Problems with IET trains from April 2021

[whole diary]

[Wizard]

The trains that grahame refer’s to are not in the timetable for the most part, they were already removed as a result of the pandemic and lower passenger numbers.

A quick glance at journeyplan suggests there are 0 cancelled trains today. A number of long distance services are short formed, but that’s quite an achievement, especially with today being the first day of the new timetable and a few extra trains running (Bristol back to half hourly). A good effort from everybody involved there, considering how things were last Monday.

[IndustryInsider]

That number of trains that are "not running" but that do not count as cancellations does sound to me like a fiddle to make things look better than they are.

I think you missed some of the subtle points of Graham's post, which he flagged himself in the first line of his post.   

The only 'fiddle' would be if the new Summer 2021 timetable that started yesterday had been further amended since it was published before the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) issues were discovered.  As it is, that timetable is running largely as advertised, and was based on what demand is expected over the summer.

And the report that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are only short of 11 IETs is better than the "dozens" suggested elsewhere but it is still a significant shortfall.

But still way better than all of your predictions foresaw.  It's all going rather well so far today, given the upheaval of last week.

[ChrisB]

Thomas Ableman - now MD of Snap Travel Tech (on-demand coach services) and previously a director at Chiltern Trains, writes a daily blog - today he looks at what went wrong & how current systems prevented GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) from a quick recovery - worthwhile read -

https://www.freewheeling.info/blog/class-800-debacle

[grahame]

Thomas Ableman - now MD of Snap Travel Tech (on-demand coach services) and previously a director at Chiltern Trains, writes a daily blog - today he looks at what went wrong & how current systems prevented GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) from a quick recovery - worthwhile read -

https://www.freewheeling.info/blog/class-800-debacle

An excellent article (member mirror (here)) - in amongst the points:

Like all train companies at the moment, GWR is paid to run trains, not to get people to their destinations. The importance of precisely who the customer is becomes so visible in a crisis like this.

Because GWR thinks in terms of trains, not people (and is paid to do so), the automatic corporate response is to publicise a list of train routes that would not be running.

Even after an entire week, the only information available to customers was a list of alternative services based around railway geography. Remember, most passengers don’t know railway geography. If all you know is that you live in Bath and want to be in London ...

Indeed - and subconsciously, I suppose, I was aware and trying to update some threads here to help.  Far, far too little - you did, indeed, need to know railway geography to understand alternatives last week ... and had it carried on into this week, I was seriously wondering about an underground style map!

[grahame]

A quick glance at journeyplan suggests there are 0 cancelled trains today. ...

There is, however, some slight of hand.  All direct (through) trains from Bedwyn to London (an example I was alerted to) have been cancelled - except they're not showing up as cancelled ... JourneyCheck shows services taken out of the journey planner in the last 48 or 72 hours (I think it is) and these were taken out prior to that.  So JC doesn't think they're cancelled, but the customers will!!

There is a shuttle running from Bedwyn to Newbury ...  or in Freewheeling terms "Passengers travelling from Hungerford to London should take a local train to Newbury at 5 minutes after every hour and change there for a local train to Reading, changing again for a connection to London.  You will have a wait of around 55 minutes at Newbury.  In some hours, there are expresses from Newbury to Reading and London which will be considerably faster, but you will still have a significant wait at Newbury and slower journey than normal".

[TonyK]

My understanding from prior to this problsm was that 70 IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) units are required to service what would have been the new May timetable on a werkday. So 59 is only 11 short of that requirement whicjh in no one’s vocabulary could be described as “dozens”

Not even quite one dozen.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Thomas Ableman - now MD of Snap Travel Tech (on-demand coach services) and previously a director at Chiltern Trains, writes a daily blog - today he looks at what went wrong & how current systems prevented GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) from a quick recovery - worthwhile read -

https://www.freewheeling.info/blog/class-800-debacle

An excellent article (member mirror (here)) - in amongst the points:

Like all train companies at the moment, GWR is paid to run trains, not to get people to their destinations. The importance of precisely who the customer is becomes so visible in a crisis like this.

Agree whole-heartedly about the article, and about the important question of who the customer is.

I've posted elsewhere about my other half's experiences with travelling to and from London last week. She reports that, when the Turbo shuttle from Worcester came into Oxford, there was an 'all-change' announcement about getting the CrossCountry service to Reading, but there was no mention of the possibility of catching a Chiltern train to Marylebone.

