What is the cause of unreliability of Vivarail Class 230 trains?

Silverlinky · 12 Nov 2019

There has been some sort of technical intervention which has resulted in far fewer genset failures (the main cause for the delays and cancellations previously)

A "rogue" signal was causing gensets to shut down, this has been identified and rectified.

Much higher reliability has resulted.

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Clip · 12 Nov 2019

Silverlinky said:
There has been some sort of technical intervention which has resulted in far fewer genset failures (the main cause for the delays and cancellations previously)

A "rogue" signal was causing gensets to shut down, this has been identified and rectified.

Much higher reliability has resulted.

Interesting stuff!

keith1879 · 12 Nov 2019

DarloRich said:
i suspect they will be fine in the cold. Snow i am not sure about if they have issues with pollen!

I'm thinking that snow is the next big test....we all remember the southern region's troubles with powdery snow and I had a colleague who drove his XJ-S through a snowstorm and seized the engine through overheating....expensive one that was.

keith1879 · 12 Nov 2019

keith1879 said:
I'm thinking that snow is the next big test....we all remember the southern region's troubles with powdery snow and I had a colleague who drove his XJ-S through a snowstorm and seized the engine through overheating....expensive one that was.

Cold is generally seen as a bigger problem than heat for a diesel engine but that's more to do with intake air temperature I think.

keith1879 · 18 Nov 2019

Updated account of the operation of the Marston Vale line for the six days from Monday November 11 to Saturday November 16 (previous week figures in brackets).Frankly a poor week although I don't think this has been down to the trains.

Reliability. Out of 204 scheduled journeys 36(0) were cancelled. One return working on Saturday was cancelled due to "operator request" (whatever that means) and all the others were down to staff problems on the outward journey from Bletchley. On Saturday when the service basically fell to bits (22 cancellations) the 1050 from Bedford arrived 8 minutes EARLY at Bletchley having ignored some pathing allowances after which all runs for that set were cancelled due to train crew issues. if anyone has any knowledge of what was going on it would be interesting to read it .....if it can be shared publically. Thus apparently 0(0) were cancelled due to train problems in the week as a whole.

Punctuality. Of the 168 (204) completed journeys 81(77) or 48%(38%) recorded on-time arrivals, 118(142) or 70%(70%) were a maximum of 2 minutes late. 26(25) or 15% (12%) were 5 minutes late or more. On 5(5) occasions this was primarily due to a late start. So approximately 12%(10%) of all trains operated lost 5 minutes or more en route.

Again the time lost en route was mostly lost at stations and for the most part was 30 seconds here and 45 seconds there. I think I can see a couple of significant issues emerging and I will try and explain these next week when I have the fourth and last report available.

Unfortunately a week like this can only reflect badly on the whole operation. With an eye on our friends in moderator towers I would just like to reiterate that the point of this post is to illuminate the question of how the class 230 multiple units are performing. There's the material here to start a whole new thread on the line in general.

Chris125 · 18 Nov 2019

A really useful analysis, it will be interesting to see how (if?) this improved reliability is reflected in the MTIN figures.

DarloRich · 19 Nov 2019

Whisper it quietly but reliability and performance is doing ok. I remain to be convinced that the issues with the gen sets has been rectified.

keith1879 said:
Reliability. Out of 204 scheduled journeys 36(0) were cancelled. One return working on Saturday was cancelled due to "operator request" (whatever that means) and all the others were down to staff problems on the outward journey from Bletchley. On Saturday when the service basically fell to bits (22 cancellations) the 1050 from Bedford arrived 8 minutes EARLY at Bletchley having ignored some pathing allowances after which all runs for that set were cancelled due to train crew issues. if anyone has any knowledge of what was going on it would be interesting to read it .....if it can be shared publically.

Saturday will have been becuase of the strikes.

keith1879 · 19 Nov 2019

DarloRich said:
Whisper it quietly but reliability and performance is doing ok. I remain to be convinced that the issues with the gen sets has been rectified.

Saturday will have been becuase of the strikes.

Can't say I blame you after all the problems you suffered in the past! Thanks for pointing out the issue of the strikes.....I'll have a look at the first two weeks and see whether removing the first two saturdays would have any major effect on the figures. I'm inclined to think that 4 periods of 5 working days each (Monday to Friday) would be a neat basis for analysis.

