British Rail MPV
Encyclopedia
Diesel multiple unit
A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple unit train consisting of multiple carriages powered by one or more on-board diesel engines. They may also be referred to as a railcar or railmotor, depending on country.-Design:...
. Twenty-five two-car units were ordered by Railtrack
Railtrack
Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from its formation in April 1994 until 2002...
to enable it to replace its varied collection of ageing departmental vehicles, many of which were converted from redundant passenger stock.
The vehicles were built in Germany by Windhoff
Windhoff
Windhoff is a German manufacturer of specialised railways trains, originally dating from 1889.It is particularly known for the CargoSprinter concept, a diesel multiple unit train for transporting intermodal containers...
. The design is based on the Windhoff "CargoSprinter
CargoSprinter
The CargoSprinter is a multiple unit freight car;it could also be thought of as a container truck that runs on rails.Built by the German company Windhoff, it is in effect a self-propelled flatcar for containers...
" units that are operated by Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...
(Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
) and CRT Group
CRT Group
CRT Group is an intermodal transport company in Australia. Begun as Colin Rees Transport , a taxi truck company in suburban Sydney in the 1950s, it became known as the CRT Group in 1981, and by the time of its acquisition by QR Limited was in the top 10 logistics companies in Australia with a...
(Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
). Normally a unit consists of one powered vehicle fitted with twin 265 kW Railpac diesel engines, semi-permanently coupled to an unpowered slave unit without engines (effectively a driving van trailer
Driving Van Trailer
A Driving Van Trailer is a purpose-built railway vehicle that allows the driver to operate a locomotive at the opposite end of a train. Trains operating with a DVT therefore do not require the locomotive to be moved around to the other end of the train at terminal stations...
). The later orders for the South East of England and for overhead line replacement are instead composed of two powered units, to give better acceleration and top speed. When first built there were problems with the vehicles being 'out of gauge' when running empty.
The concept of the design is that each vehicle has a driving cab and an under floor engine/transmission with Multiple unit
Multiple unit
The term multiple unit or MU is used to describe a self-propelled carriages capable of coupling with other units of the same or similar type and still being controlled from one driving cab. The term is commonly used to denote passenger trainsets consisting of more than one carriage...
(MU) control. The majority of each vehicle is a flat load bed that can carry combinations of 10-foot and 20-foot modules that are secured using the locking system for ISO standard containers
Intermodal container
An intermodal container is a standardized reusable steel box used for the safe, efficient and secure storage and movement of materials and products within a global containerized intermodal freight transport system...
. Modules can be changed as required to suit current requirements.
The use of standard container mountings led to suggestions that "Freight Multiple Units" could be introduced. In 2005, two powered MPV units were used for freight trials by coupling standard freight wagons between in between the pairs. Temporary multiple unit control cables were run along the wagons in order to connect the two MPVs, which are acting as locomotives working as a push-pull train
Push-pull train
Push–pull is a mode of operation for locomotive-hauled trains allowing them to be driven from either end.A push–pull train has a locomotive at one end of the train, connected via some form of remote control, such as multiple-unit train control, to a vehicle equipped with a control cab at the other...
.
Variants
There are five distinct types of MPV unit that represent the development of the concept for use in the UK.| Number Range | Description | Owner | Comments | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DR98901-902 | + | DR98951-952 | Prototypes | Network Rail | Work in semi-permanently coupled pairs, e.g. DR98907+DR98957. |
| DR98903-925 | + | DR98953-974 | Production units | Network Rail | |
| DR98926-932 | + | DR98976-982 | Production units | Network Rail | |
| DR98001-014 | Overhead-Line MPV | Network Rail | Painted in White livery. Were used on West Coast Main Line West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line is the busiest mixed-traffic railway route in Britain, being the country's most important rail backbone in terms of population served. Fast, long-distance inter-city passenger services are provided between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and the... , most are now stored. |
||
| DR97011-014 | Overhead-Line MPV | Network Rail | Painted in Blue livery. Used on High Speed 1. | ||
High output wiring train
For the replacement of overhead lines on the West Coast Main LineWest Coast Main Line
The West Coast Main Line is the busiest mixed-traffic railway route in Britain, being the country's most important rail backbone in terms of population served. Fast, long-distance inter-city passenger services are provided between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and the...
at the start of the 2000s, Railtrack designed and ordered two new self-powered High Output Wiring Trains (HOWT). The order was placed with Windhoff in July 1999 and the first train available for trials in Germany in June 2000 before being shipped to the United Kingdom shortly afterwards. The overhead replacement using the new trains began in November 2000.
