XPT major service change

Following an incident at Harden on Thursday 9 February, RailCorp began a precautionary inspection program of wheel sets on all XPT power cars. Testing of all 92 XPT power car axles has now been completed, with no additional structural fractures found in the axles tested.

Eight of the 92 power cars' axles (on seven power cars) were identified as having some surface defects in the same area of the axle where the Harden fracture occurred. These axles will be replaced. We have also tested 40 axles on XPT passenger carriages in addition to the power cars. No surface defects have been found in passenger carriage axles test so far.

The following XPT train services will be replaced by coaches until FURTHER notice :

The 08.40pm Sydney to Melbourne XPT
The 07.55pm Melbourne to Sydney XPT
All other XPT services have resumed normal operations.

Please phone 132 232 for arrival and departure information about individual services.

http://www.countrylink.info/service_status/service_changes

It was XP2001 that derailed at Harden, it went through as an refurbishment a year ago.

That power car has returned to service last week, first service was the Casino XPT.

出事的 XP2001


I presumed that all XP Power Car parts and equipments are fully inspected, replaced and overhauled every 18 month (as they said). Then one possible reason is the quality of the wheel axle, it might leads to cracking if it is poorly manufactured. RailCorp withdrawn the fleet for urgent inspection, assume that they have the axles under one patch.

But there are many other reasons, such as loading, pressure, track alignment, etc, that could lead to this incident.

Just an interesting fact, the XPT fleet is one of the most delegated trainsets in the world, 9 sets of XPTs running 12 long distance services everyday, and i heard every power car is burning 2.4 million dollars of fuel per year.

Visit RailGallery for more XPT photos!

[ 本帖最後由 Leungy 於 2006-2-23 17:49 編輯 ]