Atomic Systems

Most of us know it anyway; bouncy, crashy, ugly things. Heck, I'd really rather take a bus and after this 'propulsion malfunction', I'm inclined to walk...

Rik.

id still ride em

Wikkus wrote:Most of us know it anyway; bouncy, crashy, ugly things. Heck, I'd really rather take a bus and after this 'propulsion malfunction', I'm inclined to walk...

Rik.

But then if you dont want to go on pacers because of that, then I take it you wont travel by car because of road accidents, walk because you might get runover, cycle cos you might get knocked off, travel by train in case it crashes, sleep because there might be an earthquake so yuor house might fall down etc

MCR247 wrote:But then if you dont want to go on pacers because of that, then I take it you wont travel by car because of road accidents, walk because you might get runover, cycle cos you might get knocked off, travel by train in case it crashes, sleep because there might be an earthquake so yuor house might fall down etc

Okay, I acknowledge the wink at the end of your post, but I think my original remarks are being taken out of context; c'mon, lighten up!

It was a freak accident and luckily, no-one was seriously injured.

Anyway, it seems my personal dislike of these glorified rail buses -- and I really don't like them -- is not shared and there appears to be an inexplicable 'Pacer-love' vibe emanating from this forum...

All jocularity aside, I think the nicest thing I can say about these aberrations -- and believe me, you're only getting this because it's early, I've just had my coffee and it's a Friday -- is that in many cases, they serve communities that otherwise might not have a rail service at all and that they were Derby-built. Still doesn't make me like them...

Rik.

It might be a freak accident but i think a pacer has run over its own engine before. I notice the RAIB still managed to drag this relatively straightforward failure out to 4 pages but nearly forgot to mention where it actually happened. It won't stop me riding on a 142 though because i don't really have a choice.

Tim

Rfairlie wrote:It might be a freak accident but i think a pacer has run over its own engine before.

Really? Eeep. Couldn't find any other references anywhere and the RAIB seem not to be aware of any such event, although certainly this engine type has let go in a big way before, as referenced in the report.

I notice the RAIB still managed to drag this relatively straightforward failure out to 4 pages

Yerbut, the failure in and of itself might be fairly simple -- "crank fatigues; crank lets go; engine grenades" -- but it was the subsequent "engine falls off of chassis; following unit runs-over large chunk of smoking, thrashing metal; large chunk of smoking, thrashing metal, rends diesel tank open; large chunk of smoking, thrashing metal is unable to be punted out of way by lightweight, two-axle unit's rail wheels" that warranted the third-degree. There's a need to ensure that this is not a design flaw and that Pacers aren't going to be launching their engines left, right and centre.

but nearly forgot to mention where it actually happened.

Quite a few of their reports don't mention where an accident happened until the very end of the report because it's not always relevant to the case in itself. Geography generally is only significant in circumstances where, for example, visibility due to some feature or other plays a part in whatever it was that happened, i.e. train, unsighted, rounds curve in cutting to find Blue Whale blocking path, etc.

It won't stop me riding on a 142 though

Nor was it intended to, Tim... I'd have posted the same were it any other type

because i don't really have a choice.

Unlucky. As I said to someone else in another thread, maybe you can seek compensation from the ToC for mental anguish? Try Injury Lawyers for You or one of the other ambulance-chasing outfits.

Rik.

Quoted from the report itself

"The events described took place at Broad Green, Liverpool on 11 June 2009"

salopiangrowler wrote:Quoted from the report itself

"The events described took place at Broad Green, Liverpool on 11 June 2009"

Aye, correct. Tim merely said that they

Rfairlie wrote:nearly forgot to mention where it actually happened

...referring to the fact that it's pretty much tacked-on to the bottom of the doc, rather than that they entirely neglected to mention it.

I was simply stating that the location, in this case, was not particularly important (unless you were one of the 36 passengers, or the driver... or you use the route regularly and might be concerned about it) because it could have occurred anywhere, albeit with a minuscule chance...

Hey ho.

Rik.

I know Pacers originally had a serious habbit of dropping gearboxes onto the track, but they were later fitted with new engines and gearboxes. Problem with the original gearboxes is that they were mechanical, and whilst this had worked fine on the first generation units where gear changes were controlled by the driver and carried out slowly at idle, the Pacers changed gear automatically at full throttle. The shock from this tended to not do the gearbox or transmission any good at all. It was made worse by the changes on the 1st gens being all synchronised, wheras the Pacers had each gearbox changing up when it wanted. The current gearboxes are 2 stage hydralic (torque converter and fluid coupling), same as used on the Sprinters, Turbostars and 175s. I think the original Leyland TL11 engines were only replaced to take advantage of the extra power the new gearboxes could cope with. TL11s are a pretty reliable design, used on many buses and coaches from the late 70s to the early 90s, and based on the Leyland 680 which was used on buses back to the 1960s and also on many 1st generation DMUs.
Sounds like the Cummins 6 cylinder engines are fairly prone to this sort of problem, although only the Pacers engines are mounted such that they can fall onto the tracks if this happens. I've actually experianced one letting go on a 158 once. It was the engine under the back coach and I was in the front, but I still heard the bang (although didn't think anything of it until the brakes came on hard shortly after, as bangs of sorts are not that unusual on trains). The engine stayed in place, but it did leave a load of shredded wires and pipes dangling underneath, along with a long trail of oil/diesel.