Dipping into the BBC Local News revealed the following-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-56902528

Perhaps some of our industry insiders have more information? It's just as well this has come to light (and hopefully will be resolved) in current circumstances when traffic is light.

 
It doesn't sound like anything more than you might expect from a new train.  A bit more detail here, with poster Clarence Yard explaining the situation very well (as always) on the second page...

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/gwr-withdraw-some-800s-due-to-cracks-in-yaw-damper-bolsters.216705/

 
If this was an isolated problem,  I would be at least somewhat forgiving.
However taken together with all the other faults and failures, these are starting to look pretty rubbish.

Failure to couple and uncouple reliably, despite this being an "essential requirement"
Failure to cope with the waves at Dawlish, also an "essential requirement"
Overheating in hot weather.
Poor ride.
Unreliable toilets.
Unreliable reservations.
Poor quality trim and fittings.

And a general failure to meet the required levels of availability that resulted in frequent short formations, forgotten about  with the reduced passenger numbers in the pandemic. But no doubt to return.

The poor standards of passenger comfort and facilities are arguably due to the TOC policy of "what downgrades can we get away with" and not Hitachi's fault, but still gives a poor impression.

 
For one moment I thought I was going to get through a broadgage post on IETs without the inevitable word appearing. You teased me until almost the end.

 

Having read the posts on railforums I am reminded that every time I travel over the Cotswold line on an IET there are some loud thumping noises while traversing the Paxford curves between Campden tunnel and Moreton in Marsh.

 

Which word ? I avoided calling them DMUs, out of deference to those who state that they are not REALLY DMUs despite being powered by underfloor engines.
Neither did I mention buffets, as the lack thereof is not really Hitachi's fault.
Did not even mention the failed trolley service which IS PARTLY Hitachi's fault, since they designed the sloping floors, and they made the "greatly improved" trolleys. The steeply sloping floors, and "wonky wheels" on the trolleys were frequently given as reasons for no trolley/static trolley/hidden trolley. Such factors do not help, but I feel that GWR are not serious about trolley provision, and regard this as a temporary or interim measure between a proper buffet and the longer term aim of nothing.(as on SWT, and others)
Did not even criticise the hard seats or lack of gangways.

 

That's most of the broadgage bingo card ticked off and it's not yet 0700!  An omen for a productive day? 

 
As the wellknown quote goes:

" 'To lose one set of yaw dampers (CAF) may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two
(Hitachi) looks like carelessness."

Possibly a combination of inadequate design to cope with poor track as mentioned by TonyM

 
Also concerning in my view is that these failures have occurred on what are still relatively new trains.
Fatigue failures have two main causes, poor design and a certain inevitability after the planned service life.

Good design consists largely of avoiding "stress raisers" such as sudden changes of shape or cross section in highly stressed components. For this reason the windows in aircraft and ships are either circular, or rectangular with rounded corners. A rectangular design with sharp corners would be liable to stress fractures at the corners. Likewise highly stressed engine components are designed without sharp corners. A narrow piston rod is connected to the wide piston by a curved formation not a straight transition from rod to disc, which would be liable to stress fractures.
Hitachi engineers are no doubt aware of this, it is basic engineering.
The other part of good design is selection of the correct materials, strong but not too hard/brittle. This is a bit more complex, and it is possible that unsuitable material was used, either wrongly specified, or correctly specified but the actual material used was different, perhaps in some subtle way that was not obvious.
And of course good design includes designing for the stresses to which a component will be subjected in its life. That includes rather a lot of unknowns.

Eventual fatigue failure is almost inevitable in highly stressed components, that is why intensively used aircraft have a limited life, determined in either flight hours, or by number of take off cycles. Life could be extended almost indefinitely by stronger construction, but that would render the machine too heavy to fly economically.

Fatigue failure after say 35 years, on a train designed to last 27.5 years would be nothing remarkable.
Fatigue failure only about 10% into the design life is much more concerning.
It suggests either poor design, defective materials, or the stresses being so badly under estimated that failure occurred very early in the planned life.

 

House!

 
The much exulted Mark 3 coach (Mk3) and High Speed Train (HST) power cars suffered from cracks in bogie components right from the early days in the mid 1970's.  The worse failure was the brake disks on the power cars.

