An Advantage Of IPEMU Trains
My correspondent from the Corbedian Republic Of North Islington, has visited family in Newcastle over the weekend.
But things coming home didn’t go to plan and I received this text.
Our train dropped it’s pantograph.
Driver can’t put it back and train has been declared a failure. I quote. Now waiting to be rescued from Doncaster.
Later I received another text.
Train guard and driver not in touch. Could turn long and silly!
It all got me thinking!
As the train dropped a pantograph it was probably an InterCity 225 and not a diesel InterCity 125, which are built to Carry On Regardless. When I travel North from Kings Cross, I’ll look to see if the train is going to Aberdeen or Inverness, which means it will be a 125, with a reliable lump of a massive diesel engine front and back!
Incidentally, I found this extract in the Wikipedia entry for the Class 91 locomotive that pulls the InterCity 225.
In November 2012, unit 91114 had a second pantograph added as a pilot project operated jointly by Eversholt Rail Group, East Coast, ESG, Wabtec Rail and Brecknell-Willis. The new design uses the same mounting positions as a conventional pantograph but pairs two pantograph arms in an opposing configuration. If there is an ADD (Automatic Dropping Device) activation or the pantograph becomes detached, the train can keep going, so the system provides redundancy in the event of a pantograph/OLE failure.
So it could be that Class 91s regularly drop pantographs like whores drop their drawers!
As far as I can find out, only one locomotive has been fitted with the new pantograph.
But in future, I have a feeling that this type of problem could give a big advantage to an IPEMU train, which has on-board energy storage.
As it rolls along, it will be charging the battery, so if the pantograph fails, it will have a full battery and should be able to run for perhaps another fifty miles or so to a convenient station.
Having two independent systems, is not a bad way of improving reliability.
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The Anonymous Widower 
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