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Spring came early to Leicestershire as the sun shone on Pendolino 001
In these grim times let me share with you a day to cherish. It began with a blast up the Midland Main Line to Loughborough – by HST, of course - with an excellent breakfast enjoyed in good company.
Even the coffee slopping into the saucers was cheering, showing that ECR was back in place of TSR. With 6 degrees cant deficiency, the curving speeds allowed by the old InterCity Extreme Curving Rules test even the Mk 3 coach's supple suspension in short transition curves.
At Loughborough it was into a coach for trip through quintessential middle England , the bright late winter sun slanting down from a high blue sky on still sear fields.
Now the purpose of this trip was to see the first pre series Class 390 Pendolino run on the Old Dalby test track which Alstom is leasing. And when I went to Old Dalby to play with Corradias a year ago, it was to Old Dalby I went. So, having left Melton Mowbray why were we driving into the Asfordby industrial estate?
If you are Alstom, with a project the size of Pendolino running alongside the contract for the Tilt Authorisation and Speed Supervision System (TASS) for Virgin's tilting fleets, plus the contract to develop and install the European Train Control System (ETCS) Level 2 for the West Coast Main Line, you need some serious facilities for test, development and systems integration work. The total value of these projects is well north of £1billion.
So the £12million being spent on Old Dalby is petty cash. In addition to electrifying the original 13mile long Old Dalby test track at 25kV AC, Alstom will need a commissioning depot for the trains, office space to house the computer equipment signal engineers rely on today, extra track for testing signalling kit, plus workshops. That's a lot of floor space, hence Asfordby.
Asfordby Industrial Estate is the site of the former colliery which was rail linked by a spur off the Old Dalby track to the North of Asfordby Tunnel. With this spur still in place Alstom has taken over a former coal storage building, now on the Estate, and turned it into a three road train shed.
Apart from a junction off the spur into the shed and the digging out of pitted roads, the main work will be an extension so that the new ‘Pendolino House' will be able to take a nine car train. Its first occupant, pre-series train 001, is eight cars.
Where the spur meets the test track a second set of switches has been installed to create a triangle to give access from both directions.
In addition to the train shed and its workshops, adjacent building on the estate will house Alstom Signalling's new test centre. To support the signalling and control programme a 4.35mile section of the test track will be doubled.
While Asfordby is the new centre of gravity of the test track, the original buildings at Old Dalby itself will continue to be used as the base for test running. Alstom calls the combination of the test track, the Old Dalby site and the new buildings at Asfordby the ‘Old Dalby Railway Test Facility'.
As test and development gives way to production, all Pendolini will go to the facility for commissioning and shake down running. Alstom intends to use Old Dalby for testing all its new traction and rolling stock. Provision has been made for 3.75 miles of third rail electrification for testing Juniper 2 – Alstom's name for the speculative build of Mk 1 replacement stock.
So, what with Pendolini and TASS and ETCS Level 2 and sundry multiple units, Old Dalby will be humming over the next four years. And it could also become a nice little earner for Alstom as a high speed test track which can be hired out to other manufacturers.
Anyway, there we were outside the train shed and in the distance a horn sounded and from behind a screen of trees emerged Pendolino 001 running under its own power. And I have to say that no train has made such a visual impact since I saw my first HST in the metal at Derby when I came back to the railway in 1976.
Now, as then, there was a distinctively sculpted front end. Now, as then, the real impact lay in the sheer, shining length enhanced, in the case of Class 390, by the restrained all-over silver livery. It took me several minutes for the fact that this was a real train, running under its own power and not just another artist's impression or mock-up, to sink in.
What I still can't get my head round is that there are another 52 to come. That, subject to the usual caveats, if you stand at the platform end at Euston in the summer of 2005 you will see one of these trains leaving every five minutes, and a corresponding inward movement.
Yes, yes, I know I'm a sad old techie who is a push over for anything on wheels, but, as Virgin Trains Chief Executive Chris Green remarked at the subsequent acceptance ceremony, ‘Welcome to the club for Friends of Pendolino. If you can't get excited about this you shouldn't be in the railway'. And he's right. Even my old Chum Richard Bowker, a financial wonk par excellence and now Virgin Group Commercial Director, was moved to describe 001 as ‘the most beautiful train I've ever seen'.
Despite being limited to just over half a mile of OHLE, No 001 had been given some serious welly before the unveiling. The power supply for the new OHLE comes from a nearby transformer and East Midlands Electricity (EME) wanted to check the effect of a high current drain from the test track. Normally transformers hum, EME wanted to ‘hear it growl'.
So Alstom asked the test driver to be a bit more enthusiastic.
‘You mean you want me to cream the controls?'
