GWR withdraw some 800's due to cracks (ORR Report now published)

[Clarence Yard]

The only real reason why there hasn't been consistent 9 or 10 car operation on the line to Penzance this summer has been the lack of available units. With a COVID timetable, 80 available cl 80x units would have given GWR all the units they could have wanted, without resorting to shortforming elsewhere.

I have the luxury of seeing the loadings figures for GWR services and some of the comments here about certain services being over resourced are wide of the mark - you need to see what a unit has to cope with over the entirety of it's diagram, not just the service you see at a particular point in that one journey.

Granted, some imagination would have had to take place to manage the Penzance end to achieve consistent 9 or 10 car operation, where there are severe stabling constraints, but it would have been do-able.

In fact it was do-able in the pre-covid situation. The contract allows for an extra 9 car to be available FO-SuO and every day during summer. The weekday DA2 high summer diagrams were designed so that this effectively freed up 2 units to cover the mid-diagram gaps as well as augmenting two of the 5 PZ starters and finishers. Two of the remaining three PZ starters and finishers pick up a fresh LA unit at Plymouth so they just run through to/from PZ or go to/from ECS from LA. That leaves only one early PZ starter and finisher as a 5 car and PZ would otherwise be all 9 or 10 car.

The fact that GWR chose a different way to resource their summer services is down to them. There was also one Bristol to London starter that, in high summer only, can come down to a 5 car so that was designed to augment the 063x departure from Paddington and 234x arrival back.

We've had the argument over why the fleet was 5 car many times before and it was because of a) all year round loadings, b) cost (units and PZ stabling) and c) justifying the Cornish half hourly, which was the overriding consideration. At the start of the DA2 negotiations the 222 fleet were the DfT's preferred solution, to be used in much the same way as now. Refurbishing HST sets was never really an option, due to the huge cost. Getting a fleet of 9 car 802 sets (rather than just 7 car) was also a task and not all of the initial 7 were for the SW - 2 were authorized for North Cots services, where the DfT hadn't specified the cl.800 stock for the demand correctly and FG dug them out of that hole.

Only when the all year round loadings justified lengthening everything to 9 car and spending the money sorting out Ponsondane, would all 9 cars to the SW be authorized. In fact there were some lively arguments about the need for an additional unit for FO-SuO and summer - the DfT/Treasury view about forcing or pricing off excess demand was still about and that only really desisted when the words "marginal constituencies" were used!

When Hitachi finally get to a position of being able to reliably supply 80 units for GWR, the lack of accommodation (on all lines - others are suffering too) will start to be eliminated.

 

[Horizon22]

And I hate to bang on about it, but quite simply if the west of England line had been all 9 car units from day one, then we would not be suffering all these ridiculous short forms.
Yes there may have been some additional cancellations elsewhere of quieter services but the core intercity routes would keep full length trains. The idea that the main London to Cornwall line is suffering from 5 car sets at this time of year is frankly absurd.

Hypothetically, had GWR gone for all 9 car units and no 5s , with the cracking crisis then we would probably be hiring sets in from whoever in order to run the service. And would that really be such a bad thing? Couple of hired in long HSTs? Would passengers really be worse off than they are now, being crammed onto a 5 car set full and standing for 4 hours or more.....

You consistently say this and whilst your not wrong about W. Country services, I doubt you have seen how busy a 5-car Swansea can get. Everywhere ends up suffering. Just as likely to be full and standing as a Plymouth or Penzance train at times and even Bristol can be rammed - although less often and even less with the Bristol East working going on. Even this bank holiday weekend there were 9-car trains to S. Wales full (although I suspect that was people wishing to travel earlier for whatever reason). With misbalances and cross-working there’s always an aim to get the 9/10 car 802s back on a W.Country diagram at Paddington by swapping over but it’s not feasible every single time.

All 9-cars (with maybe a small number of 5s for say Oxford / Worcester / Cheltenham) would be great but @Clarence Yard (as he has many times) has explained why this isn’t the case.

Hitachi / Agility will need to be continually pushed about their performance. They’ve tried to get by on a fairly skeleton maintenance and engineering team and this clearly hasn’t been successful and they’ve been hiring more staff past 12-18 months to return to acceptable levels of availability. At the moment on a daily basis they are normally still short of the 65 service units needed to run the current timetable however, hence the short forms. And the unit displacement caused by the bridge strike and a couple of new units with cracks hasn’t helped. Nor GWRs crew position which was awful last week.

 

[fgwrich]

You consistently say this and whilst your not wrong about W. Country services, I doubt you have seen how busy a 5-car Swansea can get. Everywhere ends up suffering. Just as likely to be full and standing as a Plymouth or Penzance train at times and even Bristol can be rammed - although less often and even less with the Bristol East working going on. Even this bank holiday weekend there were 9-car trains to S. Wales full (although I suspect that was people wishing to travel earlier for whatever reason). With misbalances and cross-working there’s always an aim to get the 9/10 car 802s back on a W.Country diagram at Paddington by swapping over but it’s not feasible every single time.

