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ScotRail HST Introduction - Updates & Discussion

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GrimShady

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Does anyone know what the working hours are at Wabtec?

It's obviously not 24/7!
 
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Railperf

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0707 Glasgow to Inverness a 170 today. Similarly the 8.34 Edinburgh to Inverness substituted with a 170. But the 8.49 Aberdeen to Glasgow is a 'classic'. And hopefully catching the 9.42 Aberdeen to Stirling and 1235 Stirling to Inverness. -should be a refurb set. One whole classic set less a power car sitting at the west end of Haymarket depot. Noted other power cars and coaches standing solo there too. No HSTs noted at Perth depot today.
 

BRX

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Does anyone know what the working hours are at Wabtec?

It's obviously not 24/7!
It doesn't really seem like the rate of production at Wabtec is currently the bottleneck in the introduction process.
 

433N

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One whole classic set less a power car sitting at the west end of Haymarket depot.

It would be interesting to know if that is still 43131.

I was passing through Haymarket on Tuesday and noticed that the 1B14 Inverness - Edinburgh was there and delayed for a while with 43131 on the front (south end) and 43137 on the back :

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/G83381/2019/09/17/advanced

Presumably it was a problem with 43137 because later in the day, 43131 was parked up at the west end of the depot (facing east) with the rake behind it and it appeared 43137 had been taken off to be 'seen to'. When I passed the following day, 43131 was still parked up with the rake. Now I would have thought there might be a spare power car or two around which could be put on the back, given that so few sets are running. It would beggar belief as to what was happening if 43131 was still parked up two days later with the rake rather than a spare power car being found and the set put back into service.
 

Amlag

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Couldn't agree more!! Only five refurbs have been delivered this year, despite the three extra "classics " usage seems to have gone down. Scotrail has been rarely out of the news this year (not just regarding this though) Doesn't show any signs of improving either, any bets to when all 26 will be delivered AND in service? 2022?!
It would be interesting to know if that is still 43131.

I was passing through Haymarket on Tuesday and noticed that the 1B14 Inverness - Edinburgh was there and delayed for a while with 43131 on the front (south end) and 43137 on the back :

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/G83381/2019/09/17/advanced

Presumably it was a problem with 43137 because later in the day, 43131 was parked up at the west end of the depot (facing east) with the rake behind it and it appeared 43137 had been taken off to be 'seen to'. When I passed the following day, 43131 was still parked up with the rake. Now I would have thought there might be a spare power car or two around which could be put on the back, given that so few sets are running. It would beggar belief as to what was happening if 43131 was still parked up two days later with the rake rather than a spare power car being found and the set put back into service.

I too passed Haymarket Depot on Tuesday 17/9 ( aboard the 1230 UNmodified Baby HST from Waverley to Aberdeen ..a punctual and often 'lively' ride with as to be expected exceptional acceleration and a clean and fully serviced train in FGW Blue livery ...but wot a treat compared to the XC Voyagers which are stuffy, overcrowded, uncomfortable and still after all these years stink of sewage ).

Haymarket Depot looked like a young child's train set ...numerous coaches and power cars littered all about the depot and sidings, none in train sets, incl a HST Trailer outside the shed on its own receiving attention by some fitters.

I fully commend ScotRail and Co. for giving a home to these displaced HST sets, they will in time transform their long distance Inter City services and these baby HSTs have the facility and flexibility to be extended from 4 and 5 coaches up to 7 or 8 coaches in years to come as traffic increases.
 

GrimShady

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It doesn't really seem like the rate of production at Wabtec is currently the bottleneck in the introduction process.

Then why aren't all the refurbs ready and waiting in a siding somewhere?
 

Railperf

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It would be interesting to know if that is still 43131.

I was passing through Haymarket on Tuesday and noticed that the 1B14 Inverness - Edinburgh was there and delayed for a while with 43131 on the front (south end) and 43137 on the back :

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/G83381/2019/09/17/advanced

Presumably it was a problem with 43137 because later in the day, 43131 was parked up at the west end of the depot (facing east) with the rake behind it and it appeared 43137 had been taken off to be 'seen to'. When I passed the following day, 43131 was still parked up with the rake. Now I would have thought there might be a spare power car or two around which could be put on the back, given that so few sets are running. It would beggar belief as to what was happening if 43131 was still parked up two days later with the rake rather than a spare power car being found and the set put back into service.
Pretty sure it was 43131. As one driver put it - he has never seen Haymarket depot looking like boneyard - coaches and power cars scattered all over the place. They bemoan the fact that LNER power cars seem to have had 'all the upgrades' while the GWR ones look like they were 'run into the ground'.
 

