I think you answered your own question. If they're struggling to get two out, the rest of the fleet is goosed.
Somehow I think that is way off reality.
As far as I know only 3 of them are able to go out. Im only aware of 008/010 actually being used in service so far - 010 being the regular. 009 seems to be regular on training. 006 is knackered. Haven't seen 007 at all, presume it's in the shed at Birkenhead?
006 doesn't appear to have moved for over a month. 007 was parked up outside the depot this evening when I was going home.
It's not about Welsh Govt 'giving up' - they are supportive of bringing in the 777s and would most likely contribute financially to such a project, having a working relationship with Merseytravel. I don't think we'll see anything which breaks up this service, I feel it's an 'all or nothing' investment choice.
I've heard that it's not so much that 006 is knackered, it's just that it has become a bit of a Christmas tree for the others. As the first unit to have been delivered, unfortunately it then got robbed to feed the later arrivals and is now awaiting its turn to be re-commissioned. I believe that it's largely due to the ongoing mod programme, some of which is about reliability mods but some of which is due to variations introduced into the original contract between TfW and Vivarail, such as removing the end doors in one of the cars from passenger use (because of short platforms), and modifying the cycle area(?). There were numerous other mods to do if I remember correctly. TfW also insisted on a complete wiring audit of every unit at one point, which takes time and may still be working through. Not to mention the battery raft mods. I know I'm biaised towards Vivarail (as was) but there was an awful lot of indecision and changes earlier in the project on the part of TfW, which ended up requiring downstream design changes, and the units are still suffering the legacy of that today. If there is one massive lesson from the TfW 230 project, it would be that the spec should have been nailed down much, much earlier in the project. The lesson was learned with the 484s, the design of which came after the TfW 230s, and the general success of the 484s is testament to that. But also because they don't have gensets....
They need to get them working on their own territory first!
Do you know what the failures were?, are they fixable like the recent brake problem?
Just to quickly say 009 was in passenger service on Tuesday 16/05 in the morning, losing time until it went into Birkenhead at 1pm having worked 2F66 in service from Wrexham
Just to say I imagine that a failed unit is swapped at the earliest convenience or even simply as soon as possible. But if one unit fails then it will take time for the the errant unit to get out of the way - return to depot (or siding) while a replacement to come out. So they are not necessarily not running a service after a failure but there will be a gap.
The 'sunk cost fallacy', whereby a person or organisation is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.
That being the case, there are only four units instead of five that can be counted upon to fulfil the service obligations.
The old adage that the railways run for the benefit of the companies and not the passengers seems to apply in this instance.
Beneficial to whom though? If TfW did just give up on the 230s at this point, would that actually be better (for passengers) than battling on trying to improve their reliability? If they just gave up, like WMT did with their 230s on the Marston Vale line as soon as Vivarail went bust, the Borderlands Line could well be looking at another prolonged period of semi-permanent bustitution. I'm sure that TfW don't want to be spending this much time and money on trying to make the 230s work, but they've chosen to give it a go. And it rather feels like TfW is damned if they do try, and damned if they don't bother. Spare a thought for the team at Birkenhead trying, in good faith, to make this work.
Sure, Vivarail and the Birkenhead team have done their best, but there's apparently a better solution available in the 777s.
That is completely wrong TfW have a very good relationship with Merseytravel arguably the 230s were ordered as stop gap \ passenger number improver as part of the longer term aim to extend MerseyRail to Wrexham
Seeing as "passenger number improver" is mentioned above, has that particular aspiration been realised?
Well the idea was 'new' stock and a half hourly service would boost passenger numbers. It is still early days.
That'll be the same 777s that also don't seem to manage to go a day without failing? Not quite sure how that helps with the latter part of your post
Well it won't be using 3rd rail power.
TFW could order 5 more Class 231's which would have made much more sense than the 230's. Stadler would be able to maintain them and would have the commonality with the 231's and 756's in the South. Further down the line if Merseyrail take over the line with 777's, they can easily be relocated to cover routes in the South.