All 9-cars (with maybe a small number of 5s for say Oxford / Worcester / Cheltenham) would be great but @Clarence Yard (as he has many times) has explained why this isn’t the case.

Hitachi / Agility will need to be continually pushed about their performance. They’ve tried to get by on a fairly skeleton maintenance and engineering team and this clearly hasn’t been successful and they’ve been hiring more staff past 12-18 months to return to acceptable levels of availability. At the moment on a daily basis they are normally still short of the 65 service units needed to run the current timetable however, hence the short forms. And the unit displacement caused by the bridge strike and a couple of new units with cracks hasn’t helped. Nor GWRs crew position which was awful last week.

I think the biggest thing we can at least all agree on, is the DfTs obsession with a largely 5 / 10 Car Railway has been farcical, and that a one size fits all approach has not worked, leaving us with the mess we have now. Regardless of the “it should be 5/9 car length on such and such a route” debate… we should have at least had more longer sets ordered for both GW and EC operations. Time will tell how this plays out for the Midland based units, although Abellio at least seems intent on correcting some of the design issues that plague the units currently in service.

 

[Horizon22]

I think the biggest thing we can at least all agree on, is the DfTs obsession with a largely 5 / 10 Car Railway has been farcical, and that a one size fits all approach has not worked, leaving us with the mess we have now. Regardless of the “it should be 5/9 car length on such and such a route” debate… we should have at least had more longer sets ordered for both GW and EC operations. Time will tell how this plays out for the Midland based units, although Abellio at least seems intent on correcting some of the design issues that plague the units currently in service.

I personally see the benefit of 5-cars for a bit of extra flexibility where required, but I agree that they have got the balance wrong. Anyway this has been discussed before and is somewhat off-topic from the 80x cracks issue.

 

[irish_rail]

You consistently say this and whilst your not wrong about W. Country services, I doubt you have seen how busy a 5-car Swansea can get. Everywhere ends up suffering. Just as likely to be full and standing as a Plymouth or Penzance train at times and even Bristol can be rammed - although less often and even less with the Bristol East working going on. Even this bank holiday weekend there were 9-car trains to S. Wales full (although I suspect that was people wishing to travel earlier for whatever reason). With misbalances and cross-working there’s always an aim to get the 9/10 car 802s back on a W.Country diagram at Paddington by swapping over but it’s not feasible every single time.

All 9-cars (with maybe a small number of 5s for say Oxford / Worcester / Cheltenham) would be great but @Clarence Yard (as he has many times) has explained why this isn’t the case.

Hitachi / Agility will need to be continually pushed about their performance. They’ve tried to get by on a fairly skeleton maintenance and engineering team and this clearly hasn’t been successful and they’ve been hiring more staff past 12-18 months to return to acceptable levels of availability. At the moment on a daily basis they are normally still short of the 65 service units needed to run the current timetable however, hence the short forms. And the unit displacement caused by the bridge strike and a couple of new units with cracks hasn’t helped. Nor GWRs crew position which was awful last week.

Too be fair im not suggesting short forming the Swansea either. The shortfall needs to come on the shortest routes, ie Bristol, as this is where the passenger inconvenience will be least.
Seeing a 9 car 802 pull out of Paddington recently, with Banbury as the destination , and probably about 50 people on board justifies my concerns.

I accept everything Clarence Yard says, however for me a complete re write of the unit diagrams is needed now. An aspiration to return to running 10 car trains to the SW is hardly sustainable in the new railway due to the higher costs , and for all but the very quietest trains 9 (not 10 sets) should be used.
The tens make far more sense on the "Bristol suburban" and peak hour stuff surely?

 

[Horizon22]

Too be fair im not suggesting short forming the Swansea either. The shortfall needs to come on the shortest routes, ie Bristol, as this is where the passenger inconvenience will be least.
Seeing a 9 car 802 pull out of Paddington recently, with Banbury as the destination , and probably about 50 people on board justifies my concerns.

I accept everything Clarence Yard says, however for me a complete re write of the unit diagrams is needed now. An aspiration to return to running 10 car trains to the SW is hardly sustainable in the new railway due to the higher costs , and for all but the very quietest trains 9 (not 10 sets) should be used.
The tens make far more sense on the "Bristol suburban" and peak hour stuff surely?

I agree there's still some "peak" workings which in the medium-term will need to be looked at in terms of a suitable usage of rolling stock. That being said, even W. Country services are hardly full either in the 1700-1800 timeframe. The shortfall shouldn't be on the "shortest" routes but the least loaded which probably goes Bedwyn (although they only get 5-cars anyway) > Oxford > Cheltenham > Worcester/Hereford (although more empty after Oxford) > Bristol / Weston SM > S. Wales > W. Country (although the latter is highly seasonably variant, especially now with all the domestic holidays). That's a very rough guide - certain specific services will obviously be more demanding of extra capacity.

