New Generation Rollingstock

[mufreight]

Is 735 out in service yet or are they keeping it wrapped in bubble wrap and which other sets have been moved to Marybrough to be made compliant

[#Metro]

What was not quality about it?

If you order an apple and get an apple, you can't then go on to complain that it wasn't a banana 🍌

[mufreight]

Well we ordered apples and got lemons and dry ones at that, TMR obviously lacked the competence to insure that the NGR trains were fit for purpose and still lack the expertise to oversee anything related to rail, the sooner that rail is taken out of the TMR's responsibility and returns to being a stand alone department reporting to its own minister the better for all concerned the problem now is that a lot of the knowledge and expertise that QR had has now been lost and will take years to recover.

[achiruel]

What was not quality about it?

If you order an apple and get an apple, you can't then go on to complain that it wasn't a banana 🍌

Braking problems, door faults, air conditioning faults, and that's just the issues the public were made aware of. <deity> knows how many other issues there were.

[MTPCo]

the sooner that rail is taken out of the TMR's responsibility and returns to being a stand alone department reporting to its own minister the better for all concerned

+1

[ozbob]

the sooner that rail is taken out of the TMR's responsibility and returns to being a stand alone department reporting to its own minister the better for all concerned

+1

Diabolical seems such an under-descriptor however apt ... 

++ 1   

[ozbob]

NGR 735 has been finished and was at Wulkuraka when this made.

Nothing official.  Are they too embarrassed to announce the fact that NGR 735 is finally ready for revenue service?

[ozbob]

Problems with seats for drivers and guards in the NGRs ...

https://www.qirc.qld.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020_whs219_dispute_181220.pdf

[ozbob]

^ this is a serious matter as train crew are being injured.

It doesn't get better does it ?

Not Going Right ! trains ...

[ I am wondering if this has anything to do with the 3 car trains at peak and some services that have been normally NGR being replaced by other class trains eg. SMU/IMU of late. ]

[HappyTrainGuy]

Another problem with the NGR - QR maintenance arrangement. All work is undertaken at Wulkuraka and they have their own problems at the moment.

A number of drivers now stand up while operating the NGR trains - most notably on longer haul routes where there is a lot of express running such as Caboolture and Gold Coast services. But also in saying that some drivers will stand up on any type of class.

3 car trains isn't just something that has popped its head up more recently. Its been happening for a while now but the difference is that patronage is starting to increase which is amplifying its perception (for example in July last year there were empty seat rows on ex-Caboolture and ex-Kippa Ring trains and ex-Northgate trains sometimes were arriving at central with less than 60 people on a 6 car service in the middle of peak hour). 4 or 6x 80 emus are currently stowed in case they are needed (Used to be 4 at Ipswich and 2 at Redbank? - might return for CRR if the new trains aren't in service by then). 2 or 4x 200 are still stowed (Pretty sure with 205/212 being the last still stowed at Redbank IIRC and shouldn't be going anywhere soon as they should be in the unwired yard). The last ICE set is still having problems so IMU100/120 have been moved around as a result. During a day you can have anywhere between 10-15 3 car sets out due to scheduled maintenance depending on what work needs to be undertaken. Depending on what units are scheduled there can be some issues with fleet availability and how they pair eg the low fleet numbers of SMU200/IMU100/IMU120/EMU and problems of pairing an IMU104 with IMU169 vs a IMU169 with SMU281. For example the other month a SMU200 failed in morning peak but there was nothing else to pair its trailing unit too despite spare IMU100 and EMU both sitting idle in the yard so the arvo run was done by its trailing set as a 3 car unit.

[ozbob]

^ thanks HTG.  So when up to 8 NGRs at time are at Maryborough train fleet will be tight.

Is there any value in designating certain peak services as 3 car so that passengers can avoid them if desired?

It is doubtful if there will be any more new trains before CRR opens.   I am not expecting much at all in terms of changes to overall service frequencies. 

[ozbob]

Does anyone know if NGR735 has entered revenue service yet? Been a while since it was returned to Wulkuraka post DSAPT upgrade.

[ozbob]

Just a reminder where train numbers sit.

Why was it reduced to 75 6-Car Units?

- We know that the 100, 120, 200 and 220 Series are being overhauled/upgraded as part of a mid-life extension program.  This can be seen in the recent transfer of SMU 202 and 210 to Walkers/Downer in Maryborough.  That's 28 6-Car Units (10+4+12+30 3-Car Units) accounted for.
- We know the 160 and 260 Series will also undergo some form of upgrade program. That's 32 6-Car Units (28+36 3-Car Units) accounted for.
- We know the EMU is being withdrawn and that's 43.5 6-Car Units (or 87 3-Car Units).
- We know the ICE is being withdrawn and that's 4 6-Car Units (or 8 'Power Pair').
- That's a total of 107.5 6-Car Units.

