More Hull Trains woes

[HullRailMan]

After several days of frequent cancellations including a weekend of short-notice changes and bus replacements, things aren’t getting any better today. Looking at journeycheck they only had 2 180s in service today and one of the has just failed on the southbound 1033 service leaving them with just one serviceable train! The standby HST isn’t in use.

What a shambles! Twitter is full of complaints with people being given alternatives that are upto double the original journey time. Plenty of messages going out about the new trains coming later in the year but they seem to have taken their eye off the ball in terms of maintaining their existing fleet.

 

[yorksrob]

Can't wait until these units arrive on the Midland Mainline to 'modernise' our service.

 

[NoMorePacers]

Will they even be able to move when they finally leave Hull Trains?

 

[a_c_skinner]

They trained on HSTs, their route is mostly HST cleared, there are loads of HSTs available. I need not go on.

 

[ExRes]

I assume it's all down to who foots the bill, you would have thought by now that the non availability fines that must be being paid out would be less than hiring in HSTs and ripping the 180s apart to make them work properly

Why do the Hull 180s break down so often compared with the Grand Central ones or is it that GC do fail but just don't receive the headlines?

 

[hooverboy]

Will they even be able to move when they finally leave Hull Trains?

probably not leaving hull. not by rail at least.

 

[Failed Unit]

I assume it's all down to who foots the bill, you would have thought by now that the non availability fines that must be being paid out would be less than hiring in HSTs and ripping the 180s apart to make them work properly

Why do the Hull 180s break down so often compared with the Grand Central ones or is it that GC do fail but just don't receive the headlines?

I think it is the number of sets, GC have more of them and I think the diagram mileage is less. If one fails it can be hidden better by the spare set(s) or not causing as many cancellations.

 

[NoMorePacers]

HT have 4 180s and I think they're used all of the time, so if one fails there's no spares or chance of covering its services.

 

[HOOVER29]

Can't wait until these units arrive on the Midland Mainline to 'modernise' our service.

Beat me to it.

 

[Kite159]

HT have 4 180s and I think they're used all of the time, so if one fails there's no spares or chance of covering its services.

Hull Trains have 4 180s, of which 3 are needed for the daily services, with the 4th spare/on maintenance /being hit with various hammers at Crofton

 

[NoMorePacers]

Hull Trains have 4 180s, of which 3 are needed for the daily services, with the 4th spare/on maintenance /being hit with various hammers at Crofton

Well the spare is probably out all the time considering the failure rate of the active units, and even then more units blow up.

 

[InTheEastMids]

Beat me to it.

And me.
Can't wait for the delay repay costs to come on when one of these bursts into flames and stops the entire MML at, say, Kentish Town for an hour or 4

 

[NickBucks]

How difficult would it be to cancel the open access agreement ? From what has been posted over several months I cannot believe that Hull Trains are keeping to the terms of the agreement. Could LNER take over the HT services easily and take up the new rolling stock when received? Or is DfT happy to accept the funds arising from the agreement whilst disregarding the customers ( many of whom live north of Watford and are therefore considered to be a minor inconvenience by the civil servants in the DfT ?

 

[duffield]

Perhaps when the 180's are delivered to EMR they could get 'accidentally' routed into the Sims Scrap Metal Yard siding at Beeston, never to return?

 

[NoMorePacers]

How difficult would it be to cancel the open access agreement ? From what has been posted over several months I cannot believe that Hull Trains are keeping to the terms of the agreement. Could LNER take over the HT services easily and take up the new rolling stock when received? Or is DfT happy to accept the funds arising from the agreement whilst disregarding the customers ( many of whom live north of Watford and are therefore considered to be a minor inconvenience by the civil servants in the DfT ?

Apart from these reliability issues from FirstGroup's point of view I think Hull Trains has been quite successful. If it wasn't they would've shut it down by now.

 

[westv]

Thankfully the ridiculous situation of having to change at Sheffield was changed for us on this morning's cancelled 06:26 from Hull when we were advised we could catch the 07:00 LNER service. More delay repay - or whatever it's called.

 

[HullRailMan]

With the 2030 from KGX cancelled now too it means that only 2 of their 7 departures will have run from London today.

 

[Alfie1014]

How difficult would it be to cancel the open access agreement ? From what has been posted over several months I cannot believe that Hull Trains are keeping to the terms of the agreement. Could LNER take over the HT services easily and take up the new rolling stock when received? Or is DfT happy to accept the funds arising from the agreement whilst disregarding the customers ( many of whom live north of Watford and are therefore considered to be a minor inconvenience by the civil servants in the DfT ?

