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Whatever happened to the DART 8200 EMU units?

inorout

What happened to them? Were they put out of service for some reason? Why? Will they ever return?

I'm just curious.

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Jamie2k9

Put out of service because it was issue after issue with them. It would of cost a fortune to "try" and keep them operating in service any longer.

end of the road

in short they were junk.
they are unlikely to return.

devnull

They were junk like a lot of stuff that Alstom produced at that time, however a bit of perseverance might have been able to fix them up, but considering Irish Rail have been skint for a number of years, probably not worth it.

goingnowhere

Actually no real problem with them, apart from being small in number

An unwillingness to invest in parts (a lot of the underfloor gear is common with the Luas trams) is what killed them, got worse spares could have been got cheaply but Irish Rail wanted to buy from Alstom and as a result get charged full wack

Bit of TLC would have got them moving, they do date from the bad era in Alstom but many other railways have worked through the quality issues.

The LHB units are not perfect by any means, the Tokyo car units took a while to get sorted (failed in service on first public run!)

Itssoeasy

end of the road wrote: »

in short they were junk.
they are unlikely to return.

So are the up the back of inchicore somewhere going a lighter shade of green ?

end of the road

Itssoeasy wrote: »

So are the up the back of inchicore somewhere going a lighter shade of green ?

i believe so.

Itssoeasy

end of the road wrote: »

i believe so.

Like many CIE/IR rolling stock before them.

devnull

goingnowhere wrote: »

Actually no real problem with them, apart from being small in number.

I think pretty much anyone who bought Alstom stock around the same time would disagree with you very strongly when it comes to that, because from new the units were chaotic.

They delivered about 4 fleets of rolling stock in the UK around the same time and all of them had chronic problems and were withdrawn for periods and in some cases replaced at a young age.

The only reason many of them ended up going back to service was because of the fact there was nothing else and the operators who put them back in service suffered months and years of problems before they started to behave.

The LHB units are not perfect by any means, the Tokyo car units took a while to get sorted (failed in service on first public run!)

They may not be perfect but they are over 30 years old, considering that they are damn fine units and the build quality of them is excellent and they got a proper refurbishment job without any corners being cut and everything pretty much works.

The Passenger information Siemens installed is far more sophisticated and reliable than the one on the Tokyo car sets for instance, but that should not be a surprise really, just looking at the screens tells you which ones were built to a price and which ones were built to a quality standard.

Shouldn't be any surprise though, as German engineering always has been better.

end of the road

devnull wrote: »

I think pretty much anyone who bought Alstom stock around the same time would disagree with you very strongly when it comes to that, because from new the units were chaotic.

They delivered about 4 fleets of rolling stock in the UK around the same time and all of them had chronic problems and were withdrawn for periods and in some cases replaced at a young age.

The only reason many of them ended up going back to service was because of the fact there was nothing else and the operators who put them back in service suffered months and years of problems before they started to behave.

which class was replaced young? i thought all but a couple of driving cars are back in service now?

devnull

end of the road wrote: »

which class was replaced young? i thought all but a couple of driving cars are back in service now?

By replaced young I mean that they were withdrawn for a time in favour of other stock because they were so unreliable, although ultimately a chronic shortage of rolling stock allowed many of them to return to service.

The Class 450s with South West Trains were specifically ordered to replace the class 458s, which later resulted in the PVR of class 458s being much under the number that South West Trains had, however gradually they improved reliability and were restored to service to be restore to service.

The Class 334s also had problems as well and additional rolling stock had to be leased to cover for the fact many were every day out of service leading to train cancellations on a regular basis and short formations and Scotrail couldn't depend on them.

Then you had the 180s of which FGW returned many of them to their lessors, some of which found other work and others sat doing nothing for some time as they were replaced with HSTS, they were apparently as low as 2,000 miles per failure at one stage.

I remember at one point Hull Trains had 6 of them for a timetable that only needed 4 in service a day and frequently they had at least half the fleet out of service and they had a lot of complaints and a lot of problems with them and their service was seen as something quite a joke for a long time.

