8100 Refurb 169

Irish Railway Record Society

The Refurbishment of the DART Class 8100 Fleet

COURTNEY MURPHY, CEng, Iarnród Éireann

BRIEF BACKGROUND

In approximately 1979 a decision was taken at Government level to electrify the Dublin suburban line from Howth to Bray. After a tendering process, Linke Hoffmann Busch (LHB), Salzgitter, Germany was chosen to deliver 40 two-car units, consisting of a motor car with four traction motors and a semi-permanently coupled trailer car. They were built with traction motors, electrical equipment and controls by GEC Traction of England. The first unit was delivered to Iarnród Éireann (IÉ) in February 1983. After over a years’ testing, not just of the trains but of the whole 1,500 Volt DC Overhead Line Equipment (OHLE), track and signalling, the first regular DART service commenced on 23 July 1984, in the 150th anniversary year of the opening of the Dublin to Kingstown Railway in 1834.

By early 2001 these units had given sterling service but were approaching 20 years old and beginning to show their age. Also, they lacked many of the sophistications and customer comfort features of more modern trains. Work was begun on writing a specification to refurbish these units to the latest engineering, safety and passenger comfort standards to allow for another 20 years of operation. These included features such as:

	A modern digital wheel slip/slide protection (WSP) system
	A Passenger Information System (PIS) with visual and audible information on destinations, next station, etc
	Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) for safety and security
	Obstacle detection and audible alarm on doors while closing
	Illuminated door open button, with illuminated warning if locked-off
	Revised seating with a wheelchair bay in both motor and trailer car
	Two-way communications with the driver from Call for Aid (CFA) at wheelchair bays and Passenger Alarm Units (PAU) at doors.
	Updated Automatic Train Protection (ATP) to limit speed and if necessary brake safely in case of emergencies
	Updated Event recorder (like an aircraft “black box”) to capture and store all major operating parameter

Coincidentally with the writing of the specification for refurbishment, a fire occurred in the maintenance depot at Fairview in the early hours of Saturday 14 July 2001. Two units (four cars) were destroyed and 12 other units suffered smoke damage. Extensive damage was also caused to the building and its services.

An IÉ investigation into the causes of the fire suggested that the refurbishment should improve fire prevention and fire spread protection measures. These complicated many of the features in attempting to achieve the industry standard BS 6853 “Code of practice for fire precautions in the design ... Category 1b - for trains that use tunnels infrequently”.

Among the recommended improvements were:

	All new glazing
	Galvanised steel plate to be incorporated in the flooring
	Intumescent coating to improve the fire performance of the original cork body-shell sound-proofing
	New inter-car gangway rubbers
	Fire proof barrier in the seat upholstery
	Improved cab to saloon partitioning
	Earth leakage/residual current protection on 230V AC circuits

Also, additional passenger accessible but alarmed fire extinguisher lockers were to be provided in each saloon.

All of this effectively delayed the project by two years, with the revised Invitation to Tender eventually being issued in June 2003.

The Refurbishment Contract and Difficulties Encountered.

After evaluation of competitive tenders, the contract for the refurbishment was signed with Siemens Transportation Systems (STS) in December 2004. In addition IÉ decided to contribute some major mechanical overhaul at the same time with bogies and interior trimming undertaken at Inchicore whilst units were away in Germany.

The first units were shipped to Germany in December 2004 and the original plan called for the work was to be completed in 24 months at approximately one unit every three weeks. All units were shipped without bogies as these were to be overhauled at Inchicore.

Almost immediately difficulties were encountered because the contract called for the original GEC chopper propulsion system, with the analogue control electronics, to be refurbished. However mainly due to the age of this equipment and availability of spares Siemens eventually concluded that the only way forward was to design, build and install a completely new traction package with digital control electronics. This major re-engineering led to a significant delay and during this period the refurbishment of up to 10 units had been held up in Germany so that the first two units only arrived back in Dublin in October and November 2006.

Again, because both of the extensive changes, the need for proving tests, safety evaluations, driver and maintenance staff training etc., these first two units only entered service in April 2007.

