An update at last however the following quote is worrying:

Bogies are the essential component under the train that bear the load and contain the axles, suspension and breaks. As VLocity trains have not previously been fitted with standard gauge bogies, this component will take the longest to design, construct and gain safety accreditation for the new North East trains.

Detailed design of the new standard gauge bogie has recently commenced and will take up to 12 months until they reach the production, accreditation and track testing stage.

The Vlocity design is from an international design platform?

Work Starts To Get VLocity Trains For The North East Line

An update at last however the following quote is worrying:

Bogies are the essential component under the train that bear the load and contain the axles, suspension and breaks. As VLocity trains have not previously been fitted with standard gauge bogies, this component will take the longest to design, construct and gain safety accreditation for the new North East trains.

Detailed design of the new standard gauge bogie has recently commenced and will take up to 12 months until they reach the production, accreditation and track testing stage.

The Vlocity design is from an international design platform?

Work Starts To Get VLocity Trains For The North East Line

Well they have to be able to cope with the in(famous) NE line....

According to the Wikipedia page, which seems to be sourced to a fairly in-depth history of Comeng/Adtranz/Bombardier, the original intention was to use the Endeavour body design, but that had poor aerodynamic characteristics for 160km/h running. So they redesigned the body shell from scratch. I suspect the SG compatibility (to use a fairly untechnical term) was impacted by the redesign as there are quite plausibly some body components/connections dependent on that extra 16.5cm space.

The bogies are made at Litchurch Lane in Derbyshire, England, but in the absence of any information to the contrary there’s no reason that couldn’t have been a new, BG-based design as well.

Of course I’m happy to be corrected on any of this by those is the know.

Getting stuck into the government or Bombardier for failing to foresee this 20 years ago is also probably not very sensible, as even the most ardent supporters of the Victorian railways at that time would have struggled to envisage VLocities with three cars, let alone running to Albury. The feds did a fascinating report in about 2013 (which I have linked in another thread) which examined the audacity of the RFR program and why it was totally different to anything attempted in Australia before, and, indeed, fairly unusual internationally. So in many ways the challenges of adapting the VLo platform to long-haul and to SG are symptomatic not of failure (for once) but outstanding success.

*edit: oh, and “breaks”? Seriously? If you want to prove you know one end of the train from another, proofreading is a good way to start...

One suspects there is a lot of political spin and exaggeration in this announcement. The Sprinters and VLocitys were supposed to be gauge-convertible from the start. How were the N-sets converted to SG? Two of the Tulloch DRCs (the benchmark low of railcars?) were bought secondhand from the NSWGR and converted from SG to BG.

They probably are gauge convertible frames, but no-one has gone to the effort of designing the bogies to carry them on, which is what this is talking about I think.

They probably are gauge convertible frames, but no-one has gone to the effort of designing the bogies to carry them on, which is what this is talking about I think.

My point precisely. It’s possible, but there’s never been a VLocity or related platform on SG before, so someone has to design the bogies.

Or the other way round, the current BG bogie was based on a SG design. It was suggested on RP long ago that the bogie was designed for SG conversion by exchanging wheelsets. It obviously will require some testing (it only requires 130 kph running) however the complexity of the project seems exaggerated.

They probably are gauge convertible frames, but no-one has gone to the effort of designing the bogies to carry them on, which is what this is talking about I think.

Sorry but you have lost me with this one.

I suspect someone will make a bit on this SG bogie issue.  I bet there are plans sitting in a dusty cabinet ( or in a  computer folder)  already to go. Someone  is smiling.

And they are entitled to be if it is the case of being prepared.

Regards,
David Head

They probably are gauge convertible frames, but no-one has gone to the effort of designing the bogies to carry them on, which is what this is talking about I think.

Sorry but you have lost me with this one.

As in the spaces all are there to push the wheels together, TMs and other stuff underneath the covers are not going to cause issue with that, but the bogies themselves havent been designed/certified.  so its all good to go pending some additional incremental work to design/certify bogies.

Edit: agreed, maybe the designs are already there, just have to have the ruler run over them by ONRSR etc and get them made.  I suspect this to be the case and the Vic Govt is making a mountain out of this for political points.

A couple of comments from woodford.......

The original announcement for the VLocity's said they were gauge convertable,

2nd. its not unknown for political press releases to come from staff who would not know the difference between a VLocity and the Carlton and United brewers dray, so it needs to be treated with some scepticism.

ANY/ALL and I do mean ANY/ALL design changes have to be certified to be safe and match the design to the letter as well as that each component has to be tested to show it meets the specifications. The bogies are being manufactured I believe in Britain, this will mean the design and the materials used will match the European Unions design standards. The design still MUST match the Australian standards AND be tested here, this as is usual takes time as its built around a strict legal framework.
This is a major reason why railway gear is so expensive.

woodford

Post Script: Designing and building a locomotive, DMU, carriage is less than half the battle, getting the design and materials certified to meet all the rules and cerifcations is a massive challenge.

woodford

Spot on @woodford. I think some on here are just a wee bit too keen to assume everything the government does is compromised for nefarious purposes, but that’s an argument for another thread and another day.

