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What is the cause of unreliability of Vivarail Class 230 trains?

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Harpers Tate

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....and (I repeat) similar things happened (in effect, not causes specifically) when Pacers etc were introduced, and that lasted for many, many months. Pacers, of course, were brand new at the time.
 
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delticdave

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Yes you notice that on a 22x compared to a 18x. The 22x engines appear to stay at an almost constant rpm, while the 18x units with identical engines but mechanical transmission engine revs fluctuate with road speed - a bit like an old 3-speed automatic gearbox.
the performance of the 22x package seems superior with its electric traction and using the diesel engine to generate the electricity to power the motors.

The 18x units do indeed have a 3-speed Voith transmission.......but with lower gearing for the 185's. 100 mph rather than 125 max?).

Way back when Cross Country operated Voyagers out of Paddington it was possible (at Reading) to observe that the DEMU had much better initial acceleration than the (180) DHMU.
 

DarloRich

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We wondered how the 230's would deal with autumn. We might have the answer: 230004 has what sounds like bad wheel flats already!
 

modernrail

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I was attracted to the 230 and 769 project by the upcycling fan in me and the idea of a new strand of British in-house engineering. Neither seem to have gone well. Are there any historic examples of similar levels of conversion that have been nailed?
 

DarloRich

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I was attracted to the 230 and 769 project by the upcycling fan in me and the idea of a new strand of British in-house engineering. Neither seem to have gone well.

in fairness the 150 and 153 on the vale often had bad wheel flats - THAT isnt class specific.
 

HLE

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No but they really should have fitted WSP, if they haven't. Guessing the units have to go to a depot which has a wheel lathe.
 

43096

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I was attracted to the 230 and 769 project by the upcycling fan in me and the idea of a new strand of British in-house engineering. Neither seem to have gone well. Are there any historic examples of similar levels of conversion that have been nailed?
GBRf Class 73/9 conversions?
 

xcooler123

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I was at an expo last week where Vivarail had a stand and were doing a talk. Interestingly, they touched on their reliability issues during the summer with the number one issues being air filters. Essentially, they realised that the air filters were going to get pretty clogged up with pollen, etc. fairly quickly but this happened MUCH quicker than they were expecting. At one point they were changing air filters every night and some of the photos confirmed that they were really blocked! A blocked air filter means reduced air to the engine causing loss of power and overheating. They are currently going through a re-design to improve the system. They also commented that they were speeding up the door opening/closing speed. Will be interesting to see how they fare through the autumn and all the lessons they will learn from that.
 

samuelmorris

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I was at an expo last week where Vivarail had a stand and were doing a talk. Interestingly, they touched on their reliability issues during the summer with the number one issues being air filters. Essentially, they realised that the air filters were going to get pretty clogged up with pollen, etc. fairly quickly but this happened MUCH quicker than they were expecting. At one point they were changing air filters every night and some of the photos confirmed that they were really blocked! A blocked air filter means reduced air to the engine causing loss of power and overheating. They are currently going through a re-design to improve the system. They also commented that they were speeding up the door opening/closing speed. Will be interesting to see how they fare through the autumn and all the lessons they will learn from that.
Are they still using the original air filters with the engines or specialised ones for the trains? The idea of an air filter becoming blocked in a single day is crazy.
 

Chris125

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There's been noticeably fewer posts recently about the service, has reliability improved?
 

Bletchleyite

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There's been noticeably fewer posts recently about the service, has reliability improved?

Well, using today as a sample everything appears to have operated either on time or close to it. One diagram was cancelled late Friday evening, though.

I suspect the cooler weather is helping given that the main issue is overheating.
 

anamyd

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I haven’t compared the two engines I was just expanding on the post by @pieguyrob, I’m not familiar with the engine retrofitted to the class 230.
It's a 5-cylinder variant that is optional in the bigger Transit vans (since the Mk7 in 2007/2008) and more common in newer Rangers. The 230 has 2 of them per car so a sort-of "6.4 litre 10 cylinder engine" per car, meaning more cylinders but a lower cylinder capacity per car than "proper" DMUs
 
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anamyd

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Well, using today as a sample everything appears to have operated either on time or close to it. One diagram was cancelled late Friday evening, though.

I suspect the cooler weather is helping given that the main issue is overheating.
From reading through this thread, if the air filters and doors can be sorted and WSP can be fitted, these would be much better units
 

Bletchleyite

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From reading through this thread, if the air filters and doors can be sorted and WSP can be fitted, these would be much better units

They could probably do with aircon as there are limited opening windows. But fundamentally they are decent. They are not suffering any more teething troubles than the Pacers did, and we've had those for how many years now?
 

anamyd

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They could probably do with aircon as there are limited opening windows. But fundamentally they are decent. They are not suffering any more teething troubles than the Pacers did, and we've had those for how many years now?
*air filters, doors, WSP and air con :p
34 years for the 142s/143s/144s specifically, but remember they were re-engineered after 5 (gearboxes) to 10 (engines) years
 

DarloRich

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There's been noticeably fewer posts recently about the service, has reliability improved?

I have become bored in reporting details but service over the last 10 days has reached a level I would describe as not catastrophic! No idea if this is luck or an upturn in reliability.

They could probably do with aircon as there are limited opening windows. But fundamentally they are decent. They are not suffering any more teething troubles than the Pacers did, and we've had those for how many years now?

