Class 313 EMUs to preservation on retirement?

[Wheatley]

On 19/03/2023 at 11:28, Gwiwer said:

Correct.  As could the 707s.  There is a school of thought which suggest that the yellow front has become so much a part of the railway scene that it should remain in place. 

The 195s and 331s are fully compatible with the latest lighting standard, they have yellow ends because someone sufficiently senior in Northern at the time saw no reason why they should not have yellow ends. 

 

The change is hard to justify in safety terms, you have to paint the ends in any case so arguing that using  yellow paint is not reasonably practical doesn't stand up. Neither does the aesthetic argument - a designer who can't incorporate yellow into any livery needs to find a proper job or look at a photo of an HST in original livery for inspiration. 

 

I get the argument that lights are easier to see at a distance than yellow paint. However, as a once upon a time qualified Lookout, half the job is picking the train out of the background clutter; the countryside is full of things with lights on, but very few bright yellow things with lights on. But I said all this in another thread af the time. 

[phil_sutters]

Perhaps preserving 313  as a three car set with three different liveries and a pantograph would make for an interesting relic!?

Here is your starting image for your colouring-in competition---- Not sure what power supplies are envisaged for a preserved 313. Although there is no overhead supply shown, we appear to have five rails in place here.

 

Edited April 7, 2023 by phil_sutters

[adb968008]

9 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

I suspect that the future of EMUs on heritage railways will depend a lot on the development and expense associated with battery technology. I'd imagine that if it becomes affordable and in terms of space doesn't take up the whole of one carriage then it would become appealing to heritage lines, especially when you consider the costs associated with coal and diesel and the issue of emissions. I think at that point having a 2 or 3 car bemu might well be more attractive for off peak than a 60+ year old DMU.

i personally would like to think the future of battery powered EMUs already walks amongst us….

 

 

 

if its battery pack could be upgraded, maybe it could do more, but still I had a good ride with it and the EPB last year…. The EPBs compressor working and the unit sharing the work with the mlv.

 

 

Edited April 7, 2023 by adb968008

[Gwiwer]

35 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

if its battery pack could be upgraded, maybe it could do more, but still I had a good ride with it and the EPB last year…. The EPBs compressor working and the unit sharing the work with the mlv.

MLV plus 4-Cor motor coach has run in traffic on the East Kent Railway using battery power. 
 

It worked. It was an electric train. The Cor electrics turned over and hummed and the lights glowed inside for the passage of Golgotha Tunnel. 
 

It also took a very good charge of good batteries from a shore supply and would not have been practical for a more frequent service. A significant recharge between trips would have been necessary. 
 

But it worked. And it remains the only occasion in preservation when a 4-Cor vehicle has run under electric power, using some of its own controls but not its own traction motors. 

[pete_mcfarlane]

2 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

Perhaps preserving 313  as a three car set with three different liveries and a pantograph would make for an interesting relic!?

6 liveries if you paint each side of the coach differently. 

 

SNCF had a TGV in multiple liveries, including the original orange one. It looked a bit odd. 

[adb968008]

11 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

MLV plus 4-Cor motor coach has run in traffic on the East Kent Railway using battery power. 
 

It worked. It was an electric train. The Cor electrics turned over and hummed and the lights glowed inside for the passage of Golgotha Tunnel. 
 

It also took a very good charge of good batteries from a shore supply and would not have been practical for a more frequent service. A significant recharge between trips would have been necessary. 
 

But it worked. And it remains the only occasion in preservation when a 4-Cor vehicle has run under electric power, using some of its own controls but not its own traction motors. 

yes this is the thing.

 

i recall riding the BMU (Test unit Gemini) back in the 1990’s, it could do around 40 miles on a charge then, and was able to partially recharge whilst going downhill, meaning it could do a full days timetable at the time.

Though back then its batteries were only 30 years old… they’d 60 now !

 

The 2x MLVs at MHR seemed very short on range, managed only 1 trip, one way.. but the EPB was alive.

