Turbo refresh started.

[whole diary]

[paul7575]

A fair number of new classes have no opening windows at all. 

Probably a good incentive to keep the aircon actually working on stuff like Desiros I suppose, although it is a quick exchange roof mounted unit, you can usually see quite a few stacked up outside Northam depot, so I dare say a faulty aircon system can be repaired very quickly.

Paul

[willc]

Look - I'm sick of hearing about "unreliable AC". The fact is another TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) with the same stock solved the problem.

Chiltern did not solve the problem. Their 165s did not have an air conditioning system until they were overhauled, so there was no problem to solve in the first place, which is not the case with the 166s.

If Chiltern had the money to throw - First Group must have it.

I don't think Chiltern did any throwing of money - it was one of a series of carefully considered spending decisions, based on the fact that they have a 20-year franchise with a string of investment commitments written into it.

First don't have the luxury of such a long period to earn a return on money they put in. And they are actually investing a lot of time and money in trying to get the 166s right at long last. But if that effort is not to be wasted then, should the system prove its reliability, the windows will either have to be locked, with staff checking the system is functioning at either end of a journey and unlocking windows if required, or lots of robust seals that actually take some effort to break need to be provided to deter the people who will always insist on opening any window they see, whatever the weather is doing outside and the a/c is doing inside. I am quite sure that if there were windows in Mk3s, then some clown would want a 125mph gale blowing in in January.

[IndustryInsider]

As there's been such an interest on here regarding the Class 166's poor air conditioning.  Here's a couple of pictures which give an idea as to why your carriage isn't nice and cool when you board.

They're of the air-con display unit on the middle carriage of 166203.  They're hidden behind the panels in each carriage and, as I've mentioned previously, each carriage has three zones which all have independent sensors giving a total of nine zones per train.  This means one end of the carriage could be being heated and one end cooled depending on how the system is working.



This first image shows the panel.  The row of vertical lights just give details of the state of the system, but where it gets interesting is the 3x3 block of LED's towards the bottom of the picture.  A, B, and C are the three different zones in that carriage, and the lights underneath indicate whether the system is heating, cooling or just venting the carriage.  They should vary between the three states automatically to control the temperature as required.  As you can see, this panel is 'Venting' to all three zones.  All windows were shut at the time as it was in the sidings.  The readout on the top right shows what the temperature sensors think the temperature is.  It rotates through various sensors.  The one displayed here is for the external temperature which it thinks is +23.3c.  This was yesterday afternoon, so that's probably a degree or two high, but not too inaccurate.








This image shows that same panel a couple of seconds later.  The same story except the display now reads SA+24.8c.  Meaning that saloon area 'A' is currently 24.8c.  Given that most air-con systems chill to around the 20c mark to provide what most people consider a nice temperature you'd have thought that the system would be cooling rather than venting, but no.  A quick press of the 'Cool Test' button on the panel, which should force the system to cool for about 10 minutes, had no effect whatsoever, so the systems cool mode is obviously faulty.  No amount of opening or closing the windows would make the slightest difference on this carriage.  In fact, of all the three carriages on this set, only one zone of nine was actually cooling properly, with the 'Cool Test' not working anywhere else.









This final image shows the display in one of the other carriages.  Just to demonstrate that even if the system is able to cool, sometimes it's let down by the temperature sensors.  Same set as above, same time of day, but the system thinks that the outside temperature is only 6.2c!

[JayMac]

If that's representative of the fleet then FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have installed a bit of a pup of a system.

[devon_metro]

Is this the new or old system?

[willc]

The old one. Only 166218 (trial set) and 166206 (going by Jonathan's experience back up the thread) appear to be fitted with new equipment so far.

If that's representative of the fleet then FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have installed a bit of a pup of a system.

This is the system that BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) installed when the 166s were built.

[IndustryInsider]

Yes, this is the old system.  I'll have a good nose at a new system when I get chance.

[IndustryInsider]

Well, the Turbo refresh has now been completed, except for fitment of the new Air Conditioning equipment - that should be completed by January.  I will be very interested to see how the new system copes next summer!

