good number of the WoE diagrams go past me during the day and they all seemed to be 9 or 10 car sets barring one up working this morning (suitable for a 5 car anyway).

I am one of those who have travelled on far too many 5 vice 10 IETs recently and realise that big efforts need to be made to sort it out, but post after post of 'WorstGroup did this' and '(s)Hitachi did that' is frankly dull, often wide of the mark and actually doesn't give the detail of what's going on, which I'm sure is actually what most of us are interested in.

I blame neither First group nor Hitachi. The blame lies squarely at the department for transport for the whole procurement farce. And i believe 3 diagrams (each containing several services) on wofe route were short formed , which is a fairly high percentage of total west country trains (remember it's only an hourly service)

northernbelle · 24 Jul 2019

irish_rail said:
Hysteria is overblown is it??? Try telling that to those on a 5 vice 10 IET travelling from Cornwall to London on one of the hottest days of the year , possibly without a seat and almost certainly without access to refreshment...

In the usual spirit of fact rather than opinion, this is how today's Paddington-WoE services were formed according to the magic box:

0635 PAD-PNZ ... 802110
0703 PAD-PGN ... 800304
0730 PAD-PNZ ... 802002+802009
0903 PAD-NQY ... 802109
1003 PAD-PNZ ... 802102
1103 PAD-PLY ... 802001+802006
1203 PAD-PNZ ... 802021+802018
1233 PAD-TAU ... 802106
1303 PAD-PNZ ... 802104
1403 PAD-PNZ ... 802007+802003
1503 PAD-PNZ ... 802014+802004
1603 PAD-PNZ ... 802016
1633 PAD-EXD ... 800307
1703 PAD-PNZ ... 802011+802010
1733 PAD-PGN ... 802105
1803 PAD-PNZ ... 802110
1833 PAD-EXD ... 802106
1903 PAD-PLY ... 802001+802006
2003 PAD-PLY ... 802002+802009
2103 PAD-PLY ... 802102
2145 PAD-EXD ... 800318

So just a single, albeit unfortunate, short form on the 1603 PAD - PNZ. I believe the short forms have been concentrated on non-WoE services no doubt due to some hard work by controllers to rejig units around to concentrate capacity where it's most needed and keep the short forms where there are more headcodes on which a 5 car is sufficient.

Just trying to get some perspective on the problem rather than deny there is one.

irish_rail · 24 Jul 2019

northernbelle said:
In the usual spirit of fact rather than opinion, this is how today's Paddington-WoE services were formed according to the magic box:

0635 PAD-PNZ ... 802110
0703 PAD-PGN ... 800304
0730 PAD-PNZ ... 802002+802009
0903 PAD-NQY ... 802109
1003 PAD-PNZ ... 802102
1103 PAD-PLY ... 802001+802006
1203 PAD-PNZ ... 802021+802018
1233 PAD-TAU ... 802106
1303 PAD-PNZ ... 802104
1403 PAD-PNZ ... 802007+802003
1503 PAD-PNZ ... 802014+802004
1603 PAD-PNZ ... 802016
1633 PAD-EXD ... 800307
1703 PAD-PNZ ... 802011+802010
1733 PAD-PGN ... 802105
1803 PAD-PNZ ... 802110
1833 PAD-EXD ... 802106
1903 PAD-PLY ... 802001+802006
2003 PAD-PLY ... 802002+802009
2103 PAD-PLY ... 802102
2145 PAD-EXD ... 800318

So just a single, albeit unfortunate, short form on the 1603 PAD - PNZ. I believe the short forms have been concentrated on non-WoE services no doubt due to some hard work by controllers to rejig units around to concentrate capacity where it's most needed and keep the short forms where there are more headcodes on which a 5 car is sufficient.

Just trying to get some perspective on the problem rather than deny there is one.

