New Hitachi Class 385s in Scotland were withdrawn from traffic for more than a week owing to a brake problem.
ScotRail 385004 and 385122 were working the 1216 Edinburgh Waverley-Glasgow Queen Street on October 4, when the driver reported a brake failure near Winchburgh Junction. It is understood that the driver only had the emergency brake working. The train was terminated at Linlithgow.
As a precaution, SR removed all the ‘385s’ out of traffic the following day (it had kept others in use on October 4, but ran them with on-board technical support). That meant the return of diesels to Edinburgh-Glasgow via Falkirk, while electric multiple units were used for other duties as cover.
In a statement, ScotRail said: “The original issue saw a small loss of signalling across the brake signalling cables on one train. The train remained safe as the overarching brake control was not affected. The driver was in control of the train at all times and had the ability to bring it to a safe stop.”
They returned to traffic on October 13.
- For the FULL story, read RAIL 864, published on October 24, and available digitally on Android, iPad and Kindle on October 20.
AndrewJG8918 - 16/10/2018 11:23
At least the brake problem on some of the Class 385s have been fixed and solved. Then that means the Class 385s will still be in service as more of them are coming from Newton Aycliffe manufacturing plant and when the electrification on the Stirling, Alloa and Dunblane lines and the Shotts Line is completed. Then more Class 385s will be in service replacing the Class 170s & other units to operate elsewhere and some Class 170s cascaded to Northern. As 16 Class 170s will be transferred to Northern from ScotRail before the end of this year.