Vivarail's 'D Train' - 'D' stock reborn

[Tom]

Depends on the nature of the electrification system, but probably not.

[alpinejohn]

There are some non passenger trips on the Greenford/West Ealing showing today on Realtime trains. These appear to be operated by by SLC trains? Is the 230 battery train back from Reading and doing test runs?

[Dstock7080]

Indeed it is.

[alpinejohn]

Thanks for the photo, as the red lights are still on at the rear of the train I am guessing the 230 has just arrived from Greenford - and is potentially part way through the process of topping up the batteries.


What is not clear is whether whilst the train was away in Reading they also managed to move the charging rails and stopping point further towards the buffers?

It might just be a function of the camera angle but the train does seem to a lot closer to the buffer stop and is now a metre or so clear of that painted mark on the platform.

[Dstock7080]

The additional charging points at West Ealing haven’t been installed.

[alpinejohn]

The test train is back from Reading and once again carrying out test runs from Greenford to West Ealing this week, and this visit pattern expected to be a fairly regular occurrence over coming weeks.

It seems the charging rails at west ealing have, as planned, now been repositioned a bit further along the track so they are now nearer to the buffers, and then duly signed off by the electrical supplier. This relocation ensures the unused section of the platform can safely accommodate a second train on the rare occasions it is needed whilst the test train is being fast charged at the other end.

For now the test train seems to be mirrioring the normal service pattern for part of the day - so when the service train is at West Ealing the test train is at Greenford and vice versa. They hope these trials will confirm the test train batteries and fast charging system are reliably able to support typical service pattern demands including loads associated with stopping and restarting numerous times per day whilst retaining enough capacity to return to Reading when required.

If all goes well they may at some stage start training GWR drivers to use the unit. What is not clear is whether they will need volunteers to act as ballast in order to confirm the unit evacuation processes are safe for its use in formal passenger service - a bit like they did before the Elizabeth line core opened officially or they can simply start using it for public service once they remove all the current onboard monitoring kit.

[d7666]

Plan 'A' at the moment apparently is test running Tuesday to Friday quote "for the next couple of weeks". No date yet for start of revenue crew training although 3 managers are now trained - partly that is, static, but not running.

[spsmiler]

So I went to see this today - took three attempts as it kept hiding behind other trains! If my memory is correct this is Castle Bar Park and it was due here two minutes before the train in passenger service ... and thats how I got clear sight of it!

Its colour is very dark - really needs bright sun to be seen properly, against a white cloudy sky my camera makes it look almost black

[jimbo]

Wow! Who knew this was a double-track branch? I've been wondering how the new train was shadowing the current service on a single line. Just looked at the CartoMetro map and it was a revelation! I have only seen the Greenford end of the line in the past.

[alpinejohn]

You can see a cab ride on most of the route in this video - around 13:30 you can see the Greenford shuttle in the middle platform at Greenford Station. As you can see apart from some short single track sections the route was double track.

[spsmiler]

I knew that this branch line was double track, and that it has a somewhat slow speed limit. I travelled it many years ago, out of curiosity.

I think it only survives because of its usefulness for freight trains.

re: the battery train trial, its a shame that the train is not carrying passengers - and indeed is not planned to be carrying passengers. I was hoping for a ride on it!!

[spsmiler]

Finally completed this video - I thought that the train was going to be in public service and replace the diesel, but I was wrong. So I had to rejig the very short film that I was planning to make and yesterday I went to Greenford to see it there.

So much went wrong in making this film but finally its alright on the night (as the saying goes) and I even added what I think is called an 'Easter Egg' to amuse those in the know. (The District line D stock train was going to Mansion House).

The D-Train this trial uses is 230 001, which I think might be the first train that Vivarail converted to diesel-electric. Without its diesel engines it really does sound like a District line train.

[jimbo]

Plenty of details of the West Ealing trial, and much more in this article.