A complete rewrite is probably required yes, but as per most things "post-pandemic" there's still a lot of uncertainity and its too early to say exactly what the needs will be.

 

[irish_rail]

I think most on here agree that too many 5s were ordered in comparison to 9s.

So, heres a suggestion. As compensation for the cracking issues , how about Hitachi provide some additional coaches to make some of the 5s upto 9s. Or even 7s?

 

[Clarence Yard]

I think most on here agree that too many 5s were ordered in comparison to 9s.

So, heres a suggestion. As compensation for the cracking issues , how about Hitachi provide some additional coaches to make some of the 5s upto 9s. Or even 7s?

They haven't admitted liability yet.

 

[option]

At the expense of the company that screwed it up. These companies know they run these huge financial risks when doing such actions, if they didn't want to take the consequences they should never have signed the contracts in the first place.


I am not certain which is exactly why I used the words "may" and "suggested" rather than claiming it as fact. I was referring to the fact that there appear to have been, if I recall correctly, some directors that had been registered for both the DFT and Agility/Hitachi.

I was very simply saying it was worthy of some further investigation as there could potentially be a conflict of interest, I didn't claim it as fact.

Companies house is a public resource so feel free to look it up yourself.

If I am mistaken then I am happy to stand corrected and correct the record in my previous post.

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There's a LOT of Directors around, as there are multiple 'Agility Trains' entities.
eg. Agility Trains East is owned by Agility Trains East Midco, which is owned by Agility Trains East Holdings, which is majority owned by Hitachi Rail Europe.
There is then Agility Trains West, with the same lineage.

 

[Horizon22]

They haven't admitted liability yet.

And indeed they were running test units just a month or so back to run along various bits of the GWML with testing equipment on to see if the infrastructure was at fault. Seems to be somewhat clutching at straws with the same units having issues at LNER on a totally different set of tracks.

 

[irish_rail]

And indeed they were running test units just a month or so back to run along various bits of the GWML with testing equipment on to see if the infrastructure was at fault. Seems to be somewhat clutching at straws with the same units having issues at LNER on a totally different set of tracks.

I guess its just a matter of time.

 

[DanNCL]

Welcome to Crossrail

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There's a LOT of Directors around, as there are multiple 'Agility Trains' entities.
eg. Agility Trains East is owned by Agility Trains East Midco, which is owned by Agility Trains East Holdings, which is majority owned by Hitachi Rail Europe.
There is then Agility Trains West, with the same lineage.

That example you give there, in addition to being a currently active director for Agility trains is also an active director at Porterbrook, Cross London Trains Ltd and HS1 Ltd, as well as a couple of other companies which I haven't been able to find any rail link too. Definitely seems questionable.

I think the potentially questionable links between directors at Agility and other companies would warrant a dedicated thread.

And indeed they were running test units just a month or so back to run along various bits of the GWML with testing equipment on to see if the infrastructure was at fault. Seems to be somewhat clutching at straws with the same units having issues at LNER on a totally different set of tracks.

Internally at Newton Aycliffe, according to a couple of employees there that I've spoken too, they're trying to blame it all on the former Ansaldo site in Italy. This is of course despite these cracks having been found on 800s and 801s that have absolutely zero link to the Italian site!

There was a statement made made by Hitachi a few years ago (although I can't remember where I saw it, if I can find a link I'll share it) regarding the Kobe Steel scandal, when they mentioned that some of the metal used on the 80xs may have come from the suspect batches from Kobe Steel. Hitachi have recently retracted that and are now saying that it didn't!

 

[Charlie Smythe]

cost (units and PZ stabling)

Only when the all year round loadings justified lengthening everything to 9 car and spending the money sorting out Ponsondane, would all 9 cars to the SW be authorized.

Given the collosal amount of money thrown (yes thrown, not spent) at the IEP/IET's and the depots in Swansea, Stoke Gifford, Reading as well as North Pole, would it really have been much of stretch to have spent a few more million on some sidings at Ponsondane? I don't know how many would have been needed, but they would have had to have been at least 260m long for the 10 car IET's. From the very end of the Morrisons service yard to the start of the coach depot is 330m, not plenty of room for 3 or 4 long sidings and some shorter ones for HST's, Voyager's and 5 car 80x's.

Add to that the potential for additioanl stabling at Tavistock Junction should there be the need as well as Exeter Riverside and you really can see how many opportunities GWR have had to add stabling in Devon and Cornwall. Why Tavistock Junction or Exeter Riverside weren't chose for a depot I will never know. They're both more central to Devon and Cornwall than Penzance and they both have acres of space compared to the poxy space that Long Rock has.

The lack of stabling improvements in Devon and Cornwall leading to shorter trains screems a lack of ambition and interest from the decision makers in both the DfT as well as GWR.