There is no agreement and there are no funds going to DfT it is Open Access, that the whole point! They operate out with the franchising process and succeed or fail on their commercial performance. They will only stop running if FG no longer wish to underwrite their losses (unlikely as they are funding new trains) or they breach their operating licence.

 

[Ianno87]

How difficult would it be to cancel the open access agreement ? From what has been posted over several months I cannot believe that Hull Trains are keeping to the terms of the agreement. Could LNER take over the HT services easily and take up the new rolling stock when received? Or is DfT happy to accept the funds arising from the agreement whilst disregarding the customers ( many of whom live north of Watford and are therefore considered to be a minor inconvenience by the civil servants in the DfT ?

Not an expert in these matters, but Hull Trains's current struggles are a simple commercial risk to themselves in losing revenue through non-operation of their commercial train service (which may, in the extreme, risk their Track access payments to NR)

The only mechanism for withdrawal of their Track Access Agreement would be if their performance issues were being actively detrimental to performance of other ECML operators (without a clear recovery plan) - which I don't think they generally are.

 

[37057]

They're obviously awaiting their new trains to enter service. You'd hope these problems will be eliminated when they do and I guess HT staff feel the same way.

With a fleet of only four units (doesn't matter if it's a 180 or not) will cause the service to drop so drastically if one is to be failed. A bird strike can be enough to take a train out of service, don't forget that.

My unbiased view is that I would choose to avoid their services at the moment but also sympathetic in their present lack of resources. I do hope once they get their new stock that their performance will improve.

 

[a_c_skinner]

They're obviously awaiting their new trains to enter service. You'd hope these problems will be eliminated when they do and I guess HT staff feel the same way.

I assume they are bargaining on at least a year's delay from the estimated date in service for their new trains? That seems the least delay one might reasonably expect based on current form. I assume someone will have the gumption to borrow an 802 or two from GWR and see what they do to the signals on the already electrified MML.

 

[NoMorePacers]

They seem to have tested TPE 802s without any issue though, so who knows.

 

[Failed Unit]

I assume they are bargaining on at least a year's delay from the estimated date in service for their new trains? That seems the least delay one might reasonably expect based on current form. I assume someone will have the gumption to borrow an 802 or two from GWR and see what they do to the signals on the already electrified MML.

I would hope as LNER have taken most the pain between London and Doncaster it will be much smoother. But then considering they can’t give a date for Lincoln - Newark (a whole 17 miles) you could be right that Doncaster- Hull will not be straight forward.

As for the ¾ diagrams. It generally worked fine with the 222s (even with one getting dropped) so I can see why they expected the 180s to be ok with the same number. Little did they know...

 

[NoMorePacers]

I would hope as LNER have taken most the pain between London and Doncaster it will be much smoother. But then considering they can’t give a date for Lincoln - Newark (a whole 17 miles) you could be right that Doncaster- Hull will not be straight forward.

As for the ¾ diagrams. It generally worked fine with the 222s (even with one getting dropped) so I can see why they expected the 180s to be ok with the same number. Little did they know...

I think it helped that the 222s weren't rail-bound grenades.

 

[yorksrob]

Will they even be able to move when they finally leave Hull Trains?

I suppose we can hope that they somehow manage to weld themselves onto the tracks and have to be cut up on site

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

I assume someone will have the gumption to borrow an 802 or two from GWR and see what they do to the signals on the already electrified MML.

Yeah... nope. That is absolutely never going to happen.

 

[NoMorePacers]

I suppose we can hope that they somehow manage to weld themselves onto the tracks and have to be cut up on site

Or their engines will just not start anymore.

 

[yorksrob]

Or their engines will just not start anymore.

Yes, perhaps not so far fetched !

 

[a_c_skinner]

As for the ¾ diagrams. It generally worked fine with the 222s (even with one getting dropped) so I can see why they expected the 180s to be ok with the same number. Little did they know...

Absolutely. Had they bought a subscription to any enthusiast's mag they'd have known the 180s were leaving FGW (was it?) because of their lack of reliability.

 

[ic31420]

I suppose some of the problem with the 180s are that they've never had a secure future from the moment they was delivered so nobody has the long term incentive to sort out the fundamental issues with a HGR OR alike.

Was they not ordered by FNW/NWT alongside the 175s for a service that never took off and their delivery subsequently diverted to FGW.