Do you mean the LNR ones at Bletchley which actually work, compared to those TfW ones which don't ?
From July
This is a laughable. In truth, all the investigative work was undertaken by Vivarail's engineers.From July
Seems to be a thermal issue with the TfW 230s batteries,
"TfW has had to do a “very detailed safety and engineering investigation” into what caused the so-called thermal incidents and “we have got to the bottom of it.” Alexia said.
She said: “We’ve found the solution, it is going through our engineering compliance process to get signed off.”
Alexia said the issue was to do with the “threshold cut-off point with the batteries because it’s a different type of traction for that line.”
“There was an issue to do with the threshold of the power outage, we have got to the bottom of that, it was basically to do with a bit of kit.” She said while explaining she couldn’t be more detailed, as “I’m not an engineer.”
She said the part, “had a more sensitive threshold level which then resulted in this (thermal) event happening.”
“We have got to replace that bit of kit and that is what is taking a bit of extra time because we have got to order it as a specialist part, get it delivered, get it installed and get it all tested.”
Alexia said the fix will “increase the threshold levels, which means that the batteries can operate before going into a kind of thermal event mode.”
Still under test?
You may know more about TfW "meddling" and changing the spec, but the only obvious failing on TfW in my view is that they never ran a prototype over the route to prove itself - given it was to be such an innovative and transformative new concept. Vivarail could easily have used 230001 or 230002, outer cars surrounding a prototype centre car with the engines and battery charging kit. Apart from 230002's attendance at Bo ness and 230001's attendance at COP26 I cannot recall them doing much else.
Neither 230001 or 230002 are Diesel-Battery Hybrid trains which is what was ordered. I will stand corrected, but I don't believe that either 230001 or 230002 could be modified to have a diesel engine and they would also need the front changes to be applied as well. TFW where provided 230006, which was acting as prototype I believe before being put into service along with 230007-010.
The 230s can all be easily converted between diesel only, diesel-battery-hybrid and battery only. I’m pretty sure that one of the prototypes did test the diesel-battery-hybrid setup, but it isn’t configured as such anymore.
Since it was mainly the 769s you were interested in and not the 230s, I will answer. Since their introductions with both TfW and Northern over a year ago, there have been numerous incidents where either the Diesel engines have failed to start when required, or cut out once started and refused to restart. Also some units have been stranded after running out of fuel, sometimes only one engine starts, giving the unit a top speed of about 35mph which is obviously unusable, during the power changeover a pantograph once failed to lower after the engines started and struck a bridge east of Manchester Victoria, which wasn’t noticed until it had returned from Stalybridge and wouldn’t take power, on one occasion when I was present during their first week of operations for Northern, the unit managed to fail and have to be completely reset 3 times just between Wigan and Southport and on another more recently, the driver forgot to attempt the power changeover due to a platform alteration and then ran off the end of the electrification, but the pantograph did not strike the bridge.
What front changes?
they havent worked (or worked well) for quite a long time on the Marston Vale. They are doing OK now but I am sure the next complete collapse is but minutes away.
As one of the few posters here who have to use the 230's on a daily basis I have some experiance of the units. I have ZERO sympathy for Vivarail. The offering on the Marston Vale has been awful and my patience and goodwill have long ago been washed away by the constantly frustrated trudges home by Shanks Pony Rail after yet another failure.
As far as I am aware 3 are available for daily service with 2 used. The RRB's have ended. In fairness I think it has been a few weeks since a train failure but there is no confidence this is anything other than a fluke.
Yes - that is long gone ( but may be more a financial rather than reliability decision)
Ah, very many thanks, that makes much more sense.
Just to be clear, are you referring to the TfW 230s and their batteries ? AIUI the Marston Vale 230s only use batteries in the way conventional DMUs do. It is the TfW 230s which use the hybrid battery arrangements and they still aren't out crew training.
From
I understand the cans on the mv 230's have air con
I don't think you can blame Porterbrook for a train running out of fuel, or for a driver forgetting to lower the pan (although if PB really wanted to spend the money, it would be feasible to fit some sort of protection against this, such as the zero balises as on 80x). The pantograph failing to lower was not unknown during Thameslink days, often down to a faulty valve, so is a 319 legacy issue.
Not sure what you mean by this, as there are local and remote engine fault lights in the cab (which is more than you get on something like a 150), as well as a diagnostic screen in the MSO which gives all sorts of information.
A lot of the problems GWR have been experiencing with their 769s have been down to the traction equipment, which is 319 legacy equipment.
Probably true, but they're getting there. There have been a number of firmware updates to the ECUs which seem to have improved reliability.
I've never understood why Vivarail didn't develop and offer an SDO system for all their traction types - that would address the issues you raise, is often essential on the sort of branch line operations the units are targeted at, and could potentially improve safety through wrong-side door release protection. The battery 230 being trialled on GWR is too long for most of the platforms on the Greenford branch, so the leading and trailing doors are being modified to be crew use only. The unit is being fitted with DCO cameras/monitors, so it's a shame they didn't go all the way and fit SDO.
