Hope no one was planning long-distance train journey today.....

Soldato
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Warrington
Not great... But then hardly the first problem these trains have caused (eg signalling interference) Wonder if Hitachi will try and blame this one on the D(a)fT requesting that they increase the carriage length... Will be interesting to see how serious the problem is and how long the fix takes. Imagine they'll be running tomorrow again after concluding the cracks aren't immediately dangerous but you never know...

Side note, it's so confusing when things get called high speed trains in UK media, given that the class 800 family are not High Speed Trains and only barely High Speed trains if you use the loosest definition.
 
Associate
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Not great... But then hardly the first problem these trains have caused (eg signalling interference) Wonder if Hitachi will try and blame this one on the D(a)fT requesting that they increase the carriage length... Will be interesting to see how serious the problem is and how long the fix takes. Imagine they'll be running tomorrow again after concluding the cracks aren't immediately dangerous but you never know...

Side note, it's so confusing when things get called high speed trains in UK media, given that the class 800 family are not High Speed Trains and only barely High Speed trains if you use the loosest definition.

Well they can only go 125mph because our signalling (along with the track) is like 1,000 years /exaggeration

125mph isn’t high-speed??
Maybe in comparison to others but they need track ruler-straight and that’s not feasible in this country
 
Man of Honour
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It isn't just the 800/801/802's though so this has the potential to be a much bigger problem. Northern has 23 units out of service across class 195 and class 331 multiple units and classes 196 and 397 are also thought to be affected. In Northerns case they are going back to old rolling stock and also delaying the introduction of the new stock. I am not sure about the 8** series but the others have problems with the bogies yaw damper where it mounts to the body. It is fitted to the body via a "T slot" and that is where the cracks have been found. Worse case scenario the body mounting fails altogether allowing the damper to swing out from the bogie and causes extensive damage to whatever it hits leading to possible derailment. The 8**'s have a similar set up with their yaw dampers so it could be a similar problem. The brackets do look very flimsy to cope with all the strain they are under. Nothern have kept some units in service by removing the yaw dampers and limiting units to 75mph. There is a detailed write up about it in this months Railway Magazine.
 
Soldato
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Warrington
Well they can only go 125mph because our signalling (along with the track) is like 1,000 years /exaggeration

125mph isn’t high-speed??
Maybe in comparison to others but they need track ruler-straight and that’s not feasible in this country
Not for trains it's not :p. Generally accepted minimum speed is 250km/h (155mph), or sometimes 200km/h (124mph) for preexisting or connecting routes, so sections of our main lines just squeek in!

In the past there were experiments running faster and some services ran at up to 140mph, but I think aside from concerns about safety when still relying on lineside signalling there would be a reduction in capacity and increase in maintenance / inspection costs so even in sections where >125mph would be possible with existing track alignment it might not be desirable.

Edit: High Speed 1 (London to Kent / Channel Tunnel) is our only proper bit of high speed railway.
 
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Associate
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Hull, UK
Hull Train's have had there five Class 802 units inspected this morning and are returning them back into service later today.

https://twitter.com/Hull_Trains/status/1390986705059074048

1390986705059074048
 
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