Entire 800/801/802 fleet stood down for safety checks

Is there a picture of where the cracks are on the trains? Theres a lot of technical language flying around which I don't understand!

GodAtum said:

How many remote communities have been affected by this failure? I can image some of the smaller villages in Devon and Cornwall rely on the train service.

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there are plenty of 158s and Castle HSTs running between Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance, as well as XC services.

Fisherman80 said:

Is there a picture of where the cracks are on the trains? Theres a lot of technical language flying around which I don't understand!

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Have a look at SWT_Passenger's post on page https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...et-stood-down-for-safety-checks.217119/page-8

73128 said:

there are plenty of 158s and Castle HSTs running between Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance, as well as XC services.

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Actually, travel within Cornwall and to/from Plymouth is probably the least affected part of the GWR network.

Failed Unit said:

Have LNER had another hit of failed units. More cancellations tomorrow including the entire Lincoln service.

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Most likely to utilise the set on mainline services which are running around as 5 cars, and to make them 10 car sets.

Fisherman80 said:

Is there a picture of where the cracks are on the trains? Theres a lot of technical language flying around which I don't understand!

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The vehicle bodies are made from relatively lightweight welded aluminium. Where the bogies sit under the front and back of the vehicle there are heavy duty lumps of aluminium called "bolsters" welded to the body. Much, much stronger than the normal body these bear the weight of the body and all the forces that go with that. To the bolster are attached yaw dampers (shock absorbers) which control the rotation of the bogie under the vehicle and there are also jacking points/lifting pockets in the bolsters to allow the vehicle to be lifted for maintenance. This video gives an idea of the jacking process...


A few weeks ago some cracks were found where the the yaw dampers attach to the bolster on a few GWR operated trains, the highest mileage/oldest ones, and a warning notice was sent o the rest of the rail industry to tell anyone else with a similar train to check for these same cracks. As far as is known publicly no-one else found the same cracks BUT over the weekend some new cracks were found in the lifting pockets of GWR trains and this resulted in all Hitachi trains in the UK being subject to examination, in some cases the trains not being allowed into passenger service until they'd been given the all clear.

Hitachi 80* trains operated by GWR, LNER & TPE have been found with these cracks and 385's operated by Scotrail have also been found with cracks.

The class 800's when they came out of the factory where in white paint and I believe that they got painted at Arlington Services? If so, would they have had to have the units on jacks to be able to do the painting of the units?

Thumbs up for millemille for a very good reply.

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Robbies said:

The class 800's when they came out of the factory where in white paint and I believe that they got painted at Arlington Services? If so, would they have had to have the units on jacks to be able to do the painting of the units?

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Jacking is required for a number of maintenance activities; if it's required for painting (which I doubt), it would be a minor use of the jacks and far more important would be that the maintenance regime is based around being able to raise a unit on the jacks for the jobs that need it.

lord rathmore said:

Your point is valid only if total suspension of services has become an acceptable event. I am of the traditional view that providing a reliable service is the reason train operators are there at all. Having no backup systems at all seems very naive to me.

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Domh245 said:

It's ultimately a question of economics (much as you decry accounting). The cost of maintaining a backup (be that HSTs laid up in sidings, or running two separate fleets) will likely exceed the costs of any major disruption like this in short order, especially when you then start to consider the probabilities of showstopping disruption occurring.

The railways exist to provide a reliable service, but they don't exist in their own world, free of economics...

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O L Leigh said:

I'm not wading through 40+ pages to see if anyone else has raised this point, so I apologise if I'm just repeating something already said.

There are also issues with traincrew competency if you're going to go down the reserve traction route. It's not much good having a fleet of [insert preferred traction here] laid up in sidings if you've got no-one to work them. Route and traction retention costs money because you generally have to release traincrew from their usual duties, and quite a few TOCs have cut back on things like diversionary routes in order to reduce the number of route-refresh turns in the rosters.

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Reliability (robustness) is an interesting thing. Some years ago when "Lean" was a thing in Network Rail I pointed out that you can have "Lean" OR you can have reliability/robustness. But generally not both as to have Lean AND robustness you need a level of control of ALL inputs that in real life you will never have on a railway.

There's a balance to be had. Reliability generally costs money as it's not just about duplication, it's about diversity of supply and also being able to use the alternative in a meaningful timeframe. Computer backups are a prime example; you may have backed up your system externally but if it takes 14 days to go from "backup copy" to "back up and running" you will lose 2 weeks work if you get a failure. It's something I have witnessed and often have to point out when doing my day job.

The more complex a system, the more this delay from moving from "backup" to "back up running the job" can be. Say you have a reserve of HSTs in warm storage; that costs in itself (site, shore power, regular runs) and then to move from the "backup" of sets stored to "sets in service" you will need to (at least) refresh the traincrew AND the local maintenance depot who will be doing the A-exams etc. You also need strategic supply chain backed up- if you get flats on a Mk3 coach (not exactly unusual) and your wheels are below last turn, does your wheelset builder have a stock of the correct type of pans on hand or will it take 3 months to source some (3 months isn't a bad lead time for a pan not on regular stock)?.

