The Cork Dublin Express Train has entered service

[Thomas J Stamp]

I'm very sorry to hear what happend to Sandra but you know... pis not working, lousey suspension....reminds me of when I predicted that somewhow IE would feck up these trains.

Apparently some or all MK4 sets were being sent back to Spain for modification due to computer problems and suspension.

God dammit!!! I said they's be clapped out in 5 years not three months!!!!

[Mark Gleeson]

They are not going back, when the suspension is good its good when its bad its very bad

[MrX]

Clearly they're still playing with it at the moment. I've had totally different experiences on different trains. One was totally comparable to the MK3, one was pretty "hard" and a the others have been in between.

I assume someone's got a spanner out in inchicore and is tweaking things...

[sandraoh]

[quote=Mark Gleeson]
1) Travel back to direction of travel
2) Low frequency vibration transmitted through body, a given on a 23m long coach with bad suspension
3) High speed corners the illusion of tilt by banking combined with eyes and ears getting confused by seeing the corner and not feeling it can lead to it
/QUOTE]


I travel on trains every day and don't get travel sick. Unless they are goin to make all seats face in the direction of travel, they still have a problem

[Mark Gleeson]

They are just conditions which make you more likely to feel unwell, it doesn't effect most people, it is a characteristic of the train itself

Its a case of eliminating possibles this way if we can isolate the exact cause we can get two results
1) Get it fixed
2) Get sick bags

Clearly the PR value for us out of 2 is immense

[Thomas J Stamp]

it is a characteristic of the train itself

Perhaps the staff at Alton Towers should look at it, as opposed to Inchicore.

[James Shields]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Its a case of eliminating possibles this way if we can isolate the exact cause we can get two results
1) Get it fixed
2) Get sick bags

Clearly the PR value for us out of 2 is immense

Well, from our trip on the first public run of 4002, we know that 1 is possible. Any reason why they can't get out the spanners out and sort out the rest of them?

[MrX]

I suspect that they're working on them. There are still CAF personnel on the CDE monitoring the situation. So, I can only assume that tweaks are on-going.

Is there any possibility that this is also partly why the rollout of the new stock is so slow? Trade union issues aside, it does seem like something worth sorting out before the entire batch goes into commercial service.

[Mark Gleeson]

No its a staffing/union/maintenance issue

The plans was one set to enter service every 4-5 weeks which has been followed
May 22 4002 ( was to be May 15th but we had a pointless strike instead)
June ?? 4003
July 12 4001 (was to be July 11th but staffing issues blocked it)
Aug ?? 4004

Based on that 3 sets could be in service covering 9 trips per day but due to the train manager dispute there now aren't enough of them available, the staff in Cork refuse to maintain the trains owing to some werid dispute about the new facilities

There are CAF people on the trains, most of us have seen them by now thats fairly standard the Tokyu Car crew did that on the DART for a while, to be honest there is little they can do if it breaks as I have found out.

The first day now clearly shows all the signs of over tuning, now admittedly we did cheat by sitting in the best positioned seats. IE knew everyone would be out on day one it had to be right and we bought it but even then we knew there was something funny going on. Numerous theories going around but there is one and only one part on a train that wears quick enough to cause the ride to go crazy, the wheels, 5 weeks at 2 trips per day 6 days a week is 10,000 miles more than enough to wear the profiles
I have the advantage of a 60mph run from Thurles and you notice a funny kind of stabilty it should be perfect but it feels like its doing something underneath you ride seems fine but its fighting it and that kind of speed it shouldn't, there are in fact 3 different issues

1) The busy ride indicates a low level stabilty issue => wheels
2) The excessive weaving you get implies a transfer of ride imperfections between coaches => rigid couplings
3) It feels too heavy => secondary suspension is too hard

I'll send my bill to CAF for consultation services

[ACustomer]

It seems that the slow progress in adjusting the suspension has masked the Industrial Relations problem. It looks like there will have to be another strike like last May to get people off their high horses and get things sorted out in Cork. Either that or some really stern stuff from Government (some hope!).

Any hope of a better way out of this? (short of firing lots of people on bith sides, which isn't realistic, much as one might like it).

[Mark Gleeson]

I'm fairly confident that if you plonked a MK4 on euro standard track without a 201 class lump on the back its ride would be euro standard firm perfectly acceptable

Problem is in the old days there was no warranty if you wanted to take a lump hammer to the suspension to fix a problem no one cared. If any parameter is placed outside the design spec CAF will say warranty void

The three problems are inter-linked, if you sort the busyness then the ride will clean up thus the weaving will reduce

Engineering is engineering you can't mask a fault since there are people like myself who will spot the different hum or vibration the industrial relations people can hide/lie/manipulate as required each side has there own story which rarely matches what the other guy said

So if IE says we need time for further testing you know it really means we got a staff problem

As I understand the 7am Dublin Cork and 11:30 Cork Dublin will be the next to go over, the seat booking system seems to think its a MK4 already but its not, that is a staff issue

[sean]

Hmm ... looks like we can say ... another glorious !*@# up by Irish Rail.