Well done to all concerned then in 're jigging units to ensure the west country was less affected, thumbs up from me. Probably not great consolation to those on other GWR routes but someone has to lose out i suppose!

father_jack · 25 Jul 2019

northernbelle said:
In the usual spirit of fact rather than opinion, this is how today's Paddington-WoE services were formed according to the magic box:

0635 PAD-PNZ ... 802110
0703 PAD-PGN ... 800304
0730 PAD-PNZ ... 802002+802009
0903 PAD-NQY ... 802109
1003 PAD-PNZ ... 802102
1103 PAD-PLY ... 802001+802006
1203 PAD-PNZ ... 802021+802018
1233 PAD-TAU ... 802106
1303 PAD-PNZ ... 802104
1403 PAD-PNZ ... 802007+802003
1503 PAD-PNZ ... 802014+802004
1603 PAD-PNZ ... 802016
1633 PAD-EXD ... 800307
1703 PAD-PNZ ... 802011+802010
1733 PAD-PGN ... 802105
1803 PAD-PNZ ... 802110
1833 PAD-EXD ... 802106
1903 PAD-PLY ... 802001+802006
2003 PAD-PLY ... 802002+802009
2103 PAD-PLY ... 802102
2145 PAD-EXD ... 800318

So just a single, albeit unfortunate, short form on the 1603 PAD - PNZ. I believe the short forms have been concentrated on non-WoE services no doubt due to some hard work by controllers to rejig units around to concentrate capacity where it's most needed and keep the short forms where there are more headcodes on which a 5 car is sufficient.

Just trying to get some perspective on the problem rather than deny there is one.

Can we have a towards Bristol and Swansea list please ? Not trying to catch you out but I'm not near a magic bocks at the moment.........

JN114 · 25 Jul 2019

father_jack said:
Can we have a towards Bristol and Swansea list please ? Not trying to catch you out but I'm not near a magic bocks at the moment.........

Towards Bristol:-
All 9/10 except 1100, 1300, 1530, 1830 and 2045
1912 Cancelled

Towards S Wales:-
All 9/10 except 0715, 1715, 1745
1015, 1115, 1215, 1315, 1415 and 1515 all Cancelled - although not all of those are due to IET issues.

broadgage · 25 Jul 2019

TractiveEffort said:
And not forgetting the train is a huge amalgamation of parts from well over 100 suppliers. The process to implement any change to a rail vehicle is long and drawn out, for even something simple, that’s irrelevant of the company requesting the change.

So, design a change, justify it on safety, performance or cost saving grounds have it approved for trial by the Engineering bodies, the owner and the operator, run a trail of sufficient length and depth to ensure the mod is safe and an improvement. Analyse the trial, let the other parties analyse the trial, draw up costs and a programme to obtain the material, then finally, plan the mods in.

It’s not like fitting alloy wheels to your car....

In your view, how many years would be reasonable for hitachi to rectify the design faults that result in overheating ?
They have had over a year with no noticeable improvement.
So how long is reasonable ? 2 years ? or 3, or 5 years. Or just give up and accept that IETs don't work well or reliably in hot weather.

northernbelle · 25 Jul 2019

broadgage said:
In your view, how many years would be reasonable for hitachi to rectify the design faults that result in overheating ?
They have had over a year with no noticeable improvement.
So how long is reasonable ? 2 years ? or 3, or 5 years. Or just give up and accept that IETs don't work well or reliably in hot weather.

It's not reasonable to need to rectify design faults in the first place, but in the real world any that are required do take some time depending on what they are. Also in the real world, it's not until the design is being used in a 'real world' environment that some of these things materialise - it kind of highlights how important an appropriate test regime really is. Despite a prototype being in passenger use for 3 or 4 years, the production HSTs still suffered from a myriad of design problems that only became apparent once they were thrashing up and down the network on a daily basis.

There are several reports from drivers on here and other forums that a modified driving style can help this situation - where a few minutes lost by driving more sedately is preferable to trying to go flat out and losing most of the engines leading to a longer delay. Not ideal, but probably one of the interim solutions until the design issues can be resolved. I suspect the blanket speed restrictions imposed by NR today will help the situation - the IETs do cruise with less effort below about 80-90mph. Any speed above that and the engines are working hard for most of the time.

The addition of a 'derate' function on the engine management software would probably help too.

