INFORMED SOURCES e-Preview February 2010
Normally, the last few days before Christmas are spent catching up on filing and administration. But this year it was media frenzy as everyone wanted to know how snow had stopped five Eurostars in the Channel Tunnel. While I don’t ‘do television’, believing that the bandwidth allows only for sound bites where radio allows more detailed explanations, I did ‘appear’ in absentia on, of all places, the English language France 24 TV Channel, with a photograph on the screen.
Isaac Newton forces bi-mode re-design
Rolling Stock Plan RIP
Eurostar – what price redundancy?
Railway costs back under the microscope
Rolling stock updates
In the January 2010 column I was quite rude about the claim by Transport Minister Chris Mole that between
When briefed by
Rudery
But, for once, my rudery at Mr Mole’s expense actually generated a response. Not directly, of course, but a ‘senior informed source’ at DfT Rail was sufficiently incensed, or embarrassed, to tell a mutual chum that: ‘A 10 car bi-mode IEP has two transformers rated at 2.38MW (i.e. a total of 4.76MW) and a 2.4MW diesel engine’. And Hitachi quickly confirmed that the bi-mode specification has been ‘refined’ during the commercial negotiations and it is now a full-strength electric train, with two 2MW traction packages plus a diesel power house for running away from the wires.
This was the configuration I had expected when writing about IEP back in the February 2009 column. And, after a steady battering from this column over the past year, it looks as though the IEP procurement team has finally conceded that the laws of physics cannot be over-ridden by 20 motored axles and seven seconds of neck snapping acceleration.
And now, suddenly, instead of radio silence, everyone is keen to brief me on the latest developments with IEP. So more to come. Meanwhile, my brother, who did the comparative analysis of IEP and bi-mode performance for me, reckons, tongue in cheek, that if the diesel engine now has to haul two dead transformer cars through
Well, I think he was joking. But watch this space.
Rolling Stock Plan in limbo
In the December 2009 Informed Sources we left Rail Minister Chris Mole saying that updating the Rolling Stock Plan (RSP) was proving a ‘big challenge’ and that the pressure was now on to ‘get it out before Christmas. On 14 December DfT Rail conceded defeat.
In a parliamentary statement Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said that while the Government ‘remains committed to providing an additional 1300 carriages by mid-2014’, a revised RSP depended on the new Thameslink trains deal being finalised. But to keep me out of mischief he was able to provide ‘some detail of recent and projected rolling stock procurements’.
Political number
To recap, the 1300 vehicles was a political round number which included the initial deliveries of the new Thameslink Electric Multiple Units. Subtracting the Thameslink contribution gave around 970 new vehicles.
Thameslink new train deliveries affect the RSP because
cascading the existing Thameslink Class 319 fleet, is the key to avoiding the cost of new rolling stock for Lord Adonis’ electrification schemes. There is already a mismatch, With the Liverpool-Manchester electrification expected to be commissioned in early 2013, six months or so before the first Class 319s could be cascaded.
Now, with the three additional lines to be electrified in the Northwest ‘opening in sequence between 2014 and 2016’, the Class 319 cascade becomes even more critical.
This highlights the inherent contradiction in the RSP. It was not a plan but a Rolling Stock Interim Capacity Bodge aimed at finding 1300 new vehicles in the five year Control Period which started on 1 April 2009. A proper rolling stock plan would start with the withdrawal dates for existing fleets and work back. In contrast, the RSP assumes that all existing rolling stock will remain in service in perpetuity.
Given the current financial pressure on the railways this is now a prudent policy. But it needs to be made explicit that available investment is sufficient only for additional, not replacement, stock.
Adonis’ statement ran through the known cascades and I have put these into a Table, identifying by Class the numbers quoted, and filling in the numbers where the Statement is particularly vague. There is also a commentary for each Train Operator in the Table.
Generally it all adds up, except for Southern where my analysis is a few vehicles short. More to follow.
What this all means is more life extension. Lord Adonis statement on the additional electrification schemes said that the arrival of the Class 319s in the
Eurostar debacle – more questions than answers
Experience tells me that it is unwise to attempt to prejudge the findings of major incidents which trigger inquiries. What can be done is to record what happened and put what information is available into a technical background.
