Trivia:Major design faults

[fowler9]

Two reasons really - on the EMT services it's so they can be cleaned and labelled for the return, with a fairly short turnaround it's impossible for the cleaners to achieve it while dodging people and luggage. I try and get the doors open at least 10 minutes before departure but EMT insist on scheduling the guard a break that ends at departure time, so if they insist on taking it in full they're within their rights not to return and open the doors earlier.

Secondly is the amount of platform sharing - if you have two trains open in the platform you can guarantee some folk will ignore the screens and get on the first one they come to. It's therefore considered good practice to lock up the back one.

Cheers mate, good points.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

This problem also affects the current 142 so don't flush it too often.
K

Interesting... I thought they'd fixed the problem pretty quickly after it became apparent; hardly expected it to still occur.

 

[thenorthern]

Woodhead Line Electrification - It was obsolete when ti was completed, it went into the "wrong" Sheffield station, it didn't serve the "right" places between Manchester and Sheffield that the Hope Valley line served.

 

[Ianno87]

Easy with hindsight but how about Manchester metrolink being high floor.

K

Modern low floor trams *did not exist* when Metrolink was built (The slightly later Sheffield trams aren't truly low floor for most of their length). The system was either built like that or not built at all.

 

[Ianno87]

The entire specification for the seating area on the 700s, everything the seats themselves and having nowhere to put a cup of tea to the cantilevered supports which intrude into the foot space of anyone sitting at an airline seat.

Cantilevered supports make cleaning the floor area much easier (I.e. Quicker and cheaper). Not a design flaw.

 

[Taunton]

Cantilevered supports make cleaning the floor area much easier (I.e. Quicker and cheaper). Not a design flaw.

Yes they are because they have forgotten that passengers have legs and/or that most seats nowadays are arranged bus-style rather than traditional seating bays. The supports are just where passengers in the seat behind would want to put their feet. Because of the lever effect, such side-supported struts have to be much more substantial than any vertical floor mounted one, to avoid bending when a large passenger sits on the gangway end of the seat.

 

[najaB]

Cantilevered supports make cleaning the floor area much easier (I.e. Quicker and cheaper). Not a design flaw.

Yes they are because they have forgotten that...

Like a lot of the design 'flaws' listed on this thread it was a deliberate compromise between conflicting requirements, rather than an actual oversight or mistake.

 

[lyndhurst25]

The cab doors on Class 76s / EM1s. Or perhaps drivers were thinner back then?

 

[12CSVT]

Romanian built class 56s had a muititude of design faults which resulted in them needing extensive modifications in this country before entering service.

 

[Signal Head]

Railtrack.

 

[AnonymousUser1]

That's more down to historical inertia than a deliberate design though. Well, maybe unless you count those who have an obsession with preserving ^history^ though...

or perhaps the lack of effective actions by the Luftwaffe

 

[grumblingalong]

It's presumably for the same reason as car doors having the same - if the main catch fails while moving, the door won't fly open but instead be held on the second catch.

You'd need a CDL failure and a catch failure for that to happen on a mk3!

 

[najaB]

You'd need a CDL failure and a catch failure for that to happen on a mk3!

If memory serves correctly, CDL wasn't a feature of the original Mk3 design.

 

[AnonymousUser1]

Modern low floor trams *did not exist* when Metrolink was built (The slightly later Sheffield trams aren't truly low floor for most of their length). The system was either built like that or not built at all.

indeed , the sheffield supertrams are basically 'well floored' with the outer ends of the end cars and the centre car having a near as damnit standard railway 'high fllor'

 

[thenorthern]

With the Manchester Metrolink and Sheffield Supertram its not really fair to compare them as they were built for different styles of routes as Manchester is run like heavy rail but the Supertram is built to run like buses. With the T68a trams though on the Metrolink didn't they have a problem with the coupling where they wouldn't work in pairs.

Another fault in my opinion was the introduction of tilting trains, there have been some benefits with journey times on the West Coast Main Line since they were introduced but the promised 140mph running never happened, it cost more than planned and the tilting trains for Virgin Cross Country were a complete waste as they only tilted for 4 years and the TASS installed between Banbury and Oxford only lasted 4 years which was a poor return on investment.

 

[mackeral1234]

The HST's fatal flaw: drop windows and pressure-pad vestibule doors. Never choose a seat near the carriage ends in winter.

Drop windows werent a flaw.... Best thing on a coach..... Modern coaches are wrong

 

[najaB]

Another fault in my opinion was the introduction of tilting trains, there have been some benefits with journey times on the West Coast Main Line since they were introduced

The highlighted phrase is at odds with the idea that tilt was a mistake or flaw.

... but the promised 140mph running never happened, it cost more than planned...

You could make the argument that buying the rolling stock before the upgrades were completed was a risky decision (it wasn't) but I don't get what the design flaw is.

...and the tilting trains for Virgin Cross Country were a complete waste as they only tilted for 4 years and the TASS installed between Banbury and Oxford only lasted 4 years which was a poor return on investment.

Again, arguably a failure of project management but I can't see the design flaw.

 

[jopsuk]

Trying to run a railway network with Victoria/Georgian earthworks in one of the most densely populated country in the world?

the 15th most densely populated country... admittedly Caithness, Sutherland much of the north of England all rather skew this. Less dense than Japan, the Netherlands, India.

 

[yorksrob]

Drop windows werent a flaw.... Best thing on a coach..... Modern coaches are wrong

I agree entirely.

