class 158 to be reformed from the two sets damaged on 21/10/24?

[12LDA28C]

View attachment 167871

Photo from BBC News website of 158s separated. Looks a write-off?

Depends on the value of the asset to the ROSCO, surely. Whilst it looks bad, units and locos suffering much worse damage have been repaired in the past.

 

[43096]

Depends on the value of the asset to the ROSCO, surely. Whilst it looks bad, units and locos suffering much worse damage have been repaired in the past.

True, but they are being replaced, with no future lease signed up. If I was the ROSCO I'd take the insurance payout and write it off!

 

[Llanigraham]

Some drone photos of the scene:

Two units arrived this morning from either end to drag the units apart, and I understand will later tow them to somewhere where they can be removed as the incident site is believed to be unsuitable for a heavy crane,

 

[Towers]

True, but they are being replaced, with no future lease signed up. If I was the ROSCO I'd take the insurance payout and write it off!

No lease signed up, but an almost flying certainty that they’ll find further work. I’d think if it’s repairable at reasonable cost it’ll get done, but of course in all honest who knows!

 

[Chris M]

At this stage almost literally nobody knows. The trains will need to be examined by engineers to determine whether the units are repairable at all, and if so how much it will cost. Then the accountants will need to crunch all the numbers and make a recommendation, after that some manager will have to make a decision on the way forward. Given that the first step almost certainly can't happen until after the RAIB, BTP, ORR and anyone else conducting an investigation have released the units (potentially weeks or months) don't hold your breath.

 

[Killingworth]

At this stage almost literally nobody knows. The trains will need to be examined by engineers to determine whether the units are repairable at all, and if so how much it will cost. Then the accountants will need to crunch all the numbers and make a recommendation, after that some manager will have to make a decision on the way forward. Given that the first step almost certainly can't happen until after the RAIB, BTP, ORR and anyone else conducting an investigation have released the units (potentially weeks or months) don't hold your breath.

Seems a fair summary but is returning the two undamaged carriages to service together more difficult than it looks? One unit could, potentially, be back in service quite soon.

The leading cabs are both distorted and need significant work. One looks less severely damaged but to recreate an operational unit both need to be rebuilt. Time will tell but the economic case for that may not stack up well.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Seems a fair summary but is returning the two undamaged carriages to service together more difficult than it looks? One unit could, potentially, be back in service quite soon.

It depends on the damage sustained in the collision, with such forces there can easily be damage to vehicles other than the front vehicle such as under frame cracks/distortion, coupling damage etc. Inspection at their home depot will uncover the extent.

Take an example, the Clapham crash, the 12VEP that was run into, the TS in the middle unit of the 12 car was withdrawn due to accident damage to the underframe.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

There's also a difference between a structural write-off and an insurance write-off, just as there is with cars. 156478 was "written off" after being damaged in a flood, but was later returned to service.
Given the age of these units, their current lease end date, and the cost of repairs required, it could go either way. There will be some demand for additional 158s once the TfW ones start being handed back, but I'd be surprised if there was so much demand (and the finances available for other operators to take on additional stock) that every single unit in the TfW fleet could be found a new home.

 

[Towers]

There's also a difference between a structural write-off and an insurance write-off, just as there is with cars. 156478 was "written off" after being damaged in a flood, but was later returned to service.
Given the age of these units, their current lease end date, and the cost of repairs required, it could go either way. There will be some demand for additional 158s once the TfW ones start being handed back, but I'd be surprised if there was so much demand (and the finances available for other operators to take on additional stock) that every single unit in the TfW fleet could be found a new home.

There are of course also the ongoing and increasing shortages of spares for the 15x fleets and others of that generation, so that may well be a consideration, I suppose. Two (or indeed four, potentially) sets of engines, transmission, serviceable bogies & wheelsets etc would quickly find homes I’m sure.

 

[Killingworth]

There are of course also the ongoing and increasing shortages of spares for the 15x fleets and others of that generation, so that may well be a consideration I suppose.

So having 4 good donor carriages for spares for other units may become a consideration

 

[WAB]

TfW services are being suspended between Birmingham and Shrewsbury this weekend due to a shortage of 158s. Ticket acceptance on West Mids.

From JourneyCheck:

Due to operational challenges following the incident, there will be no TfW services running between Shrewsbury and Birmingham International on Saturday 26 or Sunday 27 October.

Ticket acceptance has been agreed with West Midlands Railways on this route, however customers are advised to use alternate routes where possible.

 

[Llanigraham]

TfW services are being suspended between Birmingham and Shrewsbury this weekend due to a shortage of 158s. Ticket acceptance on West Mids.

From JourneyCheck:

That could well be due to the number of units trapped at Machy

 

[HamworthyGoods]

TfW services are being suspended between Birmingham and Shrewsbury this weekend due to a shortage of 158s. Ticket acceptance on West Mids.

From JourneyCheck:

Where does it confirm this is due to a shortage of cl158s?

