Merseyrail Class 777 introduction updates

[greeny11]

Something I have discovered today as is that the 777 on the WK line runs directly before the service that’s been cancelled. The 1136 service was cancelled, leaving a 45 minute gap on the WK line which means the 508 I am on now is packed!

 

[prod_pep]

Something I have discovered today as is that the 777 on the WK line runs directly before the service that’s been cancelled. The 1136 service was cancelled, leaving a 45 minute gap on the WK line which means the 508 I am on now is packed!

The New Brighton line has the same arrangement too. The XX23 departures are 777-worked and the XX38s are missing in the morning.

 

[greeny11]

Managed to catch the 777 on the West Kirby line (018) on the way back, and I have to say I was really impressed. Yes, the seats are hard, but for the typical journey on Merseyrail, they're absolutely fine. It was smooth, quick and very quiet, and having had a 508 to Liverpool, the difference between the 2 trains was enormous. If they can sort out the reliability issues, I think they will be very popular with commuters (lots of positive comments from passengers on the train I was on). Also saw the New Brighton 777 (004), so while both have had a couple of issues causing cancellations this morning, they are both still running which is good news.

 

[Wrex2J78]

777004 appears to have had problems this afternoon. The 14.23 departure from New Brighton (2N33) was turned back to New Brighton at Birkenhead North. Per RTT it's now running as 5T68 to Rock Ferry.

 

[315801]

I managed to ride on 777004 at 12:27 over to Liverpool and was waiting for the 14:23 which was meant to be 14:48 from Lime St where I was waiting for it to return back to wallasey grove rd but ended up getting the 15:03 which was a far better and more relaxing ride instead. 777 seats are like sitting on concrete slabs and if I ever ride 1 to chester, I think I would rather stand instead of having a dead butt by the time I would get off, not comfortable at all.

 

[LPJOHN]

The 16:36 (777 018) West Kirby to Liverpool Central was cancelled at Conway Park.

 

[prod_pep]

777 seats are like sitting on concrete slabs and if I ever ride 1 to chester, I think I would rather stand instead of having a dead butt by the time I would get off, not comfortable at all.

Sounds familiar. After riding the footex on Saturday, I did the full Ormskirk to Liverpool journey on a 777. Never again. Between ending up with a numb bottom and being swayed about, I couldn't wait to get off. This is my last week of commuting by train for good reason!

 

[irish_rail]

Sounds familiar. After riding the footex on Saturday, I did the full Ormskirk to Liverpool journey on a 777. Never again. Between ending up with a numb bottom and being swayed about, I couldn't wait to get off. This is my last week of commuting by train for good reason!

Indeed, just because some (often overweight well padded people) say its fine to have a rock hard seat, I tend to think a seat should be at least a little padded for those less well endowed at the rear!

 

[315801]

I must admit I am a good few stone over what I should be but I did not find the 777 seats comfortable at all, more like the slab of concrete feeling I mentioned in my post at 17:02 yesterday

 

[L401CJF]

Sounds familiar. After riding the footex on Saturday, I did the full Ormskirk to Liverpool journey on a 777. Never again. Between ending up with a numb bottom and being swayed about, I couldn't wait to get off. This is my last week of commuting by train for good reason!

Me and my brother did the same journey a few weeks ago (not through choice) and had the same experience. We're both on the thin side and found them extremely uncomfortable. We also noticed the units tendency to sway from side to side which I've not heard anybody mention before so thought it was just us!

After spending a bit of time on the network last week catching rides on the 50X fleet I couldn't help but notice 777 door operation seems to take longer than the legacy fleet. Every 777 that pulled in seemed to take an age for the doors to be unlocked, plus longer for the steps to slide back in.

 

[harrym508131]

does anyone know how many are on the wirral today if any, 777004s showing as at hooton bay platform, cheers

 

[jamesst]

does anyone know how many are on the wirral today if any, 777004s showing as at hooton bay platform, cheers

4, 1 on a West Kirby circuit, 1 on a New Brighton circuit, 1 stabled at West Kirby, 1 stabled at Hooton

 

[py_megapixel]

I've now been on one of these. They basically feel like S-bahn trains in a different colour (and that's not a bad thing at all). I have some more detailed thoughts:

• The seats are, indeed, not at all well-padded - I was personally getting fed up of them after about 40 mins. That said, they are far from the worst train seats I've encountered - they're not even the worst train seats Merseytravel has ever specified, as I can attest having at one point been on a Merseytravel Pacer.
  
  
• The PIS screens are in a stupid place. They are on the side walls above the windows, which leads to two problems:
  • You can't see the information unless you are sat directly opposite one, exacerbated by the fact that the displays themselves have rather poor viewing angles.
  • They have to fight for space with the luggage racks, which leads to a design with not enough PIS screens and not enough luggage racks!