Nothing new, remember these trains many more miles in a week than almost any other form of land vehicle,

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

 
This sort of thing happens with most new train designs as I said.  In fact it was a similar problem on a new train from a different manufacturer which prompted the check that led to its discovery on a small number of units.

I expect regular inspections, maintenance and an eventual modification will mean this is soon forgotten about by everyone...except Broadgage.

 
Even I will forgive and maybe forget, provided this does not become a frequently recurring or long ongoing problem.

 

Hitachi don’t make the trolleys…..

 
But presumably Hitachi specified or supplied the trolleys ? They have an Hitachi asset number affixed, or did when I last looked.

 

I'm not sure they did. Both the Master Availability and Reliability Agreement  (MARA) and Train Availability and Reliability Agreement (TARA) as published (dated 2014) include "Level 4 catering trolley" in their definition of terms under catering equipment, but neither mentions therm in the text. At that stage (after Agility was given a contract, but before the interior design was fixed) "trolley storage facilities" was listed as one of the subjects to be dealt with by "consultation with the user population" under "progressive design assurance".

It looks as if it became clear later on that the trolleys could only be sensibly kept with the trains in the depots, so were best maintained by the Train Service Provider (TSP) (Agility). The way the contracts are set up that means the Train Service Provider(TSP) has to own them, but not necessarily decide their specification. However, they don't appear on the (very long) list of spares to be held by the Train Service Provider (TSP), so I assume this was a late change and covered by a contract change not in the public version.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

 

Before VickiS has reads this and has a coronary, MARA stands for "Master Availability and Reliability Agreement", TARA stands for "Train Availability and Reliability Agreement" and TSP stands for "Train Service Provider"

Hope that clarifies things more than my Marsh Barton post did...although I must give them bonus points for the use of "consultation with the user population" under "progressive design assurance" - Outstanding!

 

Of course the words chosen for the name of something, abbreviated or not, can be a poor guide to what it really is or does - as you hint there. The MARA is 731 pages of ... stuff (to be credited to Hogan Lovells International LLP), so there's plenty of room for things to hide until you search explicitly for them or stumble across them. For example:

Seats are included under progressive design assurance, with each mention worded as "seat design, including comfort". But there are more words about the "Seat Weight Model":

Seats also get a mention under "Glass Case Standards". What's one of them? (There is a definition provided, fortunately.)

 
Before we lose sight of the original matter, have they been fixed yet?

 

I've not seen any news. perhaps a more important question now is how many others have been found on inspection across all fleets. But replacing a few bogies should have been quite possible.

The Master Availability and Reliability Agreement (MARA) lists "major incident spares", essentially parts of the carriage bodies only likely to be bent by a collision, and "damage and vandalism spares", essentially running gear, some of them  likely to be broken by hitting things on the track or by passenger misbehaviour. However, the list also covers items needed for routine maintenance, where performance is the Train Service Provider's (TSP)'s responsibility. It may be hard to split that list on a "who pays" basis.


Either way, the level of spares holding should be a good guide to how many such things can be found at once. The parts' names, on the other hand, are hard to interpret in some cases without a labelled diagram. The list is is no logical order, and names short, so where bits go is ambiguous (e.g. is the "Lateral Bump Stop Rubber" part of a toilet door or a bogie?). These look relevant, or in some cases obvious things that may give some context:

Pantograph Complete             10
Vacuum Circuit Breaker (VCB)  5
Main Transformer                  2
Induction Traction Motor        6
Bogie Truck Assembly (Motor)  8
Bogie Frame                         4
Air Spring                            8
Traction Link                        6
Anti-Rolling Equipment           8
Wheel Set (M)                     16
Bogie Truck Assembly (Trailer) 6
Bogie Frame                         4
Wheel Set (T)                      16
Carbon Strip                        80
Wiper Blade With Rubber        80
Yaw Damper                        40
Lateral Damper                     40
Lateral Bump Stop Rubber      10
Brake Pad                           170
Primary Vertical Damper         40

That list is for the original GWR 800/801 fleet, and appears to be subject to revision at the contract date. But it does suggest that enough bogies could be found quickly, unless they are all trailer bogies (I don't think they can be). Assuming this is still a production item, new castings to replace the cracked ones should also be available on a slightly longer timescale.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

 



Thank you very much Lee for that explenation! Much Apprechiated!