InOban

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It seems that the quality of the product delivered to Angel Trains, and thereafter to ScotRail, leaves a lot to be desired.
 

Kettledrum

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Pretty sure it was 43131. As one driver put it - he has never seen Haymarket depot looking like boneyard - coaches and power cars scattered all over the place. They bemoan the fact that LNER power cars seem to have had 'all the upgrades' while the GWR ones look like they were 'run into the ground'.

But the GWR HST services ran every day without the problems with the HST sets that Scotrail seem to be having. Were the GWR fitters just more experienced at patching them up quicker and keeping them in service.
 

Kettledrum

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They will be stuck with the HST’s. Too much money gone in to abandon.
To replace the HST's with anything else will take years. From the start of the tendering process to the build scheduling, testing, delivery, more testing, acceptance, driver training to passenger revenue earning service takes years. There can be delays and hic-cups at every stage of the process. Whether it's TPE with their class 67's and MK5 sets, or the Hitachi 80x classes, it would take an absolute age.
If the ex GWR HST units being provided by the leasing company are so poor, maybe the LNER HST's could be refurbished and made available quicker?
 

InOban

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The trouble is that ScotRail's contract is with Angel trains and most of the East coast stock is Porterbrook
 

Amlag

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To replace the HST's with anything else will take years. From the start of the tendering process to the build scheduling, testing, delivery, more testing, acceptance, driver training to passenger revenue earning service takes years. There can be delays and hic-cups at every stage of the process. Whether it's TPE with their class 67's and MK5 sets, or the Hitachi 80x classes, it would take an absolute age.
If the ex GWR HST units being provided by the leasing company are so poor, maybe the LNER HST's could be refurbished and made available quicker?

It is surely a fact of life that the Power Cars off the former Western Region/ GW TOC have had a much harder life than those on the Eastern Region/ East Coast/ LNER.
Far more and steeper gradients, far more frequent stops/starts on the Western whereas the East Coast has long distances between many of the stops, with consequent long periods of sustained high speed running; exactly what the Inter City 125 HSTs were designed for. Craigentinny depot seems to have been a depot of maintenance excellence hence its staffs' past recognition and awards.
 

PG

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If the will was there I'm sure that the contract could be amended either directly or between Angel and Porterbrook such that this could happen.

However IIRC another poster mentioned upthread that most of the LNER HSTs are going to EMR as they are closer to PRM compliance then the HSTs that EMR currently operate.
 
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mde

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I scrolled back a few pages to see if anyone had posted this, but, unless my eyesight needs checked (and it might!) I didn't see any reference to it…

At a recent meeting of the Scottish Parliament's Rural Economy and Connectivity committee the output from Wabtec received some scrutiny, and, the following reply came from ScotRail's engineering director re outputs:
Syeda Ghufran said:
We are expecting two per month from October onwards. Wabtec met the most recent date that it promised to meet—the seventh train was delivered on target. Other trains are being refurbished at the facility for other operators. The fact that that process is coming to an end will allow Wabtec to put more coaches through refurbishment and deliver on the promise that it made to deliver more trains to Scotland as soon as possible.

http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=12235&i=110545&c=2194568#ScotParlOR

And, on when all are expected to be in service:
Syeda Ghufran said:
We expect all 26 intercity trains to be delivered by the end of June 2020.

http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=12235&i=110545&c=2194570#ScotParlOR

There's some other useful information from Hynes et al buried in the report, but, those two bits seem particularly relevant here; perhaps there is some good news due imminently?
 

Kettledrum

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The trouble is that ScotRail's contract is with Angel trains and most of the East coast stock is Porterbrook

Are the quality of the HST's supplied by Angel trains so poor that this contract could be terminated - for not supplying trains that were fit for purpose and therefore breach of contract?
(My suspicion is not because GWR managed to operate these HST's successfully)
 

PG

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I scrolled back a few pages to see if anyone had posted this, but, unless my eyesight needs checked (and it might!) I didn't see any reference to it…
Had me thinking I'd imagined it too... until I read this
End of the year. But, the plan is apparently for many of them to transfer to EMR for 12 months as they are more PRM compliant than the current EMR fleet.

