110mph Running

[paddy1]

I think the majority of the Midland Mainline from Bedford to St Pancras is 110mph.

I think the 110mph applies up to just south of Wellingborough as well, before you get into the speed restrictions for the curves through the station.

 

[sprinterguy]

Well the MML received its HSTs second hand from the ECML... at which point it was the most suitable route remaining that had not already received them. It was either send them there or to the sidings.

That is true, but the thought processes behind deploying the spare HSTs on the MML were just the same: Improve journey times and the travelling experience.

Were West of England services even using Mark 2 Aircons at the time the HSTs were introduced? I don't imagine mark 1s could hope to stand up to Mark 3s in comfort terms. While I do believe that a Turbostar carriage has a good chance of doing so.

I think that West of England services at the time were largely making use of pressure ventilated mark 2s, so nothing too dissimilar from mark 1s.

No, the ultimate in cost cutting would involve no first class and 3+2 seating.
The fact remains that the only place it would lose time against a HST is possibly east of Reading and that in the Cornish section of the route that is so slow, its superior low speed acceleration may allow it to beat said HST.

An 8 coach Turbostar is also far cheaper to operate than said HST.

People want the train to arrive on time, to be air conditioned, to be reasonably quiet and for it to have WiFi/plug sockets on a long journey, a Turbostar does or can be made to fulfil all of these requirements.

Your concept seems to be to maintain the status quo with regards to journey times, with no notion of attempting to improve the passenger travelling experience or journey times but to instead install the rock bottom quality standard that can be got away with on a long distance Intercity service.

I am also not sure that an 8-10 coach Turbostar would be much or any cheaper to operate than an HST. The fuel consumption works out similar: 8 - 10 MTU 6H1800 engines as fitted to the 172 each consume 94.6 litres of fuel per hour*, while the 16V4000 engine fitted to an HST power car gets through 405.5 litres per hour*, and there's two of them per train of course. Plus as starrymarkb says, you've then got 8-10 engines, 8-10 transmissions, 8-10 final drives and many more traction motors to maintain. I'm not sure whether the lower track usage charges incurred by a 170 would offset these costs sufficiently.

*(Details taken from the MTU factsheets, http://www.mtu-online.com/mtu-north...t/390/cHash/2efd463c5c896dfad25c044eb9314eee/ and http://www.mtu-online.com/mtu/produ...t/398/cHash/4ab831e5c09eef37eeecddf9c456dc7f/)

 

[millemille]

Agreed. I have spoken with engineers in Derby involved with their manufacture, and FCC drivers. It would seem that as often is the case, the restriction is legislative rather than a physical technical problem. That's not to say that raising their max service speed to 110 wouldn't cause longer term issues. Maintenance regimes would need careful monitoring, but yes, to reiterate A-driver - it would seem the units themselves are more than capable, as they have proven before.

Having worked on all classes of EMU Networkers for 20 years now in a variety of engineering roles, including feasibility studies to run cl365's on HS1, I'm confident when I say that a 365 as it stands at the moment is not guaranteed to attain 110mph unless it's on full size wheels (inverter switching frequency) and doesn't stand a chance of getting anywhere near holding >100mph on anything other than a nigh on flat gradient profile (TE vs. rolling resistance).

Hence needing re-tractioning and new motors if a class 365 is to be expected to attain and hold 110mph.

The cl365's have a finite EA life that is linked back to motor bogie fatigue life expiry as a result of stress raising distortions in motor mounting webs (some bogies had to be taken out of use for one overhaul cycle as they would not have lasted the full vehicle life otherwise) and all of the fatigue calculations are based on 100mph running with the current traction equipment- you up the max speed to 110mph and fit more powerful motors and a significant proportion of the motor bogies will require replacement before the end of the vehicle life.

 

[TGV]

365s on HS1? That's news to me. For what reason?

My experience is similar to yours although on somewhat different stock. I have ran TGVs with motors locked out on purpose and still maintained 300km/h on relatively easy gradients. Given that most rolling stock is tested to 110% of maximum service, it genuinely surprises me that in effect, you're saying a 365 struggles to maintain it's standard 100mph service speed on anything other than a flat profile. I'm not saying you're wrong - as I don't have the facts, but I'm surprised.

Do you have TE curves for a 365 then? We could work out it's capability from them and some basic data like permissible wheel diameters. Some fag-packet calc error of course, but it'd be an interstesting excercise.

That all said - if they wanted to run a 365 at 110mph in service, the work you have detailed, along with maintenance optimisation is all perfectly feasible and substantially cheaper than buying new stock - which is the whole premise behind the discussions I've heard. I'm sure someone at Hornsey is well aware of the issues you touch on and have either planned mitigation for it or used it as a reason to plan extra expenditure... or as an excuse to avoid it altogether.

 

[RobShipway]

How so? You'd be looking at 8 engines rather then 2.. 8 gearboxes, 8 final drives... It's one of the reasons FGW dumped the 180s, their operating costs were far higher then the HST...

Of course as the HSTs are getting on they are going to become maintainence nightmares.

With a dedicated sub fleet you can't interwork with diagrams on the main GWML. It also might cause issues where a 110mph unit is spare and a 125mph breaks down. It wouldn't be as easy to use the spare if there is a speed differential

Though rather then using a standard Turbostar body, if they were bodied like a Irish 22xxx they might make a good inter regional unit.

I don't think that the Irish 22xxx would be good enough and think you would be better off with somethin like the Class 222 Meridians.

 

[millemille]

365s on HS1? That's news to me. For what reason?

Back in 2003 when the 16 cl365's were coming off lease with Connex, as was, the future of the fleet was uncertain - as it still is today - and the viability of many options to the vehicle leasing agents were investigated.