Hitachi / Agility will need to be continually pushed about their performance. They’ve tried to get by on a fairly skeleton maintenance and engineering team and this clearly hasn’t been successful and they’ve been hiring more staff past 12-18 months to return to acceptable levels of availability. At the moment on a daily basis they are normally still short of the 65 service units needed to run the current timetable however, hence the short forms. And the unit displacement caused by the bridge strike and a couple of new units with cracks hasn’t helped. Nor GWRs crew position which was awful last week.

He is right about the WoE services, they're appauling and there is nothing and no one to blame other than the fact that there are to many 5 car sets and the not so bright spark that ordered them.

As for Hitachi/Agility, they won't be pushed. The DfT is obsessed with all things Hitachi and as of yet I have not seen a reason as to why they should be. Their product is average and the service is less than that so I reckon that Hitachi will get away with giving a poor service just because it's Hitachi. My God would I love to sit down with the people in GWR and the DfT who ordered these trains and just ask them why, why did they think it was a good idea.

Newton Aycliffe

That's another farce and all and is living on borrowed time. Reality is that Newton Aycliffe has been saved by all the cheap addon order TOC's as if they hadn't have come along NA would be closed. They have until 2023 to get more work, which seems unlikely else they will be shut, probably for some time as well.

Hitachi have recently retracted that and are now saying that it didn't!

Surpised they did, as they could have palmed this big bill onto Kobe.

They haven't admitted liability yet.

They will, they're backed into a corner as they can't blame it on Kobe because their statement was retracted, they can't blame it on bad track, Dawlish or whatever because it's on multiple TOC's and they can't blame it on bad maintenance because they do it themselves.

It's either Kobe providing poor steel that wasn't up to the specification required, or Hitachi just specified a steel grade that was inadequate for the job.

 

[DanNCL]

As for Hitachi/Agility, they won't be pushed. The DfT is obsessed with all things Hitachi and as of yet I have not seen a reason as to why they should be. Their product is average and the service is less than that so I reckon that Hitachi will get away with giving a poor service just because it's Hitachi. My God would I love to sit down with the people in GWR and the DfT who ordered these trains and just ask them why, why did they think it was a good idea.

It's all down to politics. The UK Government want to appease Japan, and a way to do that is by handing siginificant sums of money to Japanese companies, such as Hitachi and Nissan.

That's another farce and all and is living on borrowed time. Reality is that Newton Aycliffe has been saved by all the cheap addon order TOC's as if they hadn't have come along NA would be closed. They have until 2023 to get more work, which seems unlikely else they will be shut, probably for some time as well.

Best outcome for Newton Aycliffe both politically and for the long term future of the site would be for Hitachi to sell the site to Stadler. Would be a huge political point scorer for the politicians as not only would it allow them to claim that Hitachi have been "punished" for failing with the 80xs so badly, but would also allow them to claim the upcoming Tyne & Wear Metro fleet as built in the North East, scoring the Tories even more points with voters in their target red wall seats in the North East.

Surpised they did, as they could have palmed this big bill onto Kobe.

They will, they're backed into a corner as they can't blame it on Kobe because their statement was retracted, they can't blame it on bad track, Dawlish or whatever because it's on multiple TOC's and they can't blame it on bad maintenance because they do it themselves.

It's either Kobe providing poor steel that wasn't up to the specification required, or Hitachi just specified a steel grade that was inadequate for the job.

It's a difficult one as they could throw the blame at Kobe Steel for providing poor aluminium (yes I was confused by that too!), but if that was seen as potentially bringing the entire structual integrity of these trains into question, which would have been a risk if Hitachi had gone down that line, then that would have been the entire 80x fleet gone overnight and remaining out of action for a very long time (if not permanently), which would have (through the Agility contract) cost Hitachi significantly more than admitting it was a poor design would. So from Hitachi's point of view it's probably better to allow the blame to fall on them to some extent, and not dump it all on Kobe Steel.

Samples from a couple of GWR units have been sent away to both the UK's Welding Institute and the Japanese equivalent, so if sub-standard aluminium was supplied by Kobe that'll be revealed sooner rather than later regardless what Hitachi say on the matter.

I hope the IEP contract and everything about it eventually gets shown up by the media for the scandal that it is.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

But the low floor flirt trains are absolutely awful for the majority of intercity passengers and feel more like trams. Lets hope that stadler isn't the way forward. The vast vast majority of people don't give two hoots about level boarding.
Its not too late for the 80x fleet. It just needs tweaking and could yet still be a highly successful train eventually.

The vast majority of passengers don't really care about crew pay and conditions either...

See how "most people don't care" can be used as an excuse to avoid addressing all sorts of things, but it doesn't make it right. I don't need the level boarding but I might do one day, as might any of us.

 

[43096]

It's either Kobe providing poor steel that wasn't up to the specification required, or Hitachi just specified a steel grade that was inadequate for the job.

You have a lot to say, but haven't grasped that the material is aluminium. Not steel.

 

[Charlie Smythe]

So using your logic, the HST sets will be around for another 25 years!?

