Possible AC EMU future cascade scenarios?

[Wyrleybart]

A reliable source of mine says they’ve all been sold for scrap - so all will make trips to Newport in the coming weeks.

I think 360204 has followed 360205 to Sims. So that is two out the five gone.,

 

[Inthewest]

At time where the use of fossil fuels should be getting reduced the sight of a 55 year old Class 37 hauling 17 year old EMUs to be scrapped whilst travellers on many lines in this country are riding on 30 or 40 year old DMUs, often short formed because they themselves are in short supply, sums up all that is wrong.

Im sorry if you don’t get that because a Class 360 can’t run on the non electrified line that my 156 is on - that line should have been electrified years ago.

But it hasn't been and thus irrelevent to this discussion.

Can the coaches be used with the 360/1?
Said it before but EMR should bin off some driving cars, and replace them with some of these coaches to make proper walk-through units. Better for security, better for staff, better for passengers (as they can spread out throughout the train). Yes, operational flexibility would be lower as you can't split trains if one has a fault but I'm not sure that's the way to run a railway either. Positives outweigh the negatives in my opinion.

 

[DanNCL]

Can the coaches be used with the 360/1?
Said it before but EMR should bin off some driving cars, and replace them with some of these coaches to make proper walk-through units. Better for security, better for staff, better for passengers (as they can spread out throughout the train). Yes, operational flexibility would be lower as you can't split trains if one has a fault but I'm not sure that's the way to run a railway either. Positives outweigh the negatives in my opinion.

In theory yes, but in practice it wouldn’t work as you’d be replacing two motor vehicles with two trailers, so would end up with a massively underpowered 8 car unit.

 

[Razorblades]

Loving these purely academic flights of fancy; ROG worked like Billy-O to find a taker or use for these, the industry for a plethora of reasons had little to zero interest in taking the non-standard trains on, so the owners are recovering as much cash as they can from an otherwise useless artifact.

 

[skyhigh]

Said it before but EMR should bin off some driving cars, and replace them with some of these coaches to make proper walk-through units.

Lovely idea but completely unfeasible due to the motor coach issue mentioned above. You also have the leasing company issue - the owners of the 360 vehicles you've 'binned off' would want paying for the lease you've terminated, and someone would have to pay to purchase the 360/2 vehicles. You'd then also have mismatched vehicles in a single unit and would have to pay to standardise them. There are good reasons this didn't happen.

 

[43066]

Yes, operational flexibility would be lower as you can't split trains if one has a fault but I'm not sure that's the way to run a railway either. Positives outweigh the negatives in my opinion.

So if a 12 car unit has a fault you’d rather can the whole train than run it as an 8 or a 4? I doubt many passengers would agree with you.

Loving these purely academic flights of fancy; ROG worked like Billy-O to find a taker or use for these, the industry for a plethora of reasons had little to zero interest in taking the non-standard trains on, so the owners are recovering as much cash as they can from an otherwise useless artifact.

The comments above along the lines of “I hate to see EMUs scrapped when my line hasn’t been electrified” are a little strange. The irony is users on the electrified bit of the same route that poster lives on complain that 360s are far worse than those same DMUs (okay he was talking about 156s but still)!

Lovely idea but completely unfeasible due to the motor coach issue mentioned above. You also have the leasing company issue - the owners of the 360 vehicles you've 'binned off' would want paying for the lease you've terminated, and someone would have to pay to purchase the 360/2 vehicles. You'd then also have mismatched vehicles in a single unit and would have to pay to standardise them. There are good reasons this didn't happen.

Also AIUI there are massive software issues with swapping vehicles in and out of formations, let alone lengthening a formation beyond the length it was designed to operate as.

 

[DelW]

Incidentally, for those who are complaining that Heathrow Airport Ltd was "wasteful" in not considering the units' eventual re-use when they ordered them in 2005, it's worth reiterating that 16 of the 25 vehicles that they bought were rebuilt from the four original four-car prototypes, which had been stored for some time. Had those stayed with Siemens, they had no publicly-obvious future at that time, and it's possible that they would have ended up being scrapped long before now.

 

[43096]

So if a 12 car unit has a fault you’d rather can the whole train than run it as an 8 or a 4? I doubt many passengers would agree with you.

Exactly! There was a reason the Southern ran largely in multiples of four.

