Airdrie-Bathgate service

[Bittern]

So driver training for the class 320's on Argyle Line services will only take place once the units have been refurbished and when they have been would any one of you be able to give a date as to when it will begin?

This isn't even the thread for that.

 

[68000]

rail-britain has been here before claiming the Class 380 has nothing to do with A2B

Look at the stuff posted from from early October in this thread (posts 199 onwards)

 

[djw1981]

surely siemens are to blame. Transport scotland said itwantd X trains in service by Y date, a futher Z by date W etc. The supplier needs to meet it.

 

[MCR247]

To be fair, SR didn't leave much time for something to inevitably go wrong.

 

[First ScotRail]

I personally think the root cause of the 380 fiasco is SRs certainty that they would work straight out the box like the 185s did.

They didn't.

 

[me123]

surely siemens are to blame. Transport scotland said itwantd X trains in service by Y date, a futher Z by date W etc. The supplier needs to meet it.

I believe that the supplier said that they could meet the date. Clearly they've fallen far short of this. As I've said before, Scotrail/Transport Scotland are hardly innocent, but if they have had an assurance from Siemens about this (and I'm led to believe that they were) then they have let us down.

 

[Bittern]

rail-britain has been here before claiming the Class 380 has nothing to do with A2B

Look at the stuff posted from from early October in this thread (posts 199 onwards)

Except this guy was talking about the Class 320, not the 380.

 

[me123]

rail-britain has been here before claiming the Class 380 has nothing to do with A2B

He's right. They don't. They're two separate projects. Problem is, they're two dependent projects. The 380s needed to be in service for A-B to open fully. Obviously, it didn't happen. Definitely poor planning there.

 

[jopsuk]

Aye- trying to claim dependent projects as separate projects is always fraught with difficulty.

 

[Failed Unit]

Aye- trying to claim dependent projects as separate projects is always fraught with difficulty.

Even if you ignore the lack of rolling stock, the project still failed with 3 stations still not open. (please no-one say snow). Most projects of this kind allow for loss of work because of bad weather because it is nearly certain to happen. Many roads open early because the weather was better than expected.

Even if siemens had met the schedule they had little contingency. Foolish when you look how many trains enter service totally problem free.

 

[me123]

Even if you ignore the lack of rolling stock, the project still failed with 3 stations still not open. (please no-one say snow).

That's a very harsh view IMO. The snow last winter was also a contributing factor, remember. It's not unreasonable to assume that that's eaten up a fair portion of their contingency time before you even consider the recent snowfall. Furthermore, whilst the snow only lasted a few weeks, it's hard to tell what damage it did (if any).

Besides, it hasn't "failed". The line opened on time, and a 4tph service would have been possible if there was enough rolling stock. Trains are running. It's hardly a big success story, but to brand it a failure is unduly harsh.

I'm playing devil's advocate here. We don't know the full story. They could be right; they could have been going to plan until the snow caused problems. It wouldn't just go and disappear; on unfinished roads it could potentially cause quite a lot of damage. Or the snow could very well be a lucky coincidence that's let them mask the delay. We don't really have enough information to know for certain.

 

[Greenback]

It depends on how the project was defined. If 'open' was defined as trains running to a reduced timetable and stations not open, it can be judged a success.

Despite what may be said in public, I am fairly certain that FSR and Transport Scotland will not view the reopening project as a great success, depsite the mitigating circumstances of the weather.

 

[kylemore]

Travelled over the new line for the first time today, thing that struck me was the almost "german" smoothness of most of the new section. It's daft to talk of failure at this stage.
It was almost shocking to pass into the litter strewn dereliction that characterises the line from Airdrie into Queen St.

 

[me123]

Travelled over the new line for the first time today, thing that struck me was the almost "german" smoothness of most of the new section. It's daft to talk of failure at this stage.
It was almost shocking to pass into the litter strewn dereliction that characterises the line from Airdrie into Queen St.

Very appropriate words

 

[rob-of-the-roc]

Travelled over the new line for the first time today, thing that struck me was the almost "german" smoothness of most of the new section.

I got a chance to use the extended eastwards service recently, and I agree that the 'smoothness' of the track is something I've not encountered in a long time. It also provided me with the opportunity to experience just how fleet the 334s are. In their original service location there are few locations where they can be given their head.

Shame about the 380s though. I see from the latest issue of 'Modern Railways' that further delivery has been delayed by the manufacturers until the problem has been sorted out. It does make a mockery of their advert on the back cover of the magazine.

 

[me123]

Yesterday, I took the 09:19 ex Blairhill (which starts from Edinburgh). This was the first time that I'd been on a rush hour(-ish) train starting from Edinburgh, and the first time I've caught that particular train since the new route opened. I'm pleased to report that loadings were very good. It wasn't overcrowded, but there's always been plenty of seats on that service before and people now have to stand from the likes of Shettleston and Garrowhill. And I overheard a lot of people commenting on how much easier it was than going into Edinburgh and back. And, of course, the stations aren't even open at Drumgelloch, Caldercruix and Armadale yet!

So hopefully this will grow as and when the service improves.