Not a chance. The Castle sets will be gone as soon as sufficient DMUs (158/175 or similar) can be found: they’re a very expensive way of providing regional services.

Not quite. The IET’s aren’t exactly the best built things so there is a chance. I doubt they will last another 25 years

You have a lot to say, but haven't grasped that the material is aluminium. Not steel.

My mistake, my point still stands whether it be steel or aluminium.

 

[DanNCL]

You have a lot to say, but haven't grasped that the material is aluminium. Not steel.

To be fair, the company that supplied the metal has got the word Steel in their name, so it's not an unreasonable assumption to make.

 

[Charlie Smythe]

Makes me wonder how much profit is built into the IEP contract for Hitachi? How many poor performance fines and repair costs can they swallow before their profit is gone. Surely this yaw damper repair will take out their profits.

 

[dgl]

With all that is happening over the 80x's it a bit like Hitachi showed the government a shiny and that was enough to get the contract, pus the political point scoring of "we'll assemble the trains here".
Hitachi sort of became yes men without realising that just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done and tat things that work on the continent may not be practical here.

If you asked a group of people whether they would like a train building contract to a company that would assemble them here but they would be unreliable or ones built somewhere else but that were reliable, let's hope the new Siemens factory in Goole (when it's ready) will make trains to Siemens standards as I would assume Siemens would be quick to close it if the quality of their output was no good.
Though as Honda and Toyota proved (and Nissan before the Renault partnership) you can get quality, reliable vehicles assembled in Britain if you do it right (noting that Mini and JLR seem to still have quality/reliability issues, Land Rover especially).

 

[D365]

Door faults, ETCS faults (which the lack of a traditional speedometer on the non-GWR units means the unit is a complete failure if the ETCS system isn't working, despite none of the routes being ETCS equipped)…

Siemens ETCS mandates an ”alternative speed display” that is switched on automatically when the ETCS computers are isolated. Does Hitachi not provide something similar?

 

[coppercapped]

Given the collosal amount of money thrown (yes thrown, not spent) at the IEP/IET's and the depots in Swansea, Stoke Gifford, Reading as well as North Pole, would it really have been much of stretch to have spent a few more million on some sidings at Ponsondane? I don't know how many would have been needed, but they would have had to have been at least 260m long for the 10 car IET's. From the very end of the Morrisons service yard to the start of the coach depot is 330m, not plenty of room for 3 or 4 long sidings and some shorter ones for HST's, Voyager's and 5 car 80x's.

Wow, what a rant...!

A couple of minor corrections - the Train Care Depot at Reading has nothing whatever to do with the IEP/IET/Class 80X programme at all. It was built as a replacement for the Class 165/166 maintenance depot at the Triangle Yard and maintains the Class 387 (and some other) trains but not the Class 80X.

The Class 80X maintenance depot at Swansea was not built, as far as I know there are only stabling facilities there.

So there are only two Agility/Hitachi managed depots on the Western, Stoke Gifford and North Pole. One can argue as to whether this is sufficient or not.

Add to that the potential for additioanl stabling at Tavistock Junction should there be the need as well as Exeter Riverside and you really can see how many opportunities GWR have had to add stabling in Devon and Cornwall. Why Tavistock Junction or Exeter Riverside weren't chose for a depot I will never know. They're both more central to Devon and Cornwall than Penzance and they both have acres of space compared to the poxy space that Long Rock has.

It makes sense to stable/maintain the trains at the end of their journey, such as at Penzance, in order to avoid as much empty coaching stock working as possible, for example back to the maintenance depot at Plymouth.

Few trains formed of Class 80X terminate at Exeter, though more may do in the future if the semi-fast service along the Berks and Hants comes to fruition. Some 5-car stabling/light maintenance facility might then be appropriate.

The lack of stabling improvements in Devon and Cornwall leading to shorter trains screems a lack of ambition and interest from the decision makers in both the DfT as well as GWR.

Lack of stabling facilities in Devon and Cornwall is not the fundamental reason for the number of short formed trains.

He is right about the WoE services, they're appauling and there is nothing and no one to blame other than the fact that there are to many 5 car sets and the not so bright spark that ordered them.

One of the 'bright sparks' involved is now dead.

As for Hitachi/Agility, they won't be pushed. The DfT is obsessed with all things Hitachi and as of yet I have not seen a reason as to why they should be. Their product is average and the service is less than that so I reckon that Hitachi will get away with giving a poor service just because it's Hitachi. My God would I love to sit down with the people in GWR and the DfT who ordered these trains and just ask them why, why did they think it was a good idea.

GWR/fGW had nothing whatsoever to do with the decision to order the trains. The contracts were made by the Department for Transport and the IEP batch of trains issued to fGW/LNER for their use. This has been public knowledge for at least 12 years - do keep up.

That's another farce and all and is living on borrowed time. Reality is that Newton Aycliffe has been saved by all the cheap addon order TOC's as if they hadn't have come along NA would be closed. They have until 2023 to get more work, which seems unlikely else they will be shut, probably for some time as well.