Getting the Project Back on Schedule

As can be imagined, there were major challenges in getting the project back on schedule after a two year hiatus. A completely revised project plan was agreed in December 2006 to allow the project to move forward. The author joined IÉ to help in these efforts from early May 2007. With the co-operation of staff in IÉ, Siemens, sub-suppliers, transport contractors and many others, the situation was gradually recovered so that the following goals were achieved:

	Units out of service was reduced from a peak of 13, through a running average of 12 to eventually none by December 2008.
	All milestones in the revised project plan of December 2006 were achieved.
	The revised last acceptance date of 31 October 2008 for the 38th and final unit was met.
	Days from receiving units back at Dublin Port to entering passenger service were reduced from 190 to a low of 27.
	A conditional certificate for passenger operations was issued by the relatively newly formed Railway Safety Commission (RSC). Over a period of 18 months all conditions were closed out to allow a full certificate for passenger operations to be issued.

Some of the strategies and changes of practice used to achieve these improvements included:

	Tight project management with targets set and met
	Change from shipping on frames (stillages) through Rotterdam to roll-on, roll-off low loaders running from Dublin to Delitzsch, Germany and vice-versa in three days, despite using the “land bridge” route through England and Wales.
	Use of “pairing” of units so that four trailers delivered two refurbished units on a Thursday and went back on the Friday with two units for refurbishment. This also allowed back-to-back commissioning and testing. Whereas any two-car unit is permitted to test at night, only a four car set of two units is allowed on to the system for “shake-down” testing during operational hours.

The Scope of Work involved in the Refurbishment

One of the main objectives of the refurbishment, besides extending the fleet life, was to enhance safety and passenger comfort. These factors were considered in all the major areas:

1.          Bogies

2.          Bodywork

3.          Electronic equipment

1 Bogies. It was agreed with Siemens that the major bogie work would be done by IÉ. This involved:

	Removal from the units before shipment and transportation to Inchicore
	Cleaning and stripping
	Re-wheeling
	Refurbishment and updating of traction motors
	Complete refurbishment of brake equipment
	Replacement of air-bag suspension

Subsequent work was done by Siemens on site in Inchicore. This involved:

	Fitting of the Wheel Slip Protection (WSP) sensors, wiring, etc.
	Fitting of Wheel Flange lubrication (WFL) to nine units

2 Bodywork. Once the vehicles were received by the sub-contractor Schienenfahrzeugwerk (SFW) at Delitzsch, near Leipzig, Germany, they were stripped to the steel shell and any corrosion or fractured components repaired or replaced. The major elements of the bodywork refurbishment included:

	Fitting all new internal wiring looms
	Complete rebuild of the driver’s cab
	New interior panels and trim
	New flooring
	Repaired seat frames (the upholstery was done in IÉ’s Inchicore BMS Department and fitted during the re-commissioning)
	Fitting extra grab handles and poles
	Fitting all new laminated glazing
	Fitting the PIS displays
	Fitting the CCTV cameras
	Modification of the doors to incorporate the obstacle detection circuitry
	New inter-car gangway rubbers
	Fitting of the sanding equipment (some piping subsequently had to be married with the bogies during the re-commissioning).
	New mouldings to house the new halogen headlamps and LED marker lights.

For cost reasons, a decision had been taken not to repaint the vehicles because they were part way through a time-based repainting programme. However, all new information and safety labelling, logos, etc were fitted by IÉ during the re-commissioning.

3 Electronic equipment. This involved a mixture or refurbishing some of the old GEC equipment and installation of some completely new modules.

Among the equipment refurbished were:

	Motor Alternator (M/A) sets
	Auxiliary compressors (the main compressors had recently been replaced by IÉ)
	Many electrical contactors and relays

Decommissioning tes1. Decommissioning Decommissioning tests and acceptance New equipment included:

	he DC chopper propulsion system with digital control electronics
	The large resistor bank (needed to dissipate regenerative braking energy under OHLE non-receptive conditions)
	A larger capacity (nominal 135 ampere-hour) main 110V nickel-cadmium battery
	The WSP system
	The Event Recorder (Black Box)
	The CCTV controller and recorder
	The ATP controller
	T
	A Passenger Counting System (PCS) fitted to the first 15 units.

