VR service cancellations due to extreme weather

[island]

VR (Finnish railways) is cancelling around 20 intercity services a day this week due to very cold weather freezing up the innards of trains and these needing to be defrosted.

More at https://yle.fi/a/74-20067872

Finland's national rail service VR has announced that it is cancelling dozens of long-distance train routes on Friday and over the weekend due to the extremely cold weather the country has seen this week.

The cancellations will affect more than 10,000 passengers, VR said in a statement issued on Thursday.

The cold weather prompted many train delays this week, on long-distance as well as commuter lines.

(One to keep in the back pocket for the next time cold weather affects the UK and someone wheels out the "but cold countries manage fine" trope. It's a case of how much resilience you want to pay for, not how cold it is.)

 

[43096]

(One to keep in the back pocket for the next time cold weather affects the UK and someone wheels out the "but cold countries manage fine" trope. It's a case of how much resilience you want to pay for, not how cold it is.)

Yes, but there’s cold and then there’s cold… -18 is the warmest in Finland: if it was that cold here, it would be nothing running, not cancelling some services.

 

[JonasB]

Many trains are cancelled in Sweden as well. All passenger trains north of Umeå have been cancelled since tuesday due to the cold temperature (lowest official temperature recorded this week is -43.8°C).

 

[The exile]

Yes, but there’s cold and then there’s cold… -18 is the warmest in Finland: if it was that cold here, it would be nothing running, not cancelling some services.

The key thing is “how far out of the ordinary” are you prepared to arrange / pay for resilience against. Sitting where we do, we get a lot of different not-quite-so-extremes (increasingly less) rarely. Equipment designed to cope with what 1947 and 1963 threw at us would have had very little further use, for example.

 

[CarrotPie]

VR (Finnish railways) is cancelling around 20 intercity services a day this week due to very cold weather freezing up the innards of trains and these needing to be defrosted.

More at https://yle.fi/a/74-20067872



(One to keep in the back pocket for the next time cold weather affects the UK and someone wheels out the "but cold countries manage fine" trope. It's a case of how much resilience you want to pay for, not how cold it is.)

I would like to add, from experience (and what I've heard from VR employees), it's the non-Finnish stuff that doesn't work so well. Alstom/CAF Sm4 (commuter) units aren't the most reliable anyway, ABB Sr2 (long-distance mixed-use) locos end up with snow jammed in them which activates the emergency brake and the Fiat Sm3 Pendolinos have extreme trouble outside italian temperatures, especially with coupling. Our Sm2 (rural electric) sets built in an aircraft factory in the 70s work absolutely fine in these sorts of temperatures, and they're the warmest units I've ever been on! The Sm5 Stadler FLIRTs work fine, because the routes they run on are haevily-used, and Stadler was good at adapting them. Finally, our Škoda Transtech double-decker coaches (Finnish link) (which run all InterCity services) fail just as much is summer as in winter, because they're built in Finland, by a Finnish comapny, to a Finnish design.

Oh, and the night train that failed last night and ended up 6.5 hours late, blocking all the other night trains in the process? It was hauled by an Sr2. And guess what came to rescue it at 3am and drag it 10 hours north? A Soviet-built Sr1 loco, approaching 50 years old.

Edit: Most of the cancelled trains are on the Helsinki-Kupittaa and Seinäjoki-Vaasa routes, which have a higher concentration of Pendolinos than anywhere else in the country. Along with units having to stable away from their nice warm home in Ilmala, I suspect this is why those trains are being cancelled...

 

[jamesontheroad]

Many trains are cancelled in Sweden as well. All passenger trains north of Umeå have been cancelled since tuesday due to the cold temperature (lowest official temperature recorded this week is -43.8°C).

Vy, which operates the Norrland night trains (Stockholm - Luleå/Narvik) and Norrtåg proactively cancelled their passenger trains north of Umeå on Tuesday, but then late on Wednesday, Trafikverket suspended all freight trains as well. I was in Vännäs on Wednesday afternoon and it was remarkable to see the busy railway junction completely quiet.

