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Voyagers on fire again!

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Max

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From the Virgin Trains Gen Group:

1H30 06.30 BNS-Man Pic on fire at Congleton 221124 and 220005 involved

Ta DOH46229 for da gen

Uh oh! This is becoming a serious problem for Virgin, and they should surely look to resolving the problem straight away. Maybe those loco hauled cross country services are not as farfetched as we thought, if the Voyagers need to go in for some modifications. And of course, this means two more Voyagers out of action. :)
 
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AJP

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I remember the one at Dunbar and the tractor saved the day. Problry the only time Hellfire and voyager come in the same sentance.
 

yorkie

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feltham2104 said:
knwoing virgin they'll probaly jsut cancel and few trains

Yep. Many TOCs do it nowadays, not just Virgin.

It's apparently cheaper to cancel trains rather than have standby sets. :(

I remember once turning up for an early morning Virgin train and it was cancelled with no mention on any monitors and no Virgin staff around. The GNER staff just said it didn't appear on the system. Some cancellations are just deleted from existence apparently (this has happened to us with a Central train at Cardiff last month as well).
 

matt

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Well one of the plymouth trains was cancelled at New Street today
 
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God knows why you are blaming virgin. Its got **** all to do with them. Cummins and bombardier need to sort out those bloody engines!
 

metrocammel

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Bonnie Prince Charlie said:
God knows why you are blaming virgin. Its got **** all to do with them. Cummins and bombardier need to sort out those bloody engines!

Is anyone blaming Virgin for the problems? But people are pointing out the synical actions of TOC's these days where they simply cancel a train, and then wipe it off the system, so It doesnt show up on the boards at all (as canx or otherwise) - which is very wrong - as it causes no end of problems for the passengers.

On the other hand, Virgin are lumbered with the problem of the overheating Cummins engines, but in hindsight, maybe Virgin made the mistake of ordering units for long distance journeys with challenging gradients, it now seems locos / hsts are much more "durable" than their plastic counterparts, and dont catch fire every time they slightly overheat! Also, another interesting point is that all these fires are happening together, as though the whole fleets engines are "wearing out" already - which is ridiculous for engines less than 6 years old.
 

TheSlash

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If the engine is overheating, the radiator isn't big enough, or the water coolant in the radiator isn't being cooled properly.
I know cummins are aload of ****e because the 158's i used to deal with at Fratton were always having engine trouble, especially shutting down due to overheating
 

metrocammel

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I was on a 158 tonight with a dodgy engine, whenever we accelerated it seemed to start to, then would do nothing... eventually we stopped at Guide Bridge for a while and it was shut down.

I started my first Leyland 680 on 101 685 last weekend . I never knew how to start a 1st gen dmu engine from cold, but I do now... by pressing the start button underneath the unit near the desired engine. It was a bleedin hellfire cold start! ... the white clag went everywhere... almost as "dreadful" as that famous Coventry dumper truck! So if you need to know how to start a 1st gen dmu, or isolate the fluid coupling / cardan shaft to the bogies with the "toast fork", just ask me!! :D
 

960012

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metrocammel said:
I was on a 158 tonight with a dodgy engine, whenever we accelerated it seemed to start to, then would do nothing... eventually we stopped at Guide Bridge for a while and it was shut down.

I started my first Leyland 680 on 101 685 last weekend . I never knew how to start a 1st gen dmu engine from cold, but I do now... by pressing the start button underneath the unit near the desired engine. It was a bleedin hellfire cold start! ... the white clag went everywhere... almost as "dreadful" as that famous Coventry dumper truck! So if you need to know how to start a 1st gen dmu, or isolate the fluid flywheel to the bogies with the "toast fork", just ask me!! :D

That was black lol
 

TheSlash

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metrocammel said:
I know, but still white smoke can be hellfire as well!!! But Daisy was pumping a hell of a lot of it out when she started!!!!
Condensation in the exhaust pipe. You don't have the added attraction of going for a good thrash to warm it up.
Me and another less vocal forum member are in the EKR chairman's "Bad boys book" for 'breaking' the 101 temporarily.
1st of all we shut the unit down and left the AWS cut in so the battery went flat overnight. Then when we did get it going, we forgot we opened the air res drain cock the night before to clear out the air system and prevent freezing, so any air the tiny compressor created was pissing out the hole at the other end :? :lol:
Other than that, any problems with ya coach let me know and i'll tell you how to fix them
 

metrocammel

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TheSlash said:
1st of all we shut the unit down and left the AWS cut in so the battery went flat overnight. Then when we did get it going, we forgot we opened the air res drain (filtered) the night before to clear out the air system and prevent freezing, so any air the tiny compressor created was pissing out the hole at the other end :? :lol:
Other than that, any problems with ya coach let me know and i'll tell you how to fix them

