OneTrackMinded
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Except for the press release that will presumably be released this week
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Class 701 'Aventra' trains for South Western Railway: progress updates
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Class15
Established Member
I honestly wouldn’t trust them to stick to that timeframe. Don’t hold your breath.
The_Train
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Had they been wrong to the degree of there being 45 units in service and not 5, I'd probably agree. However, whether it is 5 or 8 units, the main crux of the story remains the same. The whole thing is a shambles
OneTrackMinded
Member
Another publication has picked this upThe media has finally caught up after multiple months...
Waterloo woe: £1billion fleet of new commuter trains stuck in sidings
Only 5 of 90 Arterio trains that were due in 2019 are currently in servicewww.standard.co.uk
South Western admit they don’t know when £1bn fleet of new trains will be in service
The train operator said it is trying to speed up its training programme
www.independent.co.uk
Agreed, based on the amount of units seen in passenger service, it's safe to say that if all drivers were trained the lack of available units would still be causing delays.
Peter Sarf
Established Member
If all drivers were trained on 701s then there would be space for the 701s at depots and sidings. There is not enough space while the 455s etc have to be still in use by untrained (on 701s) drivers. So I wonder where the surplus 701s that can be used would be kept. Would SWR bother getting more into use IF they have to send them back for cold (luke warm off the electricity supply) storage due to lack of space.
It is a log jam caused by a training backlog.
Note Avanti and TPE have trod the same path of dire crew availability for the services they normally ran let alone the extra demand training on newer trains !.
The actual trains - 701s do not appear to be a problem and this has been the case for quite a while.
Otherwise why would so many of these have been accepted (80% of carriages by end of 2023) ?.
But there is a dedicated thread for discussing SWRs woes and how they might be overcome here (below) :-
Moderator note: Split from
Class 701 'Aventra' trains for South Western Railway: progress updates
Given how they can get 6 units out fairly regularly what is preventing other units from being ready for service? Previous posts report no agreement to the modifications made to allow further units into service -...www.railforums.co.uk
Three months to go until The DFT fully nationalise SWR and the ongoing TFL transition for certain suburban services.
Hopefully there are plans afoot for the complete stripping of each 701 coach to be be thoroughly examined as to all the faults and the possibility of structural defects/water ingress.
The investment in time and manpower would be wise, longer term, to check for liability relating to overall build issues sustained during the Covid "Breakdown Period".
An older team with decent experience should given eyeballs at somewhere like Wimbledon.
,First Group should bite the bullet with Alstom, and let this be undertaken post haste to prevent there reputation being further trashed beyond realistic comeback.
We are at the stage now where change is needed big time, If the overall engineering director doesn't undertake this, then his fate is now sealed.
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NSEWonderer
Established Member
There's no concrete evidence the the training delay affects anything other than maintaining and bringing out more diagrams. If there isn't more passenger serviceable units appearing quickly enough that points squarely at an issue with the 701s transitioning quickly enough into passenger worthiness. Acceptance testing is another thing all together.
Class15
Established Member
However the problem was never with the units, the problem has always been with the training of drivers. If the drivers aren’t trained, the 701s can be swapped around as much as they like but there won’t be any more diagrams.
NSEWonderer
Established Member
Thats the issue, the 701s that were being used barely swapped around till this week. So even if you had enough drivers there was at one point just only 6-7 available passenger serviceable units.
035 Potentially might be the next one to join the passenger list as its racking up the tests, that being said 25 is the unit with quite a lot of test mileage
D365
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At present, it’s only the units which are in use for driving training that could enter into passenger service alongside the existing passenger allocation.
NSEWonderer
Established Member
Yeah thats at the moment 18, 25, 44, 42 and 51.
Peter Sarf
Established Member
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But there has been no driver training of late due to problems with the training. Perhaps the two extra 701s coming into service this weeksa indicates that driver training is expected to re-start ?.
Where do you keep these extra passenger serviceable class 701s without removing some 455s from the network.
But there has been no driver training of late due to problems with the training. Perhaps the two extra 701s coming into service this weeksa indicates that driver training is expected to re-start ?.
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NSEWonderer
Established Member
Where has it been stated that SWR has no storage space for these 701s??? More specifically the 455s that are more so often getting carted off to the scraps are hogging that space? The units that are being tested for passenger service aren't over reliant on driver training(as there'd be a specfic crop available for these and other tests). Driver training is more so for increasing and maintaining existing diagrams which the increasing bit has to all eyes clearly stagnated. As mentioned the now 5 units above are already at metro depots of which they've not had to fight 455s for those spaces as those units are long at the heaps now!
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43096
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In the space vacated by 10 x 455s, 24 x 456s and 30 x 707s? That's the best part of 250 vehicles before even adding in the extra stabling space from opening Feltham.
NSEWonderer
Established Member
Indeed and Wimbo
Peter Sarf
Established Member
How many 455s have gone and how many 701s are there already on the SWR network (in use, ready for training and sat in sidings) ?.
Have a read back through the thread where various posters discus the training issues.