They need aircon. Windowcon doesn't work. It is also noticeable that due to the rain recently all of the windows are steamed up
 

driver_m

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Seems to be that another one has decided to combust. Just seen a link sent to Richard Clinnick on twitter showing one on fire. (From today 26 Oct 2019)
 

Bletchleyite

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Seems to be that another one has decided to combust. Just seen a link sent to Richard Clinnick on twitter showing one on fire. (From today 26 Oct 2019)

Beat me to it.

This must surely be the end of the project. Another solution for the MV has to be found (ref the other thread on the subject :) ).

(I am really sad to say that having enjoyed a ride on one earlier - but they are just unreliable garbage with no end to the problems in sight and were simply not ready for market)
 

Bob Price

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Depends on why it is on fire. If it is passenger generated, or similar that is not the fault of the train. Let's wait and collect some facts.
 

Bletchleyite

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Depends on why it is on fire. If it is passenger generated, or similar that is not the fault of the train. Let's wait and collect some facts.

There are suggestions on Twitter of someone who lives near where the fire happened having spoken to the fire officer and them having said it was in the genset. Additionally the photos on Twitter do seem to show smoke from the underframe.
 

samuelmorris

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I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it should be the end of the project, but I think it ought to see them withdrawn from service until the gensets are redesigned - to do so I'm sure will nullify any cost savings of the project, but the other faults the units are marred with don't seem serious enough (in the context of faults other new train fleets experience at the outset) to throw in the towel and give up any benefits from the considerable amount of R&D work put in. If they can just get a working genset in the units, I still think the project should be viable.
 

Bletchleyite

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I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it should be the end of the project, but I think it ought to see them withdrawn from service until the gensets are redesigned - to do so I'm sure will nullify any cost savings of the project, but the other faults the units are marred with don't seem serious enough (in the context of faults other new train fleets experience at the outset) to throw in the towel and give up any benefits from the considerable amount of R&D work put in. If they can just get a working genset in the units, I still think the project should be viable.

I think it just strikes me that almost everything seems to be a bit badly done or on the cheap about them, which I think just demonstrates that that specific model isn't viable. Things could be done less cheaply, but then they might not be cheaper than, say, 2-car diesel FLIRTs, or just doing the work to allow 2x23m units to be used and use a pair of 2-car Class 172s?

It does however appear that they (presumably the two which haven't conflagrated) are in service this morning - so perhaps the fire wasn't considered a serious incident?
 

samuelmorris

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I think it just strikes me that almost everything seems to be a bit badly done or on the cheap about them, which I think just demonstrates that that specific model isn't viable. Things could be done less cheaply, but then they might not be cheaper than, say, 2-car diesel FLIRTs, or just doing the work to allow 2x23m units to be used and use a pair of 2-car Class 172s?

It does however appear that they (presumably the two which haven't conflagrated) are in service this morning - so perhaps the fire wasn't considered a serious incident?
From the video I saw on Clinnick's twitter it doesn't look like a major fire, so perhaps they were easily able to identify the cause. Realistically, the work should always have been done to permit use of standard size DMUs because whether the 230s last 1, 10 or 40 years on the route, this will always be a problem. 'Solving' the problem with rolling stock rather than infrastructure works fobs the TOC off with the issue to deal with in their franchise bid rather than having the DfT sort it out like they should be doing - something which we're seeing quite a lot these days.
 

Bletchleyite

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From the video I saw on Clinnick's twitter it doesn't look like a major fire, so perhaps they were easily able to identify the cause. Realistically, the work should always have been done to permit use of standard size DMUs because whether the 230s last 1, 10 or 40 years on the route, this will always be a problem.

Agreed.

I'm going to reply in more detail on the other thread:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/potential-solutions-for-the-marston-vale-line.191951/
 

DarloRich

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One of the 230's caught fire at Millbrook station over the weekend. The "street word" is a gen set fire. The fire brigade attended and dealt with the situation. it was a small fire and really not worth the wibble up thread. It wasn't anything that hasn't happened to other trains.

worth noting that services were running this morning albeit impacted by the chronic staff shortages on LNWR

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it should be the end of the project, but I think it ought to see them withdrawn from service until the gensets are redesigned - to do so I'm sure will nullify any cost savings of the project, but the other faults the units are marred with don't seem serious enough (in the context of faults other new train fleets experience at the outset) to throw in the towel and give up any benefits from the considerable amount of R&D work put in. If they can just get a working genset in the units, I still think the project should be viable.

There is no practical replacement for the 230's at present. We are stuck with them.

From the video I saw on Clinnick's twitter

The quoted video is actually from, i think, the resident of Millbrook station. I hope the line was blocked seeing that fireman going down the side of the train!
 
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samuelmorris

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One of the 230's caught fire at Millbrook station over the weekend. The "street word" is a gen set fire. The fire brigade attended and dealt with the situation. it was a small fire and really not worth the wibble up thread. It wasn't anything that hasn't happened to other trains.

worth noting that services were running this morning albeit impacted by the chronic staff shortages on LNWR



There is no practical replacement for the 230's at present. We are stuck with them.



The quoted video is actually from, i think, the resident of Millbrook station. I hope the line was blocked seeing that fireman going down the side of the train!
I don't really see any wibble, the only comments made primarily concern the (seemingly) continued poor reliability of the fleet, not any bold presumptive statements about the class needing to be withdrawn on grounds of being unsafe.
 
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