Modern Railways – April 2019

Informed Sources Roger Ford

34 Modern Railways April 2019 http://www.modern-railways.com

A new entrant wows New Train TIN-watch

A

s Fluff Freeman (almost)

used to say on Pick of

the Pops, ‘Greetings TIN

pickers, jumping straight into the

charts at number three this period

is Hitachi’s latest hit, the Class 385.

Very popular in Scotland, not arf ’.

With 35 units in service and a starting

Miles Per Technical Incident (MTIN)

of 8,460, we now have a sense

check, and competition, for the

Siemens Class 700 fleet on GTR.

Last month I posited that the

upward steps in the chart of

Class 700 Period MTIN figures

reflected improved performance

following successful software

drops. Well, yes and no.

This was indeed the case

with the first ‘step’ covering

Periods 6-8. However, GTR tells me

that the subsequent improvement

to a consistent 14,000-plus

was the result of sorting out

problems with the closed circuit

television (CCTV) cameras.

As a side exercise, this month I

have calculated the improvement

in moving annual average for

the fleets in the table. Biggest

gain was for the Hitachi Class 802

fleet at 18% followed by South

Western Railway’s chart-topping

(That’s enough Alan Freeman

for one month – Ed) Siemens

Class 707 fleet at 13%. Transport

for London’s reduced-length

Bombardier Class 345s gained 11%.

In contrast, the long-established

Class 700 and 800 fleets both

recorded a 3% gain. This is to be

expected as checking back shows

that neither fleet now has any Periods

of poor performance to drop out of

the MAA. As a result, to move the

MAA upwards you need to start

turning in the big numbers, as SWR

is achieving with the Class 707s.

NEW TRAINS COST LESS TO RUN

Something the Modern Railways

team spends a fair amount of time

on is trawling official websites for

useful stuff. Even evasive written

answers to pointed parliamentary

questions may let slip a piece of

the jigsaw we are assembling. If

not, ‘Blood and Custard’ awaits.

One of my beats is the section of

the Network Rail website containing

the Variable Track Access usage price

list where, Ahab-like, I have been

pursuing the mythical data for the

TABLE 7: NEW TRAIN PERFORMANCE, PERIOD 11 2018-19

TOC Class

Number of

Units/Trainsets

Number of TINs Unit Miles MTIN MTIN MAA

South Western Railway Class 707 30 3 203,029 67,676 14,702

Govia Thameslink Railway Class 700 115 85 1,230,074 14,471 9,672

ScotRail Class 385 35 47 397,639 8,460 8,460

Great Western Railway Class 800 44 103 806,297 7,828 7,150

Great Western Railway Class 802 10 33 310,830 9,419 5,916

TfL Rail (Crossrail) Class 345 RLU 15 17 86,470 5,086 3,177

TfL Rail (Crossrail) Class 345 FLU 12 1 6,781 6,781 12,820

Class 385 shoots up charts

Bound for the Marston Vale line: D Train No 230005 at Evesham on the

North Cotswold line during its first day of main line test runs between

Moreton-in-Marsh and Evesham, 13 February 2019. Steve Widdowson

032-035_MR_Apr 2019_informed 2-3.indd 34 12/03/2019 15:02