Entire 800/801/802 fleet stood down for safety checks

[jacksmithyton]

LNER and GWR leaving passengers stranded? Absolutely disgusting, then again why am I not surprised....

 

[TRAX]

LNER and GWR leaving passengers stranded? Absolutely disgusting, then again why am I not surprised....

Huh ? Want to have a go at repairing the trains in five hours ?

 

[Wolfie]

LNER and GWR leaving passengers stranded? Absolutely disgusting, then again why am I not surprised....

So what, given that trains have been withdrawn for safety issues at short notice, would you suggest that they do?

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Can anyone confirm how Polmadie and Heaton have both got some 800/801s out in service today despite not being Hitachi depots? I was of the understanding that Hitachi had to be the ones to inspect these, yet as they don't have staff at Heaton and Polmadie they can't have inspected these units? Or am I misunderstanding?

Engineers can travel in a van....

 

[F Great Eastern]

David Horne has been on the railway almost as long as Mark...

Indeed he has, but the difference is that David Horne is working for a TOC that is owned by the same branch of Government that procured the trains that are now found to have issues. LNER is doing everything it can to avoid being specific about the nature of the problem.

LNER have gone out their way to avoid mentioning the word 'Azuma' or 'Hitachi' or reference the exact nature of the issues this morning because they want to protect both their own brands and also ensure that the DfT is protected from the fall out. It very much is self first, customer second with them.

This is what Nationalisation will bring you. It won't bring you a customer focused operator, it will bring you a single self-serving operator doing whatever it can to cover it's own back and to protect it's overlords in whoever happens to be running the Government of the day. It won't care about you or me as it's priority.

LNER could have come out with a statement like GWR and mentioned that all it's Azuma trains are being checked, but it won't do that because it doesn't want the Azuma brand to be tarnished by this so instead they are being vague in the hope that they can limit the damage to the Azuma brand.

Hats off to GWR for continuing to be as open and transparent and focusing on customer service as they have done, in a world where TOCs are increasingly are more interested in protecting their image than customer service.

 

[Journeyman]

Indeed he has, but the difference is that David Horne is working for a TOC that is owned by the same branch of Government that procured the trains that are now found to have issues. LNER is doing everything it can to avoid being specific about the nature of the problem.

LNER have gone out their way to avoid mentioning the word 'Azuma' or 'High Speed Train' or reference the exact nature of the issues this morning because they want to protect both their own brands and also ensure that the DfT is protected from the fall out. It very much is self first, customer second with them.

This is what Nationalisation will bring you. It won't bring you a customer focused operator, it will bring you a single self-serving operator doing whatever it can to cover it's own back and to protect it's overlords in whoever happens to be running the Government of the day. It won't care about you or me as it's priority.

LNER could have come out with a statement like GWR and mentioned that all it's Azuma trains are being checked, but it won't do that because it doesn't want the Azuma brand to be tarnished by this so instead they are being vague in the hope that they can limit the damage to the Azuma brand.

Hats off to GWR for continuing to be as open and transparent and focusing on customer service as they have done, in a world where TOCs are increasingly are more interested in protecting their image than customer service.

I think you're reading far too much into this. You might want to take the tinfoil hat off.

 

[Essexman]

According to BBC Radio Five Live news LNER 'are hoping to have trains running as soon as possible'.
What a pointless statement.

 

[Jozhua]

Can't beat proper British engineering. Hitachi should stick to transistor radios

Lol, it'd already be going rusty if it were British.

Just been told by a manager that its only affecting the 5 car sets? I'll try do some more digging (GWR anyway)

Basically all GWR sets then lol.

This is ludicrous. If it's causing people to drive it's probably putting them in more danger. Not only that but you'd think LNER would ease up on their mandatory reservations policy but no

I mean wouldn't be ludicrous if they went flying off the rails at 125mph, closing the line for months and putting people off riding by rail, never mind the safety implications. Rail is safer than road for a reason - safety is taken seriously.

I agree on mandatory reservations though. But that was dumb before all of this.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

They were built in Japan, the 800s were built in the UK with some pre-production work in Japan.

Hitachi own the design for all 80x, and most production has been in Japan.
Assembly has been in Japan, the UK, and for some of the 802 fleet, in Italy.
Some sizeable components (not bodyshells) come from Europe/UK, but it's still a Hitachi system.
Things will change slightly with some body fabrication at Newton Aycliffe on fleets currently under construction.

 

[F Great Eastern]

LNER and GWR leaving passengers stranded? Absolutely disgusting, then again why am I not surprised....

What do you expect them to do?

Decide that they will not bother with the safety checks and run the trains anyway? I'm sure further on the line if there was an incident and somebody suffered an injury you would then blame the operators for running the train in the first place?

Absolutely clueless.

 

[AdamWW]

So what, given that trains have been withdrawn for safety issues at short notice, would you suggest that they do?

Explain (because I don't think it is obvious to most people) that it's not possible to arrange replacement road services for this number of trains at such short notice, rather than giving the impression that they don't really care?

 

[jacksmithyton]

So what, given that trains have been withdrawn for safety issues at short notice, would you suggest that they do?

Put on buses?

 

[DanNCL]

Explain (because I don't think it is obvious to most people) that it's not possible to arrange replacement road services for this number of trains at such short notice, rather than giving the impression that they don't really care?

TPE have managed it.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Hitachi own the design for all 80x, and most production has been in Japan.
Assembly has been in Japan, the UK, and for some of the 802 fleet, in Italy.
Some sizeable components (not bodyshells) come from Europe/UK, but it's still a Hitachi system.
Things will change slightly with some body fabrication at Newton Aycliffe on fleets currently under construction.

