Class 345 progress

[fgwrich]

If you've ever wonder what you'd get when you crossbred a Networker with an Electrostar...

 

[jopsuk]

To be fair I hadn't, given that Electrostars are the offspring of the Networkers (the family tree goes Networker-Networker Turbo-Clubman-Turbostar-Electrostar)

 

[fgwrich]

To be fair I hadn't, given that Electrostars are the offspring of the Networkers (the family tree goes Networker-Networker Turbo-Clubman-Turbostar-Electrostar)

Oh I know. But the Aventra really does appear to be an extended extruded Aluminum body with several properties from the outgoing Electrostar, with doors that appear to have been borrowed from the Networker Family. What appears to be an Interesting re-use of Derby works EMU family history.

 

[47802]

Oh I know. But the Aventra really does appear to be an extended extruded Aluminum body with several properties from the outgoing Electrostar, with doors that appear to have been borrowed from the Networker Family. What appears to be an Interesting re-use of Derby works EMU family history.

Looks fine to me just because they have gone back to more curved windows on the doors hardly makes it a Networker, and if it looks as though they have carried over some bits from an Electrostar so what? what do you expect them to do put diamond shaped windows in it just so it looks different.

 

[samuelmorris]

To be honest, what that picture more reminds me of is what an S stock would look like if it were longer and had plug doors, which I suppose is a pretty good approximation of what a Class 345 actually is. I quite like it actually.

 

[MCR247]

Oh I know. But the Aventra really does appear to be an extended extruded Aluminum body with several properties from the outgoing Electrostar, with doors that appear to have been borrowed from the Networker Family. What appears to be an Interesting re-use of Derby works EMU family history.

My first thought was S stock rather than networkers, which makes sense too

EDIT: Didn't refresh the page and got beaten to it! Great minds and all that...

 

[321over360]

The doors do actually look like those on Networkers, just with a single door opening button

 

[47802]

The doors do actually look like those on Networkers, just with a single door opening button

So what most of the manufacturers were using doors with square edged door windows until recently to match the use of ribbon style windows they used originally, now they have changed from that they have gone back to doors with curved edged windows to match the main windows, as have Siemens except the new 700's are using wider sliding doors so they don't look like networker doors.

Is this the usual petty attempt to slag off Bombardier before they have even built the train? at the end of the day a doors a door

Overall this train seems to offer the best Window arrangement and views compared to either the Siemens unit or the Hitachi units being built obviously we have yet to see CAF's unit in the flesh, although as a lot of the main route is in a tunnel and will have some longitudinal seating its somewhat wasted, but hopefully Bombardier will get an order that can make better use of it at some point.

 

[D365]

... but hopefully Bombardier will get an order that can make better use of it at some point.

Obviously the new London Overground units have a similar interior arrangement, but what are your thoughts on the Class 710 impressions?

[Meant to add, scaled down to a 'traditional' 20m carriage length.]

 

[47802]

Obviously the new London Overground units have a similar interior arrangement, but what are your thoughts on the Class 710 impressions?

Well obviously the 710's are 20m long and only 2 doors per side but otherwise will be presumably similar to the Crossrail units, the impression does show more of a windowless section near the front but overall it looks ok.

I'm not massively keen on the front end styling but maybe it will look better in the flesh, I wonder how much input TFL have had in the front end styling as obviously the earlier Aventra impressions were somewhat different, and if Bombardier do get a non TFL order for Aventra in future will the front end styling be perhaps a little different.

 

[jopsuk]

Obviously the new London Overground units have a similar interior arrangement, but what are your thoughts on the Class 710 impressions?

[Meant to add, scaled down to a 'traditional' 20m carriage length.]

The Class 710 will have two interior variants. There are two subfleets, one for the Lea Valley/Romford-Upminster and one for GOBLIN/Watford DC

 

[Class377/5]

The Class 710 will have two interior variants. There are two subfleets, one for the Lea Valley/Romford-Upminster and one for GOBLIN/Watford DC

Has that been stated publicly anywhere?