Surpised they did, as they could have palmed this big bill onto Kobe.


They will, they're backed into a corner as they can't blame it on Kobe because their statement was retracted, they can't blame it on bad track, Dawlish or whatever because it's on multiple TOC's and they can't blame it on bad maintenance because they do it themselves.

It's either Kobe providing poor steel that wasn't up to the specification required, or Hitachi just specified a steel grade that was inadequate for the job.

As other have pointed out, the material is an aluminium alloy not steel.

That the components have cracked may be due to one or more of several reasons, in no particular arder:

• the material selected was unsuitable for the application
• the material composition may have varied outside its specified limits
• the welding procedure may have been unsuitable
• the post-welding heat treatment procedure, if any, may not have been suitable
• the assumptions made in the design stage about stress and strain levels and reversals in the various components may not have been suitable
• data supplied to Hitachi about track conditions may have been incomplete or inaccurate
• the suspension may be feeding higher vibration levels into the body than anticipated
• etc.

Hitachi will obviously defend its position vigorously - as a great deal of money is at stake - and this story will run and run. In the meantime the over-riding necessity is to get the trains working again...

...and perhaps to ask why, apparently, the Class 395 trains have not suffered similar problems - or at least publically to the same extent. Was, for example, the same aluminium alloy used in these coaches, the design of which is similar to the Class 80X? Were they welded in the same way?

Makes me wonder how much profit is built into the IEP contract for Hitachi? How many poor performance fines and repair costs can they swallow before their profit is gone. Surely this yaw damper repair will take out their profits.

The trains in the IEP contract are paid for by a Total Train Service Provision contract - essentially 'power by the hour'. Basically the train has to be presented on time and clean at the beginning of a diagram and Agility gets paid when the train completed the diagram successfully. No show - no pay; and if it goes 'twang' during the day the payment is adjusted downward. There was a let out clause for the first three or so years to allow for a shake-down period.

So, if Hitachi finds a fix it will have to pay for the repairs itself - unless the DfT cuts some other deal. But repairs should only take a year or three, after which the situation will revert to the status quo ante meaning that the TOCs/GBR/whoever will continue paying for the trains. They will still have a couple of decades to the end of the IEP contracts to write off the costs, so don't worry about its profits in the long term.

The costs of the damage to Hitachi's reputation is impossible to guess at this stage.

What the situation is for the trains that have been bought outright by the leasing companies, I don't know. I can only hope that the purchasers have some cast-iron guarantees that won't crack under stress...

 

[DanNCL]

The Class 80X maintenance depot at Swansea was not built, as far as I know there are only stabling facilities there.

It was built, but has only been used as stabling facilities.

As other have pointed out, the material is an aluminium alloy not steel.

That the components have cracked may be due to one or more of several reasons, in no particular arder:

• the material selected was unsuitable for the application
• the material composition may have varied outside its specified limits
• the welding procedure may have been unsuitable
• the post-welding heat treatment procedure, if any, may not have been suitable
• the assumptions made in the design stage about stress and strain levels and reversals in the various components may not have been suitable
• data supplied to Hitachi about track conditions may have been incomplete or inaccurate
• the suspension may be feeding higher vibration levels into the body than anticipated
• etc.

Much of the aluminium used in the construction of the 80xs came from Kobe Steel at the same time as some of their output was found to have had falsified strength and durability data. Hitachi had previously said that the 80xs may have been affected, but almost as soon as they were questioned on it after the cracks were discovered on the 80xs Hitachi retracted their previous statement on the matter.

You'd have thought that if the strength of the specified material wasn't good enough this would have been found in the pre-construction crash simulation computer tests. Though of course if the metal that's been used isn't to the same specification as that worked on the basis of for the computer modelling then that's meaningless.

...and perhaps to ask why, apparently, the Class 395 trains have not suffered similar problems - or at least publically to the same extent. Was, for example, the same aluminium alloy used in these coaches, the design of which is similar to the Class 80X? Were they welded in the same way

The 395s use the same aluminium alloy as the 80xs, and were welded the same way (friction stir welded). The 395s were built 10 years prior to the 80xs and have a different design of yaw damper bracket, as well as 20m bodies as opposed to the 26m bodies of the 80xs.

The 385s would be a more comparable fleet. They were built at the same time as the 80xs and have the same aluminum alloy used, same welding method and same design of yaw damper brackets. The biggest difference between the 385s and 80xs is the 23m bodies of the 385s. Cracks were found on a small number of 385s, but not to the same severity as those seen on some of the 80xs, and none of them were deemed severe enough to warrant removal from service pending a temporary repair.

The trains in the IEP contract are paid for by a Total Train Service Provision contract - essentially 'power by the hour'. Basically the train has to be presented on time and clean at the beginning of a diagram and Agility gets paid when the train completed the diagram successfully. No show - no pay; and if it goes 'twang' during the day the payment is adjusted downward. There was a let out clause for the first three or so years to allow for a shake-down period.

