IETs into passenger service from 16 Oct 2017 and subsequent performance issues

[whole diary]

[chuffed]

MD of Hitachi Rail Karen Boswell has issued an apology for the issues of the first train this morning

https://twitter.com/HitachiRailEU/status/919930521345544197

Now where is the one from Mark Hopwood ...

Saw it on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s Twitter feed just now. Good of Hitachi to fess up but that would be the Japenese way. They would have been most embarrassed by what had happened this morning.

Was just about to ask, was Mr Hopwood around for the launch? Have yet to see any pics of him?

He was the funny little guy in the hat, dancing with the Duchess of Cambridge at Paddington around lunchtime. Hope he washed the marmalade off his sticky fingers first !

[Timmer]

He was the funny little guy in the hat, dancing with the Duchess of Cambridge at Paddington around lunchtime. Hope he washed the marmalade off his sticky fingers first !

Brilliant! We do have some good humour on this forum 

[John R]

I suspect Ms Boswell will be getting some very frank feedback from her bosses. This was Hitachi's most important day in terms of media profile and they have right royally screwed it up. And in doing so made their customers (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) appear a laughing stock.

I don't think it's on Twitter she needs to be making her apologies.

[TaplowGreen]

.....from the Telegraph.....

https://trib.al/Oa4NnMi

[ChrisB]

Re Mark Hopwood at this morning's launch - Yes, saw him in the background of a shot of all the press surrounding the Hitachi bigwig....

[broadgage]

Leakage of condensate from air conditioning units is indeed a relatively common fault, but simply should not happen on a new and very expensive train.

If the condensate line was blocked, not connected, or otherwise defective from new then that suggests poor quality control.
If a fault had developed during test running, then that is a bit worrying on a still new train.

The weather this morning was warmer and more humid than normal for the time of year, but was cooler and less humid than many summer days. The train did not appear heavily loaded, I wonder what will happen on a hot humid day with a crowded train.

[Rhydgaled]

The weather this morning was warmer and more humid than normal for the time of year, but was cooler and less humid than many summer days. The train did not appear heavily loaded, I wonder what will happen on a hot humid day with a crowded train.

I can only recall one train ride where it was 'raining' inside due (I supposed) to the air conditioning system. The unit was a class 175 and I think it was a cold evening outside but possibly even colder inside (the 175's aircon was seemingly in 'Arctic Mode'), so perhaps showers is more of a cold-weather fault?

Regarding the delay this morning, was the train late off the depot? If so, does Hitachi get a penalty for that under the no-train, no-pay IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) contract or is it only a total failure to provide a set that incurs such a penalty?

[John R]

Regarding the delay this morning, was the train late off the depot? If so, does Hitachi get a penalty for that under the no-train, no-pay IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) contract or is it only a total failure to provide a set that incurs such a penalty?

Yes, it was over an hour late leaving. I'm sure there will be a penalty for not presenting a train for service at the right time, else what's the point of having a contract where Hitachi are on the hook to provide a set for each journey which doesn't catch such a failure. 

[JayMac]

I suspect Ms Boswell will be getting some very frank feedback from her bosses. This was Hitachi's most important day in terms of media profile and they have right royally screwed it up. And in doing so made their customers (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) appear a laughing stock.

I don't think it's on Twitter she needs to be making her apologies.

The apology was posted on Twitter because it's from there it can be shared far and wide.

I think it's very good she has appeared on camera in the immediate aftermath and apologised unreservedly. That is no doubt because she is working for a Japanese company. That's the way they do things in the land if the rising sun.

I can think of at least one other MD from the same industry who would do well to ape Karen Boswell. Publicly apologising for the atrocious service his company has provided to its customers in recent months.

Now, the new trains. My impressions. Teething problems aside I think the Class 80x will be a worthy successor to the HST^▸ (High Speed Train). The passenger environment is very good. There's attention to detail throughout the train. One design feature I particularly liked was the slot in the middle of the airline seat drop down tables. Allows you to rest a tablet (or a phone in portrait aspect) at a decent viewing angle.

Far more tables than the HSTs and much greater legroom. My only concern on the tables and legroom front are that these can be changed at a later date to accommodate even more seated passengers.

A comfortable smooth ride. With no complaints from me about the seats. The correct upright design to promote good posture. It's a myth that a soft enveloping seat is more comfortable. I remember well the back ache I had on my last trip to Norwich sat in an IC70.

The coffee from the trolley was acceptable. Better than the dishwater you get from a CrossCountry trolley.

I'm looking forward to trying the 1st Class experience. That'll probably wait until there's a confirmed Pullman service on a Class 80x. Breakfast from, or Brunch to, Swansea will most likely be the first Class 800 Pullman.

I can't comment on the toilets. Didn't need!

And there's no complaints from Finn. The underfloor engines were quiet enough for him to curl up on the floor and sleep.

[laird]

Introducing a service on Monday morning on a generally busy service was certainly not the best choice; one of the two sets was unfit for service due to the waterfall in Carriage D (or as GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) would like to pretend Carriage K sadly they forgot to move the reservations so the true letter was known). As you can imagine that meant no First Class Service for passengers in Carriages D or E.
Add to that the debacle of the Diesel to AC transfer and you get an impression of my normal commute.
When I looked in the morning the backup plan of a HST^▸ (High Speed Train) was in progress with a set waiting to operate 1A03 sat in Platform 7 at Bristol Temple Meads, OK it was in reverse formation but no problem as that’s fairly typical for a post engineering works Monday.

