Great Western Coffee Shop

An interesting announcement by the Train Manager on-board the extremely crowded 8:00 from Maidenhead this AM.

This is normally the HST stopper service from Didcot to Paddington - stopping local to Tilehurst and then fast to Maidenhead and Paddington (no Reading stop).

This morning it was a Class 180 (hence extremely crowded as 8 into 5 is always a squeeze).

He stated that the designated HST had failed at OOC this AM with a low air pressure in the brakes. He then then went on to state that this problem was causing low availability across the HST fleet. Further, FGW was having to have new parts manufactured as the 25+ year old age of trains meant no spares were available.

I thought this was interesting - and revealing about the pressure of maintaining an aging fleet.

The only thing thaty I can add to that is that the 07.08 Maidenhead to Padd (an HST from Worcester) was cancelled this morning citing 'a person hit by an earlier train'.  Looking at Journeycheck the train didn't even start its journey so I presume that this was a result of stock being out of place/repaired as a result of the Friday afternoon hit at Twyford?
I believe from recollection that the 07.08 is the same stock that forms the 19.48 out of Paddington the revious night(??)

Trigger's broom!  :D

There's an ECS movement shown on Realtime Trains (http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/O99139/2015/05/26/advanced (http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/O99139/2015/05/26/advanced)) as departing Shrub Hill at 04:48 arriving at Old Oak Common at 08:08.

A cynic like me might suspect a conspiracy.

The new shorter IEPs are on the way and as a result there may be a reluctance to spend o much on repairs or stocks of spare parts for the old trains. Within reason this is understandable.

However in the past, when new trains have been introduced there seems to have been a policy of running down the old so as to make the new shorter trains look better.
I recall the downgrade of Waterloo/Exeter from services from full length loco hauled trains to 3 car DMUs. Shortly before the downgrade, the existing service got a lot worse, it almost looked as though an effort had been made to find the least reliable engines and the coaches in worst condition. Some services were operated by a non gangwayed "Hampshire" unit that provided only two and a bit coaches of passenger space, and only had a toilet in one vehicle.
Any complaints were met with "we are sorry for age and condition of the present trains. Brand new ones are on the way and be a great improvement"

I suspect that the HST fleet will suffer a similar run down in both condition and in availability, with 3 car DMUs increasingly substituting for them.
After all the new 5 car units WILL be an improvement over a 3 car DMU! and hopefully most passengers will have forgotten that an 8 car HST had previously been used.

.........almost word for word what the FGW response was on Twitter this morning to anyone asking similar questions!

Amended driver instructions have been issued recently which involves making additional checks to ensure that the brakes are always working properly in service.  General HST reliability is worsening and I do put that largely down to the age of the fleet which is now 40 years old, with 10 year old engines (that are still pretty reliable).  Personally I don't think any chances are taken with maintenance of parts that could either fail and cause huge delays, or fail and cause a potential accident.

Let's remember, they are regularly pushed on diagrams that usually cover 500-700 miles per day and date from the time that these vehicles were built.  You don't see many of them around now do you?!

You see plenty of that second one around. FGW have a few in Devon, don't they? :D

....somebody once told me that the Austin Allegro was the only car ever produced that was more aerodynamic going backwards than forwards!  ;D

The profile of the rear looks like an HST to me!

They've been supplied faulty or incorrectly setup Electrical Control Units (the original ones are no longer manufactured so these are brand new made to order)

I've heard the problem has been identified and fixed but they can't stop all the power cars to change the units, work is being done when the power cars are stopped for scheduled maintenance exams.
There's also some other modifications in the pipeline including some relating to the compressors.  
The engines in the power cars maybe old, but they are regularly swapped and set away for refurbishment.  The actual MTU engine has a lifetime warranty on it. 

There was also a fatality at St Austell towards the end of last week and, not forgetting, there's still sets away for refresh work at Kilmarnock.