County bus traffic has been suspended on many routes in Västerbotten and Norrbotten counties. I had to drive up to Granö today to pick up some colleagues who were stranded at the (very nice) resort there.

After five very cold days (nothing warmer than -30° all week, and as low as -40.5° where I am) the weather systems are shifting and temperatures are going to rise dramatically next week. Trafikverket lifts the suspension north of Vännäs from 18.00CET this evening (Friday) but some of the freight operators are waiting a little longer. GreenCargo start up again on Sunday.

-35° is now the accepted threshold for cancelling trains in Sweden, especially in Norrland where electricity is vital to keep trains heated. In cold temperatures, the catenary contact pads wear down much faster than normal, and increase the risk of bringing down the wires. Railways here are usually very remote from roads and the prospect of 300+ passengers on an unheated night train far from a road is too risky for the railways to consider.

 

[CarrotPie]

Railways here are usually very remote from roads and the prospect of 300+ passengers on an unheated night train far from a road is too risky for the railways to consider.

How about 8 stranded night trains, each with 250-400 people on, like happened last night? VR are still running extra night trains until the end of February.

Yes, alright, at least 7 were heated, and I assume the failed one was too, at least for most of it, but it took many hours to rescue it and it could well have turned nasty.

 

[jamesontheroad]

How about 8 stranded night trains, each with 250-400 people on, like happened last night? VR are still running extra night trains until the end of February.

Yes, alright, at least 7 were heated, and I assume the failed one was too, at least for most of it, but it took many hours to rescue it and it could well have turned nasty.

VR has much more modern rolling stock than Vy or SJ. If any of the Swedish might trains (all 30-40 years old) lose power, there’s only about 2-3hrs heat at best.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

I would like to add, from experience (and what I've heard from VR employees), it's the non-Finnish stuff that doesn't work so well.

Then there are the Dm11 railcars ordered from GEC-Alsthom in 1995. VR rejected the entire class after six units (out of sixteen ordered) had been built, because they were overweight, too noisy and not adequately winterised.

VR Class Dm11 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

They were flogged off to Cuba and eventually converted into locomotive-hauled coaches in 2014.

Those diesel railcars of the Dm11 class which are still extant (originally built by Alsthom for Finland) are being converted at Caibarién into coaching stock. They are fitted with bogies, sourced from ex-DB and ex-DR (FRG and GDR) coaches, and traditional shackle couplings for connection to locomotives. The windows are being converted as well so that the coaches can be used without working air-condition. There will also be new seating fitted, allowing for a higher capacity per vehicle.

Here's a Dm11 in Cuba when it was still self-propelled.

 

[rf_ioliver]

(One to keep in the back pocket for the next time cold weather affects the UK and someone wheels out the "but cold countries manage fine" trope. It's a case of how much resilience you want to pay for, not how cold it is.)

-18 has been the warmest, with -25..-30s and even a few -40s in the far north. For the most part, we're fine and can run an effective, almost complete service. Yes, there are issues, but they're not quite as dramatic as the press point out. A few years back there was a big problem with Helsinki local traffic and snow getting into places it shouldn't (nb: it is the type of snow that is the primary issue). There was a plan for these kinds of conditions put into place then.

One of the big issues is snow getting into things - the consistency of snow changes dramatically depending upon conditions and this is the issue - snow at -20 is really different to the wet stuff at -2. The dry, powdery stuff is hell for mechanical and electrical things - especially when it packs into a concrete-like substance. I've got packed snow on may car now that will only shift if I leave it overnight in a warmed garage. VR are effectively doing the same thing - they're removing selected services and moving those carriages into a warmed place where the packed snow can be removed and the whole unit defrosted. The cancellations are not affecting the main Helsinki-Oulu, Savo and Joensuu lines, but rather those services which originate in Turku and also Vaasa traffic - these are much easier to manage in terms of providing alternative transport.