[Mark Gleeson]

You have no idea how bad it really is Sean

I'm waiting for the multi way blame game to go public, CAF will blame IE, IE will blame CAF, unions will blame IE, IE will blame unions. Needless to say what appears here is only the tip of the iceberg we can't verify much of what we hear some of it is crazy

Anyone from IE reading will know what I mean when I say there is a missing button on the coach control panel its got 2 off buttons but only 1 on, but thats not CAF's fault since its got nothing to do with them. I'd love to shoot whoever missed it at design stage in 1993 yes 1993

[Derek Wheeler]

Marks quote about "2 off buttons and 1 on button" is off course about the parking brake on the new MK 4s. (note to Mod, this thread is getting too technical for this section, but I'll finish anyway.)

The 201 class loco that works the MK4s has an "off switch" for the parking brake. It, apparently does not have an "on switch". Therefore, drivers have to walk back to the DVT ( driving bit at the other end) to activate the parking brake.

This is, (again, apparently) one of a few problems between the 201 loco and the MK4 sets. Other problems relayed to P11, include a difference in brake pressure. IE blame the drivers, CAF blame the locos, I blame IE engineers, who think they're still building steam locos in inchicore and management for not doing what they are paid to do, which is manage ALL ASPECTS of the company. Furthermore, one can feel sorry that these new carraiges actually mean nothing, with a 10 year old "freight" loco (thats what it is) at one end.

Maybe IE still think they're managing a company in decline and thats why they continuously salvage "old bits" to work with "new bits." Just think about the 1989 "revolution" that saw "adapted" MK3s working commuter routes with 25 year + 121 class locos!! (IRN might like them, but they're crap, outdated, ugly and surplus to requirements.) We can blame the Government for the "unique" pairing in 1989,(and the resultant UK enthuasiast dedication to keeping them "in service" till the death) as they refused funding for actual railcars. But the pairing of 201s with the MK4s was a decision made by IE and not based on funding.

The financial/investment facts speak for themselves.

Another note to MOD. Move technical aspects of this thread to Infrastructure and link it. Sorry lads.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Having just read Dereks and Mark's highly technical critique of the incompatiability issues vis a vis your actual 201 class loco and the CAF coached i would like to introduce some balance to this here debate.

The 201 locos look very nice in their new livery when they are attached to the new CDE carraiges. Except when they're the orange ones.

Dammit!!!

[MrX]

To be fair to IE management, wern't the CAF coaches ordered *BEFORE* the government loosened the purse strings on the public transport budget?

Clearly they were a shoe-string "upgradable" sollution.

What needs to be done is to keep pressure on IE and the Govt to actually use these coaches to their full potential i.e. with powercars.

You're not talking MASSIVE investment and it would impact on journey times, even without the huge track upgrades as it would improve accelleration and make use of any new 200km/h stretches that do get built as soon as they're available. It would also reduce track wear, which is a huge problem with the 201s.

Personally, I think long term high speed use of the 201s is a false economy. It will just do more damage to the rails.

I've no problem with them hauling the odd match special etc.. but they shouldn't be in regular use!

Perhaps the surplus of them could be modified to international gauge and sold off?

I'm sure someone would buy them as frieght locos.

Let CAF finish the trains by providing the matching power cars...

The MK3 project was the same.. why didn't we buy the full HST ?

You're talking about a handful of powercars, not exactly a monumental spend! and they're only 200km/h .. hardly THAT high tech in 2006

On top of that, new engines, new fuel options, more efficiency .. lower CO2 output...

Even at 160km/h power cars make ABSOLUTE sense!

The technology's easily available e.g. the new MTU and Paxman engines going into the HST fleet in the UK... Could be easily put into a powercar for the CDE or the Enterprise.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Mr X is correct. You do wonder sometimes about how these decisions are arrived at. Could the costs of two power cars be that huge?

Well, I have decided to find out. I've just e-mailed CAF and asked them what locos they would suggest and how much they are.

I'll keep you posted as to the results.

[Mark Gleeson]

Word is we will be seeing a lot more MK4 trains sometime this week, the seat reservation system is offering MK4 seating layouts on nearly all trains

Its all dependent on trains starting from Cork, we await

[Derek Wheeler]

Yep. We await. Apparently MK4 sets(by 2) are being sent to Cork on Tuesday and are expected to run services ex Cork on Wednesday. This would be a minor breakthrough since the carraiges are in the country up to a year.

Ah hell, Im cynical just because the Dubs were beaten. C'mon Cork!

[Mark Gleeson]

Latest info indicated the following trains where operated by the new MK4 coaches this morning

5:30 Cork Dublin
9:30 Cork Dublin

We await confirmation of this long promised change its been put off several times