HST Reliability

[Railperf]

Can anyone explain why some TOC's have tradtionally got far better reliability out of their HST's than others? Is it a case of how much money is (was) thrown at them in servicing and maintenenance?
Even now both Scotrail and GWR reworked fleets achieving less than half of the Modern Railways MTIN figures that LNER/ VTEC did.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Primarily its their age, while they arent hammering up and down the ECML at 125mph any more they are doing a lot more start-stop work and that will have an effect on component life. For instance, when first introduced the original valenta engines didn't like the frequent complete power cycles the engines experience during a journey (i.e cycling from idle to max power snd back to idle) and this caused overheating and engine failures. While the MTU engines perform far better other comonents such as the traction motors, brakes etc will be harder worked and bearing in mind these old girls are 40+ years old and components will be getting more difficult to source. those that remain in service with faults are either staying in service with those faults or sitting in depots awaiting parts which either have to be ordered in or recovered from withdrawn examples retained specifically for depot christmas trees

 

[Railperf]

Sorry, how can any TOC run a fleet of trains that relies on components to be stripped off withdrawn examples of the fleet? that would be madness and surely unviable. Can someone specify which components are now obsolete and reliant on stripped parts?
The age card keeps being thrown at these machines, but remember that LNER examples also ran the London to Newark / Leeds 'stopping' service- , as well as pounding up the ECML and adding the Aberdeen and Inverness sections too which require extensive stopping north of Edinburgh - but still managed close to 20,000 MTIN? Did LNER/VTEC have a iarger maintenance budget? Granted more stop/ starting will use brake pads and discs up quicker, but surely these are monitored and replaced as necessary. A 2+9 HST needed close to 9 or 10 minutes to reach 125mph, while a 2+4 will reach its 100mph maximum in 2.5 minutes - that's a lot less heat build up in the engine room. They were still being cycled from notch 1 to full power regularly when running up the ECML. Braking from 100mph or less also produces less heat in the brakes. So why should these be less reliable on slower services with a lighter load? Maybe LNER/VTEC could afford a larger maintenance budget as it had much higher passenger loadings and greater revenue? Or were these more carefully maintained to avoid horrible breakdowns on the ECML which would have been costly in terms of the repercussions to other services when they did fail and block one of the country's main rail arteries?

 

[43096]

Just putting some facts in. These are the MAA (moving annual average) MTIN (Miles per Technical Incident) figures for the HST operators from 2011:

TOC	2011​	2012​	2013​	2014​	2015​	2016​	2017​	2018​	2019​
GWR	6,574​	8,037​	8,531​	7,946​	7,120​	8,291​	6,578​	5,756​	7,502​
East Coast	8,273​	12,878​	18,930​	16,961​	18,834​	17,459​	19,300​	15,509​	15,672​
East Mids	12,450​	14,636​	12,801​	12,238​	13,891​	12,619​	11,534​	13,297​	10,730​
XC	17,171​	19,062​	16,907​	18,259​	16,727​	11,646​	9,380​	10,960​	7,301​
Grand Central	15,190​	15,575​	13,733​	8,502​	16,913​	13,713​	23,133​

Lots of reasons why they might be different: equipment, duty cycle, maintenance team capability etc etc.

 

[irish_rail]

I'd say traincrew familiarity plays a big part. Nowadays, if on a HST on GWR chances are your driver is fairly new to them and has previously just driven sprinters. Similarly on scotrail. Older hands knew the tricks of the trade to keep them rolling, and were less quick to fail them. This is only one of several factors though.