 

[swt_passenger]

Has that been stated publicly anywhere?

Yes, it was in one of those London mayor q&a sessions with the GLA. DC and GOBLIN like 378s, West Anglia a mixed layout.

 

[321over360]

Bombardier do make the best modern EMU imo. They are far more superior to any Siemens unit.

I wish TFL would stop making all new LO trains come with Longitudinal seating, yes it lets more people stand but for some of the NLL journeys which if you did Stratford to Richmond at just over an hour (on a train that breaks Rail rules i might add) it is pretty much like being on a tube train, TFL should have copied Southeasterns 376 approach with seating style for the 378s and not made them like a Tube train

 

[306024]

Bombardier do make the best modern EMU imo. They are far more superior to any Siemens unit.

I wish TFL would stop making all new LO trains come with Longitudinal seating, yes it lets more people stand but for some of the NLL journeys which if you did Stratford to Richmond at just over an hour (on a train that breaks Rail rules i might add) it is pretty much like being on a tube train, TFL should have copied Southeasterns 376 approach with seating style for the 378s and not made them like a Tube train

If you do Stratford to Richmond throughout via the NLL you need your bumps felt. It lets more people board the train, which is rather more the point.

As for Bombardier v Siemens, a senior fleet maintainer told me we'll see the answer to that question in 20 years time.

 

[swt_passenger]

Bombardier do make the best modern EMU imo. They are far more superior to any Siemens unit.

I wish TFL would stop making all new LO trains come with Longitudinal seating, yes it lets more people stand but for some of the NLL journeys which if you did Stratford to Richmond at just over an hour (on a train that breaks Rail rules i might add)

But TfL already have stopped making all new LO trains come with all longitudinal seating. The WA units are not like that.

What are the "rail rules" that are being broken on the NLL then?

 

[D365]

As for Bombardier v Siemens, a senior fleet maintainer told me we'll see the answer to that question in 20 years time.

The Class 357s are coming up to 15-20 years old, they're not doing too badly despite their initial woes. We'll soon see how the Desiro City and Aventra 'rollouts' pan out.

 

[Class377/5]

Yes, it was in one of those London mayor q&a sessions with the GLA. DC and GOBLIN like 378s, West Anglia a mixed layout.

Ah thanks. I'd missed seeing anything about that.

Bombardier do make the best modern EMU imo. They are far more superior to any Siemens unit.

If breaking down far more often makes a train superior then I'd go with the inferior unit every time. Nothing like facts that show up the opinions on here.

 

[Mikey C]

Surprised the 345s have plug doors, seeing that all recent London commuter stock, including the 700s, have had sliding doors as they are faster opening. I much prefer the look of plug doors though!

 

[superkev]

Surprised the 345s have plug doors, seeing that all recent London commuter stock, including the 700s, have had sliding doors as they are faster opening. I much prefer the look of plug doors though!

I'm old enough to remember when NSE said they would not order any more sliding doors. This was after a winter of problems with snow and ice etc blocking the door guides.
Interesting Hitachi seem to prefer sliding which apart from the dirt/ ice in the tracks issue must be more difficult to obtain a seal.
K

 

[swt_passenger]

I'm old enough to remember when NSE said they would not order any more sliding doors. This was after a winter of problems with snow and ice etc blocking the door guides.
Interesting Hitachi seem to prefer sliding which apart from the dirt/ ice in the tracks issue must be more difficult to obtain a seal.
K

They don't seem to have any difficulty obtaining a seal on the 395s though? I expect that's because they are using a totally different mechanism to what failed under BR...

