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ALL 93 of Great Western Railway’s Hitachi-built Intercity Express Trains are to be fitted with wireless Perpetuum Onboard digital monitoring technology, to give live information on the performance of wheels, bogie parts, gearboxes, traction motors and bearings.
It is predicted that by being able to access this data, the downtime of GWR’s 57 Class 800 and 36 Class 802 units for maintenance relating to these areas could be halved, equating to a boost for fleet availability of over 100 days per year.
Hitachi, which owns Perpetuum, says that bogie overhauls account for around one third of overall train maintenance costs.
Sensors attached to the train are designed to enable immediate and precise identification of the parts which require inspection and maintenance before it affects passenger service.
Information
As well as giving information which would previously have been obtained through periodic bogie and wheelset inspections, it allows engineers to build-up knowledge regarding the performance of critical components as the trains get older, which can