Apologies for the inaccuracies - only had a quick look on wikipedia and a couple of other places before posting.

Didn't realise Hitachi were building in Italy now, is that the old AnsaldoBreda factory that has an interesting history in terms of rolling stock quality before Hitachi bought it?

 

[Domeyhead]

Regarding "British engineering", weren't the LT D78s hastily modified when, as Roger Ford put it, their bogies decided to 'emulate the Lady of Shallott's mirror'?

It is ridiculous to imagine that in the entire history of British engineering there will not be plenty of cases of failures here and there so pulling up archaic examples of random past failures on this thread to provide some kind of context (or excuse) for the 8xx units is a fatuous exercise. Espeically so when the standards of 21st centiry manufacturing are incomparable with the spanner and micrometer of BREL days. Rather we should be demanding (as customers) that if we are going to procure from overseas it should be because the quality of the product is far superior to what we can do ourselves. It remains to be seen whether the withdrawal is a risk averse overreaction but if I was one of the affected TOCs I would now be wondering whether I should be checking every single centimetre of every single bogie for future failures on what is supposed to be a world beating product, and I would not be a happy bunny to put it mildly.

 

[Horizon22]

It is currently affecting 80% of GWR 80xs which are out of service. Disruption likely to stretch into next week.

 

[D6130]

They were built in Japan, the 800s were built in the UK with some pre-production work in Japan.

IIRC the five car GWR sets were built at Hitachi's ex-Ansaldo Breda plant at Pistoia in Italy. I certainly remember seeing a large number of them in GWR livery outside the works from a passing train about three years ago.....and a Trenitalia D445 class diesel-electic loco with match wagons was standing nearby in preparation for their long journey to and through the Channel Tunnel.

 

[Wolfie]

Explain (because I don't think it is obvious to most people) that it's not possible to arrange replacement road services for this number of trains at such short notice, rather than giving the impression that they don't really care?

Ah, if that has not been done then l absolutely agree.

 

[TRAX]

Didn't realise Hitachi were building in Italy now, is that the old AnsaldoBreda factory that has an interesting history in terms of rolling stock quality before Hitachi bought it?

Unfortunately yes.

 

[HST274]

It is currently affecting 80% of GWR 80xs which are out of service. Disruption likely to stretch into next week.

are 80% damaged or are they just checking them all still? Hopefully the latter!

 

[Master29]

I think you're reading far too much into this. You might want to take the tinfoil hat off.

Indeed. Just as needless as the comment about British engineering being the best.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Ah, if that has not been done then l absolutely agree.

There is an hourly service running on LNER routes plus replacement buses where needed between York and Edinburgh

 

[hwl]

I'm disappointed that modern technology could not have modelled stresses better to make this sort of unexpected failure a thing of the past. This seems akin to the 1950s DH Comet fatigues when all they had was a tank of water!

Modelling is only as good as input data...

 

[Horizon22]

are 80% damaged or are they just checking them all still? Hopefully the latter!

80% have failed some initial tests, but I believe more thorough ones are being conducted over the weekend. It’s no quick fix.

 

[shyanthony]

Just an update for those who may be travelling along the ECML :
I've just received a message to say that 4 of the class 92 + mark 4 sets in storage will be coming into action for LNER as a result of the 80* being out of action whilst engineers check over the remaining trains.

I'm wondering whether these will be the GC liveried sets?

 

[O L Leigh]

LNER have gone out their way to avoid mentioning the word 'Azuma' or 'Hitachi' or reference the exact nature of the issues this morning because they want to protect both their own brands and also ensure that the DfT is protected from the fall out. It very much is self first, customer second with them.

LNER could have come out with a statement like GWR and mentioned that all it's Azuma trains are being checked, but it won't do that because it doesn't want the Azuma brand to be tarnished by this so instead they are being vague in the hope that they can limit the damage to the Azuma brand.

Hats off to GWR for continuing to be as open and transparent and focusing on customer service as they have done, in a world where TOCs are increasingly are more interested in protecting their image than customer service.

LNER are essentially a Hitachi-only operator, so it is not necessary for them to specify the precise nature of the fault nor which fleet it is that is being affected. In essence, their entire operation has been paralysed due to this fault. GWR, however, have a much wider portfolio of services and rolling stock, so these issues are only affecting one part of their operation. Therefore it is important that they are specific with their announcements.

 

[Domh245]

The 800s are of course built in Britain.

Assembled in Britain, but the affected operations (welding) would have been carried out at Kasado in Japan and Pistoia in Italy...

Modelling is only as good as input data...

And only useful if what's been modelled matches what comes out of the assembly line. Welding is always going to be very tricky to model accurately, in terms of thickness, homogeneity, heat soak, etc

 

[Wallsendmag]

Just an update for those who may be travelling along the ECML :
I've just received a message to say that 4 of the class 92 + mark 4 sets in storage will be coming into action for LNER as a result of the 80* being out of action whilst engineers check over the remaining trains.

I'm wondering whether these will be the GC liveried sets?

No they’ll be the stored LNER sets that were due back in a couple of weeks

 

[popeter45]

Just an update for those who may be travelling along the ECML :
I've just received a message to say that 4 of the class 92 + mark 4 sets in storage will be coming into action for LNER as a result of the 80* being out of action whilst engineers check over the remaining trains.

I'm wondering whether these will be the GC liveried sets?

No LNER was going to keep a few 91 mark 4 sets for a few more years so will be those

 

[GB]

There is apparently now more units entering service but fewer traincrew to man them as the morning crews have been sent home due to Covid restrictions in messrooms.