 

[Razorblades]

Where this subject reaches its irreconcilable schism is when the green/ ethical/ 'it's a waste' emotional reaction (with which I can see the logic and have some sympathy) headbutts the harsh capitalist economic reality, supported by irrevocable facts of engineering.

 

[A0]

They were one option but a weak one. Personally I'd have done 160-200m 125mph new build (i.e. 80x) for the Crewe semifast and maybe the Liverpool-Brum, then cascaded the 350s to backfill the 319s.

125mph would have been pointless given the amount of slow line running they have to do through the Trent Valley. And going for 125mph instead of 100/110mph has an impact on acceleration.

For the Crewe semi fasts a 110mph unit with better acceleration makes more sense than a 125mph unit.

On the 360/2s nobody has come up with a practical use for them - and storing units ad-infinitum makes little sense.

 

[Poyntz]

Where this subject reaches its irreconcilable schism is when the green/ ethical/ 'it's a waste' emotional reaction (with which I can see the logic and have some sympathy) headbutts the harsh capitalist economic reality, supported by irrevocable facts of engineering.

Amen.

 

[StephenHunter]

Well, quite, obscure microfleets shouldn't happen in the first place. These are in a bit of a murky place given their history, but if some other bigger subclass goes to scrap just because it's very slightly different in an apparently too awkward way there ought to be a *lot* of shouting. The lack of standards & subsequent costs all over the place should have people shouting anyway. This isn't really any different to the shotgun-ordering of the modernisation plan.

The Deltics didn't even make it to their 20th birthday, remember.

 

[43066]

Exactly! There was a reason the Southern ran largely in multiples of four.

God rest those 455s…

 

[Irascible]

The Deltics didn't even make it to their 20th birthday, remember.

There were a lot more classes who didn't get close to that. It's not a good thing in general, unless it's part of aa rolling plan - see Japan, where scrapping 20 year old EMUs wouldn't raise an eyebrow, but generally on HS routes & built for that lifespan. Scrapping stuff because of carelessness in design ( eg the ridiculous fragmentation of TMS into incompatibility ) - if it happens - is something that should provoke fury & ending of careers, but it hasn't happened yet; we'll see where these 350s end up.

 

[D365]

There were a lot more classes who didn't get close to that. It's not a good thing in general, unless it's part of aa rolling plan - see Japan, where scrapping 20 year old EMUs wouldn't raise an eyebrow, but generally on HS routes & built for that lifespan. Scrapping stuff because of carelessness in design ( eg the ridiculous fragmentation of TMS into incompatibility ) - if it happens - is something that should provoke fury & ending of careers, but it hasn't happened yet; we'll see where these 350s end up.

I’m sorry, what?

 

[RobShipway]

You are always going to have these situations where things are scrapped before their time. But as stated previously, if no work can be found for the 360/2's, then their only value is scrap is providing parts to class 350, 444, 450, 700 and 707 units where the parts used are common.

Even if existing trains are converted to say hydrogen, not all units within a fleet will be converted. A good example of this is the fact that not all class 319 units where converted to be class 769 units. There is some from each sub class of class 319 that have been scrapped. For instance, 319/0 there is two, 319/2 there is one unit, 319/3 there is 3 units and 319/4 there is 4 units. All of these units served less time than class 150 units which are still being used.

Having wonderful ideas as to what to do with no longer used AC EMU's is one thing, putting those ideas into practice in the real world is another thing all together.

Personally, I hope that the 350/2's are used elsewhere, although I cannot see where other than possibly having third rail shoes added and becoming class 450's with SWR. But that would cost money.

With regards the class 379 units, I can see them possibly going to GWR. Although, I suspect that GWR will want to keep a unified fleet. If that is the case, then the class 379 units, may end up in the same position as the 360/2 units.

 

[Julia]

Also AIUI there are massive software issues with swapping vehicles in and out of formations, let alone lengthening a formation beyond the length it was designed to operate as.

Which begs the question of why the software isn't written to make formations more configurable to begin with - but I suspect the answer is "it costs more and nobody's asking for it".

 

[A0]

Which begs the question of why the software isn't written to make formations more configurable to begin with - but I suspect the answer is "it costs more and nobody's asking for it".

Which isn't an unreasonable position to take - but if adding such flexibility would have added 25% to the cost but only had a 1 or 2 in 100 chance of ever being used it would fail any reasonable scrutiny.

Computer systems can be 'gold plated' to cover every eventuality - but that comes at a cost and it's a simple trade off between cost and benefit.

