ScotRail HST Introduction - Updates & Discussion

[43096]

Well that depends on the contract. If there are no penalties then maybe they want to make it last longer. Maybe leasing company have restrictions on who can do the work. I don’t know but seems to be relatively straight forward fabrication work that it would appear others could help with.

Seems strange that the programme is slipping and slipping badly.

Why would a company want it to last longer than the contracted delivery times!? Quite apart from the hit to reputation from late delivery it costs more - you have to keep project managers and production staff on the contract for longer for starters.

The naïvety of some people....

 

[BRX]

Found this on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/ardler67/status/1019539725495959553

Gary Straiton‏ @ardler67
ScotRail Mk 3 at Wabtec. Picture by Christian Tait. #scotrail #intercity #inter7city #scotrailhst
12:09pm · 18 Jul 2018

Has a bit of a bargain basement look compared to the chiltern ones.

 

[greyman42]

Well other places can do it. My cousin is a fabricator. He got a phone call asking if he was interested in a 8 week oil and gas job, he was and starts Monday. They got 74 guys a mix of fabricators welders abd fitters mainly within a week.

That is what he does short term jobs longest being about 2 years. If it works in oil and gas can’t see why couldn’t work with Wabtec.

They probably need Vehicle Builders as much as any other trade. They are not easy to come by as the closing of most BREL factories curtailed the training of apprentices. A lot who worked for BREL have now retired and those who remain are in long term, permanent employment with companies paying more than Wabtec.

 

[najaB]

Well other places can do it. My cousin is a fabricator. He got a phone call asking if he was interested in a 8 week oil and gas job, he was and starts Monday. They got 74 guys a mix of fabricators welders abd fitters mainly within a week.

That's in an industry that's in a bit of a slump, the UK train building market is anything but.

 

[Rail Blues]

Well other places can do it. My cousin is a fabricator. He got a phone call asking if he was interested in a 8 week oil and gas job, he was and starts Monday. They got 74 guys a mix of fabricators welders abd fitters mainly within a week.

That is what he does short term jobs longest being about 2 years. If it works in oil and gas can’t see why couldn’t work with Wabtec.

Because there isn't a surplus of trained and experienced rail industry staff hanging around looking for short term work who have the requisite experience to aid the production process. They cannot hire large numbers of folk who simply do not exist.

How many people have to tell you that you're spouting pie in the sky nonsense?

 

[marks87]

Last night they hired the LNER Edinburgh thunderbird and a driver but as it was the nature of the fault meant the leak had to be fixed on site, the train couldn't be assisted so it wasn't needed

The plan was always that ScotRail wouldn't be hiring a standby loco but I had heard a few months ago that decision might be revisited. Network Rail can only commandeer the nearest suitable loco to clear the line. At the start of the incident last night there was talk of using the Dundee HST driver training set to recover it, which would have been quite entertaining had it gone ahead. I wouldn't be surprised to see the FGW solution of back to back powercars being used to recover a failure at some point in the future.

Is there still a speed restriction on coupled HSTs?

Relying on back-to-back power cars as a thunderbird might not be the best idea in practice if there is.

 

[Northhighland]

Because there isn't a surplus of trained and experienced rail industry staff hanging around looking for short term work who have the requisite experience to aid the production process. They cannot hire large numbers of folk who simply do not exist.

How many people have to tell you that you're spouting pie in the sky nonsense?

It is fitting doors into a coach. It is not putting a man in the moon. It is fabrication, fitting and welding with some electrical work.

People could be trained. This idea they have to be “experienced rail staff” is bollocks. If they have the basic skills they can learn the rail parts fairly easily.

Needs a wee bit of innovation and imagination.

 

[konstant]

I don’t know but seems to be relatively straight forward fabrication work that it would appear others could help with.

Anybody who has managed to convince you that the fitting of these doors is straight forwards fabrication task has seem you coming a mile away and had a good laugh in the process. I promise you any remediation work on any ex-BREL piece of rolling stock is an absolute nightmare. It's hard to find words for just how badly built each and every one of them is, and just how much no two coaches have ANYTHING in common. From doors to handles, nothing fits anything but the coach it came from. Even the interchangeable air con and brake modules can't be interchanged, because the majority of the rafts only fit the coach they were built for. We would recruit for months on end for any staff who are competent or even capable of adapting their hand to this type of coach work and they're non-existent. Nil. We would recruit for months, in the middle of Derby, and get nowhere.

