EMR Class 360's

RailWonderer · 13 Nov 2020

Ah, my bad. I read the posts too quickly.

RailUK Forums

221101 Voyager · 13 Nov 2020

Has anyone seen 5Q60 tonight as Rtt is down and don’t knew where it is.
If anyone can help I’d be very grateful.

43096 · 13 Nov 2020

221101 Voyager said:
Has anyone seen 5Q60 tonight as Rtt is down and don’t knew where it is.
If anyone can help I’d be very grateful.

RTT isn't down here. 5Q60 shows currently as being between Northampton S Jct and Roade.

221101 Voyager · 13 Nov 2020

43096 said:
RTT isn't down here. 5Q60 shows currently as being between Northampton S Jct and Roade.

When I left my house, RTT was down so I ran to Wolverton. A few mins after I got there RTT was restored. Luckily I managed to capture it, just before a 350 blocked my view! If that 350 had been 5 seconds earlier I would have been bowled! It was a very close call!

To anyone interested my photos of the move will be published on my Flickr probably Sunday as I'm a bit behind on uploads right now.

Thanks for your response on the RTT situation!

DBS92042 · 14 Nov 2020

360117 has gone to Northampton today. I think its 47749 with the wheel flats unless 360117 has had a slide too

43066 · 14 Nov 2020

bengley said:
I don't sign the midland main line anymore but when I did, nobody seemed to be able to point out where the 100mph restriction for electric traction south of Bedford was published. It's certainly not in the sectional appendix. Can anyone point it out?

I seem to remember it was discussed recently on here, and nobody could point it out then either. Everybody “knows” the requirement exists though - sort of like belief in God I guess...

Pumbaa said:
It wouldn’t have been required back then as the only electric traction was 100mph max. New signage is going up shortly on approach to Bedford from the North, so would expect it to be appear in publications soon if it isn’t already in there (I haven’t checked myself).

I can only assume the MML wires were constructed to the minimum cost necessary to accommodate 100mph EMUs (unlike the ECML which was done around the same time). Can @BaldRick shed any light?

59CosG95 · 14 Nov 2020

43066 said:
I seem to remember it was discussed recently on here, and nobody could point it out then either. Everybody “knows” the requirement exists though - sort of like belief in God I guess...

I can only assume the MML wires were constructed to the minimum cost necessary to accommodate 100mph EMUs (unlike the ECML which was done around the same time). Can @BaldRick shed any light?

According to ocs4rail.com, and the book downloadable on that site, there's a 3-year gap between the Mk3b used on the MML (1983) and the Mk3b on the ECML (1986 - 1991). The most notable difference between the two types was the installation of triple-dish insulation between the Up Fast & Down Slow on the MML OLE's headspans - probably to do with the track pairing arrangements differing to the ECML's pairing.

MML: (DF|UF|DS|US). ECML: (DS|DF|UF|US)

Domh245 · 14 Nov 2020

43066 said:
I seem to remember it was discussed recently on here, and nobody could point it out then either. Everybody “knows” the requirement exists though - sort of like belief in God I guess...

I suspect it's a self-imposing restriction as the only EMUs to have used it thus far are 100mph only. The exception is the 387s, but GTR only sought to operate them up to 100mph for whatever reason (safety case rings a bell for some reason?) and so that could effectively be considered their top speed. Soon as the first 100+ EMUs are actually introduced (the 360s) then I'd expect to see 100mph limits being noted in the sectional appendix for 12 car formations

43066 · 14 Nov 2020

Domh245 said:
I suspect it's a self-imposing restriction as the only EMUs to have used it thus far are 100mph only. The exception is the 387s, but GTR only sought to operate them up to 100mph for whatever reason (safety case rings a bell for some reason?) and so that could effectively be considered their top speed. Soon as the first 100+ EMUs are actually introduced (the 360s) then I'd expect to see 100mph limits being noted in the sectional appendix for 12 car formations

Were the GTR 387s capable of 110mph when GTR were running them, or did they require modifications for GWR a la the 360 mods for EMR? I can see how the 110mph capability wouldn’t have been that useful for GTR, they wouldn’t have been able to make much use of it with their stopping patterns.

It can’t just be a number of pantographs thing - otherwise only 12 car 360 formations would be limited to 100. The same restriction will be in place for the 810s (1 pantograph per 5 car unit, max ten car), and shorter 360 formations, from what I’ve heard.