DarloRich · 19 Nov 2019

keith1879 said:
Can't say I blame you after all the problems you suffered in the past! Thanks for pointing out the issue of the strikes.....I'll have a look at the first two weeks and see whether removing the first two saturdays would have any major effect on the figures. I'm inclined to think that 4 periods of 5 working days each (Monday to Friday) would be a neat basis for analysis.

No problem. Saturday is ( anecdotally) the best day for service!

Like I said the "key" trains at peak hours seem to be doing ok.

duffield · 23 Nov 2019

Services running to time when I visited on Friday late afternoon, I really noticed the fast acceleration this time (maybe because it was dark so I was paying more attention to the sounds with nothing to see!). They really are quite nice little trains when they're actually running.

keith1879 · 27 Nov 2019

Unfortunately I had an unplanned night in hospital and have been unable to complete my 4 week survey....I did have a quick glance at last week and can see no train cancellations due to issues with the trains. In general I would say that the last four weeks do not show any current unreliability issues with the trains but that the operation of the line does suffer from late running to a serious degree (often around 10% of all trains arriving 5 minutes late or worse). Most of the late running is due to slow station work. This is notably worse after mid-day on both the turns....whether this indicates issues with the staff running the trains or with some cumulative defect on the trains themselves I couldn't say. I did wonder whether there are intermediate stations with booking offices that close at mid-day....

Bletchleyite · 27 Nov 2019

No booking offices at any intermediate station at all.

Bletchleyite · 4 Dec 2019

0624 off Bletchley this morning cancelled due to a unit failure (as it wasn't in the platform one assumes this means both the intended unit and the spare were unserviceable). This was quite annoying as I had intended to use it to go Bletchley-Bedford-Farringdon.

DarloRich · 4 Dec 2019

keith1879 said:
Unfortunately I had an unplanned night in hospital and have been unable to complete my 4 week survey....I did have a quick glance at last week and can see no train cancellations due to issues with the trains. In general I would say that the last four weeks do not show any current unreliability issues with the trains but that the operation of the line does suffer from late running to a serious degree (often around 10% of all trains arriving 5 minutes late or worse). Most of the late running is due to slow station work. This is notably worse after mid-day on both the turns....whether this indicates issues with the staff running the trains or with some cumulative defect on the trains themselves I couldn't say. I did wonder whether there are intermediate stations with booking offices that close at mid-day....

This week has seen a spike in issues. Late running and cancellation on several "peak" trains

Bletchleyite said:
No booking offices at any intermediate station at all.

And only working ticket machines at Fenny Stratford and St Johns

keith1879 · 4 Dec 2019

Just had a quick glance back over the last week....several cancellations which seemed to be down to crew issues....although there was a series on the evening of Monday 25th which no longer appear on RTT. Does anyone know what caused these? Other than that, this morning's cancellation appears to be the first unit failure since the fire I think. More data needed to make any useful judgment.

keith1879 · 4 Dec 2019

I'm interested to see Roger Ford's tables in the next Modern Railways.....the class 230s returned appalling figures for Miles per technical incident in the November issue and much less appallling (but still appalling) in the December issue. The next set of figures could establish a trend ......or not......

westcoaster · 4 Dec 2019

Another fire today, reported this time to be at Ridgemont.
Seems to be this working.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P45770/2019-12-04/detailed

keith1879 · 4 Dec 2019

westcoaster said:
Another fire today, reported this time to be at Ridgemont.
Seems to be this working.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P45770/2019-12-04/detailed

Not quite the trend I was thinking of. We'll see what transpires.

samuelmorris · 4 Dec 2019

keith1879 said:
I'm interested to see Roger Ford's tables in the next Modern Railways.....the class 230s returned appalling figures for Miles per technical incident in the November issue and much less appallling (but still appalling) in the December issue. The next set of figures could establish a trend ......or not......

Worth bearing mind those figures are about 3 months behind, so the December issue is September's (approximately, as there are 13 periods for 12 calendar months) figures. Based on anecdotal evidence I'd expect an improvement in the Jan & Feb issues at least, but they may very well still be at the bottom of the table, 9-car 345s notwithstanding.

Silverlinky · 4 Dec 2019

westcoaster said:
Another fire today, reported this time to be at Ridgemont.
Seems to be this working.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P45770/2019-12-04/detailed

Not a fire.....but the fire bottles discharging! What passengers thought was a fire and smoke was actually the bottles, the train thought there was a fire. Genset issues, and I believe this is the second time 003 has set off its bottles. 004 also out with genset issues, so one out of three at the moment.

