CAF Civity for TfW: News and updates on introduction.

[Jez]

It takes 1 instance of work every 6 months for drivers to maintain competence. Carmarthen depot is larger than Holyhead and Junction combined, and Cardiff Mainline is a massive depot, so one trip once a week isn't going to do the trick down there.

That said, there's been talk of Holyhead, Junction and Chester all losing their 150/153 competence for a while now. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the crews at the first two depots are already either relying on refreshes or simply no longer competent. I suspect in the next year we'll reach the point where in the North only Crewe and Shrewsbury sign 153s, and nobody at all signs 150s.

Hopefully the 150s wont even be part of the TFW fleet in 12 months time!

 

[The_Train]

197001 Philadelphia Red Robin.
197004 Vancouver Red Dragon.

Thank you

So have they given up on names from the schools competition then?

School competitions don't get the same attention as 2x American "superstars"

 

[Bikeman78]

It takes 1 instance of work every 6 months for drivers to maintain competence. Carmarthen depot is larger than Holyhead and Junction combined, and Cardiff Mainline is a massive depot, so one trip once a week isn't going to do the trick down there.

That said, there's been talk of Holyhead, Junction and Chester all losing their 150/153 competence for a while now. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the crews at the first two depots are already either relying on refreshes or simply no longer competent. I suspect in the next year we'll reach the point where in the North only Crewe and Shrewsbury sign 153s, and nobody at all signs 150s.

Actually I am surprised that Carmarthen still do 158s, given the lack of booked work down there. But I see what you are saying. If a depot has booked work then there needs to be enough to retain competence. Whereas if a depot has no booked work but retains the competence with day to day substitutions then that is a bonus.

 

[Wolfie]

Um, yes, there have been issues on the 195/331s.
However a lot of it has come down to a dynamic temperature settings that the CAF units have, with an aim of reducing thermal shock when you go between the outside environment and train - lowest saloon temperature setting is 21deg when it's 15deg and below externally, going all the way up to a saloon setting of 28deg when its 40deg or above outside.

TY but frankly what a half-assed system.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Wow wow wow, what the actual ?
That seems totally ridiculous. I want the train to be a nice comfortable temperature (like 20-21 degrees ish?) even if it’s 30 degrees outside, if I’m going to be sat on it for 3 hours.

That very much seems like it’s designed for passengers doing shorter trips and not long distance.

I am fed up with feeling cold in summer just because of over zealous air conditioning so what CAF have done makes sense. Why should I carry a warm fleece/coat around with me in summer just so I can feel comfortable in air conditioning that is using more energy. In my local Wetherspoons we used to be colder in there in summer than in winter - that is a daft state of affairs !.

TY but frankly what a half-assed system.

But it makes sense to have a temperature inside that suits what people are wearing and are used to having come from outside. The saving in energy might be quite significant as well.

 

[craigybagel]

Hopefully the 150s wont even be part of the TFW fleet in 12 months time!

Fair point! Fingers crossed.....

Actually I am surprised that Carmarthen still do 158s, given the lack of booked work down there. But I see what you are saying. If a depot has booked work then there needs to be enough to retain competence. Whereas if a depot has no booked work but retains the competence with day to day substitutions then that is a bonus.

It probably helps that they aren't too dissimilar from other Sprinters so the conversion training is relatively brief. If it took 3 weeks to train up every driver (as with 67s) just to cover for some rare occurrences of 158s covering for other units, the chances are they would have stopped training new Carmarthen crews on them a long time ago! Carmarthen will of course retain 153 competency for the HOWL.

Getting back to the matter at hand, hopefully there will be enough 197s available so that all services booked for them from June actually will feature them, and maybe we will start to see some more losses of competence for the older units in the fleet.

 

[anthony263]

Be nice if the 231s could also get named

 

[Lurcheroo]

It’s great to see that the fleet is coming along quite nicely in terms of acceptance with not too many 3 cars left to being into service.

Does anyone know how many fault free miles each new unit now needs to complete before it can be accepted into service ?

Do the ERTMS units need anything additional such as a number of miles running under ERTMS or can they just do their fault free mileage under conventional signalling ?

 

[Bikeman78]

I am fed up with feeling cold in summer just because of over zealous air conditioning so what CAF have done makes sense. Why should I carry a warm fleece/coat around with me in summer just so I can feel comfortable in air conditioning that is using more energy. In my local Wetherspoons we used to be colder in there in summer than in winter - that is a daft state of affairs !.


But it makes sense to have a temperature inside that suits what people are wearing and are used to having come from outside. The saving in energy might be quite significant as well.

I agree but 28 degrees is too hot. 22 to 24 would be fine, which is what seems to be achieved across the channel, even when it is in the high 30s outside. The other key is that the air con should cool the carriage without causing a draught.