For future lines there are still 12 useable D-stock driving motor cars and 43 trailer cars in storage, plus the three ex-Bedford to Bletchley line units which could potentially be converted, or the system could be applied to other fleets, although some of the benefits of the comparatively light D stock cars (energy required from the grid, recharge time, etc.) might be lost.

link to article

Why keep so many trailer cars? Are they thinking of making up longer trains?

[alpinejohn]

Jun 21, 2024 12:23:36 GMT jimbo said:

Plenty of details of the West Ealing trial......

Why keep so many trailer cars? Are they thinking of making up longer trains?

I doubt there was much if any "thought" to the number of trailers acquired by GWR. If I recall correctly the deal was primarily for GWR to obtain from the VivaRail Administrators the intellectual property rights to the fast charging system together with 230001 which had already been largely modified by VivaRail to test the system out on. It seemed the VivaRail Administrators wanted to clear the decks and made the sale of those rights conditional on GWR also accepting ownership of all the sundry D Stock rolling stock lurking at Long Marston and elsewhere. So what they got, is what they got.

As for longer Class 230 battery trains there is no reason to assume it would be impossible. However it is worth remembering that the Marston Vale route has some very short platforms where only 2 car class 230s were suitable - so major spend on platform extensions would be needed for a 3 car GWR class 230 battery powered test train to operate there and that gets rather tangled up in planning for East-West rail rather than Fast Charging.

However adding a third/fourth trailer car should not be massively problematic assuming the trailers carry extra batteries and are suitably cabled to work with the adjacent power cars, as this would give extra resilience (range) which might be beneficial on longer branch lines. The downside being potentially longer dwell times at charging stations and slower accelleration as well as the challenge of devising suitable charging controls and cabling allowing the power car to reliably feed and receive energy from those extra batteries as required. Moving from 3 car formations would however also make positioning Fast Charging infrastructure more complicated as additional sets of charging rails (and shore based battery stores?) might be required to accommodate 3 and 4 car operations from the same fast charging location (Reading?).

[spsmiler]

What a shame that none of the UNDM D stock cars were sold to Vivarail (uncoupling non-driving motors - motor cars without a driver's cab)

Ideal alternatives to unpowered trailers for longer trains

[d7666]

Jun 21, 2024 12:23:36 GMT jimbo said:

Plenty of details of the West Ealing trial, and much more in this article.

For future lines there are still 12 useable D-stock driving motor cars and 43 trailer cars in storage, plus the three ex-Bedford to Bletchley line units which could potentially be converted, or the system could be applied to other fleets, although some of the benefits of the comparatively light D stock cars (energy required from the grid, recharge time, etc.) might be lost.

link to article

Why keep so many trailer cars? Are they thinking of making up longer trains?

Because once each 3 car D78 set ex-LU service as DM-T-UNDM has lost its UNDM (which they did not buy), and then the 2car units (5 x 484, 3 x 230) using two DM and no T, and then other DM used for tests (I am pretty sure about 6 DM were used this way), and, I think, they effectively need to take 2 X DM to make each rebuilt single DM and other DM used for component recovery (especially motor bogies) for the rebuilt units, what is then left is a load of T. Somewhere (Todays Railways mag (?)) there was a list of which DM were scrapped for what reason. No more complex than that: arithmetic => simplest answer <= Occams Razor (again !).

[d7666]

Jun 23, 2024 11:55:29 GMT spsmiler said:

What a shame that none of the UNDM D stock cars were sold to Vivarail (uncoupling non-driving motors - motor cars without a driver's cab)

Ideal alternatives to unpowered trailers for longer trains

Ideal ?

Costly !

UNDM automatically needs 4car trains minimum - DM UNDM + UNDM DM (or DM UMDM DM DM if you must) or significant alterations at the UNDM 'undm' end to mate to something else.

Since the whole idea was cheap inexpensive trains, why do that ? There was never going to be a huge fleet of these things - also remember the original idea was a main line class 14x replacement so they'd not be looking at 4car for that intent.

