West Coast Main Line Pendolino trains get a 2 million-mile service

[table38]

Article in Manchester Evening News here

Some maintenance jobs are predictable. For instance, the steel wheels of train are likely to need skimming on a lathe after 300,000 miles as they go very slightly oval with wear.

Other jobs are less predictable.

“One of the biggest things is what passengers put down the toilets,” says Cairns. “That includes mobile phones, watches, underwear, nappies. There was once a mobile phone wrapped up in a pair of knickers down there.”

 

[Wath Yard]

If they only empty the toilets every 2,000,000 miles that would certainly explain the smell.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Unfortunately I can top that.... on a 390 today, passing through a long tunnel, a distinctive strong sickly sweet meaty smell permeated the vestibules.

Presumably from some dead animal in the tunnel?

 

[Peter Sarf]

Gosh, when did they last service the tunnel ? .

I guess the newspaper is catching up with the fact that the 390s are going through an H3 overhaul - might the H3 be 2,000,000 miles ?.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Gosh, when did they last service the tunnel ? .

Not sure, but be assured the first thing I did on arrival at Euston was to report the matter to NR so that they could arrange for a driver to carry out a visual inspection of the relevant tunnel that same evening!

I haven't said which of the many long tunnels on the WCML it is in the hope that some unbiased independent report might surface that indicates whether or not anything has been done about it! ( I'm quite sure it wasn't a dead animal stuck under the train because the smell was only noticable in the one tunnel... )