After the retirements of all EMU and ICE and the addition of the 700 Series, there will be a total of 135 6-Car Units.

QR trumpeted a fleet increase of 30 percent which equates to a total of 140 6-Car Units.  The bean counters have obviously found fleet management/allocation savings of 5 6-Car Units some where in their little balance sheet.

So there will be 75 NGRs (6 car) and 60 other six car trains.

The NGRs will have to run in CRR because of the ATP requirements, and grade issues.

It is possible that the Ferny Grove line may never see NGRs in routine revenue service until more trains are ordered.

Can someone please update this fleet list.

[ozbob]

https://www.queenslandrail.com.au/aboutus/organisation/citytrain-fleet

EMU ?

SMU 200 12 x 3 car

SMU 220  30 x 3 car

SMU 260  36 x 3 car

IMU 100   10 x 3 car

IMU 120    4 x 3 car

IMU 160   28 x 3 car

ICE  ?

NGR 75 x 6 car

[HappyTrainGuy]

^ thanks HTG.  So when up to 8 NGRs at time are at Maryborough train fleet will be tight.

Is there any value in designating certain peak services as 3 car so that passengers can avoid them if desired?

It is doubtful if there will be any more new trains before CRR opens.   I am not expecting much at all in terms of changes to overall service frequencies.

Not without removing sectorisation. Doomben easily can be 3 car. Also you get problems with routing ie ex Cleveland/manly services dead run back to Roma street/park road for peak hour services to doomben. Rosewood already is a 3 car shuttle with the odd thru service.

And yes it's extremely doubtful that you'll get any new trains before CRR opens. It's a duplicate project of the NGR so a new mtce facility, spares, testing and tooling needs to be done aswell. Its also why EMUs have undergone extension of life testing.

But remember it's all subjective as CRR throws another spanner in the works with regards to trains dead running for peak hour starters. Who knows with the extra added capacity Doomben can simply run on 2x 3 car trains with terminus trains from Cleveland dead running for via central services. At the moment there are a lot of dead train movements through central in peak hour.

[Otto]

Does anyone know if NGR735 has entered revenue service yet? Been a while since it was returned to Wulkuraka post DSAPT upgrade.

NGR 735 observed in service at Eagle Junction this morning.

[ozbob]

^ thanks Otto.  About time hey ...

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/ozbob13/status/1396532692670312451

[ozbob]

Unconfirmed reports suggest a second NGR has completed the DDA upgrade.  It might be at Redbank getting fitted for ETCS.

Understand might be 4 NGR sets at Maryborough now too.  Slow progress.

[HappyTrainGuy]

IIRC 706 and 727 are currently up there and there are a couple completed sets already running around.

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> 65 trains put election promise on track but NGR fixes slow to roll

... A separately funded $334 million project to fix by 2024 the poor disability access on the 75 NGR trains built to specifications in the 2013 contract has a long way to go.

Five of the required 75 trains have had their problems repaired and in the Citytrain fleet, Mr Bailey said.

"Another seven NGR trains are currently being upgraded and will soon re-enter passenger service."

Mr Bailey said the pace of disability modifications had been slow because it involved considerable setting work to make the modifications.

"Acceleration options" for the remaining work was being explored and the 2024 deadline would be met, he said.

[SteelPan]

Be interesting to best world practice this latest Qld Govt expense.
Nothing wrong with the NGR deal, except those who were clearly negligent in not ensuring they were built to Oz standards.

Is the Qld Debtfunder [ie, Taxpayer] getting value for more debt out of this latest announcement?

[SurfRail]

Be interesting to best world practice this latest Qld Govt expense.
Nothing wrong with the NGR deal, except those who were clearly negligent in not ensuring they were built to Oz standards.
Is the Qld Debtfunder [ie, Taxpayer] getting value for more debt out of this latest announcement?

You mean the geniuses running things during the period 2012-2015 I take it, since that is what the Forde Commission of Inquiry determined (eg see extract from page 37 of the Commission's report):

[HappyTrainGuy]

Not sure what planet youre on but there were plenty of things wrong with the NGR deal.

[SteelPan]

such as?

[HappyTrainGuy]

such as?

