Speed set - a recipe for disaster. Don’t like to see it in cars, let alone trains!
I’ll say it here again, on the record, that v84 is not going away. GWR might have ATP but higher authorities want a limiter on all 80x stock that takes away any overspeed risk when the TMS is reset.
Personally speaking, having gone well over the limit on the ECML for the type of traction I am up front on (as a working member of the M&EE), I would prefer the old days when you relied on a very experienced driver doing his stuff with traction he knew well on a line he knew well but that was then and now is very different. Trying to turn drivers into identikit behavioural robots now seems to be the name of the game.
There are some good reasons for this in amongst the bad but when you get a driver hacking down the ECML at the speed he did, because a software reset did something it shouldn’t have done, you have to take that risk away at source.
The problem with this is that any significant overspeed - say 10km/h or 5 or 6mph over any speed limit - is potentially a safety issue. In the case of TPE, we don't know what might have happened had the driver encountered double yellows approaching a junction at those sorts of speeds - would there have been time to bring the train to a halt safely?
It's good that something is being done. But is it the right intervention and was 200km/h the best limit to set?
I see this is an 'easy fix' over a single fleet and can be done with a few laptops. But why 200kph as a limit rather than 205.
Now a precedent has been set, do the higher authorities demand limiters be fitted to every fleet of trains to ensure they do not stray a single mph over the unit's maximum speed limit? And then how do you ensure that any train running cannot stray over any posted limit by a single mph?
Do C2C now fit a 'soft' limiter to their 100mph fleet to ensure the units cannot exceed 74mph? But how does that protect passengers as the train traverses low speed junctions?
In this day and age, what was needed is a simple app built in to the train dashboard or drivers tablet devices that uses GPS to recognise what route they are on, the direction of travel and a reminder of the speed limit - with some sort of audible warning to alert the driver if he is exceeding the limit.
A train specific version of Google Maps or Waze would do.
An allowance of +/- 2-3 mph should reasonable - and allow for wheelset wear.
Maybe we need to set the speed limit of each service 2-3 mph below the maximum speed limit now - just to be absolutely sure that no overspeeding occurs?
Although the underlying technology works to km/h - setting the limit to 200km/h or 124mph sends out an overall message to the industry that driving at the maximum speed limit in the right place is now almost seen as a crime. Before 2-3 mph over was understood to be acceptable , but now we setting an operational limit 1mph under that.
And as i noted before, sectional running times for trains are worked out at 125mph, not 200km/h, and so net running times will suffer as a result. the ability if drivers to keep their trains running to time is reduced!
There is an easy fix for that too - just add a minute here and there into the schedule to compensate.
There are too many mixed messages here - and the solution only takes away a tiny part of the problem.
But with energy prices on the increase - i wonder how long before operators and the higher authorities start looking at journey times and working out how to seriously reduce energy costs through the lowering of some speed limits - running at 110mph rather than 125mph possibly - which may have a positive effect on capacity - but could slowly increase journey times.
But for those who love to experience a true 125mph+ on a train, there is still HS1 through Kent, and one or two other operators whose trains don't have 200 km/h limiters fitted for now!
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