Nobody really seems to know (even the people you would think really should know). Standard railway!

swt_passenger · 14 Nov 2020

43066 said:
Were the GTR 387s capable of 110mph when GTR were running them, or did they require modifications for GWR a la the 360 mods for EMR? I can see how the 110mph capability wouldn’t have been that useful for GTR, they wouldn’t have been able to make much use of it with their stopping patterns.

It can’t just be a number of pantographs thing - otherwise only 12 car 360 formations would be limited to 100. The same restriction will be in place for the 810s (1 pantograph per 5 car unit, max ten car), and shorter 360 formations, from what I’ve heard.

Nobody really seems to know (even the people you would think really should know). Standard railway!

The 387s were built 110 mph capable AFAICR. Old threads in here record that they were described as such in PR and rail mags well before delivery, around 2013 onwards.

bengley · 14 Nov 2020

43066 said:
Were the GTR 387s capable of 110mph when GTR were running them, or did they require modifications for GWR a la the 360 mods for EMR? I can see how the 110mph capability wouldn’t have been that useful for GTR, they wouldn’t have been able to make much use of it with their stopping patterns.

It can’t just be a number of pantographs thing - otherwise only 12 car 360 formations would be limited to 100. The same restriction will be in place for the 810s (1 pantograph per 5 car unit, max ten car), and shorter 360 formations, from what I’ve heard.

Nobody really seems to know (even the people you would think really should know). Standard railway!

They were definitely 110mph ready.

Bald Rick · 14 Nov 2020

43066 said:
I seem to remember it was discussed recently on here, and nobody could point it out then either. Everybody “knows” the requirement exists though - sort of like belief in God I guess...

I can only assume the MML wires were constructed to the minimum cost necessary to accommodate 100mph EMUs (unlike the ECML which was done around the same time). Can @BaldRick shed any light?

I may need to be corrected here, but when the MML was electrified, there wasn’t any AC loco or EMU with an official max speed above 100mph, ATP excepted. (Unless the 87s were 110 from the start?). Also, I’m not sure if much of the route itself was fit for more than 100mph, certainly not when electrification started in the late 70s.

What has always confused me though is why the MML South if Bedford can’t take 125mph ‘intercity’ type trains, whereas the ECML can, when it is essentially the same kit.

43096 · 14 Nov 2020

Bald Rick said:
I may need to be corrected here, but when the MML was electrified, there wasn’t any AC loco or EMU with an official max speed above 125mph, ATP excepted. (Unless the 87s were 110 from the start?). Also, I’m not sure if much of the route itself was fit for more than 100mph, certainly not when electrification started in the late 70s.

What has always confused me though is why the MML South if Bedford can’t take 125mph ‘intercity’ type trains, whereas the ECML can, when it is essentially the same kit.

The 87s were 100mph from new. They were upgraded to 110mph by fitting of Brecknell Willis pantographs from 1984 when some Euston-Glasgow services were accelerated.

edwin_m · 15 Nov 2020

Bald Rick said:
I may need to be corrected here, but when the MML was electrified, there wasn’t any AC loco or EMU with an official max speed above 125mph, ATP excepted. (Unless the 87s were 110 from the start?). Also, I’m not sure if much of the route itself was fit for more than 100mph, certainly not when electrification started in the late 70s.

What has always confused me though is why the MML South if Bedford can’t take 125mph ‘intercity’ type trains, whereas the ECML can, when it is essentially the same kit.

I think you meant 100mph and APT in your first line.

Anyone know how the support spacing compares on the ECML and MML? It was allegedly a bit too long on the ECML, equally allegedly the cause of some of the dewirements in recent years. So if spacing and other relevant parameters (tension?) are similar on the MML then maybe it was also thought to be compatible when built, but the worry now is that regular electric operation at above 110mph would make it similarly unreliable.

Bald Rick · 15 Nov 2020

edwin_m said:
I think you meant 100mph and APT in your first line.

Anyone know how the support spacing compares on the ECML and MML? It was allegedly a bit too long on the ECML, equally allegedly the cause of some of the dewirements in recent years. So if spacing and other relevant parameters (tension?) are similar on the MML then maybe it was also thought to be compatible when built, but the worry now is that regular electric operation at above 110mph would make it similarly unreliable.

I did

corrected.

I don’t know the difference in spacing, but I do know the 4 track headspans on the MML near me are each precisely 70 Bald Rick paces apart.