 

[BillStampy]

Transport for Wales seems to be loving Maesteg today, 3 coach 197s, 4 coach 197. Interestingly so when they should be used on Carmarthen and others, unless they are running fine, which is unlikely

 

[Tom125]

Transport for Wales seems to be loving Maesteg today, 3 coach 197s, 4 coach 197. Interestingly so when they should be used on Carmarthen and others, unless they are running fine, which is unlikely

Food festival in Cardiff, glorious sunny Saturday- I imagine a lot travelling from the valleys to Cardiff today for a day out in town.

 

[RJ]

Just got on the 1411 from Cardiff Central towards Carmarthen. Greeted with a hot blast of air when boarding and the train is sweltering inside! One again other passengers are complaining about the temperature.

I’ve travelled a fair amount in countries where the temperature is routinely over 30 degrees and the public transport has equipment that keeps the inside at a tolerable temperature, so it can be done!

 

[1D54]

231009 was the only one of the class out yesterday. Are they hammering the 150s before they go? God it was hot travelling to Barry and all trains were standing room only for obvious reasons.

 

[Wolfie]

Just got on the 1411 from Cardiff Central towards Carmarthen. Greeted with a hot blast of air when boarding and the train is sweltering inside! One again other passengers are complaining about the temperature.

I’ve travelled a fair amount in countries where the temperature is routinely over 30 degrees and the public transport has equipment that keeps the inside at a tolerable temperature, so it can be done!

One of the countries where it is done, and done well, is Spain.... Remind me again where CAF are based.....

 

[Lurcheroo]

Just got on the 1411 from Cardiff Central towards Carmarthen. Greeted with a hot blast of air when boarding and the train is sweltering inside! One again other passengers are complaining about the temperature.

I’ve travelled a fair amount in countries where the temperature is routinely over 30 degrees and the public transport has equipment that keeps the inside at a tolerable temperature, so it can be done!

I’d love to know if that units AC was faulty or working as intended.

231009 was the only one of the class out yesterday. Are they hammering the 150s before they go? God it was hot travelling to Barry and all trains were standing room only for obvious reasons.

Just as an FYI, this thread is for 197’s so maybe not the most appropriate thread to for the question. But I don’t believe so. I’m not sure why so few 231’s out though.

One of the countries where it is done, and done well, is Spain.... Remind me again where CAF are based.....

must remember there is a significant difference in loading gauge that the equipment must fit within.

 

[Dai Corner]

One of the countries where it is done, and done well, is Spain.... Remind me again where CAF are based....

Their designers, noting all the Britons who go to Spain for the sun, might assume our weather is always cold and wet?

 

[Envoy]

Could they be losing all the chilled air every time they open the doors & then have to start cooling again when moving? If that’s the case, it would have been better to have had end doors plus internal doors.

What are the 195’s and 196’s like? If they are the correct temperature during this hot weather?

 

[vicbury]

Could they be losing all the chilled air every time they open the doors & then have to start cooling again when moving? If that’s the case, it would have been better to have had end doors plus internal doors.

What are the 195’s and 197’s like? If they are the correct temperature during this hot weather?

No from my experience of the 197s is that they aren't blowing any air at all, let alone conditioned air. It has to be some sort of fault as I can't believe they are running as designed

 

[Topological]

Hopefully, we are going to see some common sense used. The idea that we could have overcrowded trains through the summer because the 197s are a little hot is a big worry.

We have just been getting to a regular 197 service on the Marches...

 

[Diedinium]

There were some unit issues as well as infrastructure concerns which I believe were all resolved and testing happened so it's just awaiting a proving and sign off run with the relevant bodies was the last I heard.
5 (and 6) Car 197s can run Cardiff to Chester, its Shrewsbury-Manchester where they're not.
6s won't happen yet between Shrewsbury and Crewe as the testing for those failed with asdo issues, a software upgrade in the future may see it happen but for now 5s will be the best that route gets.

It was ASDO issues holding things up; when in more than a 2 or 3 car unit the section between Shrewsbury to Crewe has a lot of stations that require the train to stop past the platform in some cases (Wem in the up direction) or have the back of the train hanging off the platform (Wem in the down direction), normally due to level crossings at stations; Prees, Wrenbury and Nantwich fall under this category. Even though these 5 or 6 car 197s wouldn't be scheduled to stop at these stations on most diagrams (especially the request stops Prees, Yorton and Wrenbury), the ASDO still needs to be setup for this eventuality if a special stop order is issued, or the train needs to stop there for any other degraded reason.