 
So there are enough bogies and yaw dampers in stock to hopefully fix up a couple of trains until more can be brought in from Japan, if that is where they are made, or cast somewhere more local. This could be a very short term problem, provided a way of stopping it happening again has been found.

 
I think it’s probably worth pointing out that the fix for this fault is not changing bogies or yaw dampers, as a few posts above seem to be suggesting. The cracks that have been discovered are on the body shells in the area where the yaw damper brackets are welded to the body shell

Some photos and reporting can be found on the rail business UK website (free registration maybe required to access the full article) https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/fatigue-cracks-sideline-gwr-class-800s/59012.article

 

I agree.

Hitachi will carry out monitoring of the fleet, identify if its a batch / build issue metallurgical analysis etc.  They will almost certainly conduct an engineering risk assessment into the likelihood, consequences and severity of a catastrophic failure.

What mitigations can they put in place, reduced max speed untill a repair is effected etc

 

Thank you both, for that clarification.

This happens in aviation to a degree. A certain wide-bodied jet based on an adaptation of a previous model began to show cracks at one of the points that was different to the earlier plane. At 500 mph and 38,000 feet, any failure would have been catastrophic. A fix was quickly found, tested and applied, and monitoring afterwards has shown it to have been successful. I am sure we will soon see a similar outcome with the IETs.

 

Thanks for that, I was presuming that the cracks were in the Yaw dampers or bogies, expensive but replaceable or repairable components.
Cracks in the body shell sound more challenging. Presumably minor cracks can be monitored or perhaps "stop drilled*" to prevent them spreading.
Major cracks would seem to require cutting out the damaged part and welding in a new section. Welding of aluminium is a challenge and there can be some risk of new cracks starting from the join.

Are there any publicly viewable pictures of the damage, not requiring membership or subscription to view ?

*"stop drilling" is a technique used primarily on aircraft. When a small and not yet dangerous fatigue crack occurs, it tends to spread because of the concentrated stress at the end of the crack. Spread can sometimes be prevented or delayed by drilling a small hole at the end of the crack. This spreads the forces around the circumference of the hole rather than concentrating them at one tiny point at the end of the crack.
Regular inspection is required not only of the "stop drilled" part, but also of similar parts elsewhere on the vehicle or on similar vehicles.

 

814012 is out and about today on a diagram, so it can’t be too bad.  I imagine it’ll be more a case of monitoring rather than repair for the time being.

 

 

 

 
And TPE services such as Newcastle to Liverpool now (06:20) starting to show up as "delayed" then "cancelled".

 
All GWRs are affected as well.

 
I presume that many Great Western Railway (GWR) services are also 5 car only.
These are not of course short formations, but show the merits of flexible train length.

They should have kept High Speed Train's (HST)s, not indefinitely of course, but for a few years just in case something like this happened.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

 
Looked on Dawlish cams and 1A71 went through as a 9 car 802  7 minutes late at 06.50.

 

Indeed - reported ahead of the flood of other TOCs ...


Chosen headline of "Cancellation to services at London Paddington" rather confirms how London-centric thinking is, and noting "no alternative means of transport"; at short notice, that last seems brutal but may be honest - LNER are offering some limited buses but I wonder how that will turn out.


Hmmm ... probably a massive expense with unlikely any payback.

We know there are risk assessments and contingent plans for all sorts of scenarios.  Is there such a plan for a complete fleet (class) being taken out of service - not the first time, after all - I remember something on Heathrow Express ...

 

Already on the line when the "stop order" came out??

Edit to add ... it was 05:00 off Laira - though ran late.  06:00 off Laira - next train - cancelled.
Interesting to see if it runs all the way to London ...

 
GWR advice is now "do not attempt to travel" on most of their long distance services.