Having delivered 15 plus C6 overhauls of MK3s I feel nothing but pity for our brothers at Wabtec, forced to live the nightmare that is nailing sliding doors onto a rotten old Mk3. I sincerely hope that their contract is not too damaging from a liquidated damages or consequential loss perspective. No company is going to touch these doors with a barge pole and there are no magic pools of trained fabricators to save them from the challenges they currently face.

MK1, MK2, MK3 and all the rest of that tat is only favored by those who don't have to fix it. It's hopelessly unsuitable to adaptation to PRM requirements and the sooner they're cut up, the better.

 

[najaB]

MK1, MK2, MK3 and all the rest of that tat is only favored by those who don't have to fix it. It's hopelessly unsuitable to adaptation to PRM requirements and the sooner they're cut up, the better.

Yeah, but how do you really feel about them?

 

[BRX]

How did they manage to make them all different - is it because they were built in a number of different locations, or spanning a long period of time?

 

[najaB]

...is it because they were built in a number of different locations, or spanning a long period of time?

Yes.

 

[gsnedders]

How did they manage to make them all different - is it because they were built in a number of different locations, or spanning a long period of time?

Same way British Layland did: **** quality control with huge margins allowed.

 

[Rail Blues]

People could be trained. This idea they have to be “experienced rail staff” is bollocks. If they have the basic skills they can learn the rail parts fairly easily.

Needs a wee bit of innovation and imagination

I am amazed how folk can hold forth on subjects on which they know next to nothing with such misplaced authority and certainty.

It is on a par with people whose 'solutions' to overcrowding on trains is 'just add more carriages' or 'just run more trains' utterly oblivious to the factors that make that impossible.

Anybody who has managed to convince you that the fitting of these doors is straight forwards fabrication task has seem you coming a mile away and had a good laugh in the process. I promise you any remediation work on

We would recruit for months on end for any staff who are competent or even capable of adapting their hand to this type of coach work and they're non-existent. Nil. We would recruit for months, in the middle

Yet another rail industry professional with direct experience of working on mk3s tells you about the difficulties inherent in the task itself and the near impossibility of getting suitable staff and yet you persist in the wrong headed belief that they're all just lacking imagination.

 

[InOban]

Essentially they date to an era when everything was hand built by craftsmen rather than laser cut and robot welded.

 

[Journeyman]

How did they manage to make them all different - is it because they were built in a number of different locations, or spanning a long period of time?

Not really - all Mark 2 and 3 coaches were built at Derby and not over a particularly long period. As far as I can tell, the biggest issue is that over a very long service life, more recently split over multiple leasing companies and TOCs, they've undergone a lot of modifications and repairs, and these were often extremely inconsistent.

 

[47802]

Anybody who has managed to convince you that the fitting of these doors is straight forwards fabrication task has seem you coming a mile away and had a good laugh in the process. I promise you any remediation work on any ex-BREL piece of rolling stock is an absolute nightmare. It's hard to find words for just how badly built each and every one of them is, and just how much no two coaches have ANYTHING in common. From doors to handles, nothing fits anything but the coach it came from. Even the interchangeable air con and brake modules can't be interchanged, because the majority of the rafts only fit the coach they were built for. We would recruit for months on end for any staff who are competent or even capable of adapting their hand to this type of coach work and they're non-existent. Nil. We would recruit for months, in the middle of Derby, and get nowhere.

Having delivered 15 plus C6 overhauls of MK3s I feel nothing but pity for our brothers at Wabtec, forced to live the nightmare that is nailing sliding doors onto a rotten old Mk3. I sincerely hope that their contract is not too damaging from a liquidated damages or consequential loss perspective. No company is going to touch these doors with a barge pole and there are no magic pools of trained fabricators to save them from the challenges they currently face.

MK1, MK2, MK3 and all the rest of that tat is only favored by those who don't have to fix it. It's hopelessly unsuitable to adaptation to PRM requirements and the sooner they're cut up, the better.

That doesn't surprise me that's the view from those that have to maintain and upgrade these things rather than the usual world on here of how wonderful these trains are, the point being of course they are 40 years old and supposed to be being replaced. Scotrail/Abellio should have looked at alternatives even if they wouldn't have been delivered as quickly in theory which of course is not happening in practise anyway.

There were many rumours about the Welsh franchise going for Short HST sets, wisely on the winning bid at least that's not happening. We have the perverse situation of some franchises going for largely new stock and others spending a fortune on clapped out old junk which needs to go to the scrapper.

 

[najaB]

Scotrail/Abellio should have looked at alternatives even if they wouldn't have been delivered as quickly in theory which of course is not happening in practise anyway.

