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Unread 30-04-2007, 15:32   #18
Mark Gleeson
Technical Officer
 
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Coach C, Seat 33
Posts: 12,669
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MIght as well put this in the public section since IE will read it

PIS is crap chops letters off the end of I'd say at least a quarter all stations. There is No Cead Staisiun Eile to match the Irish Name and it gets lost so Next Station Clontarf Rd pulling into Pearse. Someone failed to notice that Dun Laoghaire exists only in Irish but it gets both Irish and English PA's. The font size and weight on the PIS varies, breaks the accessibility rules

Nearly every aspect of the doors breaks the accessibility rules, basically most of section 4.3 RVAR 1999

The vertical grab rail at the doors is missing, breaks the accessibility rules

Even with a technical assistant and a Siemens representative on board they couldn't get the PIS on leaving Bray it took two attempts to get it on correctly, fairly fruitless since it got really lost at Pearse. (Yes that was me in the first coach taking notes). That said I heard the really confidence instilling discussion between drivers during a shift change at Fairview, "I knew I was going to get this one, you hold this down right?"

Some of the seats are not bolted down in coach 8313 (I have exact details)

The doors open noticeably slower than before.

The no smoking signs are quite funny, one says up to a €3000 fine and the others say €500 so which is it?

The build quality of the interior panelling is rubbish it lacks that reassuring solid feel on the original

No effort to hide the CCTV cameras, too obvious and the vandals will deal with them in due course, average passenger would struggle to find the CCTV cameras on the Japanese DART fleet

What on earth happened to the celling and lights ?

Now slightly technical

Siemens have replaced the traction electronics that was one of the reasons for the delay. The original DART had an exceptionally clever specially designed 3 stage GTO system which was at least 5 years ahead of anyone else, it still out accelerated the higher powered fancy 21st century stuff, it did however have a lurch at 25 mph when the main GTO gated. The replacement is totally smooth and quieter. However the regenerative brakes are not working, so energy consumption is about 12-15% above the original not to mention the brake disks won't last long.

The release from a full service brake application (step 4) results in a nasty lurch and there be a lot of releases from step 4. Not nice if you are standing and the train does a full brake you brace yourself only to be caught out when it lurches.
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