Agility also gets paid less for diagrams that are short formed.

I would be interested to know if Agility had to contribute towards the costs of getting guards trained up to work the 387s west of Didcot, and for the early re-activation of the 91+Mark 4 sets. Both of those were carried out within a week of the cracks first being discovered on the 80xs.

What the situation is for the trains that have been bought outright by the leasing companies, I don't know. I can only hope that the purchasers have some cast-iron guarantees that won't crack under stress...

I'm not sure about those ordered by First Group companies, but I remember Abellio saying that EMR would not accept delivery of any of the 810s until a permanent fix had been found for the cracks, and that fix had been implemented on all of the 810s.

Siemens ETCS mandates an ”alternative speed display” that is switched on automatically when the ETCS computers are isolated. Does Hitachi not provide something similar?

Unfortunately not. It isn't an issue on the GWR units as they have a speedometer linked to the ATP system, it's just the LNER, TPE and Hull Trains units that have this issue.

 

[Irascible]

If only there was some sort of centre of engineering for this country's rail system that had an understanding of the dynamics of our network & attempted to design suspension to match it...

Anyone know more details of how the trains are handed over to the TOC every day? for instance, if they need rebuilding & it adds 3t to each vehicle & track access charges go up, who eats that given it's not an in-service failure? or any other unexpected permanent negatives due to fixing this issue.

 

[Clarence Yard]

It’s not the strength of the batches of aluminium supplied that is at issue here - it’s the chemical composition of the grade specified and the forces that it is subjected to in the particular environment the trains operate in that is in question. The 395 sets are not comparable.

7xxx grade aluminium is a strong material but it can crack - users in other non-rail applications have also found this out. You have to very careful how you weld it as the weld may be strong but the metal around the weld may then have issues. A wet humid environment can also exacerbate the inherent SCC problem with this material.

The strong suspicion is that Hitachi may have specified the wrong material for the job the bolsters have to do. Nothing that has been said or discovered so far indicates otherwise but we await further news. We also await exactly how Hitachi think they are going to fix this for the long term.

 

[hwl]

It’s not the strength of the batches of aluminium supplied that is at issue here - it’s the chemical composition of the grade specified and the forces that it is subjected to in the particular environment the trains operate in that is in question. The 395 sets are not comparable.

7xxx grade aluminium is a strong material but it can crack - users in other non-rail applications have also found this out. You have to very careful how you weld it as the weld may be strong but the metal around the weld may then have issues. A wet humid environment can also exacerbate the inherent SCC problem with this material.

The strong suspicion is that Hitachi may have specified the wrong material for the job the bolsters have to do. Nothing that has been said or discovered so far indicates otherwise but we await further news. We also await exactly how Hitachi think they are going to fix this for the long term.

I'd add that the design choice of the T5 heat treatment (much cheaper than T6 family of heat treatments in a train bodyshell case) and lack of post weld heat treatment will have been a significant contributor in my view (HAZ and SCC issues are magnified by T5 compared to T6). This is a production cost saving measure that has come back to give them a giant kick up the posterior. I suspect Hitachi will have been worried about extrusions deforming under solution heat treatment and so didn't opt for a solution heat treatment to avoid those potential problems. Gut feeling suggests that weld up the cracks (if needed) thne solution treat (with induction) all the bracket areas including the uncracked ones and go down the T4 route overall.
Other small design features such as not tapering the ends of plates will also have increased stresses and been a minor incremental reason.

It would be interesting to know the cracking rates of the different geometry combinations of the different bogie, floor height and bracket geometries would be interesting.


The Kobe issue was that they weren't doing quality control testing (but saying they were and providing fake paper work), the material did actually exceed the specifications hence Hitachi withdrawing the comment,

Much of the aluminium used in the construction of the 80xs came from Kobe Steel at the same time as some of their output was found to have had falsified strength and durability data. Hitachi had previously said that the 80xs may have been affected, but almost as soon as they were questioned on it after the cracks were discovered on the 80xs Hitachi retracted their previous statement on the matter.

The Kobe issue was that they weren't doing quality control testing (but saying they were and providing fake paper work), the material did actually exceed the specifications hence Hitachi withdrawing the comment.

You'd have thought that if the strength of the specified material wasn't good enough this would have been found in the pre-construction crash simulation computer tests. Though of course if the metal that's been used isn't to the same specification as that worked on the basis of for the computer modelling then that's meaningless.

The issue is that post weld strength of the alloy on microscale won't have been modeled (let alone measured sufficiently in the first place?)

The 395s use the same aluminium alloy as the 80xs, and were welded the same way (friction stir welded). The 395s were built 10 years prior to the 80xs and have a different design of yaw damper bracket, as well as 20m bodies as opposed to the 26m bodies of the 80xs.

The welds concerned are MIG not FSW. FSW is effectively limited to flat simple geometry welds.