NSEWonderer
Established Member
What point are you making here? There is enough 701s as of current that supersed the 8-9 that have seen in passenger service and more so the 5 now that are in testing to join those 8-9. And that doesn't include units that are dotted around more so at clapham yet to be utilized. Those "extra serviceable units" you mention are simply the ones being trialed atm which was what 34 and 46 were a week ago and those were stored already in Metro land.
Training issues is one thing, that doesn't bog down units being passed as passenger serviceable, thats on Alstom and its been all too well seen at other Aventra TOCs albeit with the severities in different cases. Anyway this is going on another tangent.
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Don't forget that the class 456 and 707 fleets have gone so that will have freed up 198 carriages of stabling capacity.
Peter Sarf
Established Member
True, the 707s leaving will have freed up space for fifteen class 701s.
The 456s will hardly have freed up any space unfortunately as they were part of 10car formations with a pair of 455s.
I think we best agree to differ.
OneTrackMinded
Member
On ITV London News this evening, a story about the latest Arterio delay. Essentially this is around how how last week on Monday, Wandsworth Council's passenger group held a meeting where they asked an SWR representative about the rollout. His response was essentially that they have no idea when more trains will enter service due to the aforementioned issues (although of course they didn't not say the reason themselves).
Also includes some interviews with members of the public and responses from the council leaders.
Also includes some interviews with members of the public and responses from the council leaders.
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TonyColeman2
Member
8 of the 701’s stables at Clapham around 16.00 today which was
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Good to see this now getting the media attention it deserves - is the lack of current driver training down to a dispute/lack of agreement between ASLEF & SWR or is there more to it than that? - many thanks
Peter Sarf
Established Member
We can calculate that there is space vacated by twenty ten car trains. That is fifteen pairs of 707s and five combinations of 455+455+456. The extra 19 456s would theoretically only allow for two coaches of each of 19 ten car units. I see a lot of 455+455 combinations running around these days which corroborates that. With Clapham and Wimbledon most of that twenty is taken up.
At Wimbledon I have read that unfortunately there are parts of the depot that cannot take a ten car unit so any of those spaces freed up by four and five car units is lost !. Granted apparently a 701 can be split in two for manoeuvring around the depot (lathe ?). But I guess not easy and certainly not practical for day to day running ?.
At Clapham it looks like some of the sidings could take maybe fifteen coaches. That might mean that a ten car train could share with a four or five car unit. But alas not to be, except that is the reason for the 705/5s to fit at certain stabling locations ?.
With a lack of training I cannot see any more 455s going - well except they will be dropping out due to being out of hours !.
It means there is a log jam and the pace at which 701s can be introduced will be dictated by the pace at which training can happen thus allowing 455s to be replaced. Training is still not happening as far as I can tell from what I last read up thread ?.
I think that for training there are five units - 701018, 025, 044, 042 & 051 ?. I am assuming they could easily be put into service. So i guess not done as not enough passed drivers. Of course SWR would then have to find more space to keep other training units !.
Although 80% of the 701s have been accepted by SWR as at 2023 (December) we do not really know what it takes to get one in service. On the face of it each one should be tested and ready ?. But I reckon most of them need un-storing !.
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Class15
Established Member
It likely won’t start again until nationalisation.
Peter Sarf
Established Member
Agreed. SWR have very little incentive to do anything for the long term. The future is irrelevant to them.
It is really just like firms I have worked for in the past that have been taken over. A lot of uncertainty for all. Higher management know the end is nigh for them. The foot soldiers are just disillusioned - perhaps not in the case of SWR drivers, guards etc but still a time where some staff leave (I did from one job). So for SWR it is not just a lack of training but they might lose staff already trained on 701s !.
OneTrackMinded
Member
This is slightly different though. Yes, First MTR will no longer own the franchise. But this is not a shift to a different company, it’s one to the DfT, and with management contracts they pretty much already control it anyway. Upper management will probably get the sack but I don’t think much else will change. I’d be very happy to be proven wrong mind you, we need a proper shakeup to reap the benefits.
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Big Jumby 74
Established Member
With all respect, Peter is not wrong. This is not so much about the change from on top, be it one company to another, or one company to HMG/DfT oversight. The drivers/guards only react to orders, ie report for duty at/where xx or attend training school xxx, you get the idea, so most of those in situ will likely carry on as such, in basic terms.
The people who actually do the planning/re-planning/re-re-planning of all that this entails (never ending changing of goal posts), from train (timetable/unit/crew) diagrammers/rosterers (from whom train crew get their orders) to those training school trainers/organisers, are having by all accounts to change those plans time and time again, if we are to believe some of what is being said on here (true or not I know not?), but I can say for certain that plans that involve new train introduction are extremely complex, even if they work first time around. Drivers and Guards only get to see the last (final) version of the work they are required to do. They rarely if ever get to see the several binned versions of that same work, that the planners had to produce in the previous few weeks, that became superfluous due to a change of mind by someone at 'the top' about this or that detail. And to be clear, as a former NUR man, in latter times I worked closely with Reps from ASLEF in these matters, so I come from a non biased angle in that regard.