I remember some mention about some guard leaning against a cab door to look out of the droplight when leaving a platform and the door openingthankfully not falling out, though!
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Scotrail Turbostars moving to Southern
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I remember some mention about some guard leaning against a cab door to look out of the droplight when leaving a platform and the door openingthankfully not falling out, though!
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Scotrail84
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401-424 and 470 and 471 all have external cab doors that are not air assisted. The rest of the ScotRail turbo fleet have air assisted external cab doors.
Not a full refurb though, appears only the carpets have been replaced (Probably out of necessity). Seats are still as before, although it's had a full repaint into blue (No spots when I seen it last week).
The Southern 171 fleet continues to have issues. There have been numerous short trains on the Uckfield Line this week and on the Marsh line they have apparently been told they are without their shuttle as it needs parts.
Think it was last week when the train to Uckfield failed on route and was terminated at Oxted. We then spent 20 minutes on the next train at Oxted whilst the driver fixed a fault!
Think it was last week when the train to Uckfield failed on route and was terminated at Oxted. We then spent 20 minutes on the next train at Oxted whilst the driver fixed a fault!
Having extended the platforms on the Uckfield line to take 10 car trains, and introduced 10 car trains there are now very few 10 car trains running on the Uckfield line. The 7:0x from Uckfield in the morning and the 15:08 and 18:08 (same stock) in the evening. All the others are permanently short.
Rumour is that a manufacturer of either the engine or hydraulic hoses has gone bust so Southern cant get spares. Outcome is a number of units sitting in Selhurst going nowhere.
Southern have hidden a statement on their website http://www.southernrailway.com/your-journey/plan-your-journey/uckfield-services which seems to blame the Scottish units. Not sure which ones are broken though!
Rumour is that a manufacturer of either the engine or hydraulic hoses has gone bust so Southern cant get spares. Outcome is a number of units sitting in Selhurst going nowhere.
Southern have hidden a statement on their website http://www.southernrailway.com/your-journey/plan-your-journey/uckfield-services which seems to blame the Scottish units. Not sure which ones are broken though!
... which is funny because I'm not aware of them being particularly unreliable in Scotland. Perhaps it was something to do with all the work that was needed to make them into 171s?
They're only a few years older than the Southern original 171s!
They're only a few years older than the Southern original 171s!
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If in doubt, blame something else.
Sam
Sam
scotraildriver
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Ours still working fine!
fgwrich
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Ouch, blame someone else (but oddly not their good pals in Bombardier I note). Perhaps Govias corner cuttings wouldn't sound as fancy as blaming ScotRail in their press release though!
Do we still have any idea as to what's happening to the other units still in Scotland - are they still being subleased back to Scotrail by TSGN or have the dumped them outright?
201, 401 and 402 were in service on friday. Iam aware of 803 awaiting spares but it ws also running.
47271
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Dear God, that web page is just the sort of feeble amateurish rubbish that you'd expect from GTR, they really are utterly hopeless.
Who on earth in their customer base is interested in 'wiring looms that has since surfaced'? What does that mean to anyone other than the 12 year old who wrote it? Does anyone in their comms team read any of this stuff before it goes out? Do they have anyone in their comms team?
Southern took well over a year to wreck these trains. As a regular daily user of Scotrail 170s, I can confirm that, whilst a few of them could do with new carpet and upholstery, the remaining units up here perform totally reliably day in day out. [emoji38]
Who on earth in their customer base is interested in 'wiring looms that has since surfaced'? What does that mean to anyone other than the 12 year old who wrote it? Does anyone in their comms team read any of this stuff before it goes out? Do they have anyone in their comms team?
Southern took well over a year to wreck these trains. As a regular daily user of Scotrail 170s, I can confirm that, whilst a few of them could do with new carpet and upholstery, the remaining units up here perform totally reliably day in day out. [emoji38]
Those 3 ex SCR ones were all in service when I was up the smoke a few weeks ago, rode on all 3 of them.
There were a couple parked up beside the training centre the other week in the evening peak. Couldnt see enough to get any unit numbers but some of the Scottish ones are still running around as I have been on them this week.
Southern Dvr
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The 171s do not like being chopped and changed. The original 171s were experimented with when new, making them into 3 cars but they would not work properly. The 3 car Scottish ones arrive & GTR turn them into 2s and 4s & now they throw their toys out the pram. Someone find out how reliable these units were at SR, I bet you'll find they were not nearly as unreliable as they are now.
Currently on one of the plain blue units subleased back to Scotrail (170417), and we've been early and bang on time into every single station.
GTR getting their knickers in a twist because they can't get anything to go their way...surprise surprise.
GTR getting their knickers in a twist because they can't get anything to go their way...surprise surprise.
Changing them seemed so unnecessary as well. They would have been better as 3 car units, albeit not met franchise requirements. 3 car units would be better on the Marsh line, and offpeak on the Uckfield line. They could have been used to make 9 carr units on the Uckfield line, or 10 in right combination.
D365
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The 170s don't have much in the way of software, certainly not the older variants I believe.
scotraildriver
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They have operated in Scotland in 2,3 and 4 car formations when intermediate vehicles have been out of action for various reasons without issue. Can only assume that the conversion to 171 is responsible for the current issues.
once again it seemed that the 2x 4 cars and 1 of the 2 car ex-scots were in service today.
