South West Train struggles away from Farncombe at 7am Monday morning , the arcing to the live rail creating an awesome lightshow of sparks and flashes to be beholdened.
Great video... I expect his in cab computer screen was coming up with all kinds of weird & wonderful faults in that snow. Never a micro-chip to be seen in the old slammers. I heard - on the grapevine - that a few of these Desiro units caught fire due to snow getting into the working bits.
Most likely the cab would show warnings for wheelslip and the occasional loss of line voltage. Nothing new to the driver, the way they handle it is by being gentler on the throttle. As you saw them doing in this video.
But wires don't have the majesticness of huge junction filled with rails, AND DAMN POLES STOP BLOCKING MY VIEW, seriously mate those poles are annoying
Pretty cool stuff greenkougar.I'm a Canadian living over here in the UK since 2002. In Canada that snow would be considered Light to Moderate snow and nothing to be too concerned with. Your video is very interesting and something I will show my family back home.Take care and all the best.
Remember this day, leaving New Street with no snow on the ground and seeing BA's long haul fleet at BHX suggested it was bad in London. Managed to get a Piccadilly Line train to Hammersmith then having to walk to work to Chiswick. It had pretty much cleared up by the evening.
Just to clarify this is aClass 444 Ways to tell the difference: Other than the obvious of 444's painted white 450's painted blue, there are other obvious signs. The Class 450 is a normal EMU. So standard length coaches, 2 double doors about 1/3'd of the way down the coaches, 4 coaches per unit, max units 3 (12 coach maximum). The Class 444 is an Express EMU. Longer coaches (About 120% standard size) single doors at each end, 5 coaches per unit, max units 2 (10 coach maximum). Hope this helps.
@tpvalley - the contact shoes on EMUs are designed only for current collection. Network Rail's MPVs and de-icer trains have special shoes which are designed to scrape ice off and apply an anti-freezing solution. Hope that helps!
@northlanderdude Think you guys are confusing Traction and wheelslip. In rail terms , loss of traction isnt loss of grip but a loss in motor output. Low/poor rail adhesion is the term used to explain loss of grip to the rail. So loss of traction in this case would mean poor acceleration to to the motors being inhibited by the Lims or by the MCBs tripping in and out.
Not normally no. What can and has happened in the past though is that severe arcing can result in the collector shoe becoming welded to the third rail.
@greenkougar I've got the exact same camera as you, and likewise i am also very pleased with it having no moving parts as well as using standard connectors for the essential inputs and outputs. Of course one of the first things i shot with it was a freight train and i uploaded it to youtube. All within the hour, fantastic little peice of gadgetry and on that note a fantastic video there mate! We are in the process of gettng electric overhead wires installed in this city (Auckland, New Zealand)
The sparks are simply from the making and breaking of contact between the shoe and the juice rail because of the snow. It's nothing out of the ordinary and used to happen all the time, giving huge flashes which I occasionally mistook for lightning even. Not "awesome" to someone of my age (70), then, but a well-produced vid, so thanks.
@@hingo078 Thank you! I'm now 78, alive and well, have had prostate cancer and been cured of it, quite a process. The electric trains seem to make much fewer sparks than they used to maybe because of some change in circuitry in the motors. Or maybe there's less snow now.
The train looks so creepy. But i know what the train is. It is the class 444. The motors were really failing! Or maybe wheelslip was causing slower departure
@WILKO50 Hi Thanks for your comments! The camera is Panasonic HDC-SD9 - recording onto SD card so no moving parts while recording. I am very pleased with it!
I suppose it could be possible but I doubt it would "leak" current sufficiently to adversely affect the traction voltage. Pure water on it's own is not a brilliant conductor, it's usually what is contained in the water which makes it a good conductor.
Modern techno bollox for you,i suppose they didnt think snow would get on the power rail,maybe they should fit a blade in front of the pick ups to clear the snow?
@toonmag50 yes it could happen,with overhead lines you can feel it in your eyes during fine lite rain,it also raises the chance of arcing,through you to ground,you wont survive.!!!!!!!!!!!
Sure. If the wheel of the train did not touch the rail, and someone got off the train and touched the ground with their foot, they would be electrocuted!
This video came up on my recommendations today. As no one has answered your question. The Southern part of England was the first area to run electric trains on main lines. Starting in the 1920s. They chose to use the 3rd rail system. Following on from, the worlds first electric railway that used the 3rd rail. The Volks Electric Railway. In Brighton on the south coast. Opened in 1883. It is still running as a museum with some carriages dating back to 1901. The London underground also used conductor rails starting in the 1890s. Frost is the biggest problem causing ice on the top of the rail. Stopping the pick up shoe contacting properly. They run special de-icing trains. But if there is heavy rain it washes the de-icing fluid off the rail. There are thousands of miles of track with the 3rd rail. The cost of converting everything to pantograph system is too expensive. Other parts of the country where electrification started later it is the pantograph system. The Docklands Light Railway in London. Started in the 1980s was also built with 3rd rail. But that was designed so the current is picked up from underneath the 3rd rail. Giving less problems and added safety. Also fully automated, without drivers. 25 miles of track with 6 branches and 45 stations.