 
Sounds pretty serious. Shame so many High Speed Train (HST) sets have already been cut up at Sim’s Newport 

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

 

Serious indeed - but do we yet know if it's going to be something to which is going to be long running, and will the problem remain as "deep" as all stop until whatever it is has been either checked or fixed on every train?   Noting that the IET that set of this morning early from Plymouth - at last look. was running all the way to London and at scheduled speed

 
Presumably Hitachi will be covering the cost of hiring alternative rolling stock, and buses. And yes I know that alternatives are limited, but every little helps.
And Hitachi will of course be applying for some form of emergency derogation to permit use of heritage stock on the less busy parts of the national network.
Use preserved steamers and mark 2 coaches on the branch lines and in the far West, thereby freeing up castles, turbos, pacers and the like for the more intensively used routes nearer London.

Is Tornado available ?

 
Looking like sets are being inspected and released for service if the issue that’s been raised isn’t found on that particular set.

 

https://www.a1steam.com/where-tornado-is-now/

Next scheduled run 22nd May.

Was you question serious 

 

Semi serious.
If the IET problems carry on for more than a day or two, then yes consideration should be given to use of Tornado, Flying Scotsman, and the like to provide a limited service.
I doubt that enough charter stock is available for anything like a full service, but even a few services are better than doing nothing.
Much more likely though is simply ongoing advice not to travel.

I expect that disruption will be ongoing. Todays level of cancellations suggests a more serious problem than was the case initially. Even if only a handful of units have cracks at present, there is a risk of future cracks suggesting a need for frequent examinations.
And even if the cracks are considered minor and non dangerous, they are liable to get worse, again requiring frequent examinations and withdrawal for repairs when the cracks get worse.

 
Now being reported on BBC news at 08:26am saturday morning

 
Being covered on BBC News now.

Virtually no notice for those intending to travel and no alternatives provided

Another self inflicted injury and a dreadful advert for GWR/the railways as they attempt to recover some business and attract new customers - these trains are, by railway standards, brand new.

This type of regular chaos is one of the reasons why the car will always be king.

 

Virtually no notice - what do expect? Run them with a potentially serious defect?  Boeing did that until there had been many fatalities!

No alternatives provided - what do expect them to do at no notice?  Perhaps you would like your season ticket price to increase to provide a whole standby fleet of trains or buses in warm storage (with regular staff training so that they can be used anywhere on the network) to be brought out at a moment's notice for just such an eventuality. 

The failure is that in the drive to reduce costs we have become over-reliant on one model of train. This sort of thing happens to cars as well (though usually only as a result of accidents as they do provide notice) and they are recalled, but there are many makes and models so the impact is much smaller. 

 
National Rail on twitter

 
BBC news website

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57036247.amp

 

Good.

No SWR?   Ah ... bussed west from Salisbury!

 

I didn't see myself suggesting that trains should be run with serious defects?  Contrary to the prevailing culture on the railways however, I'm looking at the fallout from the customer perspective.

You can fire back with passive/aggressive rhetoric if you wish, but it'll be the verdict of those standing on platforms in the rain, or who have had to cancel long awaited trips to see family and friends which will count in the end, and I suspect that verdict will ultimately see many of them on the M4 next time.

My understanding was that this problem was first flagged almost a fortnight ago, so one would imagine some sort of contingency  or at least advance communication could have been arranged.

 

Regretfully, I agree. Whilst this particular problem is a new problem, it needs to be taken in the context of other major failures of "the railway"
Large scale signaling failures that have resulted in no effective service from major London termini, and huge disruption resulting from moderately adverse weather during which airlines and motorways operate as normal.

For reasons previously given elsewhere in these fora, I am opposed to flying and driving. If however people are to be tempted out of cars and aircraft, then "the railway" needs to up its game.
A reliable service of full length trains, even in hot weather, cold weather , snow, rain, and high tides.
Enough capacity to cope with Christmas, School holidays, Cup finals, Easter, Rugby internationals, Pop concerts, festivals, bank holidays, and all the other events with which they miserably fail to cope with.

Had the IETs been otherwise good trains, I would be a bit more forgiving, but this is the latest and arguably the most serious failure of a generally failed design.

And yes I know that High Speed Train's (HST)s and other "proper trains" suffered from various faults and failures, but I do not EVER recall general advice  to "not travel" by train resulting.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

 

I agree. It is a crying shame that over 300 High Speed Train (HST) Mk3 carriages have now been scrapped.

