Class 345 Testing and Introduction

It might be on that date. Will TfL have all the 345s for that service available by then? How many of them have been delivered anyway?

Usually the Heathrow Connect service is sacrosanct when work is taking place on the fast lines and Heathrow Exp and all GWR services are routed down the relief lines thus taking up additional slots/paths in the timetable. It remains to be seen weather a Heathrow Connect service will run on Saturday or weather it will be used to run a shadow timetable testing the interface of ETCS (European Train Control System) Level 2 as an overlay to conventional signalling between Crossrail units and all other rolling stock that will traverse the same tracks

TfL Rail will need at least 14 units to run 6tph to Heathrow, the number of completed full length units is still in single figures with a couple of units up at the Old Dalby test track.

Using all five 360's from the Heathrow Con fleet will reduce the required number of 345's to nine units in a worst case scenario.

Those two were axed due to faults with their doors. One of the offending units managed to limp down to Seven Kings from Gidea Park before throwing in the towel. All other cancelled diagrams including ones rostered for 315's were cancelled throughout.

From what I gather, the two main problems are achieving a complete door interlock with the sensitive edge and the sustained alignment of the plug doors and associated mechanisms. Given the significant scale of crowding on this route, any weakness in the door mounts is going to be quickly exacerbated with items of clothing or people obstructing the doors.

I'm not too sure how the doors on the 345's are mounted to the main frames but this design of plug doors do seem to be particularly prone to sensitive edge issues which could be caused by items or people obstructing the closing doors, misalignment in the closing position, poor tolerance fixtures/bracketry or a combination.

Well thats... ominous.

I'm sure it was thought of and acted upon, but contrary to the common modern image of train manufacturing, there is still a plethora of skilled intricate work that is carried out by hand and as with all manual work there is little chance of insuring absolute uniformity even if the same job is being carried by the same person with the same tools dozens of times over across a fleet. This period also marks rapid change for maintenance staff whom are having to adapt to new maintenance techniques and troubleshooting faults during inspection cycles. It goes without saying that we all hope that lessons learned with the pioneers in the Shenfield metro fleet will result in a more dependable fleet when the scales start putting some operational dependency on the 345's.

There was also a signal failure at Ilford this evening.
Someone who travels regularly on the line mentioned on Facebook earlier that no 345’s were in service during the evening peak. Any truth in that?

I got a cl315 leaving Liv St at 18:42, the two trains following this were cl345s.

I got a Class 345-010 on the first try, but I did not see any PM peak Shenfield 345s today.

Are there any 9 car 345 units due IN service in the next 6 months ?    thanks

If things go to plan. I saw a 345 at Old Oak Common the other day, but I think that was seven car.

The recent Crossrail transition update described the contingency plan as follows.

- class 360s every 30 mins Paddington to Heathrow
- class 345s (9 cars) every 30 mins Paddington to Hayes and Harlington

Therefore TfL will run the planned x15 service Hayes and eastwards but the Heathrow service sees no improvement.

Being the cynic that I am I suspect we will see the contingency plan in use for a number of months. I just think they have run out of time to be able to establish reliable ETMS operation with class 345s into Heathrow. Crossrail themselves have given a pretty broad hint in that direction so I'm saying anyting particularly new. Given the train software is not stable yet there is not a reliable rolling stock "platform" to integrate the signalling interface with. This problem is also a huge risk with the operation of the core where CBTC has to be able to work reliably with the rolling stock. I imagine a lot of people are having a fraught time trying to get all this to work.

Its becoming a mess already!