0 of the trains were DDA compliant. PSA numbers increased to cater for the higher use of the NGRs around the network due to guard positioning. Doomben is one line heavily affected by delays due to disabled passengers requiring assistance as these stations are unattended the majority of the time. Despite being a spur the late running of the inbound service does create delays for all suburban services north and south of Eagle Junction due to signalling and the outbound service waiting at the station until the inbound service exits. If the delays are big enough the Doomben bound service is terminated at Eagle Junction and the train dead runs to Virginia, Northgate or Bindha/Banyo to turn around and reform the Roma Street service at Eagle Junction. I'd saythats quite a cock up. They were ordered as DOO rollingstock for a network not able to support it (part of the LNP trying to further privatise the railways/cheaper build cost). Seating issues - passenger and crew. Line of sight issues. Crew discomfort etc etc etc. Door issues - they simply fell off the rails they were attached too. Mold issues. Brake issues. Wheel flange/sound issues. Brake squeal issues. (The sound issues were easily fixed by giving staff members ear protection). Internal fixtures vibrate/rattle around (you can see where costs were saved on the internal fitout). MTCE crew issues with their employer (QR employees do not service the NGRs. The closest you'll get to QR crews servicing a train are at the wash shed or a PSA wiping down door buttons and internal fittings at a terminus).

The whole point of the NGR contract was to increase the fleet by a handfull and replace the EMUs, ICE and possibly the first gen SMUs but instead we still have EMUs roaming the network (which are becoming quite costly to run and maintain), extension of life testing on the EMUs, the 80's in storage getting checkups every now and then along with a couple SMU200s DOA. At the time a number of SMU200s had significant issues and their replacement would have been brought forward quite quickly with NGR. IIRC only 1...maybe 2 but more than likely just the one had fixes applied to see if it would be cost effective to apply to all and they were quite costly/time consuming.

[ozbob]

Thanks HTG for that erudite summary of the "Not Going Right" train issues.  A debacle of the highest order .. 

bumblers are still there bumbling sadly ..

[achiruel]

The sensible thing to do with the NGR deal would have been to get a couple of sets landed here as early as possible for acceptance testing, before production commenced on the remainder. All these f!@k ups could have been sorted out then, but instead TMR went at it like a bull at a gate, and now we get to see the result.

I hope with the trains from the new Maryborough factory, they do exactly that - get 2 sets for acceptance testing, then iron out any issues before mass production. Let's see.

[SABB]

HappyTrainGuy wrote :  They were ordered as DOO rollingstock for a network not able to support it (part of the LNP trying to further privatise the railways/cheaper build cost).

I was in QR for about 37 years. DOO has been part of QR's operations management wish-list from about 1987 when QR started trying to run like a business not a public service. The ALP has been in state government for most of the period since. By the way, who privatised QR National, the LNP or the ALP ?
I think that TMR screwed up the NGR contract. They should not have relied on Bombardier's QA system and put a separate inspection system in India to check all processes and QA stages.

[HappyTrainGuy]

There's a lot on that operations list. Just look how many times they've gone down the atp rabbit hole for the brisbane area only for treasury to say no on funding.

All I was doing was pointing out how trains set up for doo were ordered for a network that's not set up for them. Further highlighted elsewhere when the razor blades came out to make it look leaner and become someone else's problem later on. Now more staff have been hired, trains had extra fitout work undertaken for guards and now they are having dda work undertaken. I know labour privatised QR. I really don't care who did what. I hate politics. The majority of the time it's self interests.

[verbatim9]

I believe the best strategy to undertake and implement driver only operation, is to start transitioning guards now to driver jobs before Cross River Rail is fully commissioned. Then in 2024 some services can be run driver only. This will help introduce much needed services onto the network at a lower cost to the traveller, Government and tax payer.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/MarkBaileyMP/status/1562716212513349634

[Fares_Fair]

HappyTrainGuy wrote :  They were ordered as DOO rollingstock for a network not able to support it (part of the LNP trying to further privatise the railways/cheaper build cost).

I was in QR for about 37 years. DOO has been part of QR's operations management wish-list from about 1987 when QR started trying to run like a business not a public service. The ALP has been in state government for most of the period since. By the way, who privatised QR National, the LNP or the ALP ?
I think that TMR screwed up the NGR contract. They should not have relied on Bombardier's QA system and put a separate inspection system in India to check all processes and QA stages.

Red team privatised QR National in 2010.
Blue team sold off a further $1.5 billion stake in the business in 2012. Reducing its stake from 34% down to 16%.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Red team also got rid of a lot of the railway men over the years and instead put in a lot of yes men which shaped quite a lot of the infrastructure and planning such as cancelling of planned upgrades/realignments to the ncl for more/faster freights/tilts that never happened. ATP/ETCS in the suburban area isn't something newly talked about. It's been in the works for decades with the IMU100/110 still having provisions for ATP to be fitted. Someone just keeps pulling the plug.

