MJS
Technical Tinkerer
I find it a little dis-concerting that after only 4 years in service we're seeing body cracks on the Hitachi 8xx series high-speed trains. I would have thought this sort of thing was known about and designed out ages ago. It turns out that a couple of weeks ago some were found to have fatigue cracks in the yaw damper fixings, and now they've been found in the suspension jacking points resulting in most of the class being grounded pending safety checks. Does anyone know more about this?
Part of me is glad they've found these issues before something like an ICE incident happened (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_derailment), although that was wheel related. I wonder if any of it was specific to the constraints of the UK rail system? .e.g. Loading gauge differences etc.
So, what are the chances of the Intercity 125s being bought back out of retirement for a while? I'd love to see that out of my office in Paddington.
Part of me is glad they've found these issues before something like an ICE incident happened (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_derailment), although that was wheel related. I wonder if any of it was specific to the constraints of the UK rail system? .e.g. Loading gauge differences etc.
So, what are the chances of the Intercity 125s being bought back out of retirement for a while? I'd love to see that out of my office in Paddington.