So to what level do you "back up" your system?

As with IT systems, the costs of a full "imediate switchover" backup is much higher than having a secure drive clone which you can get up and running in a couple of weeks.

Running a half-and-half system also brings costs and issues- as others have already said.

So, @lord Rathbone, I suggest you need to define what you mean by "reliability" as it's quite a broad term. Is "reliability" defined as 100% of trains within 5 minutes 100% the time? (I hope not, because as we used to say in a different circle of colleagues, only <deity of your choice> can go that far). Is it 90%? If so within what period- averaged over a year or per day?

No, I am not cutting hairs because defining in precise terms what we mean by "reliability" is essential if we want to deliver that- and also have a grown-up decision about the cost of such. Engineering approaches can assess reliability of a system (built from that of the components), and can engineer to a probability of failure being exceedingly low (see also: nuclear industry, aviation). We'll never get 100% reliability but we can get close- but the closer you get the more it costs and it's not a linear relationship- as with the old 80/20 rule, that last bit costs more than the rest combined- e.g. if you're at (say) 95% reliability, reaching 97% reliability may cost the same again as it took to achieve 95%.

Nothing is 100%. Sometimes we just need to live with the situation. If a journey is that critical then perhaps a backup plan of bus/hire car/own car (or even all in place) is needed........ and even then there's a chance that would also fail, maybe also book a plane and a private boat to be sure? (no not being daft, it's back to what we mean by reliability and how much we will pay for it).

Finally- we can look at the past with rose-tinted specs, but I'm old enough to remember when cars didn't reliably start on a damp morning and the world was less time-critical. It's really easy to take for granted the engineering marvels to hand these days, marvels which are generally highly reliably due to excellent understanding of materials science and engineering. But it never was and never will be 100%.

TPO

35B said:

Jacking is required for a number of maintenance activities; if it's required for painting (which I doubt), it would be a minor use of the jacks and far more important would be that the maintenance regime is based around being able to raise a unit on the jacks for the jobs that need it.

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Thank you, that is what I thought would be the case.

Robbies said:

The class 800's when they came out of the factory where in white paint and I believe that they got painted at Arlington Services? If so, would they have had to have the units on jacks to be able to do the painting of the units?

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Regarding the livery question, Only the TPE 802s & LNER 80Xs had their vinyls applied in Eastleigh Works - None of the TPE fleet is painted as it's all done with large Vinyl pieces (both fleets are still painted white underneath). I'm not sure where the Hull Trains 802s received their vinyls though, but it wasn't Eastleigh.

I think it'

fgwrich said:

Regarding the livery question, Only the TPE 802s & LNER 80Xs had their vinyls applied in Eastleigh Works - None of the TPE fleet is painted as it's all done with large Vinyl pieces (both fleets are still painted white underneath). I'm not sure where the Hull Trains 802s received their vinyls though, but it wasn't Eastleigh.

I think it'

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Thank you for the info Fgwrich.

I doubt the 802’s would need to be jacked up just to fit Vinyls or even a repaint?

Only a matter of time before the TPEX ones get pulled in their entirety I expect. I suspect there will be more checks in a few weeks time and the TPEX 802s will have problems.

Southern Dvr said:

Only a matter of time before the TPEX ones get pulled in their entirety I expect. I suspect there will be more checks in a few weeks time and the TPEX 802s will have problems.

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Every unit on all operators is being checked every 24 hours, they are not allowed to leave the depots with out a check being completed.

800001 said:

Every unit on all operators is being checked every 24 hours, they are not allowed to leave the depots with out a check being completed.

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Point being that as they’re the youngest ones it’s likely in due course they’ll suffer as much as the others.

also a logistical nightmare if a crack turns up whilst on loan to another TOC as it’ll have to go ‘home’ for repair.

apparently Hitachi throw their toys out the pram when a GWR unit finishes at a different depot to its planned one, so they’ll get palpitations at them starting and finishing at another TOCs!!!

Southern Dvr said:

Point being that as they’re the youngest ones it’s likely in due course they’ll suffer as much as the others.

also a logistical nightmare if a crack turns up whilst on loan to another TOC as it’ll have to go ‘home’ for repair.

apparently Hitachi throw their toys out the pram when a GWR unit finishes at a different depot to its planned one, so they’ll get palpitations at them starting and finishing at another TOCs!!!

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Hmmm. Maybe under the current circumstances that might be the least of their worries?

fgwrich said:

Regarding the livery question, Only the TPE 802s & LNER 80Xs had their vinyls applied in Eastleigh Works - None of the TPE fleet is painted as it's all done with large Vinyl pieces (both fleets are still painted white underneath).

