Informed Sources
Engineering is an art, not a science, and different design teams will have different philosophies with detailed items such as lifting pockets or yaw damper brackets.
ROLLING STOCK CRISIS SPECIAL
With both CAF and Hitachi trains affected by fatigue cracking of yaw damper attachment points (‘Moving Wheels’, last month), I had already completed a detailed technical analysis of the issues. So when on Saturday 8 May I was woken by a phone call from the BBC Radio Today programme, asking me to comment on the mass withdrawal of the Hitachi 800 series fleets, I assumed the yaw damper bracket problems had worsened.
Having gone from slumber to radio interview in 20 minutes flat, fluently explaining yaw dampers, I checked my e-mail. Messages included a Network Rail Western Route Control ‘Black Incident’ notification covering all Hitachi 800 series trains, effective from 05.00 that morning.
So much for my fluency. A new and more serious problem had been detected affecting the jacking pockets used for lifting the Class 800 vehicles in depots, or during recovery following a derailment, for example.
As this was a separate issue, the yaw damper bracket analysis remains as written. The following coverage…
