Problems with IET trains from April 2021

[whole diary]

[ellendune]

I'm looking forward to hearing GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s/the railway's plans for assisting those who have been stranded away from home after holidays or other trips which began before this chaos started, and compensating those whose travel/holiday plans now lie in ruins.

I am sure they will compensate them at Hitachi's expense presumably.  This could be very expensive for Hitachi.  Their reputation could be seriously damaged as well.  

[ellendune]

Comment in from punter in the Independent

While delays are a nuisance nothing quite spoils your day like your carriage splitting into three at 100mph

[rower40]

Economies of Scale vs. All-eggs-in-one-basket; discuss.

Who'd've thought the humble Voyager would come to the rescue?  That is, until the English Channel starts over-topping the Dawlish sea defences again.

[stuving]

A report on BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) South Today tonight, apparently based on talking to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) rather then Hitachi, said the phase 2 cracks are not seen as compromising structural integrity. The concern is that a bit might drop off a moving train, and work is going on to work out what the implications of that would be and how it might be prevented.

[PhilWakely]

387s to Swindon in passenger service from Tuesday possibly.

[broadgage]

What happens if the relevant Hitachi subsidiary (Agility trains ?) decide that the cost of repairs and of compensation is so great that bankruptcy is he only option ?

Presumably Her Majesty's Government (HMG) would have to bail them out with some form of emergency grant/bung/loan/subsidy ?
Or let them go bust and be stuck with a load of secondhand and not much good trains ?

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

[a-driver]

I'm looking forward to hearing GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s/the railway's plans for assisting those who have been stranded away from home after holidays or other trips which began before this chaos started, and compensating those whose travel/holiday plans now lie in ruins.

When it comes to today, just about all routes have a service so it shouldn’t be a problem. Perhaps a handful of stations not served, Pewsey springs to mind.

[REVUpminster]

These trains are part of the Hitachi A train family and Javelins (395) have been running for 9 years with seemingly no problem.
Lets hope the problem is not at Newton Aycliffe or factories in Italy.

[broadgage]

A report on BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) South Today tonight, apparently based on talking to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) rather then Hitachi, said the phase 2 cracks are not seen as compromising structural integrity. The concern is that a bit might drop off a moving train, and work is going on to work out what the implications of that would be and how it might be prevented.

I suspect that this fiasco has now had such widespread publicity, that running "cracked, defective, and possibly dangerous trains" will be regarded as unacceptable by the public, and more importantly by the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers). Even if the actual risk is negligible.

Publicity will only increase for several reasons.
Firstly the elections are now over and arguing over the consequences of the results is now yesterdays news.
Secondly, the pandemic is easing, and is now also yesterdays news.
And finally WEEKDAY trains are now affected which is much more newsworthy than weekend disruption. And the "promises*" made about a prompt return to normal have not been kept.

*Most members of these forums will be aware that no such promises were actually made. The statements released were actually very carefully worded so as to IMPLY a short term problem but without actually promising anything.
"Disruption could continue into Sunday" was a good example of this. The man in the street would understand this to mean "not beyond Sunday" but of course "beyond Sunday" could include "for the rest of this year"

[bradshaw]

Richard Clinnick on Twitter saying that only 3 of the 93 Class 80x are available for traffic today

https://twitter.com/philatrail/status/1391654105752408064?s=21

Edit to add that 10 of Scotrail’s Class 385 have also been found to have cracks. Full service running with som short formations
https://twitter.com/richard_rail/status/1391670004517593088?s=21

[ray951]

What happens if the relevant Hitachi subsidiary (Agility trains ?) decide that the cost of repairs and of compensation is so great that bankruptcy is he only option ?

Presumably HMG would have to bail them out with some form of emergency grant/bung/loan/subsidy ?
Or let them go bust and be stuck with a load of secondhand and not much good trains ?

