BBC news story about new train performance

[Edders23]

Bit of a non story really as new trains are always going to have teething trouble

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51412945

Northern's new fleet of trains are less reliable than the heavily-criticised Pacers they replaced, figures show.

Rail industry figures show the breakdown rate for the company's £500m 101-strong fleet is higher than for the 1980s-built rail-buses.

Northern passengers have long been plagued by delays and overcrowding.

The failing rail operator, which is being taken over by the government next month, said it was "working hard to improve performance of the new trains."

When Northern launched the upgrade in June, it promised the new fleet would be "bigger, faster and longer" than the company's existing trains.

They were hailed as an improvement on the much derided Pacers, which are in the process of being removed from service.

But the latest performance figures from December to January show the Class 195 and Class 331 trains are averaging 2,877 miles between breakdowns compared to Pacers that clocked up on average 7,884 trouble-free miles.

Tony Miles, who writes for Modern Railways magazine, said: "One of the problems with new trains is that they are full of technology and old trains are really analogue things; it's just stop and go, like driving a lorry.

"The new ones have onboard computer systems that also spot things that might go wrong but also alert you to things that you have to check and quite often interrogating them takes time.

"So effectively you have to reboot the system, that takes three to four minutes and means the train is delayed before it can continue in service."

Northern said the figures were "roughly in line with industry new builds" and the new fleet had been through "rigorous testing".

A spokesman added: "But, as with any new piece of equipment, there can sometimes be problems which only become apparent when in regular service.

"As soon as we aware of any issue we take action - either ourselves or through our service contract and warranty with [suppliers] CAF - to ensure necessary repairs are carried out as soon as practicable."

 

[Andyh82]

You wouldn’t believe that this was actually the lead story on Look North tonight.

Seems to be sticking a further boot into the railways for no particular reason.

 

[yorksrob]

And it's worth remembering that the new trains haven't actually replaced the pacers by and large.

If they had, they'd have been a rather greater improvement in reliability and capacity than replacing 158's !

 

[158756]

Bit of a non story really as new trains are always going to have teething trouble

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51412945

It might not be news to anyone on this forum, but the general public are entitled to be surprised that the new equipment is unreliable. If you buy a brand new car to replace an old banger you do not expect to break down more often.

If everyone knows new trains are not up to the standard required straight out of the box why are they put into passenger service before the issues are resolved? Why didn't Northern buy a tried and tested product? Presumably in both cases the answer is to save money.

 

[ed1971]

It might not be news to anyone on this forum, but the general public are entitled to be surprised that the new equipment is unreliable. If you buy a brand new car to replace an old banger you do not expect to break down more often.

If everyone knows new trains are not up to the standard required straight out of the box why are they put into passenger service before the issues are resolved? Why didn't Northern buy a tried and tested product? Presumably in both cases the answer is to save money.

The 195s did undergo a lot of testing before entering service which revealed the coupler problem. They were a few months late entering service.

 

[thejuggler]

Just like cars, trains are probably becoming too complicated.

My last LNER trip was a nightmare due to software issues.

 

[AndrewE]

Just like cars, trains are probably becoming too complicated.
My last LNER trip was a nightmare due to software issues.

It's not just the latest stock though... We bailed out of a previously on-time southbound Pendolino at Preston which had sat for half an hour re-booting it "due to a safety critical fault requiring a re-start!" Luckily there was another train for Crewe (maybe only happens at at that time of the evening) before the next class 9 an hour later.
Most unusual, and I think maybe the only time I have experienced a delay due to a train fault on one in many hundreds of journeys..

 

[ReeceEmmitt]

It might not be news to anyone on this forum, but the general public are entitled to be surprised that the new equipment is unreliable. If you buy a brand new car to replace an old banger you do not expect to break down more often.

If everyone knows new trains are not up to the standard required straight out of the box why are they put into passenger service before the issues are resolved? Why didn't Northern buy a tried and tested product? Presumably in both cases the answer is to save money.

As much as I hate to say it this poster is right.

I’m not a railwayman. I am a rail fan. I work in an engineering based customer service business and I understand the difficulty of new equipment.

It is utterly ridiculous that brand new trains in customer service are this unreliable and have such limitations (can’t run in multiple for eg). They shouldn’t be in customer service until their problems are all resolved - and anyone who disagrees, I’m sorry to say, is out of touch with reality. In few other industries would this be acceptable.

That said, I appreciate DfT are unreasonable etc etc etc. But if the 737 Max planes had crashed on 20% of flights of eg then there would be more than just a non story online.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

A lot of it comes down to training. If a 195 gives the driver a fault code he doesn't recognise, he may feel obliged to commence faultfinding procedures in case it's something important. This might delay the service for several minutes and be logged as a 'casualty'. Yet if the fault turns out to be a minor defect in the seat reservation system, who's really at fault? Suspected technical defects and real technical defects are often two different things.

 

[tpjm]

As much as I hate to say it this poster is right.