The issue with the ASDO revolves around door offsets, i.e. how many doors are to be locked out of use from the back or front of the train. In the older versions of the on board software (If I'm understanding what was explained correctly) offsets could only be specified from the back of the train. Meanwhile in the new version, which was tested a few months ago when I was on the test run, they can be specified from the back or the front - meaning the ASDO can now be used correctly on these awkward station stops, and hence the need for testing. There is still the issue that the offsets are fixed regardless of the train length - i.e. regardless of if it's a 4, 5 or 6 car it'll still lock out the same number of doors meaning you'll lose more doors than necessary sometimes - this will be changed in another future software update where variable offsets become possible, determined by the train formation.

For now though they're going to sign the units off into service with the current software version, which still requires another test run to my knowledge where representatives from the unions, DTMs and conductor managers are on board etc

No from my experience of the 197s is that they aren't blowing any air at all, let alone conditioned air. It has to be some sort of fault as I can't believe they are running as designed

To give some context from the driver's side: there are a lot of aircon faults going on at the moment - on the TCMS we have a HVAC page to view the status, and often (without any fault being raised in the station tab, for ref this is the page that lists all faults) the icon for the saloon HVAC units turns red, meaning it's encountered an error.

It is possible for the more twigged on drivers to turn the saloon HVAC off and on again from the TCMS, which I've done a few times when I've noticed this happening - no idea if it actually fixes the issue but the status colour for the HVAC units stays blue after doing this. Watching it though I can often see that in one unit the temperature stays more where it should be, while the one that had the faulty unit doesn't reduce temperature - which to me says turning the HVAC off and on doesn't really fix anything.

Interestingly I've also seen faults with the cab heaters getting stuck on recently as well, was continuously blowing hot air with the air con then on as well trying to fight against it... had two cabs in the same day doing this. Only solution here is to trip out the cab heating MCB, with permission from maintenance control of course. Does mean you have no heating, only HVAC, which is fine on hot days though.

It does make me wonder if the recent software update that's being applied to the 197s is causing a few unexpected issues, as there are other issues as well like not being able to put the train into coupling mode when uncoupling, which makes reversing off to the 2ft distance more difficult as you don't have the power limited (which is all coupling mode does really, limits max speed and power output - after pressing the uncouple button it should be available to use even though you're not coupling up, just to control your speed).

 

[sd0733]

The issue with the ASDO revolves around door offsets, i.e. how many doors are to be locked out of use from the back or front of the train. In the older versions of the on board software (If I'm understanding what was explained correctly) offsets could only be specified from the back of the train. Meanwhile in the new version, which was tested a few months ago when I was on the test run, they can be specified from the back or the front - meaning the ASDO can now be used correctly on these awkward station stops, and hence the need for testing. There is still the issue that the offsets are fixed regardless of the train length - i.e. regardless of if it's a 4, 5 or 6 car it'll still lock out the same number of doors meaning you'll lose more doors than necessary sometimes - this will be changed in another future software update where variable offsets become possible, determined by the train formation.

For now though they're going to sign the units off into service with the current software version, which still requires another test run to my knowledge where representatives from the unions, DTMs and conductor managers are on board etc

That's a positive step that the offsets have been sorted. The last I heard a while back was that it was locking out a mirror image so if the front 3 doors were locked out so were the rear 3 leaving barely any doors with some stops.

I was told that the testing was complete but that a proving run with everyone listed above on is required but either way its getting closer. From what I've heard there will be a big software update for ASDO in December time to supersede many of the software patches and improve the system greatly.

 

[RJ]

Could they be losing all the chilled air every time they open the doors & then have to start cooling again when moving? If that’s the case, it would have been better to have had end doors plus internal doors.

What are the 195’s and 197’s like? If they are the correct temperature during this hot weather?

It looked like the doors had been shut for a while as the train was splitting in Platform 0. It did cool down about 15 minutes after departure, not quite as far as Port Talbot like last time! It was still very warm inside as every stop the doors opening let in a lot of cooler air.

Well, I took that train and after a lovely ride up the Heart of Wales on a pair of 153s which had no such interior temperature problems (but one of the engines being a bit lazy firing up), boarded another 197 at Church Stretton. Temperature ok in this one, though it is a lot cooler outside now.

What's different this time is the transmission behaviour. I've probably been on half a dozen 197s and they're always driven in an eco fashion, with upshifts at relatively low revs. This one is revving a lot higher in every gear and much for prone to downshifting when under load. Would be nice to get one like this on a clear run to 100mph but I don't think there are many opportunities on the TfW network! Ride quality and comfort ok too. Purely out of interest, to "floor" these trains, is it simply a case of maxing the power controller, or does the driver have to consciously select a different mode/shift pattern?

 

[pokemonsuper9]

What's different this time is the transmission behaviour. I've probably been on half a dozen 197s and they're always driven in an eco fashion, with upshifts at relatively low revs. This one is revving a lot higher in every gear and much for prone to downshifting when under load. Would be nice to get one like this on a clear run to 100mph but I don't think there are many opportunities on the TfW network! Ride quality and comfort ok too. Purely out of interest, to "floor" these trains, is it simply a case of maxing the power controller, or does the driver have to consciously select a different mode/shift pattern?