• The PIS software might not be a major cause of train cancellations any more, but it still needs some major work:
  • On the unit I was on, the announcements were so quiet as to be barely audible.
  • It said "Please mind the closing doors" at some but not all stations, always at completely the wrong point (just after the doors had closed)
  • The text on the displays was also very small.
  • Having colour as the only distinction between "full step-free access" and "partial step-free access" is very poor (one of the first rules of accessible user interface design is that you never use colour alone to communicate information).
  • There's a strange bug where service announcements can talk over generic ones: I heard "Staff members may make ticket checks at any time. Please.... We are now approaching Kirkdale.... -spection at all times. Thank you."
  • It's missing various features that modern PIS systems on other stock have as standard, such as departure boards for interchange stations and telling passengers in advance which side the doors open on.

• The lighting is very nice. The train is mostly lit by natural light through the large windows, supplemented by subtle uplighting, but in the dark, brighter overhead lights come on automatically. This seems to work quite well, but one tweak I'd make would be to have the lights fade out gradually rather than suddenly turning off. It would also be good if they could work out some way to avoid the lights turning on and off for every single bridge!
  
  
• The door open button and the short delay as the step deploys didn't seem to cause any problems, but very few people used the "pre-arm" feature (you can see quite clearly if anyone's done that by looking down the train, as the white lights come on around "pre-armed" doors).
  
  
• The ride is really quiet, especially through the tunnels. I imagine the sealed windows help with that.
  
  
• The bike storage looked well thought out and I saw lots of people making use of it

 

[315801]

I spotted 777002 leaving Leasowe stn at 13:03 heading to Liverpool.

Also just seen the 777 on the New Brighton line heading to new brighton stn at 13:21, I would guess its rather late considering that if its running the 23 past the hour service it should have been on its way back to Liverpool now.

 

[paddyb6]

Any updates regarding Chester introduction? Also is 777004 at Hooton?

 

[foggy69]

Any updates regarding Chester introduction? Also is 777004 at Hooton?

777004 is at Hooton

 

[karlbbb]

• It said "Please mind the closing doors" at some but not all stations, always at completely the wrong point (just after the doors had closed)

Just on this point, the "Please mind the closing doors" announcement is only made when the driver presses the "Close doors" button in the cab. By this point most of the doors have exceeded the energy saving timeout and so have already closed; the announcement reasonably lines up with an open door closing (which is typically where the train manager is stood and has just swiped the "all clear" card for the driver notification). It doesn't help as well that a door that has been opened, but is now closed due to the timeout also plays the closing alarm again as the step is retracted. It honestly feels a bit excessive - if the door is shut, just retract the step; the door controls will have been disabled at the same time anyway!

I believe the system also doesn't play the announcement in any carriage where the door wasn't opened at that particular stop, though I've not been able to confirm that as I only travel on very busy trains.

 

[Prime586]

We also noticed the units tendency to sway from side to side which I've not heard anybody mention before so thought it was just us!

I suspect the swaying may be due to the fact that C of G of a 777 is higher than the 507/508s due to them having some of the equipment (air con packs, dynamic braking resistors) on the roof rather than all in the underframe, so the floor could be lowered. This could potentially be worse on the 777/1s as some of the battery power equipment is on the roof as well.

 

[507020]

I've now been on one of these. They basically feel like S-bahn trains in a different colour (and that's not a bad thing at all). I have some more detailed thoughts:

• The seats are, indeed, not at all well-padded - I was personally getting fed up of them after about 40 mins. That said, they are far from the worst train seats I've encountered - they're not even the worst train seats Merseytravel has ever specified, as I can attest having at one point been on a Merseytravel Pacer.
  
  
• The PIS screens are in a stupid place. They are on the side walls above the windows, which leads to two problems:
  • You can't see the information unless you are sat directly opposite one, exacerbated by the fact that the displays themselves have rather poor viewing angles.
  • They have to fight for space with the luggage racks, which leads to a design with not enough PIS screens and not enough luggage racks!

• The PIS software might not be a major cause of train cancellations any more, but it still needs some major work:
  • On the unit I was on, the announcements were so quiet as to be barely audible.
  • It said "Please mind the closing doors" at some but not all stations, always at completely the wrong point (just after the doors had closed)
  • The text on the displays was also very small.
  • Having colour as the only distinction between "full step-free access" and "partial step-free access" is very poor (one of the first rules of accessible user interface design is that you never use colour alone to communicate information).
  • There's a strange bug where service announcements can talk over generic ones: I heard "Staff members may make ticket checks at any time. Please.... We are now approaching Kirkdale.... -spection at all times. Thank you."
  • It's missing various features that modern PIS systems on other stock have as standard, such as departure boards for interchange stations and telling passengers in advance which side the doors open on.

