Snow1964
Established Member
It's a test unit. It appears the WSP kit didn't work as intended on this occasion, apparently. That's why you do testing I suppose.
Although they will now have data (even if accidentally collected) on if WSP fails, how flat will wheels go, and do you need wheel skates, or how much lathe time do you require.
There are practical applications of this, if it happened at say Harpenden (pick any random location trains will operate), is there a lathe nearby. If not do you need to buy extra one to infill a geographic gap, or is it reasonable to drive train all way back to Derby at slow speed at quiet times, without creating shortage of units.
Ultimately if something like this means could be unscheduled out of service for week or two, do you need to buy extra unit, because it is slow to repair. More realistically would buying few extra bogies to allow quick swap be more economically sensible, then flats can be sorted in slow time whilst train continues.
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