I’m not a railwayman. I am a rail fan. I work in an engineering based customer service business and I understand the difficulty of new equipment.

It is utterly ridiculous that brand new trains in customer service are this unreliable and have such limitations (can’t run in multiple for eg). They shouldn’t be in customer service until their problems are all resolved - and anyone who disagrees, I’m sorry to say, is out of touch with reality. In few other industries would this be acceptable.

That said, I appreciate DfT are unreasonable etc etc etc. But if the 737 Max planes had crashed on 20% of flights of eg then there would be more than just a non story online.

I think it is you that is out of touch with reality.

All new trains undergo rigorous levels of testing before being presented for 'acceptance'. Often this is many thousands of miles of 'fault free running'. The major drawback with this is that it's very difficult to simulate all possible scenarios that might occur. In any event, some adverse conditions will manage to sneak through into customer service and when the fault occurs, the train fails safe, hence why it is taken out of service. Should the fault prove software related, a fix is then required to be rolled across the entire fleet, something that doesn't happen overnight. It's for this reason that a train fault is completely incomparable with a 737 Max.

At what point should new trains to be entered into service? Should we continue to have trains that are too short for the number of customers wishing to use them whilst we continue to over-test the rolling stock? These trains are not failing every time they get used, nor are they failing in the same way all the time. Their reliability for new rolling stock isn't unexpected.

 

[IamTrainsYT]

pacers had been around long enough. im sure people would not have minded a few more moths of them if they knew all this was going to happen

 

[jon0844]

It might not be news to anyone on this forum, but the general public are entitled to be surprised that the new equipment is unreliable. If you buy a brand new car to replace an old banger you do not expect to break down more often.

That is true, but cars can often go wrong after a few years, and get progressively worse (especially modern cars with loads more electronics and sensors) until repair is uneconomic. Sadly many cars won't last anywhere remotely as long as a train.

A train might have problems at the start, but with a few exceptions (180s?) they are usually made pretty reliable and go on to run decades (obviously with maintenance that you'd expect is to a higher standard that some junior technician let loose on your car).

Obviously Joe Public isn't expected to understand that.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Not to mention that brand new, fresh from the showroom cars often do have a number of issues that need tweaking on them, things like partial blockage of fuel lines are relatively common.

 

[a_c_skinner]

Bit of a non story really as new trains are always going to have teething trouble

The real story, scandal really, is that rail expects this and tolerates it. My cars work out of the showroom (with occasional snags admittedly) and it is entirely reasonable to expect trains to do the same. If we cannot aspire to that we could at least expect proper testing. To the onlooker it seems the 195 doors were not tested properly - obviously, they were not fit for use. Doors for heaven's sake, not some novel feature. Does rail lack reliable trains or simply lack self respect and ambition? That is how it looks from the outside and to BBC news.

 

[The Ham]

It should also be noted that for a lot of train faults that puts the train out of service they are minor things to the extent that with a similar fault in a car and most drivers would carry on driving them.

 

[LAX54]

The real story, scandal really, is that rail expects this and tolerates it. My cars work out of the showroom (with occasional snags admittedly) and it is entirely reasonable to expect trains to do the same. If we cannot aspire to that we could at least expect proper testing. To the onlooker it seems the 195 doors were not tested properly - obviously, they were not fit for use. Doors for heaven's sake, not some novel feature. Does rail lack reliable trains or simply lack self respect and ambition? That is how it looks from the outside and to BBC news.

But there are more cars made than trains, and whilst the shape may change, the engines tend to stay the same overall, but even with cars there have been major recalls over the years
and every railway, in every country wants a slightly different version of the train they are buying !
As 'The Ham' said an engine management light on, you may well carry on for weeks/months, with a train, it will be OOS straight away.

 

[jagardner1984]

It seems to me aside from the usual put the boot into Northern narrative; there is a fundamental contradiction between the PRM deadline, the extreme political pressure to remove 40 year old Pacers from service, and the complexity of an entirely new product.

It’s really too late now, but look at Airlines, at courier companies, at almost anyone else in Transport. The strategy seems to be find one product that works (such as the 737), have slight variants on the same product line, but massively simplify introduction, maintenance, testing, training and operation. BR did this with big fleets of trains used across the country, which were inevitably slightly suited to one area more than the other. 30 years later those decisions are paying off as fleet is moving around to suit changing demand, boosting an existing fleet somewhere else with little training or logistical implication.

I wonder in 30 years whether operators will be scratching their heads to get 5 different kinds of 30 year old software from today’s micro fleets to work as one at some operator or other.

 

[Mikey C]

It might not be news to anyone on this forum, but the general public are entitled to be surprised that the new equipment is unreliable. If you buy a brand new car to replace an old banger you do not expect to break down more often.

If everyone knows new trains are not up to the standard required straight out of the box why are they put into passenger service before the issues are resolved? Why didn't Northern buy a tried and tested product? Presumably in both cases the answer is to save money.