• The lighting is very nice. The train is mostly lit by natural light through the large windows, supplemented by subtle uplighting, but in the dark, brighter overhead lights come on automatically. This seems to work quite well, but one tweak I'd make would be to have the lights fade out gradually rather than suddenly turning off. It would also be good if they could work out some way to avoid the lights turning on and off for every single bridge!
  
  
• The door open button and the short delay as the step deploys didn't seem to cause any problems, but very few people used the "pre-arm" feature (you can see quite clearly if anyone's done that by looking down the train, as the white lights come on around "pre-armed" doors).
  
  
• The ride is really quiet, especially through the tunnels. I imagine the sealed windows help with that.
  
  
• The bike storage looked well thought out and I saw lots of people making use of it

This appears to be the first unbiased review the 777s have had and I agree with your assessment, particularly on the seats vs 142s.

Of note are that both the automatic lights in tunnels and the door pre-arming feature are borrowed from the M5000s on the Manchester Metrolink, which also suffer from passengers not understanding the usefulness of not having to wait until they reach their stop to try and open the doors with their hands full. I may be the only person who has pre-armed the doors, unless someone else has, every time I have been on an M5000 or a 777.

The colour coding of full vs partial step free access is concerning though, with all the other attention to detail that has been given to to accessibility in every other regard, that said, the software that runs the PIS displays should be easily updated, but not the highest priority before getting them to be reliable in service. I note that the 195/331 fleet have recently had their PIS software updated after entering service.

 

[foggy69]

777002 has just failed at Berkenhead Park

 

[315801]

I don't know if I dare to even ask what the cause of the problem is, could be anything out of roughly 60,000,000 things that has goosed it up

Most likely suspects would be doors, traction equipment, sliding step mechanism or a combination of these, far too much technical rubbish on them.

 

[py_megapixel]

Just on this point, the "Please mind the closing doors" announcement is only made when the driver presses the "Close doors" button in the cab. By this point most of the doors have exceeded the energy saving timeout and so have already closed; the announcement reasonably lines up with an open door closing (which is typically where the train manager is stood and has just swiped the "all clear" card for the driver notification). It doesn't help as well that a door that has been opened, but is now closed due to the timeout also plays the closing alarm again as the step is retracted. It honestly feels a bit excessive - if the door is shut, just retract the step; the door controls will have been disabled at the same time anyway!

I believe the system also doesn't play the announcement in any carriage where the door wasn't opened at that particular stop, though I've not been able to confirm that as I only travel on very busy trains.

Makes perfect sense, thanks.

I suppose the risk with the step retracting is that someone running to get on the train at the last minute will find themselves standing on something which slides out from under their feet, but presumably the step has a sensor for when someone is standing on it and will stop if that happens while it's retracting?

 

[childwallblues]

777002 has just failed at Berkenhead Park

I hope that is just a spelling error on your part.

 

[karlbbb]

Makes perfect sense, thanks.

I suppose the risk with the step retracting is that someone running to get on the train at the last minute will find themselves standing on something which slides out from under their feet, but presumably the step has a sensor for when someone is standing on it and will stop if that happens while it's retracting?

Yep, the step actually moves slightly as its switching mechanism - something I've noticed parents let their little kids jump on as they're leaving the train, which I can't imagine is helping the step issues.

 

[AlexNL]

The steps should be strong enough to withstand the force of a mobility scooter rolling on and off of it, multiple times. One of those rolling in or out of a train exerts much more weight and force on a step than a jumping kid ever would.

 

[karlbbb]

Another unit partially-popped on the Ormskirk line this morning. 2O05 (0716 Central - Ormskirk) terminated at Moorfields then travelled as 5O05 all the way to Ormskirk where it's now back in service as 2G26.

EDIT: I say "back in service", but it's still sat at Ormskirk at 0809 when it should have departed at 0804. I would guess it'll be taken out of service.

 

[Vespa]

Not a good sign, I'm heading to Liverpool on my day off to have mooch, with msybe an opportunity to have a ride over the lines with the new trains.

 

[Luke.till123]

Does anyone know which diagrams the 777s are on the Wirral lines today?

 

[390112A]

The New Brighton diagram tends to be the service to depart Moorfields at XX:46, Lime Street at XX:48 and Central at XX:50. The West Kirkby diagram I am unsure of as the departure time changes every hour.

 

[Vespa]

Merseyrail couldn't run the battery powered 777 train because when it arrived the delivery note said

"battery not included"