It appears that having decided the train was to run at all costs a decision to re-form the train was taken thus the train was re-formed and departed 1 hour late (now with a working VIP section but no remaining first class), now with no hope of recovering the lost time.

By Didcot the train was reported as full and standing, at Reading this was announced along with a suggestion to board 1K71 which was being held to allow the late running 1A03 to depart ahead of it. However since 1K71 was already full and standing that wasn't of any use to anyone awaiting the service (1K71 was running late due to missing train crew at Bristol Temple Meads).
I should note that at Reading there were very few people specifically waiting for the new train.
For the record 1P13 and 1L08 the preceding 2 services both departed full and standing in both classes.


It appears that having realised one set had no viable First Class; Mark Hopwood's team decided it was better to run the service late and seat invited guests rather than the long suffering paying customers.

To make matters worse the Customer Information System on the platforms fails to display the carriage order merely reminding potential passengers of the carriage letters which constitute first class.
That wouldn't have been so bad but in deciding to re-order the carriages someone had managed to exchange the carriage letters but not move the reservations. Consequently the train was announced as not having seat reservations.

Above carriage D something was in the airflow, perhaps this is connected to the air conditioning waterfall which means its nosier than expected, although it doesn't suffer like the earlier Hitachi products like the Javelin which sounded like they were about to rattle every internal panel loose.

So far not great but then came the Diesel to AC change over, Maidenhead was passed and then the brakes came on and the train halted in Taplow station trapping the two following HSTs behind, behind those HSTs were put onto the Relief Line (oddly the video of that one passing wasn't on the twitter feed). Consequential further delays to 1K71.
The driver takes to the PA^▸ (Public Address) with an alarm in the background as technicians are summoned to the leading cab, fine in theory but the technicians are trapped in the rear set as the doors haven't been released. Eventually common sense prevails and a return to Diesel power is successful.

Whilst the build quality (technical fault with the equipment in Carriage D) can be fixed for me it revealed:
a. Whilst a small increase in seat numbers is offered by a 2x5 car set or 1x9 car set its already too little to meet the existing peak demand
b. When things go wrong GWR are not quick to react or react in favour of narrow self interest
c. Station customer information displays have not been updated to reflect the new stock

[Timmer]

Re Mark Hopwood at this morning's launch - Yes, saw him in the background of a shot of all the press surrounding the Hitachi bigwig....

After what happened to the service from Bristol I'm not surprised he stayed in the background. "These aren't my trains guv, they belong to Hitachi and Dft are making me lease them for loads of money."

[PhilWakely]

Aside from the problems suffered on 1A03 and the cancellation of 1B12, the other workings appear to have run with only minor problems.

I notice that a couple of potential challenges for the immediate future have not been mentioned. The 10-car trains do not fit into the platforms at Bath Spa, Chippenham or Didcot Parkway and it took some time for pax to get off/get on, leading to potential delays. There was also a problem unloading cycles from 1C03 at Chippenham.   

[bobm]

Supposition on my part but I understand that it was *a* train late from the depot.  In other words the planned sets failed and another pair were pressed into service at short notice.  Obviously safety critical items would have been checked on the replacement but I suspect aircon isn't one of them.  Agreed that is little comfort for those who had an impromptu shower.  Similarly it is possible the change over in traction mode failed due to driver error.  These are obviously things that will be being looked at this very moment because no one will want a repeat tomorrow.

There was a problem with the reservation system on the 07:00 from Paddington.  The set at the London end appeared not to have the electronic system working from the start.  However the country end was working until about 06:50 when, just as I was about to take a photo of them, they all disappeared and the old style tickets were placed on the headrests.

I suspect it may be a training issue.  I noticed on the return journey we had automated announcements about calling patterns, the next station, the fact it was a busy service and do not put bags on seats and the usual security announcement.  The only one I didn't hear was about the quiet coach - of which there are two on a ten car.  

[bobm]

There was also a problem unloading cycles from 1C03 at Chippenham.   

I was on 1C03 at Chippenham.  As I mentioned up thread the problem was, thankfully, someone realised the bike store on the rear set wouldn't be platformed at Bath so took the opportunity of the Chippenham stop to get them unloaded and wheeled down the platform to an area that would be ok for Bath.  I think the train, certainly on the down, was fully platformed at both Chippenham and Didcot Parkway.

[laird]

It will certainly be interesting to see how performance improves (or not) on 1A03 up to Christmas, at least now I know where my seat is within the carriage (since the reserved seat turns out to be the same number now all the way through until then).

Although I'm not looking forward to the prospect of trying to guess which of the 4 possible carriage positions it will arrive in at Reading each day!

The slow boarding problem isn't likely to be solved soon as the train isn't designed with suburban commuting in mind, today if you happened to be slightly slow at getting to the door to leave you would have been met with a large flow and through the narrow vestibule passengers weren't making good progress as they met boarding passengers. Dwell time is likely therefore to be an issue if the train encounters a passenger needing assistance, used on routes where large luggage is common or the cyclists arrive and are not ready to sprint.

A sensible choice was made on the Old Oak set this morning to place the two first class sections in the centre of the train, fingers crossed in time that becomes the working practice as that would have a positive effect on dwell time.