These trains were very popular with the travelling public with many years of life left in them. Following refurbishment, some are still in service with Scotrail, Cross Country and GWR as "Castle" sets.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

 

Apologies if my response was seen as aggressive.

I am sure we all accept that the impact on passengers will be damaging to the industry at a time when confidence is already low.  

However, my point remains that you cannot go for cost cutting and have a resilient railway at the same time.

On road travel my second worst* travel experience was a 5 hours stuck on the M4 trapped by a lorry fire. So roads have their problems as well.  

*My worst being on FGW when I was on the 1845 train from Paddington on Friday 8 September 1995 which was trapped by the fire on the 18.30 Paddington to Swansea train near Maidenhead after the one where the HST caught fire. Still that could have been worse as I initially got on the 18:30 train but got off again as it was too overcrowded and I couldn't face standing all the way to the first stop at Reading.


They were, but as I understand it the ones that have been scrapped had severe corrosion so were probably at the end of their economic life.  The lack of any form of crash protection for the driver has also recently been highlighted on here http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=23891.msg305382#msg305382.  The rules were that passengers could not be in the power cars as they weren't sufficiently protected in the event of a crash, but this means that the driver is somehow seen as expendable.  Not an argument that is easy to sustain morally. 

 

What a fiasco.
Time to send for the army ! and yes that IS A SERIOUS SUGGESTION. Not to run the trains, HM forces would be subject to similar constraints as the TOCs.
I would send for the army for the specific task of refueling the SWT units since "the railway" is clearly unable to cope with the logistics of this hugely complex task.
With HM forces refueling the SWT units, a limited alternative to the GWR services could be provided. AND the buses at present being used could be redeployed to replace a few GWR trains.


Under normal circumstances, the inability of the railway to refuel some DMUs away from the usual depot, would be just normal railway incompetence.
However with the defective trains on GWR, circumstances are not normal and extreme measures are called for.

 
Now being suggested it is related to the lifting jack pockets rather than yaw damper fixing

https://twitter.com/philatrail/status/1390956711922610177?s=21

 

I thought it was that from the start - those pesky jack pockets! 

 

Interesting, but I do not find the linked reports entirely clear.
Are the originally reported cracks now believed to be due to the lifting jack pockets, and not due to the yaw damper fixings ?

Or are there now two different sorts of cracks, yaw damper related and lifting pocket related ?

 
https://www.facebook.com/gwruk/posts/10157820336986806


Slightly unfortunate what it's followed by a linked post saying


- perhaps not the most tactful of things to advertised below the "don't travel today" headline?

 
Looks like there's a skeleton service on the Cotswold Line, at least - Iris/RTT appear to show one five-coach IET running, and apparently there was a Turbo earlier.

 
Now 75 cancellations compared to 17 early this morning.
And that is about 75 EXTRA cancellations and not 58 extra as one might suppose, since the earlier cancelations have now dropped of the system as they would have completed their journey.

Many other part cancelations.

 
CrossCountry apparently not accepting GWR tickets  -  someone has raised the very good point about people at the end of their trip who need to get home and are now stranded in the absence of GWR making alternative arrangements, rather than those who were planning to embark today.

GWR remaining silent on that one, but I suspect a lot of taxi drivers will be eyeing upgrades to Aston Martins after this weekend.

 

I wouldn’t say this is a regular type of chaos, can you remember the last time something similar happened?

 
Posting this from the comfort of an IET between Charlbury and Hanborough... so at least some are still running!

 
Hindsight being marvellous ... what an excellent day to extend 387 services to Cardiff ... even if that reduces their frequency between Paddington and Didcot.  And what an excellent day it would be for all tickets to be "any reasonable route, any operator" in the circumstances!


The time all HEX trains were taken out of service?   When was that?

The question, is though, whether you consider "Something similar" from a train operators viewpoint (i.e. all trains of a class suddenly out of service) or from a customer's viewpoint (my train and alternative services also not running)

 

No it is not the REGULAR type of chaos, but is instead a new and improved type of chaos.
The more usual types of chaos are large scale signaling failures resulting in no effective service, and moderately adverse weather. Over-Head Line Equipment (OHLE) faults safety inspections were added  to the traditional cock ups, and now we have fatigue failures on the new trains.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

 
Had another look at dawlish warren 1A60 as a 5 car 802 went through. Not listed on Realtime trains.