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Purely for the sake of Pedancy but only LNER units were white. TPE units were delivered grey with black noses

TPO said:

As with IT systems, the costs of a full "imediate switchover" backup is much higher than having a secure drive clone which you can get up and running in a couple of weeks.

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A good example of the difference between "disaster recovery" - being able to resume operations some time after an incident - and "business continuity" - making sure that the incident doesn't put you out of action for too long. (The nature of the business will dictate what "too long" means.)

Bletchleyite said:

Listening to LBC and they just ran an advert for LNER shouting the virtues of the Azumas and all the places you could go (if they weren't broken).

Oops!

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But according the LNER notices the Azumas aren't effected by this, only "Hitachi, Class 80/0 family trains are"

GNER 91128 said:

But according the LNER notices the Azumas aren't effected by this, only "Hitachi, Class 80/0 family trains are"

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This is because, between GWR, LNER, TPE and Hitachi, it has been agreed that Hitachi take the lead with media briefings about the issues, so it is them calling it the 80x family of trains.

The TOCs are using the same line, to keep it all the same so if public are reading or hearing about it, the story is the same.

800001 said:

This is because, between GWR, LNER, TPE and Hitachi, it has been agreed that Hitachi take the lead with media briefings about the issues, so it is them calling it the 80x family of trains.

The TOCs are using the same line, to keep it all the same so if public are reading or hearing about it, the story is the same.

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Now now people were enjoying a perfectly good conspiracy theory about LNER wanting to hide that the problem was with their shiny new Azumas and you've just come along and posted facts and things. Very unsporting

800001 said:

This is because, between GWR, LNER, TPE and Hitachi, it has been agreed that Hitachi take the lead with media briefings about the issues, so it is them calling it the 80x family of trains.

The TOCs are using the same line, to keep it all the same so if public are reading or hearing about it, the story is the same.

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That's fine; they could just say "Our Class 800 series ('Azuma') trains..."; the use of the two terms is not mutually exclusive, surely?

This is just a question (general), but why is it that the trains to Aberdeen affected mostly? (I could be misreading this), I’m aware for us ours are bio mode? Diesel to Edinburgh Haymarket and from Haymarket to London electric? This question isn’t aimed at LNER but it feels the further north you are, your service is affected and it’s either hop on another train to catch up or get a coach if it’s available (I know it’s a uk wide issue but have always wondered why this happens)

I read that the Scotrail sets between Glasgow and Edinburgh are caught up in this too (sure it was a thread unless I read in here lol)

800001 said:

This is because, between GWR, LNER, TPE and Hitachi, it has been agreed that Hitachi take the lead with media briefings about the issues, so it is them calling it the 80x family of trains.

The TOCs are using the same line, to keep it all the same so if public are reading or hearing about it, the story is the same.

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Am I being unreasonable in thinking that none of the above would prevent them from also referring to them as Azumas to reduce confusion if they wanted to?

kez19 said:

This is just a question (general), but why is it that the trains to Aberdeen affected mostly? (I could be misreading this), I’m aware for us ours are bio mode? Diesel to Edinburgh Haymarket and from Haymarket to London electric? This question isn’t aimed at LNER but it feels the further north you are, your service is affected and it’s either hop on another train to catch up or get a coach if it’s available (I know it’s a uk wide issue but have always wondered why this happens)

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I believe it's simply that Scotrail run a reasonable alternative service on that route - and by curtailing these trains it allows more services to run with decent-length trains on the 'core' ECML route.

ainsworth74 said:

Now now people were enjoying a perfectly good conspiracy theory about LNER wanting to hide that the problem was with their shiny new Azumas and you've just come along and posted facts and things. Very unsporting

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I really don't think suggesting that a company is prioritising PR over correctness counts as a conspiracy theory.

(And nor do I think the information posted justifies LNER's decision to avoid the A word).

kez19 said:

This is just a question (general), but why is it that the trains to Aberdeen affected mostly? (I could be misreading this), I’m aware for us ours are bio mode? Diesel to Edinburgh Haymarket and from Haymarket to London electric? This question isn’t aimed at LNER but it feels the further north you are, your service is affected and it’s either hop on another train to catch up or get a coach if it’s available (I know it’s a uk wide issue but have always wondered why this happens)

I read that the Scotrail sets between Glasgow and Edinburgh are caught up in this too (sure it was a thread unless I read in here lol)

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The majority of the affected LNER units are bi modes so they have lost about half the bi mode fleet. Their electric only fleet is much less affected.

hwl said:

The majority of the affected LNER units are bi modes so they have lost about half the bi mode fleet. Their electric only fleet is much less affected.

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Hmm. Are the bi modes older? Or does this suggest that whatever is going on, it's more likely to happen to a bi mode?