 

[Failed Unit]

I think it will be a success, looking forward to May when the full service takes off. From a selfish point of view hopefully get some passengers off the Falkirk route.

 

[rail-britain]

I think it will be a success, looking forward to May when the full service takes off

Assuming all the Class 380 units are delivered and accepted
So far none have been accepted and next months recommencement of the deliveries will not take place, putting the process back a further four weeks
Even if deliveries commence in the first week ofMarch, the final unit would arrive at the end of April, and only just make it to the acceptance process

A further contigency is now being prepared, due to the reduced number of Class 314 and Class 320 units, hopefully it won't be needed!

 

[Mex]

Assuming all the Class 380 units are delivered and accepted
So far none have been accepted and next months recommencement of the deliveries will not take place, putting the process back a further four weeks
Even if deliveries commence in the first week ofMarch, the final unit would arrive at the end of April, and only just make it to the acceptance process

A further contigency is now being prepared, due to the reduced number of Class 314 and Class 320 units, hopefully it won't be needed!

Yet another broken promise from Scotrail.

Disappointing.

 

[rail-britain]

Yet another broken promise from Scotrail

Why should they accept units which do not meet their requirement, as per the order
I wouldn't accept them either, if they all had the same issues and faults

 

[tbtc]

Why should they accept units which do not meet their requirement, as per the order
I wouldn't accept them either, if they all had the same issues and faults

Why did they make their plans for the new route based on the premise that the 380s would work straight from the box though? Surely the problems associated with new units these days means it was a little naive to make your plans based on them being "plug and play"?

 

[MacCookie]

Why did they make their plans for the new route based on the premise that the 380s would work straight from the box though? Surely the problems associated with new units these days means it was a little naive to make your plans based on them being "plug and play"?

When should ScotRail have required Siemens to have delivered the first 380 then? Because Siemens had three months (or there abouts) from delivery of the first unit to having about two thirds of the fleet in service.

Ewan

 

[MCR247]

When should ScotRail have required Siemens to have delivered the first 380 then? Because Siemens had three months (or there abouts) from delivery of the first unit to having about two thirds of the fleet in service.

Ewan

I would have had it so the last was delivered by October. Even if on paper they would be sitting around doing nothing it would allow any problems to be sorted

 

[Damien1986]

Yet another broken promise from Scotrail.

Disappointing.

I totally agree! They shouldn't be building people's hopes up!

 

[rail-britain]

I would have had it so the last was delivered by October

That pretty much was the original plan, with about two thirds of the fleet delivered by the end of October 2010 (for introduction at the next timetable) but there were initial delays, and it has just snowballed since then...

Equally, when you look back at the Class 334 deliveries there was the same issue, with most of these units sitting around and existing units struggling on
Not much you can do when you can't use units

Then there was the farce with the Class 158 units
Again, a cascade depended on this, and as time went by severe changes had to be made (resulting in Mark 2 and Mark 3 coaches coming back to Scotland, leaving many WCML sets short-formed)

 

[laird]

Is there anything to suggest that new units will meet their targets or are we waiting for a compromise to be reached to modify the contract from the original requriements?
I'm sorry to say I've not looked into the background to the problem but have seen similar elsewhere - never a happy situation.

 

[Mex]

I totally agree! They shouldn't be building people's hopes up!

Like spending the entire project duration promising us 4tph, only to announce at completion that we would only be getting 1?

And then running those services consistently late?

Something like that?

 

[rail-britain]

Is there anything to suggest that new units will meet their targets or are we waiting for a compromise to be reached to modify the contract from the original requriements?

There will be no compromise, some of the basic requirements with these units are not being met
It's like ordering a car then being told it has arrived without wheels, can you accept that until the wheels arrive?

The first issue was a design/manufacturing issue, although how this happened has never been fully released as similar other EMUs did not have this issue, resulting in the wheel sets having to
be removed, modified, and then refitted
This caused the initial delay

The next issue occured during early testing in the UK
It was found that some units would not work together properly

Then yet another design/manufacturing issue was found, ironically at almost the same time as above, as a temporary measure the airconditioning systems were disabled

There have then been basic software issues with the internal information systems
During the final testing similar issues were found with the selective door opening, however this was later found due to some oversights which have since been resolved but until this resulted in passenger services being suspended again (and then we had the severe snow)

Network Rail also ran into some issues as many of the stations had to be modified or lengthened
Most between Paisley and Ayr/Largs were completed just in time for the timetable, but the other routes were still in progress
However, this was due to a change of contractor that was required, resulting in more time lost

 

[tbtc]

Like spending the entire project duration promising us 4tph

If they'd announced it as a half hourly service east of Drumgelloch (from December 2010), it'd have maintained the service from Bathgate, Livingston, Uphall (which were all half hourly DMUs), so nobody would have been worse off...

...then, in May 2011 (the next timetable change) increase it to the full four trains each hour, then there'd have been an initial boost, then a second boost (when the Bathgate service doubled). And it'd have been much easier to find the resources for a half hourly service over the first five months...

 

[laird]

thanks rail-britain, it seems a rather sad tale presumably plenty of misunderstandings