What makes you say that they didn't look at alternatives?

 

[YorkshireBear]

Some progress generally being made with a full XC set just passed york all coaches with sliding doors.

 

[Rail Blues]

That doesn't surprise me that's the view from those that have to maintain and upgrade these things rather than the usual world on here of how wonderful these trains are, the point being of course they are 40 years old and supposed to be being replaced

I have never understood the mk 3 love in. I've never found them particularly comfortable and the squeek and rattle is far more intrusive than any underfloor diesel.

I think the fetish for the mk3s comes from a belief that LHCS are the only 'real' trains when in almost every single case EMUs and DMUs are more efficient and practical. It also interesting that as someone else has pointed out that those who bemoan noisy great diesel engines thumping away under the floor are often the same ones who get all excited about 'hell fire thrash' on LHCS or the mk3s screams and squeaks (hellfire thrash sounds like something a Tory MP would pay thousands for in a soho dungeon).

 

[D5645]

I have never understood the mk 3 love in. I've never found them particularly comfortable and the squeek and rattle is far more intrusive than any underfloor diesel.

I think the fetish for the mk3s comes from a belief that LHCS are the only 'real' trains when in almost every single case EMUs and DMUs are more efficient and practical. It also interesting that as someone else has pointed out that those who bemoan noisy great diesel engines thumping away under the floor are often the same ones who get all excited about 'hell fire thrash' on LHCS or the mk3s screams and squeaks (hellfire thrash sounds like something a Tory MP would pay thousands for in a soho dungeon).

That is an interesting perspective and I can see your point.

I've always though that Mark 3's were the best coaches ever built but for me Class 222's are just as comfortable.

 

[mullac30]

What did the other prospective franchise holders offer for Scotrail Intercity? I seem to remember someone offering brand new LHCS (Mk5A?).

 

[stantheman]

Going off on a tangent a bit , will the locals to Dundee and Perth from the central belt still be DMU ?

 

[BRX]

It'll be interesting to see if the general travelling public notice/comment on noise and comfort levels once the HSTs come into play.

For me there's no question that the absence of a continuous underfloor engine drone is a plus point. I don't find the squeaks and rattles on mk3s anywhere near as annoying, and it's not like many DMUs are free of such things anyway.

 

[swaldman]

Is there still a speed restriction on coupled HSTs?

Relying on back-to-back power cars as a thunderbird might not be the best idea in practice if there is.

Depends on what the speed restriction is - remember there's very little track north of the central belt with a limit above 100mph.
If the nano-HSTs have a 75mph limit, I can see a potential problem (although really, how many diesel locos go much faster anyway...). If it's 110mph or some such, then less so

 

[marks87]

Depends on what the speed restriction is - remember there's very little track north of the central belt with a limit above 100mph.
If the nano-HSTs have a 75mph limit, I can see a potential problem (although really, how many diesel locos go much faster anyway...). If it's 110mph or some such, then less so

Sorry, I missed a word in my post - "severe".

I'm sure I saw somewhere it was something incredibly low, like 20-25mph.

Edit: and to be sure we're not at cross-purposes, I'm referring to an HST rescuing an HST, i.e, their front ends coupled. Back-to-back power cars can obviously go at high enough speeds to be usable because GWR have rescued the sleeper that way in the past.

 

[najaB]

Going off on a tangent a bit , will the locals to Dundee and Perth from the central belt still be DMU ?

I believe that is the plan, yes.

 

[47802]

What makes you say that they didn't look at alternatives?

I'm sure they did, that comment was on the basis of looking at alternatives and coming to a different decision.

But that somewhat irrelevant anyway they made their choice and will have stick with it, but if they get all the sets done by 2020 I will be amazed, and the additional 170's they decided to keep for extra growth, are likely to be covering for the lack of HST's for some time I think.

 

[JohnR]

Going off on a tangent a bit , will the locals to Dundee and Perth from the central belt still be DMU ?

Yes, though obviously a HST set could deputise, hence why the stop boards are being put up even on the smaller stations.

 

[najaB]

I'm sure they did, that comment was on the basis of looking at alternatives and coming to a different decision.

That wasn't what you said. And, I dare say, you don't have access to all the information that they did when making their fleet planning decisions.

 

[47802]

That wasn't what you said. And, I dare say, you don't have access to all the information that they did when making their fleet planning decisions.

I'm sure I don't, but I have seen comments also from people with more insider knowledge than myself where we have some franchises buying almost entirely new trains, and others renovating barn yard wrecks at great cost when the common sense thing to do would be to invest in new rolling stock.