The distinction must be made between what is possible and what has actually been done.

We know that it is possible to produce an SG VLocity (taking the train as an entire unit, because we don’t have any evidence at this point that the bogie design itself is convertible.) However, we can safely assume that fitting SG bogies to a DMU is more akin to gauge converting a locomotive than a carriage set - that is to say, no matter how well the body design accounts for different possible gauges, there will have to be modifications to the interface with drive systems.

So even if the SG bogie design is indeed sitting around in a drawer in Derby or Dandenong, the point remains that it has to be refined, assessed, prototyped, assessed again, changes made, tooling adjusted, production models tested, and so on, all before you can attach the thing to a train, and long before you can actually take the train out to Albury to test it.

And there is Buckley’s that someone at Bombardier has done all this out of the goodness of their heart when back in 1999 there was no SG passenger service even being contemplated, much less one serviced by VLos.

…………………………………………………..

Bombardier will build the trains at Dandenong, Victoria, while Bombardier's facility in Derby, Britain, will provide the bogies, which are convertible from broad to standard gauge. Bombardier's site at Vasteras, Sweden, will supply the train control system. Local construction includes the bodyshell, fabricated metal parts, air-conditioning, interior (wall panels, fittings), seating, and wheelsets.

………………………………………………..

The new Long Distance VLocity is starting to look more like a VLocity Mk II so it's no surprise that they're going to muck around with the bogies. There's going to be some changes to the vehicle dynamics when you push the wheels in 6½ inches and it's a good opportunity to make the suspension more *ahem* tolerant of ARTC track. They're new trains with new bogies and what appears to be a sole bidder contract, may as well get the engineering team to rack up some more billable hours with a redesign...

So presumably the new bogie will be both BG and SG, which makes the press release even more confusing. Possibly the current bogies were tested on SG in England when they were being developed.

vline track, artc track. What is the difference. Both are horrible.

Excuse my reasoning but why wouldn't a modern xplorer's bogies work especially with all this "Victoria buys Australian made" we keep hearing out of Victoria.

why wouldn't a modern xplorer's bogies work especially with all this "Victoria buys Australian made" we keep hearing out of Victoria.

Xplorers were built in the same factory in Dandenong, Victoria as the VLocities over a decade before the latter entered production. They aren't modern.

The new Long Distance VLocity is starting to look more like a VLocity Mk II so it's no surprise that they're going to muck around with the bogies. There's going to be some changes to the vehicle dynamics when you push the wheels in 6½ inches and it's a good opportunity to make the suspension more *ahem* tolerant of ARTC track. They're new trains with new bogies and what appears to be a sole bidder contract, may as well get the engineering team to rack up some more billable hours with a redesign...

Ah 'billable hours' music to my ears.

The prime job of SOME consultants is to 'grow the job'.

So presumably the new bogie will be both BG and SG, which makes the press release even more confusing.

Bogie frame made to take either BG or SG wheel sets with spacing options for brake gear, etc.???

why wouldn't a modern xplorer's bogies work especially with all this "Victoria buys Australian made" we keep hearing out of Victoria.

Xplorers were built in the same factory in Dandenong, Victoria as the VLocities over a decade before the latter entered production. They aren't modern.

maybe I didn't word it right. Why wouldn't a modernised version of the xplorer bogie work?

Possibly the current bogies were tested on SG in England when they were being developed.

If this is the case, it may provide a head start for approval purposes.

why wouldn't a modern xplorer's bogies work especially with all this "Victoria buys Australian made" we keep hearing out of Victoria.

Xplorers were built in the same factory in Dandenong, Victoria as the VLocities over a decade before the latter entered production. They aren't modern.

maybe I didn't word it right. Why wouldn't a modernised version of the xplorer bogie work?

You didn't word it right at all. 'Modernising' implies design changes in some way or another, giving you exactly the same cost base to work with as you would have gauge converting and 'modernising' a VLocity bogie (which if memory serves me right has a common design heritage with the Xplorer/Endeavour bogies anyway).

So presumably the new bogie will be both BG and SG, which makes the press release even more confusing.

Bogie frame made to take either BG or SG wheel sets with spacing options for brake gear, etc.???

As the current bogie is.

So presumably the new bogie will be both BG and SG, which makes the press release even more confusing.

Bogie frame made to take either BG or SG wheel sets with spacing options for brake gear, etc.???

As the current bogie is.

Thanks kgp, storm in a teacup perhaps...