Dave1987 · 25 Jul 2019

northernbelle said:
It's not reasonable to need to rectify design faults in the first place, but in the real world any that are required do take some time depending on what they are. Also in the real world, it's not until the design is being used in a 'real world' environment that some of these things materialise - it kind of highlights how important an appropriate test regime really is. Despite a prototype being in passenger use for 3 or 4 years, the production HSTs still suffered from a myriad of design problems that only became apparent once they were thrashing up and down the network on a daily basis.

There are several reports from drivers on here and other forums that a modified driving style can help this situation - where a few minutes lost by driving more sedately is preferable to trying to go flat out and losing most of the engines leading to a longer delay. Not ideal, but probably one of the interim solutions until the design issues can be resolved. I suspect the blanket speed restrictions imposed by NR today will help the situation - the IETs do cruise with less effort below about 80-90mph. Any speed above that and the engines are working hard for most of the time.

The addition of a 'derate' function on the engine management software would probably help too.

But trains designed 40-50 years ago were not designed with the kind of computer modelling power that is now available. I distinctly remember hearing about how these were "state of the art trains" that have been designed using the latest computer modelling technologies and that they were going to set new standards for high reliability expectations etc. If you are going to shout about how brilliant they are going to be then you really need to make sure they don't have any inherent design flaws.

northernbelle · 25 Jul 2019

Dave1987 said:
But trains designed 40-50 years ago were not designed with the kind of computer modelling power that is now available. I distinctly remember hearing about how these were "state of the art trains" that have been designed using the latest computer modelling technologies and that they were going to set new standards for high reliability expectations etc. If you are going to shout about how brilliant they are going to be then you really need to make sure they don't have any inherent design flaws.

I do agree ... although I'm a realist and I tend to believe nothing is better than in-service operational experience.

MarkyT · 25 Jul 2019

The AT300 is a well proven reliable electric train, but the scale of IET bi-mode deployment is something completely new worldwide, and much greater than originally planned on the Western, with the whole fleet now diesel capable, necessarily, and the additional 802 fleet ordered separately by GWR. The best longer term solution to their diesel mode reliability is to complete the deferred areas of new OHLE around Oxford and Bristol (only once modified layouts and new signalling are complete), then reinstate the wiring scheme to Swansea. The TfW Cardiff Metro electrification team might be allowed to continue to demonstrate their cost effective techniques on the main line, once their Valleys work is finished. With all these elements complete, it is possible a large number of the diesel gen sets could be removed permanently from the 800 fleet. It is likely to be Agility who would be saving the maintenance and any performance penalties so perhaps they should be partners in planning and financing the infrastructure work.

samuelmorris · 25 Jul 2019

MarkyT said:
The AT300 is a well proven reliable electric train, but the scale of IET bi-mode deployment is something completely new worldwide, and much greater than originally planned on the Western, with the whole fleet now diesel capable, necessarily, and the additional 802 fleet ordered separately by GWR. The best longer term solution to their diesel mode reliability is to complete the deferred areas of new OHLE around Oxford and Bristol (only once modified layouts and new signalling are complete), then reinstate the wiring scheme to Swansea. The TfW Cardiff Metro electrification team might be allowed to continue to demonstrate their cost effective techniques on the main line, once their Valleys work is finished. With all these elements complete, it is possible a large number of the diesel gen sets could be removed permanently from the 800 fleet. It is likely to be Agility who would be saving the maintenance and any performance penalties so perhaps they should be partners in planning and financing the infrastructure work.

As true as that is, and the 395s seem reasonable, the electric mode on the 800/802s is also very unreliable. Is that down to them having bimode capability or an inherent flaw with the 80x? That isn't obvious.

MarkyT · 25 Jul 2019

samuelmorris said:
As true as that is, and the 395s seem reasonable, the electric mode on the 800/802s is also very unreliable. Is that down to them having bimode capability or an inherent flaw with the 80x? That isn't obvious.

Good question. I guess we will all start to learn how AT300s perform day in day out in pure electric form as the new LNER fleet builds to full strength.