 

if the MLVs could be upgraded with a modern battery set, I wonder what their potential range / supply could be ?

 

You can ride a CEP / MLV pair in Cumbria also… running dates 

 

Sunday 16th April
Sunday 21st May
Sunday 18th June
Sunday 16th July
Sunday 20th August
Sunday 17th September
Sunday 15th October 

http://www.evr-cumbria.org.uk/Cumbrian Boat Train.htm

 

 

 

Edited April 8, 2023 by adb968008

[Michael Hodgson]

18 hours ago, John M Upton said:

 

Needless to say the reaction among the train crew in the mess room yesterday afternoon at the news that 201 was back was universally 'Oh no...'  We were rather hoping its next appearance was going to be in the baked bean aisle at Tesco...

I take it Tesco is just beyond the stop blocks?

[phil_sutters]

47 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I take it Tesco is just beyond the stop blocks?

A couple of hundred yards in an almost straight line from Seaford Station.

Edited April 8, 2023 by phil_sutters

[phil_sutters]

Still carrying passengers, not baked beans.

[John M Upton]

The timings for the railtour have just been confirmed it seems.  Almost all of the sidings that were originally promised have gone (no surprise), just the Bognor Middle Siding still on the schedule which I still can't see happening (and Newhaven Marine if that counts as a siding now).

 

Trouble is it is booked to finish at Brighton at half six and Brighton & Hove Albion are playing at home that afternoon so that could be interesting....

[jbqfc]

Had a trip to the coast yesterday 8/4/23

313208 Littlehamton 

 

313219 Brighton 

 

313201 Brighton 

 

313210 Brighton 

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by jbqfc
spelling

[phil_sutters]

19 hours ago, John M Upton said:

The timings for the railtour have just been confirmed it seems.  Almost all of the sidings that were originally promised have gone (no surprise), just the Bognor Middle Siding still on the schedule which I still can't see happening (and Newhaven Marine if that counts as a siding now).

 

Trouble is it is booked to finish at Brighton at half six and Brighton & Hove Albion are playing at home that afternoon so that could be interesting....

Three o'clock kick off against Wolves.

What time at Newhaven Marine, please? I have forgotten my way into the WTTs.

[John M Upton]

Here you go:

 

Saturday 29th April 2023. 

 

5Z31 08:16 Lovers Walk T&R.S.M.D to Brighton

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:X01758/2023-04-29/detailed

 

1Z31 09:01 Brighton to Portsmouth Harbour

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:X01750/2023-04-29/detailed

 

1Z32 10:40 Portsmouth Harbour to Littlehampton

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:X01751/2023-04-29/detailed

 

1Z33 12:59 Littlehampton to Three Bridges

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:X01752/2023-04-29/detailed

 

1Z34 14:11 Three Bridges to Hastings

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:X01753/2023-04-29/detailed

 

5Z35 16:08 Hastings to Hastings

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:X01755/2023-04-29/detailed

 

1Z35 16:14 Hastings to Newhaven Marine (Old Stn)

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:X01754/2023-04-29/detailed

 

1Z36 17:39 Newhaven Marine (Old Stn) to Brighton

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:X01756/2023-04-29/detailed

 

5Z36 18:47 Brighton to Lovers Walk T&R.S.M.D

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:X01757/2023-04-29/detailed

[adb968008]

Still looking forwards to this trip.

 

its more for the jolly and a 313 farewell (and a hotdog from that van just under the awning around the side of Brighton station) than any particular route mileage.

 

Am going down the night before, maybe have a ride on some last scheduled services too.

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by adb968008

[5944]

On 18/03/2023 at 22:22, adb968008 said:

Just had my first experience riding a 717 today.
 

As side of the cab front, number of carriages, I’m struggling to find any differences with a 700. 