Who was it who thought they might not like the cold?

Bletchleyite · 4 Dec 2019

Silverlinky said:
Who was it who thought they might not like the cold?

Do they like *anything*?

Anyone got a couple of spare 150s?

I believe some 142s went for scrap today. They'd do.

keith1879 · 4 Dec 2019

Looking at RTT there appear to be 2 sets in service again now .... a second train entered service on the 1914 from Bletchley. I make it that a total of 8 trips were cancelled (well 7 cancelled and 1 failed to reach its destination) today and as far as I can see the underlying cause in every case was the unit failures. Presumably this will show up as 2 technical incidents in due course in Roger Ford's figures (1 early this morning and then the incident at Ridgmont and its aftermath).

BucksBones · 4 Dec 2019

Time to admit this hasn't worked and get rid. It's such a shame, it was a great idea but unfortunately poorly executed.

Bletchleyite · 4 Dec 2019

BucksBones said:
Time to admit this hasn't worked and get rid. It's such a shame, it was a great idea but unfortunately poorly executed.

Agreed. It's only not getting much attention because the rest of LNR is falling to bits. If it was its old punctual and reliable self as it was under LM (give or take 5 minutes here or there) it would stick out like a very sore (burnt?) thumb.

Just need to get something to replace them from somewhere. A trio of 150s would do.

43096 · 5 Dec 2019

Silverlinky said:
Not a fire.....but the fire bottles discharging! What passengers thought was a fire and smoke was actually the bottles, the train thought there was a fire. Genset issues, and I believe this is the second time 003 has set off its bottles. 004 also out with genset issues, so one out of three at the moment.

Who was it who thought they might not like the cold?

Fire alarm system fault, which then activated the fire bottles.

Bletchleyite · 5 Dec 2019

43096 said:
Fire alarm system fault, which then activated the fire bottles.

Is anything on them not faulty? The seats maybe?

Seriously, they are cheap and nasty below the solebar even if they are reasonably nice above it (though the cack-handed arrangement on the gangway doors and the door operation itself also fits that description). I was a big advocate, but frankly they have done an awful job and they are fit only for scrap.

Hopefully the IoW will go better as they'll just (presumably) get a refurb and the reinforced snout rather than major mods?

43096 · 5 Dec 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Is anything on them not faulty? The seats maybe?

Seriously, they are cheap and nasty below the solebar even if they are reasonably nice above it (though the cack-handed arrangement on the gangway doors and the door operation itself also fits that description). I was a big advocate, but frankly they have done an awful job and they are fit only for scrap.

Hopefully the IoW will go better as they'll just (presumably) get a refurb and the reinforced snout rather than major mods?

Enthusiast hyperbole alert......
:rolleyes:

Bletchleyite · 5 Dec 2019

43096 said:
Enthusiast hyperbole alert......

They are not providing a reliable service after how many months now? While elsewhere 40 year old units provide a reliable service? And that's with three of the things - were there two they might as well buy a couple of buses.

I don't think it's hyperbole to say that they are rubbish and the situation is beyond a joke.

Xenophon PCDGS · 5 Dec 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Is anything on them not faulty? The seats maybe?

Seriously, they are cheap and nasty below the solebar even if they are reasonably nice above it (though the cack-handed arrangement on the gangway doors and the door operation itself also fits that description). I was a big advocate, but frankly they have done an awful job and they are fit only for scrap.

For those who remember the reservations that I had from "day one" on the Class 230 project, which was said to be unfair and that I should wait until "refurbished/re-engineered" units had been produced ("new lamps for old", being a timely adage in this pantomime season with Adrian Shooter taking the part of the Genie of the Lamp) and actually running in service, I acceded to these requests and waited for the results of the one year project on the Nuneaton to Coventry line, but a unit decided to self-immolate and that project was cancelled. Time passed and three Class 230 units were ordered for the Marston Vale line and this particular thread has been one that I have watched from afar, but do consider this to be an opportune time for making a posting.

43096 · 5 Dec 2019

Bletchleyite said:
They are not providing a reliable service after how many months now? While elsewhere 40 year old units provide a reliable service? And that's with three of the things - were there two they might as well buy a couple of buses.

I don't think it's hyperbole to say that they are rubbish and the situation is beyond a joke.

So “fit only for scrap” isn’t a complete over-reaction, then?

What is the cause of unreliability of Vivarail Class 230 trains?

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