CC 72100 · 25 Jul 2019

northernbelle said:
It's not reasonable to need to rectify design faults in the first place, but in the real world any that are required do take some time depending on what they are. Also in the real world, it's not until the design is being used in a 'real world' environment that some of these things materialise - it kind of highlights how important an appropriate test regime really is. Despite a prototype being in passenger use for 3 or 4 years, the production HSTs still suffered from a myriad of design problems that only became apparent once they were thrashing up and down the network on a daily basis.

There are several reports from drivers on here and other forums that a modified driving style can help this situation - where a few minutes lost by driving more sedately is preferable to trying to go flat out and losing most of the engines leading to a longer delay. Not ideal, but probably one of the interim solutions until the design issues can be resolved. I suspect the blanket speed restrictions imposed by NR today will help the situation - the IETs do cruise with less effort below about 80-90mph. Any speed above that and the engines are working hard for most of the time.

The addition of a 'derate' function on the engine management software would probably help too.

I don't know about IETs but that's certainly what I'd do on diesel stock with an engine out or idling only. With the pressure put on the remaining engine(s), you do need to plan ahead and think about how you can help to preserve it. A little more coasting or not going hell for leather can help... nurse the train back home. If it's a question of doing 50mph and coasting for 3/4 miles or reaching the 60mph linespeed but in full power then go for the former.

Beemax · 25 Jul 2019

irish_rail said:
I blame neither First group nor Hitachi. The blame lies squarely at the department for transport for the whole procurement farce. And i believe 3 diagrams (each containing several services) on wofe route were short formed , which is a fairly high percentage of total west country trains (remember it's only an hourly service)

I don't think there's anything wrong in principle with a contract that requires a train manufacturer to provide a service on a day to day basis. After all, while adding the diesel capability at short notice may have been challenging for Hitatchi, they could have said no and maybe should have.

Bletchleyite · 25 Jul 2019

Beemax said:
I don't think there's anything wrong in principle with a contract that requires a train manufacturer to provide a service on a day to day basis.

Everything-as-a-service is a very common business model these days and it does have big benefits - you just get the thing you want for a known price, no complication. If Hitachi don't deliver, they pay.

800002 · 25 Jul 2019

Beemax said:
while adding the diesel capability at short notice may have been challenging for Hitatchi, they could have said no and maybe should have.

I was thinking about that point - With the late notice amendment for the Cl.800 to run further and longer on Diesel (vice Electric), Hitachi uprated the engines to the Cl.802 spec - correct? (Please correct, if not).
Did Hitatchi miss a step or two, in considering the impact of the higher workload on the spec for initially running on Electric with short distance / contingency Diesel?

I may (and probably am) talking rubbish - but the need to uprate the original engines beyond design could lead to the current overheating issues (if the spec is slightly different between the 800 and 802.

supervc-10 · 25 Jul 2019

I thought that the uprate to 802 power levels would just increase the amount of maintenance that's needed?

A lot of cars have variable servicing, where oil change intervals vary according to driving style. For my Seat, if you spend the entire time on the motorway then you can push servicing intervals out to 18k miles, while if you spend your life doing stop/start city driving, then it's 10k miles. Car use cases are obviously a bit different from a train, but I would expect that the principle of hard work = more servicing still applies!

800002 · 25 Jul 2019

I think I was trying to say:
Higher uprating + running longer at power (instead of under wires drawing power) = more heat than orginially planned for.
Is there better heat dispersal with the 802s?

TractiveEffort · 25 Jul 2019

broadgage said:
In your view, how many years would be reasonable for hitachi to rectify the design faults that result in overheating ?
They have had over a year with no noticeable improvement.
So how long is reasonable ? 2 years ? or 3, or 5 years. Or just give up and accept that IETs don't work well or reliably in hot weather.

There is plenty of work going on, the way the contract is set up, Hitachi can’t just force MTU to make changes, there is plenty of work going on to eliminate the issues, as much as you’d like it to happen in a short period, it cannot be done.

Class 800 upgrades to address performance and reliability issues

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