 

[samuelmorris]

It's a tired old argument but to a passenger, which train is 'better' is a matter of personal taste. Recent trend for the same seat design everywhere notwithstanding, I found Electrostars (up to 377/5 inclusive) a little more comfortable to sit down on, but the more subdued external noise, better sealed doorways and slightly less extreme VCB noise of Desiros lends itself to a more refined travelling experience overall. While nothing like as bad as the systems retrofitted to certain older units, the PIS equipment on Siemens trains seems more reliable than that fitted to Electrostars so far (main experience 360/1 vs 357 here). Each passenger would have their own opinions on all that, there are those that much prefer travelling on old BR multiple units to either, but all it takes is a hot summer evening's commute home sweating buckets and being deafened by the flange noise coming through the open windows on departure from Liverpool Street to make me think that, if it were an option, on such days I'd pay a considerable premium fare if it got me a modern air-conditioned unit. All-in-all the Siemens trains seem better engineered from the outside perspective, but I wouldn't describe either as awful. If their track record was that bad, they wouldn't continue to be ordered en masse - the volume of orders for Desiro Cities and Electrostars now Aventras is sufficient to suggest they both do a fairly satisfactory job.

On the plug/sliding door point, I'm somewhat fascinated to know what Hitachi do in terms of door seals. Even at 280mph closing speed, I don't recall any violent bangs when another unit passes, when other sliding door units do have a real problem with this (hence my dismay at the Class 321 Renatus project). Given plug doors on the 345s I've no expectations of that being an issue, I did wonder about how it will fit in with platform-edge doors in the new Elizabeth line stations, given their requirements for step free access, but can only assume that the boarding platforms that poke out the ends would still extend further than the doors would in an open position, I've never really studied that too closely.

 

[rebmcr]

395s have a special system that pushes the door against the door frame when closed.

 

[Domh245]

395s have a special system that pushes the door against the door frame when closed.

Something that you can only really do with a single leaf sliding door. It'd be very difficult to achieve similar with a dual leaf door.

 

[D365]

Something that you can only really do with a single leaf sliding door. It'd be very difficult to achieve similar with a dual leaf door.

Other than any contractual stipulation from Scotland, is that why the AT200 (Class 385) goes back to using plug doors?

 

[100andthirty]

Hitachi is a very conservative company. They have achieved enviable levels of reliability though evolution of their engineering rather than by revolution. Thus, if they have a system, such as a door system, that works, they would rather improve it than change it. The sliding door mechanism that pushes the door against the frame when closed is one such evolution. As others have said, this is somewhat difficult to do with bi-parting doors, and the alternative, a wide single door, would have all sorts of disadvantages. However it is also important to say that sliding plug doors have been developed to be just as reliable as the single sliding door system

 

[Mikey C]

The Hitachi doors on the 395s and 800s are a special case

I'm more surprised that the 700s (and 707s) have sliding doors, as they are meant to be faster to open, while the 345s have plug doors, seeing that the 345s will be operating in very similar conditions. It's clearly something specified for the 700s, as the previous Desiros all had plug doors

 

[47802]

The Hitachi doors on the 395s and 800s are a special case

I'm more surprised that the 700s (and 707s) have sliding doors, as they are meant to be faster to open, while the 345s have plug doors, seeing that the 345s will be operating in very similar conditions. It's clearly something specified for the 700s, as the previous Desiros all had plug doors

Well I must say I was a little surprised as well as these doors will have to work in conjunction station platform doors which is why I thought that sliders might be better, are there any platform doors that work in conjunction with train plug doors at the moment?

 

[coppercapped]

Well I must say I was a little surprised as well as these doors will have to work in conjunction station platform doors which is why I thought that sliders might be better, are there any platform doors that work in conjunction with train plug doors at the moment?

At a talk on Crossrail that I recently attended, the Crossrail representative said that the sliding plug doors were preferred over sliding doors for the central section stations which will have platform edge doors. This is because the open doors partially block the space between the train and the platform edge panelling and doors and make it less likely that a person, possibly slipping sideways at the door opening, would get stuck between this wall and the train.

 

[47802]

At a talk on Crossrail that I recently attended, the Crossrail representative said that the sliding plug doors were preferred over sliding doors for the central section stations which will have platform edge doors. This is because the open doors partially block the space between the train and the platform edge panelling and doors and make it less likely that a person, possibly slipping sideways at the door opening, would get stuck between this wall and the train.

OK thanks I guess that answers that then.