I think this is a very interesting point. If the repairs turn out to be expensive and/or take a lengthy period of time causing Agility Trains (or whoever the current owners are) to fail then the trains could be nationailised and the 'expensive' PFI contract scrapped. Or worse that Agility Trains survive and they use the remaining years of the contract to recover the costs of the epsiode. We know how with these PFI type contracts a lot of the profit is based on the fact that customers will need to make changes to the contract in future and those changes are always expensive.

We also need to consider the finances of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and First Group; can they afford to have effectively no income but to still pay out staff and overhead costs, which I assume most make up at least 50% of the cost of running a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)? Of course these costs could be covered by the contract, I doubt it, but if they are covered then the point above becomes even more valid.

[grahame]

We also need to consider the finances of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and First Group; can they afford to have effectively no income but to still pay out staff and overhead costs, which I assume most make up at least 50% of the cost of running a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)? Of course these costs could be covered by the contract, I doubt it, but if they are covered then the point above becomes even more valid.

Historically, I understand TOC costs were 1/3 stock lease, 1/3 network rail charges, 1/3 staff

[bradshaw]

The GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) is operating under EMA until at least June this year.

‘Under the GWR EMA, the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) waives GWR’s revenue, cost and contingent capital risk and pays GWR a fixed management fee with the potential for a small performance-based fee.’

Does this affect how things work under these circumstances?

[IndustryInsider]

Does this affect how things work under these circumstances?

Very much so.

And it should mean the industry is better able to be flexible when it comes to things like the extra XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) shuttle services running.  In ‘normal’ times there are several reasons why that couldn’t happen, so in many respects this is the best time for something like this to happen.

[stuving]

These trains are part of the Hitachi A train family and Javelins (395) have been running for 9 years with seemingly no problem.
Lets hope the problem is not at Newton Aycliffe or factories in Italy.

I'm pretty sure that attaching this bolster part to the body floor panels has always been done at Kosado. A full body shell welding facility was commissioned at Newton Aycliffe in March; before that all their body shells arrived complete. Pistoia assembled 802 bodies from flat (ish) side, floor, and roof panels sent from Japan. And I've found a picture that shows that!

There are a couple of relevant articles that covered the start of production of 802s in Pistoia, in Rail Technology Magazine (by Berry Sas of Hitachi, 9/5/2017) and (Key) Modern railways (Keith Fender, 22/6/2017), and also Rail Engineer (Andy Milne, 4/7/2017). the important picture is in the second of those (and is by Keith Fender):

Flatpack kit: parts for train seven (No 802006).

These body panels are stir-fryfriction stir welded at Kosado from extruded alloy sections made by Kobe Steel (see below). In the picture are sides for intermediate and driving trailer cars (the shorter ones), and floors. If you look at the floor panels you can just see the bolsters peeping out at the far end. Assuming the description is correct, and these are as supplied from Japan, their attachment wasn't done in Italy. What Ansaldo did have there already was a very very long MIG welding rig, used to make the aluminium alloy bodies of ETR1000s.  For more about this, and pictures, see the articles.

Looking at he near ends of those body panels, you can just about see the cell structure between the inner and outer skins. Kobe Steel have some pictures that show this more clearly:


And attached is an illustration from a Hitachi presentation on the class 395 project, though it's a generic A-train as you can see. These extrusions are all custom designed for their location in the body shell, and have two small projecting strips for welding to their neighbour. FSW can only really be used for nearly flat and straight butt joints, so presumably MIG is used for the rest - including attaching the bolsters (though that depends on what they are made of, which I still don't know).

MIG = Metal Inert Gas, which doesn't tell you it's arc welding and that the metal melts (the tungsten in TIG doesn't).

FSW = Friction Stir Welding, a British invention of 30 years ago, but a speciality of Hitachi (who make the machines that do it). See Wikipedia for details, but this picture does about 60% of the explaining:

Fricton stir welding (Wikipedia) By Anandwiki at English Wikipedia, Creative Commons license.