What is more likely is the issue that the cl158s are cut off from their maintenance depot and running out of miles.

 

[D365]

Just for completeness, does anything between those halves (e.g. wiring) preclude inserting another vehicle in the middle?

I can’t imagine that the ETCS equipped vehicles would be designed with through wiring.

 

[WAB]

Where does it confirm this is due to a shortage of cl158s?

What is more likely is the issue that the cl158s are cut off from their maintenance depot and running out of miles.

Which amounts to the same thing in operational terms - not enough 158s available for traffic.

 

[Kite159]

..

TfW services are being suspended between Birmingham and Shrewsbury this weekend due to a shortage of 158s. Ticket acceptance on West Mids.

From JourneyCheck:

Hopefully West Midlands behaves and doesn't cancel a couple of services in a row then run a 2 coach unit which is rather cosy

 

[BlueLeanie]

Is there potential for the two vehicles with damaged cabs to be rebuilt as cabless 158 (or 159) centre vehicles if the cab is beyond economic repair?

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Is there potential for the two vehicles with damaged cabs to be rebuilt as cabless 158 (or 159) centre vehicles if the cab is beyond economic repair?

If the cab is beyond economic repair then so will the vehicle be.

 

[150249]

Is there potential for the two vehicles with damaged cabs to be rebuilt as cabless 158 (or 159) centre vehicles if the cab is beyond economic repair?

Personally, I don't think anyone could justify the cost. 158s probably only have 5-7 years left in them.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Personally, I don't think anyone could justify the cost. 158s probably only have 5-7 years left in them.

Indeed we are talking about rolling stock here which at 35 years old is already past its design life and suffering with terrible corrosion.

 

[Towers]

Indeed we are talking about rolling stock here which at 35 years old is already past its design life and suffering with terrible corrosion.

That’s interesting, what sort of serious corrosion issues are the 158s experiencing? They’re aluminium of course, so one would hope they’re in better shape than the 150s etc!

 

[BlueLeanie]

Personally, I don't think anyone could justify the cost. 158s probably only have 5-7 years left in them.

It's complicated though isn't it?

If we go back to the Scotrail 156, the insurers wrote it off, paid the ROSCO the current value, then Brodies bought it from the insurers at Scrap value+unknown element.

So with, say 6 years left before withdrawal, that's £1.5M in leasing income for a 158 unit. So could those two bashed cabs be replaced by a class 345 style gangway for less than (£1.5M minus scrap value).

The key problem is would any 158 operating TOC find a place in its diagrams for a fixed formation four coach 158?

 

[Towers]

It's complicated though isn't it?

If we go back to the Scotrail 156, the insurers wrote it off, paid the ROSCO the current value, then Brodies bought it from the insurers at Scrap value+unknown element.

So with, say 6 years left before withdrawal, that's £1.5M in leasing income for a 158 unit. So could those two bashed cabs be replaced by a class 345 style gangway for less than (£1.5M minus scrap value).

The key problem is would any 158 operating TOC find a place in its diagrams for a fixed formation four coach 158?

Are we realistically looking at only six years though? Northern are still running a sizeable fleet of 150/1s, plus 155s & 156s, GWR still using 150s and 16x over an increasingly electrified network, etc etc. The railway is supposedly strapped for cash, I can’t see the money being found for a huge order of newbuild bi-modes or whatever to replace that lot within six years, personally. Even the leasing of existing, 20 year old 175s to GWR supposedly had to be ‘reviewed’ such is the state of the available finances.

The 158s are the best of the Sprinter generation, they’re aluminium so they aren’t as rotten as the 150s and if turned out in good condition, aircon issues aside, they’re a perfectly decent train that the average passenger would never think was pushing 40. I could easily see them on life support well past the end of the decade when it’s finally decided/realised that the money isn’t quite there to get rid of the whole Second Gen DMU fleet just yet.

Of course, this is all entirely hypothetical and may well have zero bearing on these repairs!

 

[Clarence Yard]

It's complicated though isn't it?

If we go back to the Scotrail 156, the insurers wrote it off, paid the ROSCO the current value, then Brodies bought it from the insurers at Scrap value+unknown element.

So with, say 6 years left before withdrawal, that's £1.5M in leasing income for a 158 unit. So could those two bashed cabs be replaced by a class 345 style gangway for less than (£1.5M minus scrap value).

The key problem is would any 158 operating TOC find a place in its diagrams for a fixed formation four coach 158?

Actually it was FirstGroup that bought that 156 off the insurers but they sold it to Brodies very shortly after. It was a speculative purchase by FG, on my initiative. I had plans for it but they didn’t come to fruition.

With a ROSCO, as I’ve said before, the amount of money that has been accrued for overhauls comes into play. If you don’t need that amount, it can returned to the P&L.