 

[david1212]

Just putting some facts in. These are the MAA (moving annual average) MTIN (Miles per Technical Incident) figures for the HST operators from 2011:

TOC	2011​	2012​	2013​	2014​	2015​	2016​	2017​	2018​	2019​
GWR	6,574​	8,037​	8,531​	7,946​	7,120​	8,291​	6,578​	5,756​	7,502​
East Coast	8,273​	12,878​	18,930​	16,961​	18,834​	17,459​	19,300​	15,509​	15,672​
East Mids	12,450​	14,636​	12,801​	12,238​	13,891​	12,619​	11,534​	13,297​	10,730​
XC	17,171​	19,062​	16,907​	18,259​	16,727​	11,646​	9,380​	10,960​	7,301​
Grand Central	15,190​	15,575​	13,733​	8,502​	16,913​	13,713​	23,133​

Lots of reasons why they might be different: equipment, duty cycle, maintenance team capability etc etc.

The variations over the years are interesting. One that jumps out is that from 2011 to 2014 the XC sets had the best MAA MITN then sharply drop from 2016 and the worst in 2019.

Sorry, how can any TOC run a fleet of trains that relies on components to be stripped off withdrawn examples of the fleet? that would be madness and surely unviable. .....

I don't know back to steam as overall the components were easier to fabricate but for diesel and electric it has always been the way. Once the tooling is not in use even if still available the cost of a small run of parts is often prohibitive particularly if only to be used for a couple of years rather than say 20. Another consideration is that the HST power cars were first in service from 1976 and parts considered as expected to last a working lifetime of under 40 years may now be so worn to be unserviceable with again the only viable option substitution of a less worn part to allow running for another year or two.

 

[43096]

The variations over the years are interesting. One that jumps out is that from 2011 to 2014 the XC sets had the best MAA MITN then sharply drop from 2016 and the worst in 2019.

Note the similarity to the GWR fleet in 2019. The XC fleet moved from Craigentinny to Laira in 2018/19.

 

[Railperf]

Note the similarity to the GWR fleet in 2019. The XC fleet moved from Craigentinny to Laira in 2018/19.

so what were they doing in Craigentinny that was any different from Laira? You can't say that Laira lacked expertise - they have been servicing HST's since their introduction.
Were resources at Laira were reduced - fewer roads to maintain sets - or was a conscious decision made to spend less on the HST's which means they hope some components last longer - and a reduction in preventative maintenance?

 

[fgwrich]

so what were they doing in Craigentinny that was any different from Laira? You can't say that Laira lacked expertise - they have been servicing HST's since their introduction.
Were resources at Laira were reduced - fewer roads to maintain sets - or was a conscious decision made to spend less on the HST's which means they hope some components last longer - and a reduction in preventative maintenance?

One word : Hitachi.

With the East Coast HST fleet going, XC had to move its maintenance out of Craigentinny. Unlike GWR who received a number of new IET depots, the East Coast only had Doncaster Carr added, with Hitachi taking over all their other depots. Craigentinny soon took on the ScotRail 385 work as well as IETs for both LNER and TPE (do they do stuff for Lumo too?). As ScotRail wouldn’t have the space and we’re in effect new to HSTs at Haymarket, and GWR were the only other TOC to keep running HSTs post 2020, moving to Laira made sense both financially and operationally.

 

[Railperf]

perhaps i should have worded the question better. I understand Hitachi took over Craigentinny. The question is: what were Craigentinny doing well that was keeping the XC and VTEC/LNER fleet running at high MTIN rates compared to Laira where MTIn figures for both XC and GWR are much lower?

 

[SteelWeelApeal]

Why does the myth that the Scotrail ones start/stop more than they used to keep persisting? Has anyone looked at the timetable? They generally have longer between stops than they did under GWR…

 

[fgwrich]

perhaps i should have worded the question better. I understand Hitachi took over Craigentinny. The question is: what were Craigentinny doing well that was keeping the XC and VTEC/LNER fleet running at high MTIN rates compared to Laira where MTIn figures for both XC and GWR are much lower?

Smaller fleet, depot largely concentrated on HSTs and more money lavished at a smaller fleet - 32 power cars based at Craigentinny Depot vs 91 power cars shared between Laira, Old Oak and Landore along with a smaller maintenance budget.

 

[Railperf]

A smaller maintenance budget? How much smaller? That would certainly explain matters. Does anyone reliably know how much it costs to maintain a HST set over a set period of time or miles?