[Jonathan H]

166214 appears to have been fitted - no signs to note the new system but the emergency ventilators were barbed shut on Friday morning's 0634 Reading to Gatwick Airport.

Were the trials using 166218 deemed to be an success or just a bit better?

Jonathan

[IndustryInsider]

I'd be interested to hear what regular Turbo passengers think of the new 'APIS' information system installed since the refresh.

It's now a year since most of the fleet was installed.  Sadly, from speaking to many drivers and my own observations, the system is still proving very unreliable, and drivers are starting to lose patience with it quickly.  Recent software updates seem to correct a few faults, but introduce others, and I would say that the number of instances where it performs correctly throughout a whole journey is probably around the 50% mark.  Compare that with 99.9% with the older system.

Common faults still occurring are:

1)  Codes hang in the system after a train terminates and can only be removed by shutting down engines or resetting circuit breakers in all vehicles - which the driver sometimes hasn't got the time/inclination to do.

2)  System will stop working for no apparent reason en-route and display the same scrolling message when it froze.

3)  Some sets are nice and quiet announcement wise and some are horrendously loud.

4)  If the driver has cause to re-release the doors at a station (which can happen quite often for a multitude of reasons, especially at the busier stations), the system will often think the train has stopped at the next station and therefore be a stop ahead of itself.  Confusing to say the least!

The good news is that we are promised further software updates which will hopefully correct these issues, but I'm starting to become concerned that we're going to be faced with a system that simply doesn't do what it's supposed to do reliably enough.

[Southern Stag]

I've had plenty of experience with it on the North Downs route, I find that generally the system is set up and working but it can get a bit confused sometimes. Sometimes it seems to get a bit behind and only realises where it is when it arrives at a station, then announcing all the announcements it needs to for that station, so the next station is xxx, we are now approaching xxx, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) welcomes you aboard this service to xxx, repeating at the next station and so on. I'm not sure if the system is working on GPS or wheel revolutions, but it seems like it could be a problem with getting a GPS signal. I'm not convinced the system is that useful either, it only announces the calling pattern at the first station so passengers boarding later on might not know where the train stops and the announcements are nearly always too quiet in my experience, and sometimes they seem to have a lot of background noise on the announcement itself making them sound a bit muffled, but then manual announcements are often not any better when it comes to volume.

[IndustryInsider]

I'm not sure if the system is working on GPS or wheel revolutions, but it seems like it could be a problem with getting a GPS signal. I'm not convinced the system is that useful either, it only announces the calling pattern at the first station so passengers boarding later on might not know where the train stops...

It's GPS based.  I guess the scrolling displays list the calling points, and to be fair to keep the announcements fairly brief it is probably best that way.

[bobm]

The version on SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s 458s announces all calling points at the start and then periodically during the journey.  Not sure if it is after x number of stations or after principal ones en route.

[IndustryInsider]

And how many complaints has that led to?

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/south-west-trains-come-under-fire-for-on-board-announcements-1-1235900

I much prefer the brief announcements on the Turbo's - although that's not to say that the software won't be altered to beef them up.  I just don't think that's what people want.  Rather display all of the extra stuff on the scrolling screens which people can look at if they want to, and keep the announcements to the really important stuff.

[Btline]

And how many complaints has that led to?

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/south-west-trains-come-under-fire-for-on-board-announcements-1-1235900

I much prefer the brief announcements on the Turbo's - although that's not to say that the software won't be altered to beef them up.  I just don't think that's what people want.  Rather display all of the extra stuff on the scrolling screens which people can look at if they want to, and keep the announcements to the really important stuff.

Quite right. SWT^▸ (South West Trains) announcements are ridiculous. I also get sick of people saying "it's the law". Rubbish - the new LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) 172 (which presumably use the latest legislation) have minimal announcements. NO safety ones, NO smoking ones, NO don't leave your bags.

It's the same with stations. Now when Phil says "may I have your attention please", it could be a platform alteration, or "do not leave cases or parcels...". It used to just be the former.