On-board Maintenance during journey

[VideozVideoz]

Hi. Not sure if this has been brought up before but I was on an EMR train today that was heading to Skegness. For the first 30mins, the under-seat heaters were being fixed or attended to. I saw parts being swapped. I’ve supplied a photo of the activity in-progress. Is this common? I don’t ever recall this happening in all my times on a train. Maybe the conductor taking a quick look but not full-on maintenance

 

[bramling]

Hi. Not sure if this has been brought up before but I was on an EMR train today that was heading to Skegness. For the first 30mins, the under-seat heaters were being fixed or attended to. I saw parts being swapped. I’ve supplied a photo of the activity in-progress. Is this common? I don’t ever recall this happening in all my times on a train. Maybe the conductor taking a quick look but not full-on maintenance

LU do it all the time, utilising their car examiners who are located at strategic locations.

It has happened when a complete master control switch got replaced in a terminus platform after a driver broke their key in the barrel. Naturally this wasn’t on the move though, nonetheless quite a significant part to change outside a depot, and a demonstration of how modern trains tend to be pretty modular.

 

[PupCuff]

I don't recall what the exact fault was, but back in my onboard catering days I recall flagging some issue with the plumbing (will have either have been a blockage or a leak) so a fitter was duly dispatched to meet the train. En-route, they were able to disassemble half the train's kitchen to access the plumbing, replace/unblock the bit that was causing the problem, and reassemble it all in around 45 minutes, resulting in only slight disruption to the catering service.

 

[LowLevel]

He's changing the filters and/or checking the fans. Much easier to do when the engines are under load and the coolant is kicking out a decent amount of heat, you can find out which ones are not working correctly, rather than when the unit is just idling on depot.

EMR employ a number of Technical Riding Inspectors who are deployed to faults but particularly those that manifest when the vehicle is in traffic but not at the depot, you'll quite often see them out and about doing checks and fettling things. Niggling electrical issues are a speciality.

 

[185143]

I was on a 185 a few years ago and a couple of fitters, I think between Manchester Piccadilly and the Airport, got on and unscrewed a panel in the roof and started messing about with things in there. So yes it certainly is done. No doubt there are plenty of faults that occur on the move but cannot be replicated on the shed.

 

[VideozVideoz]

Interesting responses, thanks guys. Here’s me thinking all maintenance work gets carried out back at depot but seems like a travelling technician is a regular occurance. I just find it strange I’ve never witnessed it before. It was quite amusing seeing him on his hands and knees whilst the train was in service. Not sure what the other passengers thought. It was pretty lightly loaded

 

[jamesst]

Yeah its pretty regular at my toc for fitters to come out and fix faults en route.

 

[skyhigh]

Here’s me thinking all maintenance work gets carried out back at depot but seems like a travelling technician is a regular occurance.

Yep, best way to assess some faults in the real world. For example checking the air-con on a train that's in service with a full load is a lot more realistic than doing it at night when empty on a depot - as clearly the system has to do little to no work to maintain the temperature. Similar with some other random intermittent faults - we had a unit where when you applied low tone horn, the brakes frequently came on. It couldn't be replicated on depot so the best thing to do was send it out on a local route with another unit for support and see if the fitter could work out what was happening.

 

[ac6000cw]

Interesting responses, thanks guys. Here’s me thinking all maintenance work gets carried out back at depot but seems like a travelling technician is a regular occurance. I just find it strange I’ve never witnessed it before. It was quite amusing seeing him on his hands and knees whilst the train was in service. Not sure what the other passengers thought. It was pretty lightly loaded

You might find "Train Doctor: Trouble Shooting with Diesel and Electric Traction" by Roger Senior (ex-BR & GNER engineer/technical riding inspector, primarily on the ECML) an interesting read - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01HEPA2CO

 

[dk1]

When we had the legacy fleet here in East Anglia it was quite common to have a fitter ride any trains that where being monitored for regular poor performance or that where prone to failure just incase. They would often be rectifying things during the journey.

 

[CharlieSpotted]

I've also seen engineers attending to trams on the West Midlands Metro whilst they're in service, removing panels to deal with (I think?) a problematic door.

 

[1018509]

LU do it all the time, utilising their car examiners who are located at strategic locations.

It has happened when a complete master control switch got replaced in a terminus platform after a driver broke their key in the barrel. Naturally this wasn’t on the move though, nonetheless quite a significant part to change outside a depot, and a demonstration of how modern trains tend to be pretty modular.

I did this job on LU (Call Point Car Examiner - Later Train Technician) for many years and very interesting it was too. Door valves, heater/lighting fuses, motor control circuits The list is endless of jobs that can be done whilst the train is still in service. I was on the western end of the Piccadilly line, at least the furthest from "home" I could get was Cockfosters.

 

[MotCO]

we had a unit where when you applied low tone horn, the brakes frequently came on. It couldn't be replicated on depot so the best thing to do was send it out on a local route with another unit for support and see if the fitter could work out what was happening.

How on earth did this happen?

 

[Bald Rick]

Hi. Not sure if this has been brought up before but I was on an EMR train today that was heading to Skegness. For the first 30mins, the under-seat heaters were being fixed or attended to. I saw parts being swapped. I’ve supplied a photo of the activity in-progress. Is this common? I don’t ever recall this happening in all my times on a train. Maybe the conductor taking a quick look but not full-on maintenance

That’s the new ejector seat being set up

 

[LowLevel]

That’s the new ejector seat being set up

If there was one of those on Skegness trains I would have found it and used it by now - being blasted out of the train and straight into the 8 Sail Brewery at Heckington would suit me down to the ground, I'm sure some Boston bod would be happy of the overtime to replace me

 

[D6975]

Here in Bristol I would often see a travelling technician in the rear PC of a HST with his portable equipment.

 

[route101]

When the Class 385s were first introduced there was a Hitachi staff member on services. Same with the MK5 sleeper in 2019, someone was fixing the toilet on the move.