 

[357]

Which begs the question of why the software isn't written to make formations more configurable to begin with - but I suspect the answer is "it costs more and nobody's asking for it".

I'm not aware what any of these are. Electrostar units have been reformed over the years (357099 for example), as have EMR 222s and 180s. As have 345s.

On AC Electrostars many fault messages refer to what to do if the train has DC shoes. On my stock we select AC every time we power up the unit, even though there is no other option such as DC.

I've seen on Electrostars a fitter inputting carriage numbers on the TMS in a text config file after replacing the unit.

It all seems very modular to me. Even our instruction manual has all the screenshots of a 377 3 car train!

If someone wanted the units, I'm sure they could be sorted.

 

[skyhigh]

But as stated previously, if no work can be found for the 360/2's, then their only value is scrap is providing parts to class 350, 444, 450, 700 and 707 units where the parts used are common.

But as stated there's loads of spares that came with the units and the 'common' units will already have their own spares so why would the leasing companies be interested in buying more parts second hand?

As an aside, what parts are shared between a 360 and a 700/707? Can't be many, if any.

 

[Doomotron]

357099 for example

What was that one?

 

[357]

What was that one?

After a collision between units, they used good remaining coaches to form one good unit until the others were fixed.

I asked today about this, and I'm assured for Electrostars they can be reformed (including with a different number of coaches) with simple changes to a config file.

I would guess 180s are similar as GC and EMR have reformed some of them with less coaches due to "issues" too.

 

[Doomotron]

After a collision between units, they used good remaining coaches to form one good unit until the others were fixed.

I asked today about this, and I'm assured for Electrostars they can be reformed (including with a different number of coaches) with simple changes to a config file.

I would guess 180s are similar as GC and EMR have reformed some of them with less coaches due to "issues" too.

I still find it slightly hilarious that the engineers can modify the numbers of a train using Notepad... The Electrostars come across as simple but I didn't expect it to be that simple. Could the Class 360s be modified in a similar way, potentially to remove the extra coach assuming they weren't being scrapped?

 

[swt_passenger]

I still find it slightly hilarious that the engineers can modify the numbers of a train using Notepad... The Electrostars come across as simple but I didn't expect it to be that simple. Could the Class 360s be modified in a similar way, potentially to remove the extra coach assuming they weren't being scrapped?

Given that four of the 360/2 had their fifth coaches added well after entry into service as four cars I think it would be very odd if they couldn’t be reverted.

 

[357]

I still find it slightly hilarious that the engineers can modify the numbers of a train using Notepad... The Electrostars come across as simple but I didn't expect it to be that simple. Could the Class 360s be modified in a similar way, potentially to remove the extra coach assuming they weren't being scrapped?

I've never worked with desiros and have absolutely no knowledge of them unfortunately - but I'd be surprised if they were that different

Fun fact, when you aux on an electrostar you get the windows booting screen, and sometimes a blue screen of death! When you aux off you get "windows is shutting down"

 

[43096]

I've never worked with desiros and have absolutely no knowledge of them unfortunately - but I'd be surprised if they were that different

Fun fact, when you aux on an electrostar you get the windows booting screen, and sometimes a blue screen of death! When you aux off you get "windows is shutting down"

When there's a fault, do you get that animated paperclip asking what you'd like to do?

 

[Energy]

Fun fact, when you aux on an electrostar you get the windows booting screen, and sometimes a blue screen of death! When you aux off you get "windows is shutting down"

On the Pendolinos and Voyagers the Windows CE logo shows up on bootup. The later electrostars (and Aventras) run Linux so won't show the bootup.

 

[357]

On the Pendolinos and Voyagers the Windows CE logo shows up on bootup. The later electrostars (and Aventras) run Linux so won't show the bootup.

What Electrostars run Linux? I thought the Porterbrook speculative order was the last production, and they run Windows XP.

Overground Class 172s appeared to have a totally different TMS to Electrostars but I only ever saw one from outside the cab.

 

[43066]

Fun fact, when you aux on an electrostar you get the windows booting screen, and sometimes a blue screen of death! When you aux off you get "windows is shutting down"

Windows 95 on 375s I seem to recall…

 

[357]

Windows 95 on 375s I seem to recall…

Yep. Makes me wonder if in this day of remote monitoring there's a risk to not keeping the software up to date when support ends