The 385s would be a more comparable fleet. They were built at the same time as the 80xs and have the same aluminum alloy used, same welding method and same design of yaw damper brackets. The biggest difference between the 385s and 80xs is the 23m bodies of the 385s. Cracks were found on a small number of 385s, but not to the same severity as those seen on some of the 80xs, and none of them were deemed severe enough to warrant removal from service pending a temporary repair.

Some of the bogie type and floor height combinations on the 80x aren't on the 385s. Inside frame were less problematic for example?

 

[APT618S]

The trains in the IEP contract are paid for by a Total Train Service Provision contract - essentially 'power by the hour'. Basically the train has to be presented on time and clean at the beginning of a diagram and Agility gets paid when the train completed the diagram successfully. No show - no pay; and if it goes 'twang' during the day the payment is adjusted downward. There was a let out clause for the first three or so years to allow for a shake-down period.

As the contract is "Power by Hour" who decided how many trains needed to be built in the first place ? Have Hitachi/Agility simply overestimated availability and therefore under built ? I presume there is zero chance they could be forced to build more trains to allow for poor availability ?

 

[skyhigh]

Unfortunately not. It isn't an issue on the GWR units as they have a speedometer linked to the ATP system, it's just the LNER, TPE and Hull Trains units that have this issue.

How does this tie in with this post on another thread?

ETCS is not operational, you are correct. However Azuma has this installed, and certain faults with that system can cause issues with Azuma, usually speedo fault, and not being able to pressurise the doors.
If this happens, depending on the nature of Fault, they can continue using the speedo displayed on the TMS (train management system), but not always.

 

[JamesT]

As the contract is "Power by Hour" who decided how many trains needed to be built in the first place ? Have Hitachi/Agility simply overestimated availability and therefore under built ? I presume there is zero chance they could be forced to build more trains to allow for poor availability ?

Agility will have decided how many trains were required to meet the specification. It will be an internal decision by them as to whether the loss of income from not being able to supply enough trains outweighs the cost of building more units.
Also, where would they build these new units? I think their existing production lines are busy producing 80x variants for other UK franchises. Do they delay those to rush out some spares for GWR and presumably then have to pay a penalty for late delivery? Assuming this issue is eventually fixed, what would they now do with the extra units?

 

[Charlie Smythe]

The Class 80X maintenance depot at Swansea was not built, as far as I know there are only stabling facilities there.

It was built, because it exists. It is only for stabling that is true but it still cost money so my point still stands.

It makes sense to stable/maintain the trains at the end of their journey, such as at Penzance, in order to avoid as much empty coaching stock working as possible, for example back to the maintenance depot at Plymouth.

Few trains formed of Class 80X terminate at Exeter, though more may do in the future if the semi-fast service along the Berks and Hants comes to fruition. Some 5-car stabling/light maintenance facility might then be appropriate.

Okay that's fair enough, but would it not have made sense to build a proper IET depot in Penzance on the Ponsandane site to look after the WoE fleet instead cramming them into a small depot that is only really built for smaller trains and the CNR locos and coaches?

As for Exeter, it depends on how many terminators there are. Where they would put such stabling I don't know but Exeter New Yard and Riverside do spring to mind. Exeter New Yard has a very restrictive track layout so is a little aakward.

Lack of stabling facilities in Devon and Cornwall is not the fundamental reason for the number of short formed trains.

No, but it is a significant contributor what with the Penzance issue as others have said.

One of the 'bright sparks' involved is now dead.

That's sad to hear.

GWR/fGW had nothing whatsoever to do with the decision to order the trains. The contracts were made by the Department for Transport and the IEP batch of trains issued to fGW/LNER for their use. This has been public knowledge for at least 12 years - do keep up.

To be fair, with this bit I was more on about the 802's which GWR did have a lot to do with. Trust me I am keeping up.

As other have pointed out, the material is an aluminium alloy not steel.

This was my bad, but the point still stands.

The costs of the damage to Hitachi's reputation is impossible to guess at this stage.

Hopefully this debacle will help to stop the DfT and literally every TOC brown nosing Hitachi.

What the situation is for the trains that have been bought outright by the leasing companies, I don't know. I can only hope that the purchasers have some cast-iron guarantees that won't crack under stress...

As with anything you buy, if it's not up to standard and doesn't do the job you go back the manufacturer and get them to rectify it. It will go to court and Hitachi will lose, it's almost certain given the circumstances.

If only there was some sort of centre of engineering for this country's rail system that had an understanding of the dynamics of our network & attempted to design suspension to match it...

Anyone know more details of how the trains are handed over to the TOC every day? for instance, if they need rebuilding & it adds 3t to each vehicle & track access charges go up, who eats that given it's not an in-service failure? or any other unexpected permanent negatives due to fixing this issue.

Whoever was at fault for the issue in the first place so probably Hitachi unless they push it onto Kobe Steel which is unlikely.