Sure all of the units are performing well right now, but operators had to deal with years of problems and daily headaches and you can be sure if there was any other option, many of them would never have returned to service but it was pretty much an unreliable train or no train.

tabbey

The question is, why did IR and other operators not sue Alstom for refunds?

devnull

tabbey wrote: »

The question is, why did IR and other operators not sue Alstom for refunds?

They actually built more units of at least one of the classes as compensation for how unreliable they were for their customers, think it was the Scotrail ones but I'm not sure, it was seen as better to do this than compensate with cash!

Significant amounts of time, effort and money was spent trying to improve them in the UK and the operators did try and hold Alstom to account and I believe they themselves footed a lot of the bills of doing so for the warranty related stuff.

The 175s were the most unreliable, following their introduction into service on a good day maybe 60% of them were serviceable, but for quite a few months the average was just under 55% with bad days you could have only 11 or 12 out of 27 able to operate in service.

Ironically the good thing that came out of this is that after this most operators started working into new train contracts maintenance, spares and repair contracts into any new orders which firmly put the ball in the court of the manufacturers for any ongoing issues, alas it came far too late for people who had already been bitten.

The First Great Eastern Desiro 360s were one of the first orders to benefit from this arrangement and are fully maintained by Siemens directly using Siemens staff and Siemens parts and have been very reliable trains indeed.

tabbey

devnull wrote: »

The 175s were the most unreliable .

The 175s look like a BREL Mk III bodyshell, it never occurred to me that they had any connection with Alstom.

EuropeTrainsIE

I highly doubt they will ever come back into service, someone actually informed me they will be scrapped along with the 2700s

EuropeTrainsIE

IE are planning to scrap them with their diesel brother 2700s

EuropeTrainsIE

tabbey wrote: »

The question is, why did IR and other operators not sue Alstom for refunds?

It is something I do wonder about, why DID they not sue Alstom? But like some people said, Alstom were producing rubbish fleets at the time

goingnowhere

After they bedded down into service all 10 were in service Mon-Fri running as a 4 car and 6 car set. Reliability wasn't too bad, never had one sit down on me (but they did sit down in service). Great performance, great acceleration, insane braking rate and rode pretty well as they have the original original DART bogie with the dampers (only 8101 had those in 1983)

It wasn't until about 4-5 years later that things went wrong, spare parts etc became expensive to source from Alstom. With a tiny fleet part stocks were a problem and it was much easier focus on the bigger fleets. Once beyond the warranty contract period Alstom was free from any legal claim.

Since then the contracts have been a lot tighter and the new DART contract is a build and support job so its in the interest of the manufacturer to build a reliable train (instead of making money on parts later).

devnull

goingnowhere wrote: »

It wasn't until about 4-5 years later that things went wrong, spare parts etc became expensive to source from Alstom. With a tiny fleet part stocks were a problem and it was much easier focus on the bigger fleets. Once beyond the warranty contract period Alstom was free from any legal claim.

Since then the contracts have been a lot tighter and the new DART contract is a build and support job so its in the interest of the manufacturer to build a reliable train (instead of making money on parts later).

A lot of the stuff that Alstom was churning out at that time wasn't great, the UK had similar experiences with fleets that were notoriously unreliable and they also lacked full service / maintenance and support contracts, that could have held them properly to account.

However the good aspect of that was it led First and Stagecoach to go with full maintenance and support contracts for their various fleets of Desiros going forward for Great Eastern and South West Trains which went on to become an very reliable family after both getting burnt by the issues caused by Alstom stock.

