With an unprecedented number of new vehicles ordered since 2010 – over 8,000 – and with more orders to come, getting them safely, reliably and efficiently into service is a priority. Challenges with testing, acceptance, software, stabling, depot facilities and long fixed formation trains were recurrent themes at a recent IMechE’s Railway Division seminar and, sadly, even new train introduction was not a Brexit free zone.
But the speakers were in an unusually candid mood and the overall conclusion was “could, should and must do better”. No one actually used the word “crisis”, but “late”, “more costly”, “more risk” and “not performing as well as hoped” were all terms that featured in the presentations.
The session was kicked off with a keynote speech from Bill Reeve, director of rail at Transport Scotland. He said he was embarrassed by the record of new train introduction over the last few years and it was an inconvenient truth that the last three rolling stock projects sponsored by his department, and those for Northern and TPE where he is independent chair of the Rail North Partnership, had all been late and had suffered teething troubles. This had led to customer and other benefits – service quality, improved accessibility and introducing retention tank toilets – being delayed.
As an engineer himself, Bill said that he understood that things can go wrong, but emphasised that Ministers do not understand why rolling stock suppliers appear to promise what they cannot deliver. Moreover, Ministers remember these problems when they determine the next round of investment, despite rail’s great advantages in delivering for climate change and economic regeneration.
The rail industry often fails to recognise that it is in competition with other transport modes, and that road in particular is working hard on the key challenge of decarbonisation and the opportunity of autonomous vehicles – “with comfy seats too”, he added.
He said that the industry can and must do better. If it does, it is pushing against an open door in terms of building customer satisfaction, adding that the new sleeping cars are very comfortable and are timely as people are increasingly talking about “flight shame” and “rail bragging”.
Bill cautioned that the current UK rolling stock boom can only lead to bust. The programme represents approximately 50 per cent of the current fleet and, although some of these trains are intended to increase the fleet size, procurement at anything like the current rate would surely lead to a nominal train life of some 14 to 20 years, with a terrible embedded-carbon impact.
“with comfy seats too”, he added.
Yes, well – paging Mr Walmsley?
There’s something horribly wrong with that “artists impression” view from a supposed cab of a 3rd-rail unit … can you see what it/they might be?
Interesting background on the delays and issues that Greater Anglia is having in introducing their new Stadtler FLIRT trains, multiple pressures including a glut of vehicles arriving before operational readiness has been achieved. I think this compromised the fault free running tests (which clearly were not sufficiently thorough enough, evidenced by issues in early running especially Cromer/Sheringham branch).
Also gaps in design and testing for exceptional cases, leading to situations (a few months ago) with the new Thameslink trains which shut down in service (when trying to recover from power supply problems) and reportedly could not be reset by driver or remotely, needed engineer attendance to reset stuck software.
“The rail industry often fails to recognise that it is in competition with other transport modes”
I take issue with this comment. When it comes to mass transit the aim should be to move as many people as possible as efficiently as possible with as little environmental impact as possible.
If (and that is a big if) it transpires that there is actually an effective way to do this by road, air, or whatever else you can dream up, then this should be pursued.
Self driving electric cars are a positive step in road’s favour, although there are many more challenges to overcome for road to become “better” than rail with regards to the above criteria.