A 166 hurtled through operating 2T14 to Paignton and a shuttle 5Z42/43 etc using the 2 car 165 between Newton Abbott and Exeter

 
There's currently an additional hourly fast Paddington-Didcot service stopping only at Reading and formed of 387s - departure times are at xx.30 from either end.

 

Presuming that this is accurate, and I have no reason to doubt it, I wonder what would happen to a passenger with a valid GWR ticket who boarded a Cross Country service and refused to pay again.

If the case went to court, I suspect that a jury might not convict the accused. A judge or jury MIGHT take the view that the passenger had already paid for the service, and should not be required to pay twice.
A court MIGHT rule that GWR and Cross country should sort it out among themselves and not blame the passenger.

 
Interesting to note that the disruption map at the top of the forum front page currently looks like the old BR logo chopped in half.

Perhaps it's a sign...

 

Don't know what the 165 shuttle is because they are running with 5xxx Headcode

 
Cross Country are accepting GWR tickets now, at least according to GWR twitter. (As well as Avanti West Coast, West Midlands Railway, & Chiltern)

 
Now covered on the BBC - "most read" there ! - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57036247


On GWR it says more ...


No mention on the BBC of either Cross-country or SWR, though an alternative Bristol to London route would be via Salisbury (pity about the buses between Warminster and Salisbury, but just about the only public transport option ...

 
From Greatest Hits Radio


Surely "Passengers for Chippenham and Swindon should change at Trowbridge, from where there is a limited onward service ..."

 

Two totally unrelated issues

 

Hmmm ...

 

Would seem there are some shuttles running.


Now - are the 387s reaching Swindon in passenger service?

 
There appears to be at least one 166 shuttling between Swindon and Gloucester/Cheltenham.

 
From the BBC from a long article


So unrelated to the problems a couple of weeks ago

 
Whatever the reason, it’s a very poor day for the reputation of Hitachi, which will of course flow along the chain to the two main operators of the train and the industry in general.  If it goes on beyond the weekend then it could become a defining moment for the train...cast your mind back to how the APT never recovered from initial troubles.

As it is, the good news is that it’s a miserable day weather wise which will help to suppress already very low passengers numbers.

There are several reasons why Turbos/387s can’t just be substituted.  There aren’t enough of them, limited crew are trained on them, and DOO regulations means I doubt you’ll see 387s running to Swindon in passenger service, unless this issue carried on for many days when alternative operating arrangements could be made.

I’ll save any more comment until the hysteria has died down a little.

 

One lot of cracks is unfortunate but could perhaps be explained away as bad luck, or some exceptional and not be repeated event.
TWO UNRELATED lots of cracks starts to look like a seriously defective design.

And these issues only about 10% into the design life of the wretched things. How many other cracks or fatigue failures await a bit further into the design life.

 

Grr!  - I had overlooked that ...

 
Rail minister warns of "prolonged disruption"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57036247

 
My crystal ball forecasts significant disruption for the rest of this year and perhaps for longer, for the following reasons.

1) Before these latest problems, IET reliability and availability had been poor with many short forms due to "more trains than usual needing repair" Therefore even a slight reduction in availability will have a significant impact on services.

2) Some units are known to have cracks. Repairs to structural aluminium are a specialist and time consuming job. The first few repaired units will need very frequent checks.

3) Other units may suffer from similar cracks, and even if no more cracks are found, the frequent precautionary inspections will have a significant impact on availability.

4) Units without cracks at present seem liable to suffer in future and will need future withdrawal for repairs.

5) The many detailed checks and inspections may find other faults.

 
..and if the train is running, you may not be able to get on it.

 

Why tell you where the zones are if it's set down only?

 
Better than that - at the last minute it was swung over to platform 4 while a train to Bristol was crossed over to platform 1.

 

Can't recall seeing that before - how does it get back "right line" towards London?

 
Ran wrong line as far as Bourton and then crossed over.  As that was going on a non stop service to Penzance was crossed over at Bourton to also run wrong line to take the centre road through Swindon station.

 
Statement from Hitachi

 
From This is Wiltshire - timed a few hours ago ...


Picture shows an High Speed Train (HST) and Turbo ...