The Logistics

Getting the units from operating service in Fairview to the major refurbishment sub-contractor in Delitzsch and back, in the minimum time and without damage, presented considerable challenges. the steps involved included:

	Decommissioning tests and acceptance protocol for Siemens to establish that the units were in good operating condition before shipment
	Stripping certain parts (e.g. pantograph) before vehicle shipment
	Hauling the units (still coupled together) to Alexandra Road by locomotive. This required crossing the Dublin-Belfast line, reversing by way of the Connolly wash-road and hauling through the North Wall yards.
	Pre-movement cleaning of the track on Alexandra Road, which was not used between these train movements
	Operation of a vehicle traffic management programme on a road with heavy port traffic.
	Splitting of the units and hoisting each vehicle by crane off the bogies and onto specially adapted low-loader trailers.
	Securing of the vehicles to the trailers, all loose connections, etc.
	Running the vehicles to Delitzsch via UK land-bridge.
	Transportation of the bogies by truck from Alexandra Road to Inchicore.

Receiving back was virtually the reverse procedure except for the following complications:

	With all the new equipment, each unit was now approximately one half tonne heavier
	Any damage-in-transit was now far more critical and if serious would have necessitated reshipping back to Germany. (Happily the worst incident was doors scraped off a ship’s bumper which were subsequently re-hung by SFW bodymakers in Fairview)
	The bogies were now specific depending on whether fitted with WFL and could not be mixed
	The vehicles had to be precisely located on the bogies to prevent damage to the air bags
	Re-coupling of the motor and trailer vehicles was problematic as they had to be reasonably level, which the track on Alexandra Road is not!

Some of the Technical Difficulties Met and Overcome during Recommissioning.

Besides the sheer complexity of getting the nine new systems mentioned above to integrate, some of the difficulties encountered included:

	Because the refurbished units are so radically different from their un-refurbished predecessors, they could not be operated in mixed “consists”. This caused considerable challenges in the earlier stages until sufficient refurbished units became available to make up the required six and eight car consists
	riginal issue state (revision). One system is now on Version 36 of the software!
	The major systems were either supplied new or refurbished by a range of over 20 other subcontractors. The primary subcontractor also did not have a 5’ 3” gauge test track with 1500V DC OHLE and thus the full service testing of many components and systems could be done only in Dublin after delivery. Also the bogies remained in Dublin for refurbishment by IÉ, so no bogie related testing could be done until the units were re-bogied.
	Only after approximately six months operation was it discovered that the wrong door cable material had been specified. The cables looked fine, fitted fine but suddenly, after six months, started to snap!

Notes of Thanks

The author would like to record his thanks to all, too many to mention individually, who assisted in bringing this project to where it is now (it will not be completed until the last unit comes out of warranty on 31 October 2010!)

	Colleagues at IÉ, many of whom assisted outside areas of direct responsibility and at unsocial hours!
	The Siemens staff in Germany and in Dublin who helped to bring the project back on track
	T

Some lighter moments!

I would like to conclude with a few of the lighter hearted moments which occurred and showed that people in general, and IÉ people in particular, are able to rise to challenges:

	As mentioned, the movements to and from Dublin Port necessitated use of the line on Alexandra Road which, beyond the Tara Mines Depot siding, were used only occasionally. On one of the earliest movements, in appalling weather, the points jammed. A wonderful bonding experience took place while the author and IÉ colleagues, on their hands and knees, scraped muck from the points till they were cleared.
	On another occasion we arrived on Alexandra Road to find the tracks dug up and being welded! They said they would be ready for our transit, and they were!
	On yet another occasion, a Tara Mines wagon shed its load of ore on the road. Once again “all hands to the shovels” and the day was saved!
	Another logistical challenge on Alexandra Road was coinciding with an Army movement back from Liberia. One Mowag should beat a DART carriage in any struggle for territory but we persisted and the Mowags turned back!
	During one movement the Depot Manager at Fairview received a phone call from an acquaintance saying he was driving on the M60 in Cheshire UK and wanted to know was he hallucinating or was it possible there was a DART (on a trailer) ahead of him!
	“Murphy’s Law” applied on more than one occasion. The worst was when a certain young engineer took it upon himself to do 100km/h braking tests at Blackrock on a Saturday at high tide and an easterly gale. The unit was hit by a wave, the brakes locked, the wheels slid and we ended with mighty flat spots on a train which had been accepted by IÉ but was not yet in service.
	Occasionally the Depot gets enquiries from train enthusiasts looking for numbers 10 & 36 - unfortunately they are RIP since the fire in 2001! We do have a unit number 13 in service and whereas it has not been the best in reliability (that honour belongs to number 33), it has not been the worst!

The remainder of this article appears in IRRS Journal number 169, published June 2009.