One option was to run them on HS1 but the lack of TE at high speeds and the gradient profile of the HS1 route meant that they couldn't maintain anything approaching 100mph - I seem to recall the calculations suggesting that if a 365 was doing 100mph leaving the Bluebell hill tunnel on the Up it would only be doing ~75mph by the time it got to the top of the Medway Valley and impact upon headway for following services was too great.

I think pan spacing when running in multiple was another impediment as well.

As for Hornsey and the 365's running at 110mph on ECML - I would suggest that their attention is not on the long term future of the cl365 fleet. The smart money is on them being moved eastwards under existing wires or westwards when new wires are strung.

 

[LE Greys]

Back in 2003 when the 16 cl365's were coming off lease with Connex, as was, the future of the fleet was uncertain - as it still is today - and the viability of many options to the vehicle leasing agents were investigated.

One option was to run them on HS1 but the lack of TE at high speeds and the gradient profile of the HS1 route meant that they couldn't maintain anything approaching 100mph - I seem to recall the calculations suggesting that if a 365 was doing 100mph leaving the Bluebell hill tunnel on the Up it would only be doing ~75mph by the time it got to the top of the Medway Valley and impact upon headway for following services was too great.

I think pan spacing when running in multiple was another impediment as well.

As for Hornsey and the 365's running at 110mph on ECML - I would suggest that their attention is not on the long term future of the cl365 fleet. The smart money is on them being moved eastwards under existing wires or westwards when new wires are strung.

Remarkably, that's roughly what NSE had planned in the 1990s, only with 342s. I'm rather glad that didn't happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_341_and_342

 

[TGV]

I thought you meant there was recent thoughts to using them on HS1! Given that the 395s struggle in places on HS1, I can't say I'm surprised that a unit with half the power and geared for 100mph would also struggle on a 1 in 40 sustained gradient.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Pan spacing shouldn't be an issue at 100mph, or even 110mph for that matter.

 

[notadriver]

Hmmm I travel on HS1 every day. Where do 395s struggle?

 

[TGV]

Hmmm I travel on HS1 every day. Where do 395s struggle?

When you are stuck in the cab of a 373 just behind you...

Up to 160km/h - they're phenominally quick. They either drop off a cliff face of performance somewhere between 200 and 220km/h and struggle with the gradients or the drivers are being very conservative. Anecdotal chats with drivers and TI's suggest that they are indeed a little bit low on the top end.

 

[notadriver]

It's definitely true that they can't maintain 225 kph up the hills any more than a Eurostar can maintain 300 kph up them. But speed never drops below 200 kph on the steepest grades. Beyond Ebbsfleet to London the 230 kph limit makes the differential moot anyway ?

 

[millemille]

Pan spacing shouldn't be an issue at 100mph, or even 110mph for that matter.

Yes, pan spacing on the HS1/CTRL was a problem. Depending on coupled unit orientation the pan spacing was either too great or too small - don't forget cl365's are a 20 metre shell.

It could have been solved by reversing the orientation of the PTOSL relative to the other vehicles but this was not without its' own problems, not least the inter vehicle jumpers and receptacles being on opposite sides of the gangway.

 

[TGV]

Standing waves on the OLE should have been easily contained - what speed was this an issue and what exactly was the problem? 365s use a type of the BW HSP unit without the apex frame on them, which I've no experience of, but I assumed their high speed dynamics wouldn't be too different. The uplift force of a Faiveley GPU at 160km/h is around *digs into memory* 120-140N and this is similar to the BW unit which is fine at 100mph on ECML catenary (with another one or two within 100m of it) which is 11kN tension compared to 14kN on CTRL. Logic checks out on that, unless there was some other issue.

Do you know what problem they had with the pans?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It's definitely true that they can't maintain 225 kph up the hills any more than a Eurostar can maintain 300 kph up them. But speed never drops below 200 kph on the steepest grades. Beyond Ebbsfleet to London the 230 kph limit makes the differential moot anyway ?

373s can maintain 300km/h up any gradient on HS1 or LGV Nord. It can even accelerate gradually but comfortably up most of them in the 290-300 range provided all motors are in.

Trust me.

 

[monty9120]

with lm 350s 110mph running.
if they dont sort out the amount of stops and splitting of trains that takes forever its not going to make much difference

It takes over 2 and a half hours from brum to euston.
I once caught a lm from northampton (had to change surprise surprise) and it only stopped at milton keynes and watford. that used the fast line and it was very quick. unfortunately this is the first time in years lol

 

[notadriver]

Standing waves on the OLE should have been easily contained - what speed was this an issue and what exactly was the problem? 365s use a type of the BW HSP unit without the apex frame on them, which I've no experience of, but I assumed their high speed dynamics wouldn't be too different. The uplift force of a Faiveley GPU at 160km/h is around *digs into memory* 120-140N and this is similar to the BW unit which is fine at 100mph on ECML catenary (with another one or two within 100m of it) which is 11kN tension compared to 14kN on CTRL. Logic checks out on that, unless there was some other issue.

Do you know what problem they had with the pans?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


373s can maintain 300km/h up any gradient on HS1 or LGV Nord. It can even accelerate gradually but comfortably up most of them in the 290-300 range provided all motors are in.

Trust me.

I do trust you. But logs from the railway performance society (railperf.org.uk) log two Eurostars which attain 270-275 kph on the Medway viaduct but drop 15 kph on the climb to the North downs tunnel. It's a tough climb - 1 in 40 I think.

 

[TaysideTrainz]

There is a 110 board at Peterborough on the down fast .