‘Yes'
The man from Alstom's traction arm at Prestonj said it was alright by him. So the controller was ‘whacked back' and 001 really took off, reaching 20mile/h in the restricted distance available.
What next?
No 001 will be used for proving the electric traction and other power systems and is unlikely to exceed 110mile/h. In April it will be joined at Asfordby by the second pre-series unit (002) which will be full length (nine cars) and will be used for testing the tilt system and TASS.
After testing at Old Dalby, No 002 is likely to make its first runs on the West Coast Main Line between Lancaster and Carlisle . Testing at up to the 140mile/h maximum speed will then take place either between Rugby and Nuneaton or on the East Coast Main Line.
Next to arrive at Old Dalby will be the first production train (003) ‘in the summer'. After commissioning it should get a Qualified Take Over Certificate (QTOC). This is an interesting concept which gives the Virgin Project Manager the discretion to issue the QTOC where in his view the train is fit for use even though it may not have passed all its acceptance of delivery tests.
This way you avoid the nonsense that has kept adequate Class 458 Junipers from obtaining invaluable service experience because the customer was unwilling or unable to ‘accept' the train on the basis of subsequent modification. Virgin's contract itemises specific issues which can result in a QTOC rather than a full TOC.
A fter 003 has been accepted, No 004 should leave the Washwood Heath plant in November and production will ramp then up to one train a week. That is hard to get the brain round too and also emphasises the crucial importance of the Asfordby facility in acting as a commissioning buffer between the factory and modernised Longsight Depot which will become Pendolino city.
After the power car had tilted to 8deg on each side, and I will have no truck with the ridiculous term ‘dipping its wings' for this manoeuvre, which sounds like a bit of Virgin PR speak, the train ran on into the shed and we had a chance to look it over.
Externally, the train really is beautiful with the flat bodysides you get with extruded aluminium construction. Two features of the doors should be noted.
First the colour scheme with grey on silver stripes. Under the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations doors should be in a contrasting colour so that they can be identified by the visually handicapped. That the grey stripes, with light reflective paint to enhance the contrast at night, has been developed to comply with the RVAR is a tribute to the cooperation between Virgin's designers and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions' disability specialists, not forgetting Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate.
What also caught my eye, well you couldn't miss it, were the passenger information displays on the doors themselves. One of the missed opportunities of Eurostar is the destination display beside the door – small, not exactly conspicuous and hard to read in direct sunlight. The displays on Pendolino are in the obvious place, in your face, and have four lines of information plus the coach number.
Finally, from the outside, there is another bouquet for the HMRI. Linking the two pantograph cars you can see a 25kV AC cable, or bus, between the coach ends, transferring power along the train. This has been commonplace on TGV, but was not allowed on Eurostar and is another first for Pendolino
Inside the train, it should be noted that the interior trim is not definitive since responsibility has been taken back in house by Alstom. The ‘fist of quality' test was applied and revealed sundry rattles, doinks and clangs compared with the standard-setting ‘thud' which Adtranz achieves even with aluminium trim.
A current problem facing manufacturers is that the main Scandinavian vacuum toilet maker has withdrawn from package deals involving complete toilet modules that drop into place. While this is being resolved, No 001 has a temporary arrangement in what the American aerospace industry once called ‘organic composite material' and we know as plywood.
Virgin were keen to point out the electronic seat reservation display in the luggage rack which will show the passenger's name. This is, of course, very old technology and the clever bit is going to be interfacing the train with the seat reservation system data base. Something to pursue another time.
I was also urged to try the seats, with headphone jacks between the cushions. YYSW, what concerned me was the bodyside experience in the 2+2 seating Standard Class. As presently installed, the window ledge trim comes out at right angles to the glass, then has a semicircular section back into the bodyside - say 1 – 1 ½ inch radius. Further down there is a similar bulge which, I think is meant to be an arm rest.
Unfortunately, if your forearm is on the rest, your bicep is pressing against the upper radius. Not nice or clever.
Of course, on days like these, despite the euphoria in the air, everyone present knows that there are going to be nasty problems ahead. But surmounting such problems becomes just another engineering challenge once you have real hardware to play with. Then it comes down to people and my feeling is that Virgin and Alstom have the will to hang together through the inevitable problems together rather than fall out.
Asfordby looks like being where it's at for engineers. General Manager of the new Test Facility is yet another old chum, Peter Randall, who I first met when he was a young engineer at the John Cronin Academy of Depot Management, also known as Bounds Green. Peter was in charge of the Eurotunnel Depot at Coquelles when the system was being created from scratch and was like a dog with two tails when we met at Asfordby.
So, tough tasks ahead without doubt, but some tough engineers and managers on the job. And, as I said at the begining, a day to cherish , a diamond in the surrounding sea of mud.
I was home in good time for tea. And as I walked though the door, the phone rang.