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East Coast Stock - Air Conditioning

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Furrball

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Fortunately only been on one service where a carriage had an air con fault but Twitter seems to be full of reports of failures on one or more carriages on a service.

Is this a lack of maintenance on the part of East Coast or some other reason?
 
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BestWestern

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Just the usual problem of UK air-con systems simply not coping with properly hot weather I would imagine :( Seems to be an issue on most stock when it gets very hot. My 158's have all been pretty much unbearable the past few days!
 

ainsworth74

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Don't 158s have a cab window you can open? Or failing that just open the through gangway door maybe ;)
 
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Caught the (slightly) late running 17.59 to King's Cross off Retford yesterday. Only two of the standards had working air-con. At least the nice Spanish Conductor made lots of nice apologetical announcements.
 

BestWestern

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Don't 158s have a cab window you can open? Or failing that just open the through gangway door maybe ;)

The cab windows are pretty useless sadly, they just don't scoop any air into the cab, though they do at least allow the heat to escape to some degree. I'm often tempted to throw open the gangway door in the back cab, but I have a feeling it may result in an unhappy response from the management! :o
 
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GNER (or rather Sea Containers) operated a dedicated facility within Bounds Green depot for the overhaul of air conditioning units. This included preventative maintenance, such as duct cleaning. IIRC, the facility was done away with when National Express took over the franchise and has presumably never been reinstated. It looks as if East Coast are reaping the consequences of this short-sighted decision.
 

BestWestern

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GNER (or rather Sea Containers) operated a dedicated facility within Bounds Green depot for the overhaul of air conditioning units. This included preventative maintenance, such as duct cleaning. IIRC, the facility was done away with when National Express took over the franchise and has presumably never been reinstated. It looks as if East Coast are reaping the consequences of this short-sighted decision.

GNER was indeed a high quality operation. Seems that went down with the ship so to speak :(
 

jon0844

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It looks as if East Coast are reaping the consequences of this short-sighted decision.

Air conditioning systems certainly do need regular and proper maintenance.

Why should I not be surprised to hear that National Express cut back on things? Okay, I don't know if it's fact - but I'm inclined to believe it is quite possible.
 

BestWestern

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I would just like to register my happiness that, after the past few days of glorious sunshine and blue skies, today my part of the universe is grey, overcast and not particularly warm.

Praise the lord for crap weather when one is working trains! :D
 
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A lot of older rolling stock air conditioning units were designed, built and tested for use with CFC gases.

Obviously these are no longer used due to environmental constraints and replacement gases generally cause some problems in some train systems.
 

Drsatan

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That's true for 158s, as their original air conditioning systems relied on CFC gases which were outlawed in the early 1990s. There's a post about 158 air conditioning systems which I'll dig out for you
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Here's a thread about air conditioning types now found on 158s, and yes, the original air conditioning system did rely on CFCs http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=51382&highlight=Temperature+air+conditioning
 
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depablo

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Why should I not be surprised to hear that National Express cut back on things? Okay, I don't know if it's fact - but I'm inclined to believe it is quite possible.

National Express was attempting to reduce staff and looking for numbers through redundancy. Many gave a sigh of relief when they went.
 

lm321412

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National Express was attempting to reduce staff and looking for numbers through redundancy. Many gave a sigh of relief when they went.

Could we save the compulsory National Express bashing for another more relevant thread please? :roll:
 

ainsworth74

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Could we save the compulsory National Express bashing for another more relevant thread please?

Seems pretty relevant to me if East Coast's current problems have their foundation in decisions made by NX.
 

Aictos

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I have to say that on the trains that I've used that has had problems with the air conditioning, the guard has always been proactive in advising people that there is other coaches available for them to use and also let's people know which coaches are affected.

Can't ask them to do more then that!
 

BestWestern

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Apologies if this has already come up here - but do MK4's have any form of back-up ventilation or airflow, or are they completely sealed?
 

Furrball

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It seems that the situation is getting worse rather than better judging by the number of complaints @eastcoastuk are continuing to receive via Twitter
 

LE Greys

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Apologies if this has already come up here - but do MK4's have any form of back-up ventilation or airflow, or are they completely sealed?

Other than opening the doors, no. There was one train stranded near Huntingdon when the wires came down where several people passed out and others forced the doors. As a result, the train could not move until they had all been sealed again. IIRC, they decided to include 'gates' as part of the emergency equipment after that, like the ones to prevent babies from falling down stairs so that the doors could be opened during extended non-station stops.
 

BestWestern

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Other than opening the doors, no. There was one train stranded near Huntingdon when the wires came down where several people passed out and others forced the doors. As a result, the train could not move until they had all been sealed again. IIRC, they decided to include 'gates' as part of the emergency equipment after that, like the ones to prevent babies from falling down stairs so that the doors could be opened during extended non-station stops.

That's rather novel! I have great praise for SWT for having the initiative to fit extra opening hopper windows on their 158/159 fleet. Perhaps it ought to be a standard requirement across the board?
 

D365

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Other than opening the doors, no. There was one train stranded near Huntingdon when the wires came down where several people passed out and others forced the doors. As a result, the train could not move until they had all been sealed again. IIRC, they decided to include 'gates' as part of the emergency equipment after that, like the ones to prevent babies from falling down stairs so that the doors could be opened during extended non-station stops.

I see them often parked there, but passing out? That is serious! Makes me hate NX more and more.
 

Searle

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I traveled from Stevenage to York earlier (1N83, 11:27 from Stevenage), and my coach (coach E) had no AC. Got pretty warm after the two hour trip! Was pulled by 91118 if it's any help to anyone :P
 

Max

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I've had two 225s in the past couple of days where one coach has had no a/c.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Make that 3, although this time a HST. In this case the people leaving the train had a good moan about the lack of air conditioning although I have found a cooler coach within about 30 seconds, so I'm not 100% sure why they subjected themselves to the heat!
 
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