Replacement of a tensioned overhead span measuring 1000–1500 metres takes four hours with a HOWT, compared to sixteen hours for a traditional solution using locomotives and road vehicles. Up to 30 people work around the train and moving along with it.
The train is joined together for transport to and from the work site and is 200 metres long. The full train comprises nine vehicles; four MPV CargoSprinter
CargoSprinter
The CargoSprinter is a multiple unit freight car;it could also be thought of as a container truck that runs on rails.Built by the German company Windhoff, it is in effect a self-propelled flatcar for containers...
-based units and five flatbed units. All of the units were designed to accept standard shipping container modules, secured with standard twistlock
Twistlock
A twistlock and corner casting together form a standardised rotating connector for securing shipping containers. The primary uses are for locking a container into place on container ship, semi-trailer truck or railway container train; and for lifting of the containers by container cranes and...
grips, allowing for modules to be swapped around or transferred between the two trains for redundancy. After the full train has arrived at the work site it is uncoupled and split into five sections. The separate section follow each other down the track along the length of wire to be replaced, each performing a step in the wiring renewal process (based on the modules it carries):
- Old wire recovery
- MPV unit (short working platform), facing forwards
- Flatbed unit (old wire cable drums)
- Catenary clean up
- Flatbed unit (long working platform)
- Flatbed unit (long working platform)
- New wire deployment and tensioning
- Flatbed unit (new wire cable drums)
- MPV unit (short working platform), facing backwards
- Registration and alignment
- MPV unit (short working platform), facing forwards
- Flatbed (long working platform)
- Measuring and recording
- MPV unit (recording/pantograph cabin; rotating working platform), facing backwards
At the end of February 2003, a total of 650 wire lengths had been replaced by the two trains. Two conventional wiring trains would have taken over seven years, as the conventional trains would be limited to one single sixteen-hour engineering possession per week (only available at weekends). The cost of each of the two trains was £3.3 million.
Welsh freight trials
For a five-week period beginning in March 2005, trails were undertaken in Wales, transporting timberTimber
Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...
from Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. Often colloquially known as Aber, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol....
to a wood-chip factory at Chirk
Chirk
Chirk is a small town and local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It has a population of over 4,000....
.
The daily service, arrived at Aberystwyth at 09:22, allowed approximately 2.5 hours for loading of the timber and then departed, loaded, at 11:50 as 6Z21. On the single-track Cambrian Line
Cambrian Line
The Cambrian Line is a railway from Shrewsbury to Welshpool, Aberystwyth and Pwllheli. The railway runs first through the central part of Wales and then along the coast of Cardigan Bay....
the freight service was timed to follow in the footsteps of a regular passenger service to avoid potentials for delay. The combined freight multiple unit (FMU) reversed in platform three at Wrexham General railway station
Wrexham General railway station
Wrexham General railway station is a main line railway station and the main railway station serving Wrexham, north-east Wales. It is currently operated by Arriva Trains Wales, but services are also provided by Virgin Trains who operate a service to London Euston...
and continued to the Kronospan private siding at Chirk.
The formation used the two halves of an MPV pair, sandwiched around seven open-sided air-braked timber (OTA) wagons. The MPV vehicles are normally designed to carry a combination of short shipping containers
Intermodal container
An intermodal container is a standardized reusable steel box used for the safe, efficient and secure storage and movement of materials and products within a global containerized intermodal freight transport system...
, and for the trial, one specially-built containerised timber carrying module was constructed for the trial at a cost of around £15,000 and mounted on MPV DR98919. For the trial, the other MPV vehicle (DR98916) carried a water-tank module for ballast. MPV units normally operate as pair consisting of a powered unit and an unpowered trailer; for the timber trials, both of the MPV units were powered versions. Additional mobile cab signalling equipment had to be carried.
The trial had been scheduled to being on 3 March 2005. The first trip took place on 5 March 2005 and continued on weekdays until 1 April 2005. Loading at the Aberystwyth end was done with the train directly on the running line as no suitable terminal facilities were available and could be managed in as little as 90 minutes, with the use of three lorries delivering the timber supply.
Out of the twenty-five scheduled journeys in the trial, nineteen were run, transporting a total of 2845 tonnes of timber (an average of 150–154 tonnes per trip). Loading capacity was reduced on the first journey by an imposed requirement by Network Rail
Network Rail
Network Rail is the government-created owner and operator of most of the rail infrastructure in Great Britain .; it is not responsible for railway infrastructure in Northern Ireland...
to tow a British Rail Class 37
British Rail Class 37
The British Rail Class 37 is a diesel-electric locomotive. Also known as the English Electric Type 3, the Class was ordered as part of the British Rail modernisation plan....
at the rear of the train as insurance up the thirteen-mile 1-in-47 incline at Talerddig.