LOL, well we nearly had a problem with running down the juice, as there was a 45 minute turnaround at Elsecar, so the units engine was shutdown, however the heaters, all the lights and the piewarmer(!) were left on, so when we came to start the engine for the second time.... an ominous weak noise as the starter motor struggled, and then whined and did nothing! Thankfully, after turning all the lights off, and leaving it for a while we managed to get one engine working, which then gave the battieries some life in one of the cars, so the other engine then got going... then we isolated the front cars fluid coupling to the bogies, then once the unit was going, the alternator gave enough juice for the other engines to be started, so the front and back unit was working on all engines on the way back.
 

Techniquest

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Didn't know they were so much work! Still, much better than having one start button and not knowing what to do with it when it fails to start!

Regarding the members' problems with a cancelled service from Cardiff last month, what was announced with regards to this? Usually when this happens the service starts back from Gloucester (no way of catching up to it) or Newport (in which case, you'd get the next train to Newport and catch it there). This happens a fair bit, indeed I've had ATW 158s flooded with CT passengers as the CT unit was caped at Newport due to heavy late running, and the ATW for Manchester leaving 6 minutes before booked departure from Cardiff. Now they've moved CTs back 5 minutes to xx45 at Cardiff, they must need some much more advance knowledge if it's to be caped at Newport, indeed, they need to know by xx25 really to pack the CT passengers onto the xx25 HST or xx30 WSX unit. Nothing else then til xx50 for the ATW to Manchester.
 

TheSlash

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Metcam. It is interesting to read about the 'alternator' fitted to your unit. Our unit charges it's batteries through a dynamo fitted to the axle. The problem with the dynamo is you need to move, and move fast, to charge the batteries. The batteries don't begin to charge until 17mph, so a top speed of 25mph doesn't give alot of charge. I was told it is quite hard to fit an alternator?
 

metrocammel

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TheSlash said:
Metcam. It is interesting to read about the 'alternator' fitted to your unit. Our unit charges it's batteries through a dynamo fitted to the axle. The problem with the dynamo is you need to move, and move fast, to charge the batteries. The batteries don't begin to charge until 17mph, so a top speed of 25mph doesn't give alot of charge. I was told it is quite hard to fit an alternator?

I will check with John (the units owner), but AFAIK it had it fitted when in use with FNW. Im pretty sure it isnt reliant upon the dynamo to recharge the batteries, but I am no expert in the field.... I will PM you with the anwser (I will phone John tommorw and possibly Stuart Mackay - "Railcar.co.uk webmaster, and owner of several dmus including 101692) as this thread has gone a bit far off topic!

Anyway... back to voyagers spontaneously combusting.....
 

Jordy

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metrocammel said:
I was on a 158 tonight with a dodgy engine, whenever we accelerated it seemed to start to, then would do nothing... eventually we stopped at Guide Bridge for a while and it was shut down.

:lol: :lol: I've had that happen many times!

I agree that Virgin really need to get this sorted out - its getting very dangerous!!!

Jordy
 

Techniquest

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Too right! It's unlikely, but we could have a diaster with those engines burning up in a busy station such as New Street.

I've been on a 158 where the engine on the rear carriage, and the one I was in, stalled a lot. We thought it was a driver error, but upon arrival the train was met with fitters and oil. Evidentally it just needed more oil for it. Sparked back into life shortly afterwards.
 

TheSlash

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FGWFan said:
Too right! It's unlikely, but we could have a diaster with those engines burning up in a busy station such as New Street.

I've been on a 158 where the engine on the rear carriage, and the one I was in, stalled a lot. We thought it was a driver error, but upon arrival the train was met with fitters and oil. Evidentally it just needed more oil for it. Sparked back into life shortly afterwards.
Would this unit of been based at Canton? For a DMU maintenance and repair depot, they didn't seem to do alot of basic things like check the oil and water
 

Techniquest

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The unit in question had been on lots of long runs during the day. I believe it would have come down from Gloucester on the early service to Penzance, returning later when we picked it up from Taunton. Can't remember where it was going, probably Cheltenham.

And yes, you might be right about it not being filled enough with oil and stuff. Might have developed a fault or something though en-route back to the area. I don't know, I didn't ask, I just saw a barrell of Sprinter Oil at BTM with the fitters.
 
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