The insurance assessors (who are not accountants, by the way) will largely determine things. My guess, from the age of the vehicles is two cars, at least, will not get repaired (because the costs will be too great) and then they can get stripped for bits. The other two look relatively undamaged but a lot of odd things happen in collisions because the collision forces travel the unit and often the end cars on both trains get some degree of damage because those forces have nowhere else to go.

In a LHCS set, I have known that the end vehicle furthest way from th3 collision sometimes having a cracked centre casting or odd mounting cracks. When 166201 rammed an HST set at Oxford over 25 years ago, it was the rear vehicle of the Turbo that had the cracked or bent engine mounts or on other component fixings to the underframe. The middle car was undamaged.

I have heard it said that the Cambrian ETCS is a per unit installation so setting it up in the two relatively undamaged cars could be expensive. They may just get binned with the other two cars.

 

[Mollman]

Actually it was FirstGroup that bought that 156 off the insurers but they sold it to Brodies very shortly after. It was a speculative purchase by FG, on my initiative. I had plans for it but they didn’t come to fruition.

With a ROSCO, as I’ve said before, the amount of money that has been accrued for overhauls comes into play. If you don’t need that amount, it can returned to the P&L.

The insurance assessors (who are not accountants, by the way) will largely determine things. My guess, from the age of the vehicles is two cars, at least, will not get repaired (because the costs will be too great) and then they can get stripped for bits. The other two look relatively undamaged but a lot of odd things happen in collisions because the collision forces travel the unit and often the end cars on both trains get some degree of damage because those forces have nowhere else to go.

In a LHCS set, I have known that the end vehicle furthest way from th3 collision sometimes having a cracked centre casting or odd mounting cracks. When 166201 rammed an HST set at Oxford over 25 years ago, it was the rear vehicle of the Turbo that had the cracked or bent engine mounts or on other component fixings to the underframe. The middle car was undamaged.

I have heard it said that the Cambrian ETCS is a per unit installation so setting it up in the two relatively undamaged cars could be expensive. They may just get binned with the other two cars.

I suppose in theory if the two rear cars are undamaged and it is just the cost of ETCS set up they could transfer them to Northern as a swap for a 150. Whilst that won't help the 158 issue it might help the wider TfW stock issue

 

[Wolfie]

I suppose in theory if the two rear cars are undamaged and it is just the cost of ETCS set up they could transfer them to Northern as a swap for a 150. Whilst that won't help the 158 issue it might help the wider TfW stock issue

The sort of thing which the current rolling stock ownership model not mention TOC specific rolling stock specifications makes extremely difficult if not impossible.

 

[D365]

I suppose in theory if the two rear cars are undamaged and it is just the cost of ETCS set up they could transfer them to Northern as a swap for a 150. Whilst that won't help the 158 issue it might help the wider TfW stock issue

Never as simple as that. The TfW 158s have different cabs for a start…

 

[Lurcheroo]

Where does it confirm this is due to a shortage of cl158s?

TFW have definitely struggled for 158 availability even before the accident.

The 158s are probably not going to be put back into service as there is a few 197s with ERTUMS

The ERTMS 197’s are not yet in passenger services and are probably 12 months or more away.

though I suppose in that case you could form a couple of temporary 3 cars by sandwiching them.

What max fixed train length can Machynlleth routinely maintain? Looks like a very compact location.

Well there is 2 roads so I'd say 4 cars per road

But Machynlleth is a carriage Sidings not a Maintenence depot they would either have to go to Crewe or Chester or Cardiff Canton.

Mach is a maintenance depot and the main one for the TFW 158’s at that.

Each maintenance road can accommodate a 2 car 158 and that is it, therefore it would not be possible to have a 3 car 158 maintained at Mach.

There is only one EVC (European Vital Computer) - for ETCS on a Class 158, so any reform would need to include the coach fitted with that. I can't remember which of the two coaches it is in, but it is in a 'shower cubical' like cupboard which takes up one seating bay at the inner end of a passenger saloon. The mobility-impaired WC would also need to be included, so I am reasonably sure the only possible reform would be with both both a 528xx and 578xx coach and not two of the same type; so whether it is viable to form one good unit from the two damaged units will depend on what type of coach formed the rear coach of each train.

The EVC is in the 52 end along with the accessible loo.
It’s already been established that the ends that didn’t collide are a 52 and 57 vehicle so I can’t see any reason they couldn’t be combined to make one functional unit.

Obviously a 57 and 57 are out on 2 accounts of not having a LNER accessible loo or an EVC.

If it had been a 52 and a 52 then I’m not sure if modifications would have been needed to put one of the EVC’s into a sleep mode as happens when working in multiple.

I can’t imagine that the ETCS equipped vehicles would be designed with through wiring.

There is an ERTMS jumper cable connected between the 2 units.

 

[Dead Sheep]

Does anyone know how the units were extracted from Talerdig?

 

[12LDA28C]

Does anyone know how the units were extracted from Talerdig?

I believe another unit was attached to each end and the units were pulled apart in opposite directions. I assume they were removed from the scene by rail at low speed.