Vestibules without an opening window seem to induce a claustrophobic atmosphere to me.

 

[Taunton]

Romanian built class 56s had a muititude of design faults which resulted in them needing extensive modifications in this country before entering service.

I don't think they suffered from design faults as such (and the design was done in Britain, Doncaster I believe), but what they did have was manufacturing faults, a significant proportion of which were not following the design, using substituted materials (some blatantly apparent), and poor standards of assembly. The overriding issue was not having adequate inspectors from Britain overseeing the work, but as the whole idea behind Romanian build was to minimise cost, presumably that had been cut out as well.

 

[Bevan Price]

Woodhead Line Electrification - It was obsolete when ti was completed, it went into the "wrong" Sheffield station, it didn't serve the "right" places between Manchester and Sheffield that the Hope Valley line served.

Sorry, but that is incorrect. Woodhead was electrified primarily for freight, mainly coal, and that was most conveniently served by the ex-GCR routes, including Wath Yard. Passenger services were a secondary consideration when electrification occurred. (And, in addition, Sheffield Victoria probably had better connectivity options than Sheffield Midland until the early 1960s.)

Yes, in retrospect, it is a pity that the Hope Valley route was not also electrified, but that opinion has the benefit of hindsight.

 

[Timrud]

Why do the passenger coaches squeek on the HST?

I know they are getting on a bit, but on what is an otherwise silent ride (compared to the 222's), it is a shame they make the noise they do.

 

[BurtonM]

Manchester Piccadilly station main train information display - It keeps moving just keep it constant please.

The old board from 2002 was replaced with an LED board last month. It has space for everything at once.


Class 185s:

• The seats
• The luggage racks
• Folding seats in the cycle storage (see also TPE's 350s)
• Not being allowed to put a bike in the disabled area behind first despite it being a better suited area to cycle storage due to a lack of obstructions
• The disabled ramp being stored nowhere near the door (it's by the cab), so everything between the doors and the cab is scratched to all hell by staff moving the ramp in a hurry.
• The announcement voice
• Reserving all the seats
• Positoning of first class

150s where the seats don't line up with the windows properly.
Positioning of the door open buttons on 142s.
Voyager toilets.
Northern's rent-a-bod revenue protection, and the £80 racket
Northern outsourcing customer relations
TfGM building Metrolink lines in socially deprived areas where equipment is vandalised, anti social behavior is a problem, and they're served perfectly well by buses (that they sometimes even tell the operators to reduce the service of)

Dawlish

 

[Class 66's]

Cl 07 - prone to hot boxes.
Cl 15/16 - poor visibility in both directions.
Cl 24 - lack of space to add additional equipment.
Cl 31/4 - ETH equipment takes too much engine power even when out of use.
Cl 43 - gap between the driver's and second man's sunblind allowing both to still be dazzled (free Randolph Aviator shades for all KX drivers!)
Cl 52 - mismatch between engine and transmission meaning had problems getting to design speed.
Cl 55 - driver's seat could not be raised high enough.
Cl 86 - unsprung mass too high leading to poor riding and track damage.
Cl 127 - lack of interlock on transmission meant it was possible to wreck the gearbox of other coupled units with manual gearboxes.
Cl 313 - doors could be opened with train in motion.
Cl 317 - issues with the smoothing choke leading to failure by water ingress (the press named it better!)
Electrostar family - maximum unit length of five cars.

I thought it was only early conversions which had the ETH supply tapped from the main generator?

 

[Dr_Paul]

That's more down to historical inertia than a deliberate design though. Well, maybe unless you count those who have an obsession with preserving ^history^ though...

I'd put it a bit differently: countries which pioneer things often pay a price. Britain was the first industrial country. The narrow British loading gauge is a result of Britain being the first country to have a railway system. Other countries followed, and could thus see the advantage of having a wider and taller loading gauge.

 

[ChrisHogan]

Try being a rather large driver trying to get in the cab at the converted end! Borderline unsafe in my opinion, I was surprised ASLEF did not make an issue of it.

They did make an issue of it. ASLEF had to be taken to Barclays to see the first one being converted to be convinced after being told that it was 153s or nothing for many deep rural services. Even so some depots refused to drive from the new cab initially; 153s had to be turned at Shrewsbury for Central Wales services for Swansea drivers.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Drop windows werent a flaw.... Best thing on a coach..... Modern coaches are wrong

I think stut's point is more the combination of both the drop windows (which are often left down) and the vestibule doors that seem to often stick open or stay open much longer than what they need to. As such, it can get very very chilly if you are sat near them in the winter! (as the air comes through the drop window, through the open vestibule door and thus making the carriage cold).

 

[fyldetrainfan]

Pacer gearboxes as originally fitted, which tended to break after a few years.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They did make an issue of it. ASLEF had to be taken to Barclays to see the first one being converted to be convinced after being told that it was 153s or nothing for many deep rural services. Even so some depots refused to drive from the new cab initially; 153s had to be turned at Shrewsbury for Central Wales services for Swansea drivers.

Wasn't it the case that the present #2 cab is actually enlarged (by coming out into the vestibule a bit) compared with the original design?

 

[Bletchleyite]

[*]The seats

I like them.

[*]The luggage racks

How? They are huge.

[*]The announcement voice

Yes, it's a horrible, rude and obnoxious voice, it sums up the arrogance of the TPE that built them to me.

[*]Positoning of first class

Yes, this is imbecilic.

Positioning of the door open buttons on 142s.

Yep, seen loads of people miss their stop because of this despite shouting to them where they were.