Not sure there was a tried and tested product in this case, as no existing DMUs were still in production

You do wonder how rigorous the testing is before manufacturers hand over trains though, a bad case of letting customers do the last year of development...

 

[a_c_skinner]

I am unpersuaded, new cars just work - but the real issue is that an arbitrary date for withdrawal of Pacers (and PRM compliance) was badly planned for and missed by a country mile, yet the Pacers (still working) are withdrawn to meet this arbitrary date for political reasons (votes, of course).

 

[corsaVXR]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

 

[superkev]

I am unpersuaded, new cars just work - but the real issue is that an arbitrary date for withdrawal of Pacers (and PRM compliance) was badly planned for and missed by a country mile, yet the Pacers (still working) are withdrawn to meet this arbitrary date for political reasons (votes, of course).

I too am unconvinced as they seem to run them for literally years on test both at expensive test tracks abroad and before they enter service. Then when there let loose in the wild new issues not spotted during testing appear causing further delay.
In mitigation the days when BR could whistle up a batch of proven and driver familiar trains from York works etc which coupled to the previous have gone. Every new train is effectively a prototype.
As for Northern blaming CAF they did choose them presumably on price.
Incidentally Hitachi and Seimens top Modern Railways new train reliability chart with CAF Bombardier near the bottom. Should they have bought Siemens or Hitachi?
When I worked I got a new role procuring cooling for computer rooms. A college suggested I only bought Japanese as these always worked. Being patriotic I didn't but soon learnt my mistake and took his advise. Rather sad really.
K

 

[Edders23]

Not to mention that brand new, fresh from the showroom cars often do have a number of issues that need tweaking on them, things like partial blockage of fuel lines are relatively common.

Someone locally once bought a brand new Nissan to license as a taxi it was presented for it's taxi test (an enhanced MOT) and failed spectacularly Nissan had to do £1000 quids worth of work on it to get it through !!

 

[philthetube]

It is very easy to test a car or a plane, you just visit a road/ airport, get the relevant load of passengers and a driver and away you go, driver and passengers are easy to find to test a train but places to run with all the variants needed are much more difficult.

 

[D365]

Incidentally Hitachi and Seimens top Modern Railways new train reliability chart with CAF Bombardier near the bottom. Should they have bought Siemens or Hitachi?

Really? I didn't think that the Class 700s were doing particularly well.

 

[cjmillsnun]

It is very easy to test a car or a plane, you just visit a road/ airport, get the relevant load of passengers and a driver and away you go, driver and passengers are easy to find to test a train but places to run with all the variants needed are much more difficult.

I would argue testing a plane properly is the hardest thing of all to do. With a car or a train if it fails most of the time it just grinds to a halt.

A plane failing in the air is more likely to be lethal.

 

[a_c_skinner]

I keep coming back to the simple fact that the doors don't work properly. Not something new and clever, the doors. There are loads of opportunities to test trains at night, it simply isn't good enough. The car question is a red herring, were any car on the market as plagued by faults there would be outrage.

 

[Llama]

The car comparison is a bad analogy. 70%+ of the cancellations and running delays with these units is down to user (crew) error, especially when they are put in to service en masse as part of a big change with crew who are not used to them - like in October when the 195s started on the Leeds-Chester services. On the Monday, the first day, every diagram booked a 195 was one. By the Weds there were hardly any 195s about.

With a new car you don't need a training course to operate it. The training course content on the 195s/331s was and is, in my opinion, dire.

 

[daikilo]

I would argue testing a plane properly is the hardest thing of all to do. With a car or a train if it fails most of the time it just grinds to a halt.

A plane failing in the air is more likely to be lethal.

Having been in that business I believe I can say that if trains were tested like planes at component, system and build phases, they would work. We never waited for the first or pre-delivery flight to find out if everything worked correctly!

As for e.g. doors, they are an excellent example of where, if they have anything of a new design then they should have gone through rigorous real-life system simulation including sensors and real software. And whoever ordered the trains should expect the manufacturer to have done this, and probably checked they were doing it. Yes, it costs money up front, but it should pay off.

 

[tpjm]

I keep coming back to the simple fact that the doors don't work properly. Not something new and clever, the doors.

What part of the doors? The physical hardware? The door control software? The ASDO? What?

Testing at night is not easy, given the network rail maintenance schedule. It’s often very difficult to do your entire service route without some form of diversion.

I don’t know what Northern’s fault free running requirements are, but for my TOC, we required that the train stopped MANY times during the mileage accumulation and that doors were released and operated, even in passing loops (obviously on a side with no other track).

 

[a_c_skinner]

You'd need to ask Northern or CAF. As far as I am concerned which bit doesn't matter they either work or (as here) don't. Asking which bit simply obfuscates and seems to onlookers part of the expectation that new stuff doesn't always work properly.
I too don't know what Northern did by way of testing but plainly not enough or not well enough.