Its back to the West Midlands Metro for this latest edition of “Out and About” as we feature what was at the time a temporary terminus at Bull Street.
Bull Street was only ever meant to be a temporary terminus for around three months whilst trackworks took place further into the city centre but it has ended up remaining so for over six months with well publicised issues with the trams. And so it was when this photo was taken showing 42 soaking up the winter sunshine. (Photograph by Roland Bull, 7th January 2022)
Service suspended till further notice 19.03.2022, more cracks found on trams.
We’ll get a report online in the early part of the week, but looks like it could be a long term issue again. The idea of testing to Edgbaston in May, service in June and Wolverhampton Railway Station in July seem a bit of a pipedream now (although I guess they didn’t say which year…)
One hundred and forty three years of electric trams and after all that they make new vehicles that are not fit for purpose. The Blackpool balloons are over 80 years old and still serviceable, and the Manx Electric even older by decades. Long established technology, tried and tested over more than a century and proved to be supremely reliable, has been abandoned for systems that are not reliable. The old engineering adage KISS – ‘keep it simple – stupid!’ is ignored and this is the result. Only a return to reliable, basic systems will prevent this from happening over and over again.
I sincerely hope that you aren’t advocating the return to trams being constructed on wooden frames with virtually no crash resistance. Let’s be honest there’s not much original left of those 80 year old museum pieces you praise so loudly. To condemn all second generation trams because of an admittedly serious structural defect suffered by one manufacturer is frankly ridiculous. There is no way that trams built along the lines of the balloons would meet any modern standard or attract private car users away from their environmentally unfriendly personal transport. This is not a reliability problem it is a design defect by one company which they will have to correct. If we followed your thinking we would all be stuck in the middle ages.
I was referring to reliability. If a system becomes unreliable, then people will not use it (most obviously when it is closed down because of the failings). The cracks on running gear causing vehicles to be removed from service were also evident on the Hitachi Azuma trains. Serious structural defects in new vehicles must have a cause. They are accidents waiting to happen. When denigrating old designs one must remember that the worst accident in terms of loss of life in a century was in a 2nd generation tram at Sandilands. It turned out not to be as crashworthy as thought when it came off the line. As to the Middle Ages it was a long period which sew many innovations in technology, for example the windmill, gunpowder and cannon, the navigational compass and the forerunner of trams in mine railways. high level of craftsmanship overseen by the various Guilds. I am advocating the construction of reliable vehicles, and it is sad that with all the testing and quality controls that things like this still happen in 2022.
I agree with Nigel 100% on this. Modern trams are often built to a price, using computer aided designs to pear back everything to the absolute bear minimum in terms of material thickness, strength and rigidity. There is no ‘wriggle room’ built in to allow for unforseen problems.
The biggest problem I see is most modern designs (those used in Blackpool, West Mids, Nottingham as examples) have a very poorly thought out wheel layout, effectively being three four-wheel cars jointed together by two extended towbars with cabins built on the top. The forces being transmitted through the articulations most be huge on curves, with the rear truck effectively trying to jack-knife the section without wheels all the time. However the CAF problem possibly has more to do with the small wheelbase of the trucks and the unsupported weight. All trams of this layout seem to have a very bouncy up and down motion, so I’m not surprised that cracks are now appearing in the superstructure as there is no load-bearing chassis. I would expect to see the worst deterioration in the vehicle sections with wheels, with the weight of the floating connecting sections and the large frommt and rear overhangs continually pushing the end of the sections downward. My guess would be that the latest cracks are around the top corners of the doorways. I would also expect the roof of these sections to be under extreme tension so look for cracks across the roof sections too where they are trying to pull themselves apart because of the downward forces on the ends.
These trams should have either been built with stronger materials or traditional bogies should have been used, placed under the articulations or near to the ends of the vehicles. Good exapmles of this being the current fleets being used in both Manchester and Sheffield.
Historic wooden bodied vehicles are no more dangerous that modern ones, which is proven by numbers of deaths in accidents. A well built wooden frame is actually quite resilient. Remember that trees bend! Wood has a degree of flexibility that means even when bent out of shape the joints remain stable. You won’t find cracks around the doors of a Blackpool balloon for example! In a serious accident, such as the one on Snae Fell a few years ago, the structure will fail. However under similar conditions a lightly built metal structure would fail too. Remember we are talking about flimsy light rail vehicles here, not crash-resistant railway rolling stock. Sheffield’s tram trains are far more heavily built than other LRVs, which they had to be to meet railway crash worthiness standards.
Blackpool’s traditional trams carriesd many millions of passengers for over a century, coping with loading capacities far greater than those we see in most places today. All of this was done without any major incidents that included major loss of life. I believe this is because they were operated by skilled crews and both built and maintained by skilled engineers.
Let some university garduate design a tram on a computer and the situation we now have in the West Midlands is what you get! My prediction is that when a major accident involving one of the 5-section, 3-truck layout of trams occurs, it will be the worst loss of life in an incident on a light rail system of all time.
It’s not just our Trams
Tyseley depot is Full of class 196 units made by, CAF some are now aproching 2 years old
None have yet entered service due to problems
build quality etc, shoddy workmanship.
Build one knock out the door, Next etc
Non excetant quality control or testing at all.
Our T100 Trams arrive and its up to WM metro
to go over them ti see everything is has should, test everything check everything, none of the display screens work in side on any of them!
Getting the front destination to work is hit and miss and its OK one end but 50/50 if it will work the other end.
None of the drivers like them at all.
I carnt print what some of the driver trainers say about them ?
Nice seats though
The Blackpool Flexities do indeed have bogies – Flexx Urban 3000 ones.