D7666 · 15 Nov 2020

Bald Rick said:
I may need to be corrected here, but when the MML was electrified, there wasn’t any AC loco or EMU with an official max speed above 125mph, ATP excepted. (Unless the 87s were 110 from the start?). Also, I’m not sure if much of the route itself was fit for more than 100mph, certainly not when electrification started in the late 70s.

What has always confused me though is why the MML South if Bedford can’t take 125mph ‘intercity’ type trains, whereas the ECML can, when it is essentially the same kit.

I think the MML is a slightly bit more complexicated than that.

When the BedPan - or MSE as its proper name - project started, it was a 90 mph not 100 mph outer suburban electrification project. Both the OLE and 317s were designed for, and construction of both started, for 90 mph before the project was altered to 100 mph.

If, if, and this is only my speculation, the 90 mph OLE was simply given just enough mods to adapt it to 100 mph, rather than fully re-spec it to 100 mph, it might not have been able to take further adaption for 125 mph. MSE was always a suburban only project, there wasn't an aim [early 1980s project planning] to wire the rest of MML for the foreable future, whereas the earlier [early 1970s project planning] GN project was intended to be the south end of ECML OLE, hence 100, at least.

317s do appear to be geared for (as in traction motor gearing) or the motor characteristics are, for 90 mph - if you compare them to a 319 or 321, as they accelerate, a 317 will out strip the other two in the lower speed ranges, but in the higher speed ranges the reverse is true, especially a 317 appears to take a while to get from over 90 to actually hit 100. Living in Luton I've had a lot of chance to compare 317 with 319 like for like, and it's always been that way. Overall running, start to stop, isn't a lot in it.

This info - about 90 mph and the move to 100 mph after project started - was presented in an RCTS West Midlands lecture way back in 1983/1984 or so when I lived in Coventry, by LMR people involved at the time, it is not derived from uninformed web stuff. It was sheer chance I attended that, then a couple of years later moved to Luton.

Bald Rick · 15 Nov 2020

D7666 said:
MSE was always a suburban only project, there wasn't an aim [early 1980s project planning] to wire the rest of MML for the foreable future,

That is not my recollection at all. As late as 1982/3 plans were advanced for extending the wires to Leicester and beyond, and the MML was to be the next ‘big’ electrification. Hence Leicester resignalling was OLE ready (both in signal positioning and immunisation). Certainly ahead of the ECML. The MML was to take the stock released from the WCML when the APTs arrived.

The strategy changed post sectorisation in 1982, when electrifying the ECML was shown to have a better case. The original ECML spec was cheap as chips; class 89s hauling the existing HST trailers, London to Leeds / Newcastle only, loco changes at Newcastle for Scotland.

Others may correct me, but as I understand it there is no difference in spec for Mk3b electrification between 90mph and 100mph. (Nor 110mph for that matter).

edwin_m · 15 Nov 2020

Bald Rick said:
I don’t know the difference in spacing, but I do know the 4 track headspans on the MML near me are each precisely 70 Bald Rick paces apart.

Can we encourage you to go for a brisk walk alongside the ECML?

Bald Rick said:
That is not my recollection at all. As late as 1982/3 plans were advanced for extending the wires to Leicester and beyond, and the MML was to be the next ‘big’ electrification. Hence Leicester resignalling was OLE ready (both in signal positioning and immunisation). Certainly ahead of the ECML. The MML was to take the stock released from the WCML when the APTs arrived.

The strategy changed post sectorisation in 1982, when electrifying the ECML was shown to have a better case. The original ECML spec was cheap as chips; class 89s hauling the existing HST trailers, London to Leeds / Newcastle only, loco changes at Newcastle for Scotland.

Others may correct me, but as I understand it there is no difference in spec for Mk3b electrification between 90mph and 100mph. (Nor 110mph for that matter).

However with electrification continuing towards Leicester the spec would probably have been two pans at 100mph (EMUs, when the demand at the time didn't warrant 12 cars) and if it the intercities were cascaded WCML stock they would have been one pan at 110. So the critical question is probably how the spec differs (if at all) between 110mph and 125mph.

D7666 · 15 Nov 2020

Bald Rick said:
That is not my recollection at all. As late as 1982/3 plans were advanced for extending the wires to Leicester and beyond, and the MML was to be the next ‘big’ electrification. Hence Leicester resignalling was OLE ready (both in signal positioning and immunisation). Certainly ahead of the ECML. The MML was to take the stock released from the WCML when the APTs arrived.