If there ever was a need for 4car, then DM T + T DM would do it, and, as demonstrated, they have a surplus of T; why make more T (or UNT ?) out of UNDM they don't need.

Why complexicate matters ?

[roythebus]

I understand the south Western has been buying wheel sets for their Isle if Wight fleet rom scrap vehicles.

[metman]

What has happened to the Wales sets? They have been withdrawn now as I understand and might be available if really needed (unlikely)?

[Dstock7080]

Still running, except for 006 which is long term stopped.
Pictures in latest (July) Underground News.

[Dstock7080]

www.bbc.com/news/articles/c897g45ryxlo

The 8.5 mile (13.7km) Island Line on the Isle of Wight from Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin will close between 6 September and 6 October for “vital maintenance” according to South Western Railway.
Ryde Pier will close from 6 September until May 2025 “while life extension work continues.”
South Western Railway (SWR) said the month-long closure would include track and bridge renewals between Ryde St Johns Road and Ryde Pier Head, renovation to the footbridge at Brading station, signalling work at Ryde and bridge repairs in Sandown.

[d7666]

Jun 30, 2024 10:42:06 GMT Dstock7080 said:

www.bbc.com/news/articles/c897g45ryxlo

The 8.5 mile (13.7km) Island Line on the Isle of Wight from Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin will close between 6 September and 6 October for “vital maintenance” according to South Western Railway.
Ryde Pier will close from 6 September until May 2025 “while life extension work continues.”
South Western Railway (SWR) said the month-long closure would include track and bridge renewals between Ryde St Johns Road and Ryde Pier Head, renovation to the footbridge at Brading station, signalling work at Ryde and bridge repairs in Sandown.

Brilliant.

Guess who is on annual leave for 2 weeks mid September with IOW 484 pencilled in for 1 day having not yet done it mutter mutter mutter

TY for the info saves me hassle.

[d7666]

230s.

I was up around Merseyrail last week, and did have doing a 230 move from Bidston in mind.

I did not do it for various reasons one of which it is lower priority than other stuff, and limited time being 4 days on 4/8 NW rover, and inconjunction with that no more than an out and back to Shotton limit of rover area, so needed one for one move.

What I had not appreciated until last week, and I do not think has been posted on this forum, is the current diagrammed 230 use.

The Bidston / Wrexham service needs 3 circuits. They have got 5 units - 230006-230010 - that ought to cover the 3 needed diagrams, with 2 spares.

Only the /equivalent/ of one used each day: what they actually work is two half day 230 diagrams - and the other two circuits are 197 (dmu) all day diagrams.

Only one circuit is a 230 - and changes diagram half way through the day to another 230 swapped over from / to Birkenhaed North depot - look at RTT for ECS 5J72 and 5F68 at 13:15 to 13:26.

The other two duties are 197s.

Mon-Sat 24-29/06 the 230s were:
a.m. p.m.
10 08
10 08
09 08
09 08
09 10
08 10

If postings on other forums are to be believed, this is the only way they can get any reliability into the train service it being kaos for over a year when they were trying to put out three 230s, and, same forums allege this is due to "over heating of battery" - but I am merely the messenger here gen may be flawed.


Meanwhile, digressing, but keeping to "underground trains", the 9 remaining Merseyrail 507s continue with their 3 x 6car daily diagrams on the Southport line. I managed to travel on 8 of them, 6 on Monday 24/06 and 6 on Friday 29/06. 46 years old and still going. Until September apparently.

[d7666]

Jun 30, 2024 9:29:10 GMT metman said:

What has happened to the Wales sets? They have been withdrawn now as I understand and might be available if really needed (unlikely)?

see my post !

