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Express Rail Alliance IEP Design Unveiled

73K views 279 replies 55 participants last post by  Vulcan's Finest 
#1 ·
#259 ·
Hmm..

So lets resolve the shortage of carriages and lack of electrification - by investing in a brand new unproven technology instead?

Bristol could see hydrogen-powered trains to tackle carriage shortage
The new technology could be introduced as the question mark over electrification remains
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-could-see-hydrogen-powered-1107925

Bristol train lines could see new eco-friendly hydrogen trains introduced as the future of planned electrification remains uncertain.

The new regional trains are being tipped as an alternative to diesel powered trains and transport secretary Chris Grayling says he would like to see the technology introduced “within a short period of time.”

An ongoing public consultation on the future of the Great Western rail franchise, which covers Bristol, south west England, South Wales and the Cotwolds and Malverns, says hydrogen trains could be a solution to a shortage of carriages on the network.
'A short period of time'? Has anything new on the railways ever been delivered 'within a short period?'
 
#262 ·
As I have said before these trains manage to roll all the disadvantages of diesel and electric into one handy package, save one. I expect we will add third rail shoes soon to complete the set soon.

I didn't see the diesel engines allowing us to ditch what is a pretty sensible line to electrify. You could almost despair over the shortermism.
 
#263 ·
Because the vehicles are so long I doubt they would even fit on many of the third rail routes - so the HST diversions to Waterloo are not likely to ever be repeated.

As soon as the bi-mode option was selected I feared it would just be used as an excuse to limit electrification. Grayling makes out they are a new technology option, but the reality is that bi-modes could be experienced from the 1960s on the Southern and rather more spectacularly from 1989 to 1991 on the ECML. The man is an ignoramus.

To be fair though, IEPs do manage to work diagrams on the GWML with only the odd hiccup - hopefully just teething troubles. Watching a pair of dark green 5-car IEPs flash through Twyford on Wednesday doing the full 125mph was an impressive sight. The lack of noise compared to the IC125s will I guess be good news for nearby residents.
 
#270 ·
So, finally on one. My first impressions are of a comfortable train, it feels smooth, reasonably spacious and it pulled out of Paddington very quickly.

Are these now in squadron service? There seem to be a lot of them about. I've said it before but the green livery is very nice too

Bonus Crossrail train being towed at Old Oak.
 
#272 ·
Whoops! Seems that apparently the chaos at Paddington today with damage to the overhead cabling which led to all services cancelled from Reading was due to a new Hitachi test-train....

Hitachi reacts to London Paddington chaos, but no apology
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/hitachi-reacts-london-paddington-disruption-2117919

According to Get Reading a Hitachi spokesperson said: "After years of successful testing on the route we are taking today very seriously, a full and thorough investigation is taking place to identify the cause."

"Investigations usually take between 24 and 48 hours. Until it is concluded, it isn’t possible to identify definitively the cause of the issue.

"The fleet entered service on the Devon and Cornwall route in August and have been performing with high levels of reliability. This was a test train yet to enter service on the Great Western Devon and Cornwall route, slightly different to the Intercity Express Programme fleet.
 
#273 ·
There have been an awful lot of teething troubles with the new IET fleet, and not just one or two recurring issues - there are plenty of new ones, some quite serious. Some of these failures ended up blocking main lines for many hours and the failure stats based on miles run are not exactly impressive for a modern electric train - the Hitachi press statement is not exactly honest.

I am sure that eventually they will be resolved, but in the process the long-held notion that the Japanese are so much better at designing and building trains than the Europeans has been exposed as rather hollow. Those actually built in Italy may be an issue. They have had a baptism of fire in real-world operations under the GWML's new overhead wires, I hate to think what will happen when they start intensive running on the early 1990s vintage infrastructure of the ECML.
 
#277 ·
They have had a baptism of fire in real-world operations under the GWML's new overhead wires, I hate to think what will happen when they start intensive running on the early 1990s vintage infrastructure of the ECML.
It's my understanding that the dewirement wasn't the new GWML wiring at all - it was a headspan on the early 90's Heathrow wiring - basically an el-cheapo early-90's form of electrification where wires are strung between two lightweight uprights (with the contact wiring then hung off those cross wires) rather than a more heavyweight portal structure providing independent registration for each line's wire as you find on the 1960's installation on the southern WCML. Obviously a dewirement on a headspan tends to bring down all lines whilst a portal doesn't - hence the reversion to portals for the GWML proper.

...so those early 90's headspans on the Heathrow to London bit of the GWML are exactly the situation on the 80s-electrified-on-the-cheap ECML, which is of a similar vintage. So your concerns are more valid than you may have thought!
 
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