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

 
It might be helpful to see where the jacking point on an 80x is, and this picture on Wikipedia just happens to show it:


Below the door there are steps, and to the right of them is what looks like a small square foothold - that's where a steel bar can be threaded through to hoist the body by crane. Depot equipment might have a different way of engaging in the same place. There's a "jack here" symbol above it if you look closely.

That white bit, whatever you call it, is reinforcement to provide attachments strong enough to mount the bogie to. I've not found a picture that shows what happens further under the floor, but I imagine what we see is the side of a plate that runs all the way across and also has the bogie pivot bearing fixed to it. It has to spread the large point loads over multiple attachment points to the relatively flimsy body shell.

The new issue has been described as a cracked weld, which might imply that this reinforcing plate is coming away from the body shell. Then again, it might not - and it might only be near a weld. Presumably the inspections, following the earlier cracks being found, have been extended to other similar areas and that has revealed a new problem. Judging by the reaction, that all units must be inspected at once and not run at all until seen to be unaffected, it must be potentially pretty serious.

The site of the earlier cracking, the famous "yaw damper bolster", is at the left-hand end of the same white object along the underside of the body shell. The yaw damper bracket attaches at two points, and the cracks run above left-hand one of those. However, those cracks were not on one of these vehicles, but on one of the intermediate motor ones (MEC3). I'm sure there are some minor differences in the various bits, though the bogie is of the same basic design.

 
Why would DOO be a problem?

If DOO relies on infrastructure on the platform then I can see it would be an issue, but again couldn't infrastructure be replaced by a person on the platform making sure all doors are clear and or shut and then communicating that to the driver? I realise it is a bit more complicated than that as you need to find the people, make sure they can be identified by the driver, understand what their duties are, the 'workaround' then has to be communciated to everyone, etc. and all of that will take time.
If DOO doesnt rely on any off-train infrastructure then what is the issue?

And if you don't want to run as DOO could a guard not be assigned to the trains? Class 800/802 and 165/166 can operate with and without guards is the same true of class 387?

I can appreciate that it takes time to organise replacement processes when must of your trains get taken out of service but I would hope that if this continues beyond today/tomorrow then GWR will attempt to run at least a skelton service rather than just telling passengers sorry but we can't do anything.

I assume that GWR has a risk register and would be interested to know if all trains of one type being taken out of service is one of those risks and what their contigencies are to mitigate that risk?

 
Statement from Hitachi on Twitter

 

Yes, the post Graham quoted went on to say that procedures could be modified if there was an ongoing shortage, but not to expect it this weekend.

GWR were/are planning on using 387s to and from Cardiff for events, so new procedures would have to be in place for that, but obviously the need for that has yet to materialise.

 
There would be a need for staff training to run guards (beyond Didcot)

No staff are assigned to that job nor would any yet have the knowledge/training for that route beyond Didcot.

Where do you find guards in a staff pool that aren’t assigned to that?
How long would it take to train them once located?

Weeks is the answer, even after you’ve licated suitable staff. Minths if you have to employ them.

I’m unsure why some think they can just be deployed. The RMT has a new head honcho, who has already stated he’s looking for a fight or two. So everything would need doing by the book and agreed.

 
I have heard a report, that of the IETS checked for cracks that 80% have failed, and only 20% have passed.

I can NOT SUBSTANTIATE this report, can anyone confirm or deny ?

If true, this implies no effective service for MONTHS as repairs sound time consuming, and the remaining 20% will presumably also develop cracks.

 

You are Officer Crabtree and I claim my £5.

 
Sources within control claim:

XC will run Bristol to Swindon shuttles.
West Country services will utilise 2+4 HSTs up to Reading or possibly into Paddington.
There will only be 10 IET sets available until at least Wednesday

 
Blimey - photographic evidence.

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/pictures-show-cracks-stopped-gwrs-5390963?fbclid=IwAR1zC0S7L04wpPwA3ueuKPjJDAfjIGqSCV5DlrY6qxFBffcFIaQ_MCDZ7QY

 

That picture is actually related to the issue identified a few weeks ago - the yaw damper. It was leaked onto a forum.

I read on said forum that >80% of GWR's units have failed the initial inspection with the new problem - source seems well informed.