[alpinejohn]

As there are no public Greenford shuttle service operating on Sundays - If Real Time Trains are to be believed it seems GWR have taken this opportunity to run today a pretty much full day service with the 230001 along the whole route.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:GFD/2024-06-30/0000-2359?stp=WVSC&show=all&order=wtt

So far 230001 seems to be handling the planned schedule perfectly - although on one circuit it was one minute early. The schedule runs through to gone 10pm so its perhaps a bit early to be counting chickens. However this suggests that the battery unit could probably take over the current service from the diesel class 165 unit.

What is not clear is whether today's trial operation entailed having the unit calling at intermediate stations together with nominal dwell times at stations along the route. If the unit does complete the trips scheduled for today and makes it safely back to its overnight base, then it will be interesting to see whether GWR start giving serious consideration to training additional drivers so they could actually use the unit in revenue service rather sooner than expected.

This cannot come too soon as earlier this week (Monday) the GWR class 165 allocated to the service failed in service resulting in service on the route being suspended.

[d7666]

Jun 30, 2024 17:32:32 GMT alpinejohn said:

it will be interesting to see whether GWR start giving serious consideration to training additional drivers so they could actually use the unit in revenue service rather sooner than expected.

"additional" drivers is not strictly a correct term here - as yet no actual drivers have been trained - only driver managers - and it is these who are doing all this trial running. There is also AFAIK no date to start TOC link driver training, and there are ~90 to be trained in that link. They could, in theory, operate with managers (like SWT 701s do) but there is still no date for passenger running anyway, and, if they did do that, I can't see how link drivers could be trained, as they can't do /all/ the training content while in passenger service ..... and they only have one unit.

[rincew1nd]

Jun 30, 2024 12:43:09 GMT d7666 said:

Meanwhile, digressing, but keeping to "underground trains", the 9 remaining Merseyrail 507s continue with their 3 x 6car daily diagrams on the Southport line. I managed to travel on 8 of them, 6 on Monday 24/06 and 6 on Friday 29/06. 46 years old and still going. Until September apparently.

Indeed, September is the date that the Class 507 Preservation Society are working towards.

Diagram details in the post:

x.com/class_507/status/1800260489655603623?t=AqY4N0mTPpAFn-fcD9Pqmg&s=19

Anyway, back to UndergrounD trains.

[alpinejohn]

It looks like 230001 is back doing test runs from Greenford to West Ealing and indeed Realtime trains shows a full day test is planned on Sunday 4 August. They have already done an intensive test a while back on a Sunday and I wonder why they need to repeat the exercise. I suspect this latest round of testing is mostly to assess the performance and recovery time of the trackside fast charging batteries rather than the equipment installed on the train.

Sadly once this trial has finished I rather fear the project will be quietly dropped and the expertise lost as all the messaging emerging from HM Treasury suggests the new Chancellor has not got a lot of money to spend on anything. Hey Ho it was an interesting idea even if it is about to be dropped.

[Chris L]

Railways of the Isle of Wight's Facebook page has news of all 5 Class 484 units yesterday with some pictures.

002 was on the inspection road inside the depot.
004 occupied the rear depot road.
003 and 005 were in service.
001 was out on the line undergoing tests.

[Dstock7080]

www.islandecho.co.uk/flood-hit-train-back-on-the-tracks-with-4-car-testing-also-underway/#m02asvuxeripk5805zo

001 to return to service and 4-car operation to resume:

484001 – which was the first Class 484 train to arrive on the Isle of Wight – was left sitting in flood water when the Ryde St John’s depot flooded back in October. Drivers were unable to move the rolling stock quickly enough, which left the underside of the train and all of its electronic equipment and running gear in dirty water.
Since then, Island Line engineers have been stripping out the necessary parts, repairing them and reinstalling them. At the same time, the out-of-service train has been used as a source of spares.

It has also been confirmed that part of this week’s testing will be centred around bringing about a 4-car operation on Island Line.
Neil Drury, Engineering & Infrastructure Director at South Western Railway, has said that the firm’s view is to run a 4-car operation in the high season, if not this year then certainly in 2025.