Reliability: TPE 350/4

[chiltern trev]

There is a 'battery off' button on the back wall of the cab.

If the pan is lowered things like emergency saloon lighting and other electrical systems are still live and run off the batteries. The batteries drain and you get 'low battery stage 1' after a while, then stage 2, then critical, then dead!

As long as the batteries are not completely dead you can get on the unit and use the battery power to charge the auxiliary compressor, this powers up the pantograph and raises it from where the train can then take power. If the unit is completely dead, as seems to be the case above, the only option is to attach a powered unit to the dead one and cross feed so the dead one can use the good ones power.

Is this a 'feature' of other overhead electric EMUs?

So this raises the question, why not a separate battery for powering the pan up or down?

I have been on other vehicles where there are multiple battery sets so that battery powering the engine (and thus starter motor) is separate from the battery set(s) used for non-engine services (emergency saloon lighting, on-board IT and computer systems, etc).

 

[SprinterJedi]

Is this a 'feature' of other overhead electric EMUs?

So this raises the question, why not a separate battery for powering the pan up or down?

I have been on other vehicles where there are multiple battery sets so that battery powering the engine (and thus starter motor) is separate from the battery set(s) used for non-engine services (emergency saloon lighting, on-board IT and computer systems, etc).

Pans are pneumatically raised and lowered (exhaust) via Control valves with ADD function. The batteries on Siemens units arent deep discharge - no need for them to be. If pan is lowered at depot/outstations, batts should be turned off in cab. If left longer than 6 or 7 hours, Batt MCBs should be tripped. This will preserve batts for reinstate 110v auxiliary compressor.

 

[cjmillsnun]

I don't quite understand the excuse that they are working longer distances and therefore the MTIN should suffer.

By working longer distances they are stopping/starting and using the doors etc. on fewer occasions per mile than units on short distance services.
In past years "Golden Spanners" the better figures obtained by some fleets, in comparison with similar units operated by other TOC'S has been explained away as being a result of less demanding longer services.

That would be my understanding too.

It certainly puts more strain on a traction motor to start a train than to maintain it at speed, as the inertia of the train itself will assist in keeping it moving

 

[Solent&Wessex]

They have been short of operational 350s every day this week so far, so a 185 has been pinched off the North Route (again) every day meaning some Scottish services are 3 vice 4 cars and some peak North Route services are 3 vice 6 cars, with the inevitable overcrowding / passengers being left behind etc.