South Central maintenance

thedarkness · Post by **thedarkness** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 5:22 pm

South Central's maintenance standards came to light big time today, thye had 2 massive failures within miles of each other!
About 09:00 this morning, the driver of a Victoria to Portsmouth service made an unscheduled stop at Fishbourne after feeling something wasn't right with the unit.
Closer inspection revealed an axle on fire

. The unit is now stuck at Havant {in the loop} awaiting a skate move

Sits down after all that, and the phone rings again....
"South Central driver so and so here.... i'm at Cosham with smoke pouring out from underneath the motor coach, can you come?"
Goes up there, takes the equipment case covers down, and found the smouldering remains of the line break switches

. Delayed the train for an hour while SWT control took on SC control over the rescue plan

ca55ie · Post by **ca55ie** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 5:24 pm

LOL...
No, the unit wouldn't feel very normal if it were on fire would it?

thedarkness · Post by **thedarkness** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 6:01 pm

I couldn't believe the first one. I was in the stores getting some bits, when the cleaner supervisor yelled over the tannoy for any fitters to go to the office for a phone call. I got my stuff and stopped off at the office to see if anybody had responded {management were in their morning meeting}.
The depot trainer was on the phone talking to the driver of the unit involved. At the time i just presumed it was some minimal failure.
I sat down in the chair opposite ready to hear what needed to be done, and started taking the piss when the depot trainer asked for a description of the fault.
I'm sat in the chair saying "Well i'm on fire and i can't seem to take power" next minute the depot trainer repeated that almost word for word as he wrote down the message!

<---- i looked something like that

pepsipowell · Post by **pepsipowell** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:16 pm

I wondered what the problem at Cosham was on Tuesday, as I was waiting at Southampton Central for a Virgin train to Newcastle for my university interview. It was certainly giving the timetable people a headache, with Portsmouth trains cancelled left right and centre, and the Wessex trains 158s over an hour late. I guess both up and down lines were closed as trains to/from Portsmouth were both delayed/cancelled.

Also, does anyone know why passengers travelling to Fareham, Porstmouth, Havant etc. were told to go via Eastleigh, as Cosham is between Fareham (where the Eastleigh line rejoins) and Portsmouth, so it wouldn't make a diffrence?

Jonathan

jjules · Post by **jjules** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:26 pm

Sounds like a fun journey (Southampton to Newcastle). Would this university interview be the one for the course you mentioned some time ago about railway degrees? If so, could you detail me on what the course is actually about? I'm most interested in it...

pepsipowell · Post by **pepsipowell** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 4:28 pm

Yes, same degree! See http://www.ncl.ac.uk/undergraduate/course/H391 for the information.

Jonathan

jjules · Post by **jjules** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 6:13 pm

Thanks for the link. The entry requirements are too high for me anyway

Sounds like a lot of hard work anyway...

southcoasttrains · Post by **southcoasttrains** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 7:39 pm

Steve - what do you expect when Bomberbardidah (or how ever its spelt) do the Maintenance at Lovers Walk and Selhurst. As for cleaning, looks like someone didn't pay their water bill.

thedarkness · Post by **thedarkness** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 10:04 pm

Bombardier maintain last weeks plastic bottles, these are slam doors we're talking about.
I'm told South Central managed a hat trick of failures in our area, when another train was dumped in the middle road at Havant, next to the skate move. This was reported as tripping the sub stations.
Fratton and Lovers Walk attended, due to the neccesarity to move one unit on a skate.
Lovers Walk fitted the skate, while inveastigations by Fratton fitters found a defective power jumper on the unit that was reported a tripping the sub stations.
Fratton changed the power jumper, then this unit was used to drag the skate move to Lovers Walk {what was up with Eastleigh?}

rikfarish · Post by **rikfarish** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 8:24 am

In preparation, a list of in service T&RS failures of SWT vs SC for the previous rail period (will be posted shortly), steve if you like pie, I suggest a large helping of the humble variety will be heading your way shortly

southcoasttrains · Post by **southcoasttrains** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 10:57 pm

Saw a few SC CIG's today that were clean Steve.

thedarkness · Post by **thedarkness** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 5:57 pm

Apparently the SRA are going to start fining people for dirty trains, suddenly South Central and South Eastern decided to start cleaning their trains
Rik, as units maintained at my depot were offically the most realible units on NR metals last year {102,000 MPC}, i await you're figures, which clearly mark the MPC for every fleet.