Great Western Coffee Shop

From the FGW service incidents page 23/10/2007 ;-

18:30 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 20:16
This train has been cancelled.This train is run short formed with 5 carriages.This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

CONFUSED to say the least.

Is a refurblished HST set late coming as there's a lot of Adelantes replacing HST's. Have FGW sent a set for refurb and not got one back?

Yes I have noticed that. There could be a number of reasons, I was thinking of the powercar fire last Saturday east of Westbury, I did see a report which stated the powercar had been detached from the rest of the stock. It is a thought that as this is the third occurrence (to my knowledge) of a fire in a re-engined powercar there is an examination of all re-engined powercars which necessitate two or three sets being taken out of service for examination daily and therefore splitting the Adelantes is the only option available plus of course the 0710 Bristol TM to Paddington. This of course would be bad news and I dont expect FGW to trumpet bad news.

Well if they are stuck for stock why was there an HST sat outside Newton Abbot in the yard yesterday  :D

I did notice a few trains were being adelantefied.

It was cancelled in the end, as I wanted to get it to Bristol (from Bath Spa) last night, but was faced with a mighty fat cancelled when I got there. Had to get the X39, which is more expensive and slower! You really cannot rely on FGW in it's current state...

Surprised the 1800 wasn't half an hour late!!

It is a bit alarming the FGW ^200M upgrade scheme, approved by the DfT, as part their successfull franchise bid has suffered three serious engine fires.

How frequent are engine fires on HST trains?

Is there a problem with the new engines?

They seem fairly common (I think that there have been at least 4 or 5 on reengined HSTs).  But I don't think that they were uncommon on the old HSTs go I could n't say if the problem has got better or worse.  Does anyone have any inside information?

FGW are a bit coy about fires on trains because they are a potential safety issue and have been known to deny their occurance.  I recall an HST engine fire near Swindon about a year ago.  Network Rail, british Transport Police and Wiltshire Fire Service all informed journalists that there had been a fire but FGW refused to confirm this.

I was also an a train a couple of years go when the carriage filled with smoke from the brakes.  We were all evacuated and transfered to a coach.  I wrote a letter of complaint and got a full refund but the letter accompanyingthe refund stressed that there was no smoke but rather a "fine dispersion of particles in the air" (which I understood was the definiation of smoke)!

I think I might know why. There are two full HST sets in Cornwall stuck between Penzance and Bodmin. There is actually an excess of stock too work services as far as I can make out.

The MTUs are far more realiable than Valentas.

Anything FGW do simply gets bad press!

There have been a number of Adelantes deputising for HST between London-Bristol services these past few days.

To quote


This does not surprise me! The original Valentas engines are 25 years old! Where MTU the best replacement option, or the cheapest?

Also,


does this mean that two full sets are stuck in Cornwall whist NR redo the track again?

There are two HST sets stuck in Cornwall until the line reopens. One is a pretty new Fully Low-Density HST refurb with two MTU's.

Although this thread was on an entirely different heading it seems to have gone off onto a tangent regarding engines.

MTU stands for (excuse the spelling) Motoren und Turbinen Union and are manufactures of aircraft engines as well as large diesel engines. Without going into a history lecture of this company, the company is one of the four partner companies who manufacture the engines used in the RAF Typhoon fighter, the other partners being Rolls Royce, MTU (Germany), Fiat (Italy), ITP (Industria de Turbo Propulsores - Spain). The diesel side of the business eminates from amongst other makers, the Maybach company who provided the engines for the BR(WR) Class 35's, the Hymeks, the Class 42's, the Warships and the Class 52's, the Westerns. So FGW are following a WESTERN tradition.

The problem is not to do with the relibility of the engine but from what I have heard is the adjustment of the injectors which squirt the fuel into the cylinders. Apparently if they squirt too much fuel into the cylinders, full combustion does not occur and the exhaust thus contains a proportion of fuel vapour which is expelled and may continue to burn in the exhaust stack. This in itself is not too much of a problem if confined to a single cylinder which is slightly maladjusted injector. Occasionally however there is a sufficient build up of unburnt fuel condensate in the exhaust stack which will ignite when the exhaust, still burning, from a cylinder with the maladjusted injector comes into contact with it. There is a commonly accepted practice to lessen the prospects of this ocurring. The solution is to drill and tap holes in the exhaust duct and fit a drain pipe to each hole and feed the pipe into a collector tank which should regularly be drained.I havent been close up to one of the MTU power units fitted to FGW power cars but if this is the problem then it would require the services of the boffins at MTU to resolve, but then again it could just be down to a maladjusted injector. The old BR class 55's, the Deltics were prone to this sort of fire. Hence one of the reason why a fire extinguisher system is fitted.

However if an incident like what happened last Saturday neccesiatates the attendance of the local fireman Sam, his pouring water and foam on the fire to put it out doesnt do much good to the digestive system of the engine and in the worst case scenario the power car would require a heart transplant.

Maladjusted injectors squirting too much fuel in sounds like the engines are not as economical as they should be?

There is another theory as to what caused the problem, more related to the turbo, although once again the injector is a problem. These are only isolated incidences and I have never been on an MTU that has failed whereas I have been on an old engine that has needed fitters attention.

Not as clear cut as it seems.

injectors could be compared to the tappets on a petrol engine, reliant on the correct adjustment being made at service time. The engine would leave the factory set for optimum performance but if adjusted in service then I agree the engines would not be as economical as claimed if they are wrongly adjusted. A manufacturer can always set up the engine to produce the fuel burn claimed by correctly setting the injectors.

I remember a case where the Public Transport operator in Bristol procured new buses for the Bristol Area (this was before the privatisation of the bus service) from Leyland. This coincided with a fuel crisis and the mechanics adjusted the injectors to reduce the amount of fuel used. The drivers reported that the buses seemed to lack power. Leyland were called in by the operating side WITHOUT consulting the servicing side of the business. Leyland discovered the cause, the 'cutting back' of the injectors which invalidated the warranties on the vehicles and a hefty bill was presented by Leyland to the operator for the work to set up the injectors to give optimum performance. A lesson learnt the hard way.

Yes, your right, but I decided not to be too technical for the non techiis on this forum.

If I remember correctly, that HST was a failure and was awaiting fitters from Laira to attend to fix an air leak. It later operated a Plymouth - Paddington service starting at Newton Abbot.

It was the ECS from the 1000 Padd - Paignton (terminated at NTA due to engineering)

I thought that service remained platformed at NTA for cleaning and seat reservation duties to be undertaken.

They probabally do it in the yard, with the staff on it

The platform was empty when my 153 arrived into it!