Video of class 707 units

[whole diary]

[paul7575]

Yes, there are a few. I should have said all the extensions underway should be finished - I don't suppose SWT^▸ (South West Trains) want to be setting up temporary SDO^▸ (Selective Door Opening) at extra places for a few weeks.

I don't think there's actually anything to set up, it would be more a case of not changing (by re-programming) what's already there.  AIUI^▸ (as I understand it) from a description of the system (given in Rail Engineer magazine a couple of years ago), every SWT station (apart from on DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) only routes) is fitted with ASDO^▸ (Automatic Selective Door Operation) beacons for the existing trains; and the type of ASDO in use is full time, for example an 8 car 450 entering Reading will still read the ASDO beacons - as would a 10 or 12 car train if one was sent there.   The beacons are visible at all stations even when both or all platforms are 12 car.

I expect this is a failsafe feature, the 450s, 444s and 458s must presumably be running around with ASDO switched on by default even on routes where it is not needed (such as Portsmouth to Southampton).  A few months ago during engineering work trains were single line running from Netley to my local station at Swanwick, and the lack of ASDO beacons at platform entry in the wrong direction was detected by the 450s in operation, and at each station a fault message was played...

Paul

[bobm]

Class 707 units have been doing test runs over the Reading line in recent weeks.

Among the tests have been the trains stopping at each station, presumably to try out the door systems.

Here are a couple of units at Reading

[paul7575]

IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly) a few years back we were being regularly told (albeit in other forums) that it would be impossible to have third rail pickup gear mounted on inside frame bogies, nice to see how that turned out...   

Paul