Thanks for the info... even if ScotRail haven't exactly been forthcoming with updating folk at least it seems like they know (or hope!) that there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Mind you I note Syeda Ghufran says "delivered by end of June 2020" which doesn't necessarily mean they'll be in service by then... could just be added to the Haymarket train set :rolleyes:
 
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433N

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I can't actually link to the report but ...

Syeda Ghufran said:
"Wabtec met the most recent date that it promised to meet—the seventh train was delivered on target."

Of course, if Scotrail get a a phonecall saying "It's ready and it's coming up tomorrow" and it comes up 'tomorrow' then the train is delivered 'on target' and "Wabtec meet the most recent date that it promised to meet".

Is that how things work now ? Because it can't be far off.
 

380101

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Anyone know if Kilmarnock are making much of a dent in the work?

Saw an HST coach fresh out the paint shop at Wabtec Killie yesterday, with another one getting shunted in for paint. So first set out of Killie shouldn't be too far away.
 

47271

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Rate of delivery is all well and good, and I'll believe it when I see it, but if all the sets do is lie in pieces at Haymarket while we all ride around in grubby classics and dmus then we're no further forward.

My reading of the Scottish Parliament minute viewed alongside my day to day experience as a passenger suggests to me that the programme is in a lot more trouble than they were admitting to MSPs.
 

Railperf

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Bad day today. Lots of 170 substitutions. 6:38 Aberdeen Glasgow reportedly failed at Perth. Last night i believe a HST was involved in a fatality north of Dundee. 2 HSTs sitting in Aberdeen sidings , one is a refurb. Another set parked in sidings at Dundee.
EDIT: It was a 170 that struck the person at Balmossie.
 
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Railperf

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1630 Aberdeen to Glasgow HST - 1 power car has failed
Set taken out of service in case the other one fails and blocks the main line. Substituted with a 170.
 

Railperf

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1630 Aberdeen to Glasgow HST - 1 power car has failed
Set taken out of service in case the other one fails and blocks the main line. Substituted with a 170.
So on a day of low availability, 2 set failures - and substituted by 2-car 158s and 3-car 170s!!
 

Kettledrum

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Does anyone know why the power cars are suddenly failing so much more often than at Great Western? Is it something that the "refurbishment" has done to make them worse?
 

Railperf

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Does anyone know why the power cars are suddenly failing so much more often than at Great Western? Is it something that the "refurbishment" has done to make them worse?
The 'feeling' among some staff is that they are 50 yrs old and should be scrapped. When you ask why LNER are able to keep theirs running reliably at 125mph - the blame turns towards depots lack of expertise to maintain them and fix faults ! Today's Inter7city service - probably only 2 to 3 sets running Aberdeen to Edinburgh / Glasgow at most. Definitely the 9.42 Aberdeen to Stirling and Stirling Inverness was also an HST as was the 07.07 Glasgow Inverness. - The saving grace here was that Scotrail managed to maintain the service with 170s and 158s and few cancellations.
 
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Alanko

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Does anyone know why the power cars are suddenly failing so much more often than at Great Western? Is it something that the "refurbishment" has done to make them worse?

Maybe Great Western knew the right time to offload them?

By way of wobbly analogy I was looking at cheap Volvos recently, and I noticed that a lot of diesels were being sold for similar mileage. It turns out that the mileage is just short of the time the DPF needs replaced in these cars, which is quite an expensive OEM part. Volvo promoted these cars as more of a city car, but you need a routine motorway slog to make the DPF clear itself. People sell these cars fairly cheaply, knowing that the big repair bills are just around the corner.

I wonder if Great Western were thinking the same thing? Either that or the newly trained up HST drivers are a bit rough on them, or drive them by the book as if they were new?
 

GLC

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1630 Aberdeen to Glasgow HST - 1 power car has failed
Set taken out of service in case the other one fails and blocks the main line. Substituted with a 170.

Is it common amongst other TOCs to take an HST out of service if one power fails? I understand the rational of if the second power car fails then the impact that would have on the network, but surely the fact an HST has 2 power car also allows for some flexibility?
 
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