[stuving]

I feel a bit uneasy about quoting so much from one source in another forum - as if it's somehow improper. But maybe an exception can be made for Clarence Yard, posting on railforums, as this is clearly someone involved in fleet management at GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), and GWR know about it. Maybe not quite semi-official, but certainly a privileged source.

This morning's update included:

The metal appears to be suffering from Stress Corrosion Cracking, a condition that will worsen over time as environmental conditions and duty cycle both contribute to the propagation rate. Every 80x unit will require remedial attention when the SCC^‡(resolve) reaches a certain point, either in the jacking plate and/or in the yaw bolster assembly.

As at this morning, 63 out of the 93 GWR IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) sets are available for traffic. The full service requirement for the pre-Covid timetable is 80.

There's the expected flood of short-forms on JourneyCheck, showing that every unit is running on its own now, It only takes a few services taken out completely to make up any further deficit, though I'm sure there is still no margin of cover for failures.

On the subject of stress corrosion cracking, I'm still puzzled by the lack of the right kind of stress. You'd expect a crack like this one to be promoted by a force pulling it open, and it's hard to see that happening. But a following post referred to stresses created during manufacture, presumably thermally due to welding. I don't think there's any point trying to imagine what sort of stresses they would be. For a start, you'd need a good idea of the shape of this thing in 3D and its make-up; even then it'd be too hard on the poor old brain. 

[grahame]

I feel a bit uneasy about quoting so much from one source in another forum - as if it's somehow improper.

From a Coffee Shop viewpoint, members are welcome to quote from here under usual "quotes for comment" rather than "ripping off huge amounts of material" style, and please consider individual member's copyright especially buy not limited to pictures.

But ... (and I know it's the opposite direction to you were asking) ... please go ahead,  dropping our name in there and adding a link back.

[eXPassenger]

I feel a bit uneasy about quoting so much from one source in another forum - as if it's somehow improper. But maybe an exception can be made for Clarence Yard, posting on railforums, as this is clearly someone involved in fleet management at GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), and GWR know about it. Maybe not quite semi-official, but certainly a privileged source.

This morning's update included:

The metal appears to be suffering from Stress Corrosion Cracking, a condition that will worsen over time as environmental conditions and duty cycle both contribute to the propagation rate. Every 80x unit will require remedial attention when the SCC^‡(resolve) reaches a certain point, either in the jacking plate and/or in the yaw bolster assembly.

As at this morning, 63 out of the 93 GWR IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) sets are available for traffic. The full service requirement for the pre-Covid timetable is 80.

There's the expected flood of short-forms on JourneyCheck, showing that every unit is running on its own now, It only takes a few services taken out completely to make up any further deficit, though I'm sure there is still no margin of cover for failures.

On the subject of stress corrosion cracking, I'm still puzzled by the lack of the right kind of stress. You'd expect a crack like this one to be promoted by a force pulling it open, and it's hard to see that happening. But a following post referred to stresses created during manufacture, presumably thermally due to welding. I don't think there's any point trying to imagine what sort of stresses they would be. For a start, you'd need a good idea of the shape of this thing in 3D and its make-up; even then it'd be too hard on the poor old brain. 

There are comments that chloride can influence this type of cracking.  I wonder if the fact that Japan does not use salt for deicing but the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) does has an impact.

[broadgage]

63 sets out of 80 available sounds like a shortfall of 17, rather worse than the 11 sets short reported elsewhere in this thread.

The widespread use of salt in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) for de-icing might be a factor in the type of cracking reported, but should have been foreseen.
Any in any case, salt is primarily applied to roads not to railway lines, and road salt would only affect the railway in limited locations such as road bridges over railway lines, or railways and roads in very close proximity.

Seawater at Dawlish might be a factor, but resistance to the well known conditions at that place was meant to have been an essential requirement of the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) designs.

[IndustryInsider]

63 sets out of 80 available sounds like a shortfall of 17, rather worse than the 11 sets short reported elsewhere in this thread.

Clarence Yard said 80 units were required for the pre-COVID timetable, not the current one.

[Clan Line]

I suppose we should be grateful that the man who missed this slight crack on a bridge he was inspecting in the USA didn't work for Hitachi/GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). He is now looking for work - probably having trouble finding that too !

[TonyK]

The metal appears to be suffering from Stress Corrosion Cracking, a condition that will worsen over time as environmental conditions and duty cycle both contribute to the propagation rate. 

I think this must be the metal lurgy I read about somewhere.

[bobm]

Seawater at Dawlish might be a factor, but resistance to the well known conditions at that place was meant to have been an essential requirement of the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) designs.

Won’t be a factor for some of the fleet as they don’t work West of England services.