I believe there are 4 different power levels, Eco, Normal, Power and Super Power.
I think a lot of TfW's times are for Sprinters/175s so the 197s on Eco can easily beat them, with the stronger modes being good for picking up delays.
I'm not super familiar with how 19Xs sound but I've heard that Northern's 195s spend most of their time in Super Power.

(Information from general forum reading over the last year and a bit, not a staff member)

 

[RJ]

I believe there are 4 different power levels, Eco, Normal, Power and Super Power.
I think a lot of TfW's times are for Sprinters/175s so the 197s on Eco can easily beat them, with the stronger modes being good for picking up delays.
I'm not super familiar with how 19Xs sound but I've heard that Northern's 195s spend most of their time in Super Power.

(Information from general forum reading over the last year and a bit, not a staff member)

Interesting! Yes the 195s definitely get a good run, I'd say from the experiences I've had that maybe 2 drivers in 5 will use that "Super Power" mode routinely. Nice run from Wigan to Preston.

Despite the strong acceleration and certainly running steadfastly at linespeed rather than 75mph, it hasn't succeeded in making up any time, but it does sound nice and makes up for having to wait in that place for 50 minutes longer than advertised!

 

[craigybagel]

What's different this time is the transmission behaviour. I've probably been on half a dozen 197s and they're always driven in an eco fashion, with upshifts at relatively low revs. This one is revving a lot higher in every gear and much for prone to downshifting when under load. Would be nice to get one like this on a clear run to 100mph but I don't think there are many opportunities on the TfW network! Ride quality and comfort ok too. Purely out of interest, to "floor" these trains, is it simply a case of maxing the power controller, or does the driver have to consciously select a different mode/shift pattern?

I believe there are 4 different power levels, Eco, Normal, Power and Super Power.
I think a lot of TfW's times are for Sprinters/175s so the 197s on Eco can easily beat them, with the stronger modes being good for picking up delays.
I'm not super familiar with how 19Xs sound but I've heard that Northern's 195s spend most of their time in Super Power.

(Information from general forum reading over the last year and a bit, not a staff member)

Pretty much all correct. The driver selects which mode they want via the TCMS screen (eco is the default, it will start with that every time you open up the cab). With the current timings, eco is normally more than sufficient, but the other modes are handy during delays, or to compensate for an engine not working.

The only places a 197 currently operates where 100mph is achievable is a short section through Pyle, and Crewe - Wilmslow. With a clear run and on superpower mode it's also doable between Wilmslow and Stockport, but it's a rare event.

 

[MCR247]

197125 is now in service, started on 22:12 Chester to Holyhead last night.

It seems to be running on 2 engines. I was on it twice yesterday and I’m on it now and driving vehicle with Standard Plus seating is silent engine wise.

It didn’t seem to lose too much time yesterday when it was on Man Air - Chester’s. And it’s currently coupled up to another /1 so hopefully it shouldn’t be very noticeable.

 

[sd0733]

It seems to be running on 2 engines. I was on it twice yesterday and I’m on it now and driving vehicle with Standard Plus seating is silent engine wise.

It didn’t seem to lose too much time yesterday when it was on Man Air - Chester’s. And it’s currently coupled up to another /1 so hopefully it shouldn’t be very noticeable.

Many of the 3 cars have an engine out at the moment.
That one does seem to have had a troubled start having failed at Chester completely the other day too.

 

[Jez]

There seems to be a few problems with the 197s today - it appears 197120 was on a Milford to Manchester but cancelled from Cardiff Central due to a problem with the train. It appears 197116 took over from Cardiff despite RTT saying it was cancelled.

Also i was looking forward to getting 197102, one of the few 197s ive not got yet, it was meant to be on the early evening Swanline (Llanelli to Chester) but it appears to have been replaced with a 150!

Also there was a 158 on the 0702 Milford to Manchester this morning covering for a 3 car 197

Edit - looks like a 158 is taking over from the 150 at Cardiff to avoid sending the 150 up to Chester I assume.

 

[BillStampy]

Also there was a 158 on the 0702 Milford to Manchester this morning covering for a 3 car 197

Edit - looks like a 158 is taking over from the 150 at Cardiff to avoid sending the 150 up to Chester I assume.

The 158 had to pick up a 153, delaying it severely. Once it got to Cardiff it was 40+ late, therefore dropped the 153 off to replace the 150 from going to Chester (for mileage and mainly comfort sake, as I'd still much rather a 158 over a 150!) A 197 took over it as a result from Cardiff down to Carmarthen for rush hour.

 

[Lurcheroo]

I’ve certainly seen a few reports of units running around with engines isolated recently.
A little bit off topic, but this also seems to extend to the class 231’s (the Stadler FLIRTs).