LNER 2x5 Car

[DB]

Or perhaps it's a sensible availability target when factoring in appropriate maintenance regimes. All too often, the target availability for fleets is incredibly pressured and leads to a reactive regime rather than a proactive one. I don't think you can hold the LNER HST fleet up as a good example of maintenance regime - the condition of vehicles heading to EMT from LNER has generally been dreadful.

The LNER HST fleet was going off lease though, and the reuse was a last-minute DfT idea. Clearly, they were maintained in a much better condition up until the end was coming.

The fact that a whole unit is out for ages as a result of a low-speed shunting mishap does demonstrate one of the main downsides of units over HSTs / Mk4 sets - with them any damaged vehicles would most likely have been swapped out for spares and the set continued in service (although in the cae of Mk4s that may have meand short-forming due to the lack of enough spare vehicles).

 

[43055]

Will the KX Lincons be a 5 car when/if they start

The Lincoln 2 hourly service started about a year ago? They are 5 car but I think a 9 car is used on the peak time services that was formally a HST.

 

[JonathanH]

The fact that a whole unit is out for ages as a result of a low-speed shunting mishap does demonstrate one of the main downsides of units over HSTs / Mk4 sets - with them any damaged vehicles would most likely have been swapped out for spares and the set continued in service (although in the cae of Mk4s that may have meand short-forming due to the lack of enough spare vehicles).

You would imagine that swapping vehicles from a 5-car could potentially be an option in the event of damage that only affected one vehicle of a 9-car - it appears that the damage to 800109 wasn't simply to one vehicle.

 

[DB]

You would imagine that swapping vehicles from a 5-car could potentially be an option in the event of damage that only affected one vehicle of a 9-car - it appears that the damage to 800109 wasn't simply to one vehicle.

No, it' wasn't one vehicle but neither was it all of them.

The point with units is that they are designed to stay together, so all maintenance regimes will be based on that, and with modern computerised train management systems it's not going to be straightforward to swap vehicles arond between sets - hence it rarely happens with post-BR units.

 

[37424]

The Electric 5 cars are bit of a nonsense really for better flexibility and ease of diagramming all the 5 cars should be bi-mode, especially as they seem increasingly trundling around a 5 car bimode with 5 car electric off wire.

 

[JonathanH]

The Electric 5 cars are bit of a nonsense really for better flexibility and ease of diagramming all the 5 cars should be bi-mode, especially as they seem increasingly trundling around a 5 car bimode with 5 car electric off wire.

A 5-car bimode and a 5-car electric seem perfectly capable of going around together at the slower speeds on secondary routes. Therefore, it seems highly appropriate to have a mixed fleet - saving the cost of the additional generating units required. Flexibility and diagramming seems to be perceived as a bigger problem on this forum than it actually is in practice.

 

[DB]

A 5-car bimode and a 5-car electric seem perfectly capable of going around together at the slower speeds on secondary routes. Therefore, it seems highly appropriate to have a mixed fleet - saving the cost of the additional generating units required. Flexibility and diagramming seems to be perceived as a bigger problem on this forum than it actually is in practice.

No doubt it's all fine until there's significant disruption meaning that the wrong typs of units are in the wrong places...

 

[JonathanH]

No doubt it's all fine until there's significant disruption meaning that the wrong typs of units are in the wrong places...

That is the job of the controller. In fact, from that point of view, running services running with one bi-mode and one electric unit is better than running a pair of bi-modes and a pair of electrics separately. 2 x 5-car don't go to Inverness and Aberdeen so where else that LNER operate (on diesel) is running the 800/2+801/1 services an issue? The 5-car Lincoln services are relatively self contained.

 

[800001]

Will the KX Lincons be a 5 car when/if they start

They have started and are a 5 car