Dirty windscreens on HSTs!

[fairysdad]

You would think as we can send men to the moon and with all the amazing technology around today that such a trivial thing like dirty windscreens would have been easily fixed by now.
I imagine it's simply that the will isn't there, basically the designers feel drivers will manage with what they've got.

Sounds like you're comparing apples and oranges there. The technology involved in space travel and the technology involved in clean glass aren't the same. (In fact, I'd imagine the glass on a space shuttle will also have the same problems!)

Take your standard estate car - it has all sorts of technology in it to do with the safe running of the vehicle, but at the end of the day, the only way you can really clean windscreen glass is by wiping it, preferably thoroughly with a brush. I don't think any amount of technology can stop bugs splatting on the front of a moving vehicle.

 

[Bromley boy]

With all the flies getting in the way of 125mph Pendos and the like, the driver's window looks like a graveyard, and those puny wipers look like they don't cope!

As a mere passenger I haven't a clue how well they work - so I'm asking any drivers out there, are the windscreens easy to clean; do they get clogged up on a long run - do you ever have to get out and manually clean them?

And who tops up the water?!

Cheers for the replies to a totally trivial question!

It's very stock dependent.

At my TOC the wipers on our more modern are excellent and powerful, if noisy, the older type rather less so. Mainline stations are equipped with buckets and brooms to clean windscreens before each journey. There's less need to bother with this on lower speed metro routes.

Topping up fluid reservoirs, as with everything else maintenance related, is strictly a depot-only job.

I wouldn't fail a train for running out of fluid but I most certainly would for a non-functioning wiper.

 

[Mordac]

You would think as we can send men to the moon and with all the amazing technology around today that such a trivial thing like dirty windscreens would have been easily fixed by now.
I imagine it's simply that the will isn't there, basically the designers feel drivers will manage with what they've got.

Which apparently was urine for some TPE drivers!