No different than the NCL getting quad realignment provisions for 160kph running only to have that fancy glamorous overhyped hopefully no one remembers the original plans of a mess we are getting now.

The ball has been dropped for quite a while no matter what government has been in power and with every new spruiked project it's just something that should have been done a long time ago or has been talked about internally for quite a long time. Oh. Manly 3rd platform. How many government studies for funding does that need.

[SteelPan]

  QT/QR are the most expensive rail developer/operators in the developed world!

Newman was right to open rolling-stock to global competition.  It's GREAT IF, you can COMPETIVELY build train units in QLD....fantastic....but it must stack-up!

If we're so "World Class" [ever heard that expression before?] why the fear of competitve processes?

Another FAIL from Bailey! 

[verbatim9]

Agree, whole heartedly. Compared with other train procurements in other states, it seems that Qld is getting 30-40% percent less. 

[HappyTrainGuy]

  QT/QR are the most expensive rail developer/operators in the developed world!

A lot of operators in the USA would beat them by a mile. From operators running old stock/systems right up to questionable infrastructure such as a 2.3 billion dollar above ground spur for 6.5km of track that expects to carry less than 9000 people per day in 2040-2045 or something.

[AJ Transport]

  QT/QR are the most expensive rail developer/operators in the developed world!

A lot of operators in the USA would beat them by a mile. From operators running old stock/systems right up to questionable infrastructure such as a 2.3 billion dollar above ground spur for 6.5km of track that expects to carry less than 9000 people per day in 2040-2045 or something.

Got to agree with Happy Train Guy, US and Australia both spend way too much on all PT procurement and building, Canada and the UK do too but not quite as consistently.

I think it's more about procurement, cost engineering, and structural issues.
Wages don't explain it because countries with equally high wages complete these projects more cheaply. Market competition and market size doesn't explain it or the US and UK wouldn't spend so much more than smaller nations (Denmark, South Korea, Singapore).

I suspect what is needed is a clear and consistent approach with high quality project design and management. None of this can happen under our current bipartisan approach to politics.

[HappyTrainGuy]

There are multiple factors at play depending on what it is. Infrastructure, rollingstock or both. Take rollingstock. Building one facility isn't just the fix. Quite simply we don't buy enough rollingstock at one go to make it cost effective when comparing to larger manufacturers who have efficient production lines, off the shelf rollingstock design/internal layouts (wiring etc) and multiple contracts.

Take the new electric trains for Adelaide, vlines dmus or our smu260/imu160 all are based on an off the shelf plan.

Another downside to buying overseas rollingstock is you end up with higher refurbishment contract costs, quicker write offs or delays to major repairs. Quite a lot of the time damaged rollingstock simply gets written off rather than repaired usually because of costs involved, not having resources/parts to repair, using the written off rollingstock for spares or just ordering additional rollingstock on a future contract. We've had EMUs crash head on, flipped onto its side, set on fire, derailed, they've hit cars, trucks, 20T transformers and were all repaired and returned to service fairly quickly. Even the show train for the Rocky/Gladstone/Bundy commissioning was shunted way too hard, punched a hole and did a nice amount of damage to the underbody. If you look closely at photos throughout the tour you'll notice the leading EMU has no coupler on the front. Officially only 1x 3 car set has been written off and that took a 3900 locomotive sideswiping it at 50kph.

But that network only works well if you have a supporting network. The US freight locomotive network is a perfect example of this. Since Redbank closed simple fixes are no longer cheap or quick. The ICE trains weren't cost effective to send to Maryborough for repair so when the last unit failed in service and needed repairs that was it. ICE fleet fully retired. Refurbs aren't as cheap and quick. Spares are no longer easily sourced or manufactured in-house. They now either get sent to the Ipswich workshops like 107 did after hitting the dirt at Mayne if they can fix it otherwise it gets dumped on a siding at Redbank for 11 months until Maryborough has a slot to check it out.

Too many different varying factors.

[ozbob]

NGR 708  is one of the upgraded NGRs. I travelled on it ex Cleveland.

The new toilets are functional, finished well. 
Some modifications to the pans which might help make them more resilient to idiots doing the wrong thing as well. 
Excellent finish.

It is a big plus having trains with two DDA compliant toilets.
It is real shame the battle and expenditure it was/is to get to this point.

I have been constantly reassured that the authorities have learned from the debacle this was,
and it augers well for the QTMP trains. 











Photographs R Dow 1st September 2022