I suspect a similar lesson has been learnt here. Sure, nobody disputes that full service or maintenance and spares contracts are expensive. But it does create an incentive for rolling stock companies to provide a reliable fleet as they don't have such a financial interest in earning money on parts later as you say.

dowlingm

Would love to understand why the 82s aren’t scrapped already instead of taking up siding space. IE was quick enough to scrap the Mark 3 fleet in entirety when surely the 82s were stopped longer, and I think one (8205?) had fire damage

SeanW

Indeed, IE were in a fierce hurry to get rid of the Mark 3s. Now they still have 29000 rattleboxes going to Sligo and Rosslare. But I digress. Yes, if the 8200s can't be rehabilitated, they should go.

end of the road

indeed, it's certainly a bit of a strange one alright.
not to mention the 2700s which themselves won't see the light of day again more then likely.
and surely the stored 201s are completely stripped of parts by this stage as well.

either get them working or get rid for god sake.

end of the road

SeanW wrote: »

Indeed, IE were in a fierce hurry to get rid of the Mark 3s. Now they still have 29000 rattleboxes going to Sligo and Rosslare. But I digress. Yes, if the 8200s can't be rehabilitated, they should go.

yup, that was certainly gauling alright, but mind you so were a lot of other things.

[Deleted User]

goingnowhere wrote: »

It wasn't until about 4-5 years later that things went wrong, spare parts etc became expensive to source from Alstom. With a tiny fleet part stocks were a problem and it was much easier focus on the bigger fleets. Once beyond the warranty contract period Alstom was free from any legal claim.

Many years ago 10 or more IE had 2 e-tenders up for the highest bidder to buy 2 lots of spare parts. One was 8200 parts the other was 201 class parts. You could imagine Turner Rail services might have gone for the 201 parts but in either case I never followed up on who won the tenders.

The point I make is that IE lost interest in these vehicles a long time ago.

Jamie2k9

dowlingm wrote: »

Would love to understand why the 82s aren’t scrapped already instead of taking up siding space. IE was quick enough to scrap the Mark 3 fleet in entirety when surely the 82s were stopped longer, and I think one (8205?) had fire damage

Best to pretend they didn't exist and avoid PR fallout. Imagine scrapping a train less than 10 years old. I will say the 2700 and 8200s might go for scrapping when the new DART fleet starts to arrive. If I am not mistaken they had them for sale a few years ago but no takers.

New fleet of trains which should be better for customers and the environment will enable them to send the others to be scrapped as the need for extra coaches should be gone.

GT89

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Best to pretend they didn't exist and avoid PR fallout. Imagine scrapping a train less than 10 years old. I will say the 2700 and 8200s might go for scrapping when the new DART fleet starts to arrive. If I am not mistaken they had them for sale a few years ago but no takers.

New fleet of trains which should be better for customers and the environment will enable them to send the others to be scrapped as the need for extra coaches should be gone.

I bet when the new trains start to arrive they'll get rid of the 8500 sets before they touch the 8100 DARTs. 8100 class are the best trains IE have across the network IMO especially since the Siemens refurb.

end of the road

it wouldn't surprise me, but in saying that if they scrapped the 8500 sets then we would be back where we started with a shortage of carrages, they would rightly be derided and they would find it hard to get funding for extra ones for a good while given they will have effectively proven that once they get new ones they throw away older serviceable ones dispite not needing to do so.
it would be different with the 8100s as by the time the new coaches fully enter service they will be over 40 years old.

Effects

Is there any real issues with the 8100s, given their age?

L1011

Manufacturer support is unlikely to last forever, neither Alstom as successor to LHB or Siemens for the overhaul work.

GT89

L1011 wrote: »

Manufacturer support is unlikely to last forever, neither Alstom as successor to LHB or Siemens for the overhaul work.

I know the 8100s aren't going to last forever but more what I was saying was that I think the 8100 class will outlive the 8500s once the new trains come. Think about when the 8100s came back from their Siemens overhaul they were more or less a brand new trains.

Unless IE are planning to refurb the 8500s but I doubt it as the plan was for the new rolling stock to replace the entire DART and much of the Commuter fleet eventually. I could be entirely wrong but I get the impression the 8100s are more reliable than the 8500s.

goingnowhere

8100 are rubbish in reliability numbers compared to the 8500, nowhere close.

8500 are stainless steel so don't have any corrosion issues and are based directly off designs in use large fleets in Japan. The LHB units were always unique, the current refurbed version is a Frankenstein train of bits from Siemens, LHB, GEC, Wabtec.