Extra single seats by the doors and under-seat sockets. That's basically it. The 85mph restriction is merely electronic - there have been plenty of 100mph test runs with altered software over the last couple of years. For some reason the windscreen wipers don't like the extra 15mph and have a habit of mangling themselves.

 

A 700 is made up of two half-sets. Siemens have classified the vehicles by letter or number. A 12 car is ABCDEF-654321. An 8 car is ABCF-6321. A 717 made up the same way - AF-6321. There's even passive provision for toilets to be added at a later date, as evidenced by the blanking plates at the ends of a couple of coaches.

 

The lower power of a 717 compared to a 700 surprised me though! 1200kW compared to 3300/5000kW for 8 or 12-car 700s. They certainly shift though. 

 

Oh, and as an aside, all of the tripcocks were removed from the 717s a couple of weeks ago as the NCL now has TPWS fitted, and is soon to go over to ETCS.

[adb968008]

Just got my tickets and details for this saturdays railtour.

 

carriage A..

 

I noted that Accurascale have sponsored some charity raffle prizes.

[SandHutton]

Well just received the good news that 313201 is to be preserved, see the link below for details on how to help with the monthly storage at Eastleigh

 

http://www.400series.co.uk/?page_id=413

[John M Upton]

3 hours ago, SandHutton said:

Well just received the good news that 313201 is to be preserved, see the link below for details on how to help with the monthly storage at Eastleigh

 

http://www.400series.co.uk/?page_id=413

 

Hold your horses on that one, it isn't secured yet and quite frankly, £2,500 a month just to store a EMU that is effectively useless means this project will run out of steam (assuming it even gets that far) pretty quick.  Also looking at that website, why anyone would throw their hard earned cash at a link on a premade template website filled with inaccuracies and where no business plan or qualifications are stated is beyond me.

 

As a preserved EMU, it is utterly useless, it will never carry passengers on the mainline again, no heritage railway will touch it (which is moot anyway as it needs a live rail just to make it work, no power to the shoes and it is dead as a dodo) as the vast majority of visitors to heritage railways will have absolutely no interest in it whatsoever,  the best you can hope for is a 5mph max trundle up and down a siding in Eastleigh Works once or twice a year.

 

Even then, Eastleigh Works could give the owners notice to quit if they needed the space and suddenly you have massive transport costs to fund assuming you have somewhere to move it to which is even more unlikely.

 

Best to just let it go, the scrap man can give it a quick dignified send off rather than let it rust and the inevitable visit from the gas axe in X years time occurs.

 

EMU preservation is littered with failures, pipe dreams, unpaid bills.  Only two EMU's are still around with power (in theory) still accessible to them, 4-VEP 3417 which hasn't turned a wheel in years and the Brighton Belle (ironically put back together using parts from abandoned EMU preservation projects itself) which seems to have dropped off the radar completely and I doubt will ever be seen again.

 

Just don't waste your money.

Edited June 8, 2023 by John M Upton

[009 micro modeller]

6 hours ago, John M Upton said:

 

Hold your horses on that one, it isn't secured yet and quite frankly, £2,500 a month just to store a EMU that is effectively useless means this project will run out of steam (assuming it even gets that far) pretty quick.  Also looking at that website, why anyone would throw their hard earned cash at a link on a premade template website filled with inaccuracies and where no business plan or qualifications are stated is beyond me.

 

As a preserved EMU, it is utterly useless, it will never carry passengers on the mainline again, no heritage railway will touch it (which is moot anyway as it needs a live rail just to make it work, no power to the shoes and it is dead as a dodo) as the vast majority of visitors to heritage railways will have absolutely no interest in it whatsoever,  the best you can hope for is a 5mph max trundle up and down a siding in Eastleigh Works once or twice a year.

 

Even then, Eastleigh Works could give the owners notice to quit if they needed the space and suddenly you have massive transport costs to fund assuming you have somewhere to move it to which is even more unlikely.

 

Best to just let it go, the scrap man can give it a quick dignified send off rather than let it rust and the inevitable visit from the gas axe in X years time occurs.