Thus this month’s column lists the five Eurostars which failed in the Channel tunnel on 18/19 December and what happened next. On the cause of the failures, the best information is that the fine powder snow got into the rear power car through the driver’s door seals and gaps in the bodywork and accumulated on traction control equipment. In the heat of the tunnel, the snow melted and the moisture knocked out the electrically equipment.
Earlier reports, repeated in the Inter Governmental Commission report of 23 December, claimed snow in the traction motors was the cause. But unlike direct current machines in the 1991 ‘wrong kind of snow’ failures, AC machines are not affected by moisture.
More important than the cause, to my mind, is how five trains, designed to get passengers safely out of the Tunnel under the most extreme circumstances in the event of fire, could all be immobilised.
Hardware
Remember that the Eurostar’s traction equipment and control systems allow a train to uncouple at three points and drive on, leaving either a power car, or the evacuated half of the train behind. Within each train there is massive equipment and control system redundancy.
So if weather related problems can immobilise not one but five trains designed to be driven out of the tunnel under the most extreme situations, something is clearly wrong. If there really is a single-point failure mode, the Eurostar Tunnel safety case will need re-validation.
All should become clear when the independent review into train failures, being led by Christopher Garnett, who before taking over GNER was Commercial Director of Eurotunnel, in conjunction with the French Inspecteur Général des Ponts et Chaussées, reports at the end of January.
Financial trouble ahead?
Overlooked in the excitement of the further electrification schemes in North West England in Chancellor Alistair Darling’s Pre-Budget Statement on December 9, was the parallel announcement of a joint study by the Department for Transport and the Office of Rail Regulation ‘examining ways to improve value for money’ in the railway sector.
This is all very early 1980s and, I suspect, reflects the view within the Department of Transport that the current cost of the railway is ‘unsustainable’. The new study will examine the ‘overall cost structure of all elements of the railway sector’ with the aim of identifying options for ‘improving value for money to passengers and the taxpayer while continuing to expand capacity as necessary and drive up passenger satisfaction’.
A scoping study is promised by the end of March 2010 with the inquisition staring work after the election. Note that the study will be expected to make ‘recommendations’. Worrying.
Rolling stock updates
My chums at Hitachi thought I was a bit lukewarm in my comments on the 1 million miles without a failure recorded by the replacement traction inverters since the first converted Class 465 was handed over to Southeastern in March 2009. Apparently the three year reliability target is 600,000 miles Mean Distance Between Failures. With 74 conversions handed over the Class 465s have now run 2 million miles without failure.
Given that the original traction kit was giving 38,000 miles per failure it will be interesting to see what the new overall train reliability in the NFRIP figures when the conversion is complete.
Meanwhile the new Thameslink train procurement could be linked to politics. It may be coincidence, but DfT Rail has set a deadline of 25 March to choose the supplier. If the General Election is held on 6 May, 25 March marks the start of the six weeks of ‘purdah’, during which the Government can’t make major announcements.
You may also be wondering why there has been no announcement of a preferred bidder for Thameslink. Since declaring a preferred bidder, and then firming up the contract, gives the supplier the advantage, the new policy is to keep Bombardier and Siemens in play and whoever is making the best, affordable, offer by 25 March wins.
Roger’s blog
First, a clarification. Last month several subscribers pointed out that if the Modern Railways lunch started at
January is usually quiet but events are starting to come in. Last week Chiltern unveiled what it terms ‘the largest domestic passenger rail project to be funded without recourse to taxpayer support since before World War II’. I still reckon an electrified Chiltern is the most cost effective solution to more capacity between
HS2L submitted its report on 31 December, not the day before as the DfT Press release stated. It won’t be published until March, but look for fireworks when it emerges that the option of routing the new line to the
Part 2 of the HS2L study, proposals for a future national high speed rail network, following on from the London-Birmingham HS2, is expected to show a strong business case for serving the Birmingham-Nottingham-Sheffield-Leeds axis. Apart from faster journey times to and from
This coming week it is the Fourth Friday Club where Tony Miles will be running the ‘Golden Whistles awards for the best performing TOCs. Guest speaker is Tim Shoveller of East Midlands Trains.
After that, there is a transport ticketing conference, which I may visit if time allows. Then on 10 February the Railway Division of the IMechE is holding a wheelsets conference which I must attend because I have been invited to give the keynote address. I suspect that this honour is less due to technical expertise than the fact that I am probably the only person who can remember the only other conference on this subject in 1989!
Roger