Quite A Few Bits Missing?
We have been following the “manufacture” of Anglia Railways’ class 720 trains at Litchurch Lane works in Derby. Our slightly unreliable guide has been Gregg (Wow!) Wallace as presenter of the BBC2 series “Inside the Factory”.
Yesterday saw the completion of a raw body shell, the aluminium “tube” that constitutes the main structural part of the train. In passing, the programme told us that glazing had been fitted to the bodyside panels.
This, like everything we have seen so far, will have arrived by road from a sub-contractor. Likewise the doors come into the works on the back of a lorry, ready painted and complete with their door-pillar mechanism.
They are plug doors which open to lie outside the side panels of the coach.
When the doors close they “plug” the hole and sit flush with the bodysides. There are complicated mechanics to go wrong, seen below top …
… and bottom of the “doorpost”.
This whole system comes complete and ready to bolt in.
But Gregg did take us to the “Cab Shop” where sidekick presenter Cherry Healey …
… observed production of the glass reinforces plastic cab.
Layers of glass fibre and gunk are applied by hand to a large mould …
… very much like making papier mache things at primary school. The mould is baked …
… and, once done to a turn, out pops an Aventra cab. OK, it need trimming, glazing and painting, but it will be a cab.
But it also needs testing for structural integrity – ensuring there are no voids – that’s thin bits to you and fbb! And how do they test it; what clever sonar visioning equipment is used?
Answer, a 50p piece!
Unless Alstom were kidding Gregg et al …
… the man taps all over the cab moulding to check for he right-sounding clunk. And you thought these manual jobs had gone from the railway with the demise of the wheel tapper?
Anyway, the finished cab is bolted on to the carriage tube …
… complete with interior; which has magically arrived from somewhere …
… and equally mysteriously manifested itself in place.
Eternally amazed, Gregg is surprised. “Wow, I would have thought that the cab would be made of metal and not plastic!”. The Alstom man did not explain further to the jovial presenter.
This, of course, is another piece of misleading presentation.
The “skin” of the cab, the pretty bit, is indeed made of plastic but the underlying structure of the cab is a big strong steel (?) frame designed to protect the driver in the event of impact.
The above picture shows the installation of the wiring looms (delivered to the works on yet another a lorry!) into the cab; but it does also show the very hefty frame (light brown) that constitutes the real cab.
And it is very definitely not plastic.
Soon we see the near complete vehicle being lowered gingerly on to its bogies.
Then we see the completed carriage being wheeled out of the production line and on to a traverser.
This clever bit of kit (Wow!) carries a complete carriage sideways along to the yard where is meets its four chums.
And, abracadabta, we have a complete joined up working train.
Gregg is impressed!
And as a finale, he gets to drive the train along Alstom’s works test track.
It is reported that Mr Wallace needed four weeks in a convalescent home to recover from the astronomically high level of excitement (wow factor) that his visit generated.
But we saw no electric motors, no pantograph …
… an nothing about the high level of technology that keeps train, driver and passengers safe.
Pity.
But Gregg did “help build the train” by tightening one nut to fix one of the air horns in place,
So, having watched the programme, fbb can only come to one conclusion.
Aventra Class 720 trains were NOT manufactured at Derby.
Like the Midland Railway Pullman cars of the 1870s …
… they are assembled from a very large kit of parts.
Such are the consequences of “the global market”, the determination to “drive down costs” and the sad fact that UK Ltd has forgotten completely how to make anything!
Soon after completing the contract, Alstom in Derby were in trouble.
Alstom and Hitachi blog : Thurs 5th Sept
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