RJ
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10 car trains weren't such a myth a few weeks ago - quite a few were out and about!
[youtube]Tw_y2SryRA8[/youtube]
Southern Dvr
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I believe there are a fair few wiring alterations involved in making them 171s instead of 170s, which combined with the consist alterations has caused no end of problems. I cannot back it up evidentially but i think if they had been left as 3 cars a lot of the problems would not be occurring.
Depends on definition of a few weeks ago. There was a staged introduction of them last summer, and there were I think 3 or 4 am peak services that were 10 car, in the evening I think it was 5 peak services that were 10 car. Although regularly at least one of them was short.
However several weeks, if not months the alternate service on the Marsh line was cancelled though lack of stock. This was reinstated but the length of services on the Uckfield line reduced and there is only one train that runs as 10 carriages but does 2 journies am and pm well 1 1/2 in the am as it only goes back out as far as Oxted.
fgwrich
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From that video I can only see one ex Scottish 170 in that though. The rest appear to be made up of 171s.
southern442
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I saw a few in that video, but I was expecting most formations to have the extra units in them.
tsr
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The 171/2s and /4s (ie. ex-170s) haven't been causing too many problems for my journeys lately, but a lot of my colleagues have had quite bothersome issues. In fact, one failed on prep only this afternoon, which resulted in short formations. So I think my experiences are luck more than anything! Some things are accessibility or cosmetic issues - there's at least one unit going around with no PIS when driven from one end, some dodgy toilet doors and so on. Others have more serious problems - spurious fault lights, unsolicited brake applications, etc.
It's hard to know the exact root of some of these problems, but from the expert opinions I've heard, I would indeed agree that leaving them as 3 car trains might have improved reliability, if not practicality.
That Oxted shuttle in the morning is a bit silly, really. It often either gets stuck in congestion or causes its own, and only really serves much purpose on the way back into town between East Croydon and London Bridge. For some reason it has never really proved that popular as a crowd-busting train from Oxted.
The Down journey of that shuttle often only has 2 or 3 people alighting at Oxted, from 230 metres of train.
However, given nobody wants it to take up space by manoeuvring anywhere else, I can't see things changing any time soon!
They're all 171s now
But yes, often you will only have one ex-170 unit in the formation.
There's no consistent pattern, I'm afraid. It just depends what's functional on any given day!
It's hard to know the exact root of some of these problems, but from the expert opinions I've heard, I would indeed agree that leaving them as 3 car trains might have improved reliability, if not practicality.
That Oxted shuttle in the morning is a bit silly, really. It often either gets stuck in congestion or causes its own, and only really serves much purpose on the way back into town between East Croydon and London Bridge. For some reason it has never really proved that popular as a crowd-busting train from Oxted.
The Down journey of that shuttle often only has 2 or 3 people alighting at Oxted, from 230 metres of train.
However, given nobody wants it to take up space by manoeuvring anywhere else, I can't see things changing any time soon!
They're all 171s now
But yes, often you will only have one ex-170 unit in the formation.There's no consistent pattern, I'm afraid. It just depends what's functional on any given day!
Isn't the point of the Oxted train that the following service up from Oxted is a short train (used to be 2-car but now in theory 2x2-car) and therefore any people it can pick up at Oxted or East Croydon relieves the short train.
It would only go into Selhurst Depot empty otherwise.
Ive always also assumed it runs as it has to get out of LBG pronto because of congestion and that its hard to get it back into selhurst depot at 09.00 ish.... it ran into selhurst empties before the london bridge work started.
The staff at oxted dont seem to be very good at telling people about the shuttle.....and/or people cant be bother to cross over the platform. The same seems to happen at east croydon too.
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tsr
Established Member
Bit of both of these. It is indeed impractical to get back to the depot and this is probably the best use of the stock, even if it's a bit fiddly.
Space at London Bridge is at a premium but as this train often clogs up other arteries around London and especially also sometimes the junction north of Oxted station, it doesn't always help too much! I can recall a couple of very severe delays which originally stemmed from that shuttle leaving Oxted late, and then if it terminates at East Croydon vice London Bridge (surprisingly common!) the same sort of thing happens there, depending somewhat on which platform is used and therefore what the interlocking is doing.
Some are better than others. I know a couple of staff really try quite hard, though, and it doesn't work, so it's partly lack of being bothered on the passengers' part!
I believe you are correct. I can't remember when it was introduced but it definitely pre-dates the new franchise and the LBG works. The issue was lack of capacity at abound 9am from Oxted to LBG as the train from Uckfield was only 2 car full and standing at Oxted. Sending what was at the time an 8 car back from LBG to Oxted to relieve that and avoid it clogging up lines to get in to Selhurst was in theory a good idea.
Whether it's needed with longer trains on the Uckfield line, the perceived drop in use on the line etc is a different question.
In the meantime it appears that the 10 unit trains from Uckfield are all back in the timetable although I don't know how this can be confirmed, but his morning due to unit faults they ran as 8s.
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