 

EMU preservation is littered with failures, pipe dreams, unpaid bills.  Only two EMU's are still around with power (in theory) still accessible to them, 4-VEP 3417 which hasn't turned a wheel in years and the Brighton Belle (ironically put back together using parts from abandoned EMU preservation projects itself) which seems to have dropped off the radar completely and I doubt will ever be seen again.

 

Just don't waste your money.

I would quite like to support it but I have two issues with the text on that website:

 

- it hasn’t been ‘a workhorse of the Southern Region for 47 years’; Eastern Region about 40, London Midland nearly as much, they’ve only worked for Southern for a bit over a decade. Some of the similar Merseyrail units briefly ran on the Southern first but that’s still not really the same thing.

- ideally the AC capability would be reinstated eventually, if technically possible and following suitable fundraising, which would allow it to visit the Great Northern network where they originally ran, and York where they were built, among other places. Indeed originally, I thought the dual voltage aspect could be one advantage of preserving a 313 over one of the other PEP units, all of which were either AC (Great Eastern/Scottish) or DC (Merseyside) only.
 

Although from the dual-voltage point of view would it have been better to try and get one of the GN ones when they were withdrawn, and is there any particular reason why this wasn’t done? I assume it’s just to do with how organised the groups were at the time or the condition of the units but were they also less original internally etc. following refurbishment?

[John M Upton]

The AC issue is lack of parts, all the working AC parts on the 313/2's were non-working, indeed a deal was done which saw parts that did still work swapped for broken ones from GN to maintain the weight distribution, all the working bits bar what is on 313121 are long gone, it is not simply a case of just bunging a pantograph on the roof like some deluded Facebookers keep saying.

 

Besides, there are no heritage railways with OHLE either (let alone third rail) and there never will be so once again, what is the point, it is still useless.

 

What has caught people on the hop is that 313201 was supposedly "Going to the NRM" (it wasn't, it was simply listed for the National Collection) and sure enough, just like I predicted years ago when it was repainted blue, the NRM doesn't want it.

 

This has resulted in the mad scramble by the pipedreamers to try and preserve it with no tangible plan.

 

Doomed to failure.

Edited June 9, 2023 by John M Upton

[phil_sutters]

One seagull at Newhaven Marine (old station) made its views on the cacophony of horns that the BLS tour's 313s made. Imagine what 201 would look like, stored outside at Eastleigh. 

 

[009 micro modeller]

28 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

The AC issue is lack of parts, all the working AC parts on the 313/2's were non-working, indeed a deal was done which saw parts that did still work swapped for broken ones from GN to maintain the weight distribution, all the working bits bar what is on 313121 are long gone, it is not simply a case of just bunging a pantograph on the roof like some deluded Facebookers keep saying.

But this is what I mean, wouldn’t it have been better to preserve one of the GN ones that retained their dual-voltage capability? Especially as this is one of the main things that makes the 313s historically significant.

[phil_sutters]

Historically significant enough to have a r-t-r 00 model made of it? You'll have to go 'N' if you want one.

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, phil_sutters said:

Historically significant enough to have a r-t-r 00 model made of it? You'll have to go 'N' if you want one.

Is that a good basis on which to judge historical significance though? Supposedly they are significant because they were the first dual voltage (DC third rail and AC overhead) units to run in the UK but surely preserving one that is now DC-only doesn’t really reflect that?

[phil_sutters]

Whether one likes it or not, preservation societies and museums have to prioritize where they spend their money and how much they can raise. So that dictates the type of relics they can afford to preserve, maintain, keep running, where appropriate, and find the space to exhibit or store. Multiple units must be a difficult type to preserve and they may well have lower levels of appeal and interest to the general public, who have to be attracted in order to keep the funds flowing in - now and well into the future. The long term attraction and relevance must be something to be considered at the outset of any preservation project.

Edited June 9, 2023 by phil_sutters