The strategy changed post sectorisation in 1982, when electrifying the ECML was shown to have a better case. The original ECML spec was cheap as chips; class 89s hauling the existing HST trailers, London to Leeds / Newcastle only, loco changes at Newcastle for Scotland.

Others may correct me, but as I understand it there is no difference in spec for Mk3b electrification between 90mph and 100mph. (Nor 110mph for that matter).

I am only reporting what one LMR electification project engineer who was actually working on the MSE project stated at the time, nearly 40 years ago, which was as work was just starting, the project was altered.

((& I did not mention signalling - policy for quite some time was for all re-signalling with the slightest chance of ever being route wired to be electrification ready. Signalling works are no indicator of this.))

That project engineer was quite specific about it being a 90 mph scheme both w.r.t. OLE and EMU, and about MSE being outer suburban only, no main line plans.

But, in any case, what I posted does fit your memory time line.

The RCTS lecture was 1983/84 after project looking back at it: 317s were built from 1981, so must have been specified at least c.1979 and ordered c.1980. Ditto OLE. These dates of 1979-1981 pre-date your 1982/83 extending north. Hence what I wrote is correct - AT THE TIME OF MSE PROJECT there was no MML extension plan, this came AFTER MSE was completed - or was nearing completion.

Bald Rick · 15 Nov 2020

D7666 said:
I am only reporting what one LMR electification project engineer who was actually working on the MSE project stated at the time, nearly 40 years ago, which was as work was just starting, the project was altered.

((& I did not mention signalling - policy for quite some time was for all re-signalling with the slightest chance of ever being route wired to be electrification ready. Signalling works are no indicator of this.))

That project engineer was quite specific about it being a 90 mph scheme both w.r.t. OLE and EMU, and about MSE being outer suburban only, no main line plans.

But, in any case, what I posted does fit your memory time line.

The RCTS lecture was 1983/84 after project looking back at it: 317s were built from 1981, so must have been specified at least c.1979 and ordered c.1980. Ditto OLE. These dates of 1979-1981 pre-date your 1982/83 extending north. Hence what I wrote is correct - AT THE TIME OF MSE PROJECT there was no MML extension plan, this came AFTER MSE was completed - or was nearing completion.

I understand all that, but I think the LM plan was always that the MML wiring would carry on from Bedford, way back when it was authorised in the 70s. Indeed I’m reasonably sure thatbMSe was described as ‘Phase 1’. I’d have to dig out some old copies of Modern Railways.

Ladder23 · 15 Nov 2020

Will this mean a potential recruitment campaign for the 360’s or will there be enough staff at hand already

Bald Rick · 15 Nov 2020

Ladder23 said:
Will this mean a potential recruitment campaign for the 360’s or will there be enough staff at hand already

If you mean traincrew, that recruitment has long since happened and training has been underway for months.

Ladder23 · 15 Nov 2020

Bald Rick said:
If you mean traincrew, that recruitment has long since happened and training has been underway for months.

just in general, thanks though! This is all new news to me with the 360's and EMR! exciting to see

Ethan1852 · 16 Nov 2020

360 113 is now at Cricklewood U.G.L https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/K06171/2020-11-16/detailed

EDIT -

Tuesday 17th 2 moves - https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/K06172/2020-11-17/detailed
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/K06173/2020-11-17/detailed

westcoaster · 16 Nov 2020

Bald Rick said:
If you mean traincrew, that recruitment has long since happened and training has been underway for months.

Still trying to attract qualified drivers at Kettering. Believe the 2nd or 3rd time now.

_toommm_ · 16 Nov 2020

westcoaster said:
Still trying to attract qualified drivers at Kettering. Believe the 2nd or 3rd time now.

Will the Kettering crew work the electrics exclusively, or will they also be let loose on the Meridians/810s up to Nottingham and Sheffield?

Pumbaa · 16 Nov 2020

It’s a mixed traction depot, covering Intercity work to Notts/Derby as well.

Bald Rick · 16 Nov 2020

westcoaster said:
Still trying to attract qualified drivers at Kettering. Believe the 2nd or 3rd time now.

Well that is interesting.

Ethan1852 · 17 Nov 2020

360 104 is now at Cricklewood U.G.L.

dmncf · 17 Nov 2020

What locomotives are hauling the 360s today?

EMR Class 360's

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