ROLLING STOCK
Cutting train casualties
– from a distance
A remote condition monitoring system installed across Southeastern’s Networker fleet is already reaping dividends, with improved performance, lower maintenance costs and more efficient use of depot time. RTM speaks to Southeastern engineering director, Wayne Jenner.
ne of Southeastern’s 190 Networkers had been suffering from an undiagnosed wiring problem since 2004 – until an engineer using a new remote condition monitoring system spotted a pattern within weeks of its installation last year, and realised the nature of the problem and how to fix it.
O
That was just one of the unintended benefits of a project that Southeastern engineering director Wayne Jenner
calls “the most
sophisticated condition monitoring system in the UK at the moment, by a mile”.
It was installed across all the operator’s Class 465 and 466 units over the course of last year, with partners including Alstom UK, Nexala and Nomad Digital.
T
Jenner is hopeful that effective use of the new system can improve the Networker fleets’ average 15,000 to 18,000 miles per casualty to 25,000 or even 30,000 miles – which would be not far behind the figures achieved by the much newer parts of Southeastern’s fleet, the high-speed Class 395s and the Electrostars, which have typical failure rates of one per 40,000 to 50,000 miles.
The PPM statistics are already beginning to show the impact of the remote condition monitoring (RCM) project.
Hardware and software
Southeastern has two distinct sets of Networkers: the Eversholt-owned units built in York in the early 1990s, which had their traction systems upgraded by Hitachi and Brush in 2009/10, and the Angel Trains- owned units built at Washwood Heath, which Southeastern acknowledges continue to suffer from frequent traction problems.
This meant two distinct hardware systems were used, although there is a common web- based front-end interface, using a version of the Nexala Spetrum system.
The Angel Trains fleet of 93 units (43 Class 466s, 50 Class 465s) each had a data acquisition unit (DAU) fitted, which monitors over 200 analogue and digital data signals, processes them and converts them to information that’s displayed in the front- end interface. The digital storage capacity to cope with all this data is provided by Nomad Digital.
On the Eversholt fleet, a more straightforward installation was possible, using an on-train monitoring recorder (OTMR).
Jenner explained: “The Eversholt trains have got the new Hitachi traction system, and that is a very reliable system in its own right.
54 | rail technology magazine Jun/Jul 12
© Joshua Brown
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