Page 4084 - Week 13 - Thursday, 2 December 2021
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The ACT LRV fleet design documentation identifies our vehicles as Urbos 100 models. These are similar models to those used in Sydney’s fleet, but are a newer version with key differences in the design and construction. The Canberra light rail fleet has differences in the design of structural components specifically in the areas affected by cracking on the New South Wales LRVs. The details of these components and materials differences are all laid out in the government response document.
I will ask members to bear with me as I get technical for a moment. The area where the cracking has been identified on the Sydney fleet is called the “bogie box”. A bogie box is the chassis or framework where the wheelset—the bogie—is attached to the light rail vehicle. The bogie has rotational brackets called “bump stops” which help in turning the LRV body and keeping it relative to the bogie, particularly around sharp corners. The bump stops have a stiffening web and brackets to keep them in place. These are the components where the problems with cracking have been observed in the Sydney fleet.
Since the identification of issues with the Sydney fleet, Transport Canberra and City Services, and Canberra Metro have proactively undertaken inspections of the Canberra light rail fleet. This has initially focused on examination of LRV11—the vehicle with the highest number of kilometres travelled in the Canberra fleet. Since coming into service, this LRV has clocked up an impressive 192,000 kilometres, so if there were issues associated with wear and tear we would expect to see them on this vehicle first.
On 9 November 2021 Canberra Metro conducted an inspection of the underside of the vehicle to observe if any cracking of the bogie bump stop could be seen, and confirm that the bump stop could be checked from this angle. From this visual inspection, no cracking was identified in the bump stop. This inspection was conducted with the bogie still in place, and I am advised that it provided good visibility of the bump stop cracking location on the Sydney vehicles.
On 11 November 2021 the seats in a car of LRV11 were then removed to allow visual inspection of the bogie box from above. This is not a regular inspection activity, as the seats are not usually removed for standard maintenance checks. No evidence of cracking was visible between the upper and lower bogie box, or the lower bogie box and the floor.
I want to be really clear about this. We have undertaken detailed inspections of the vehicle with the highest kilometres in the fleet, including disassembling parts of that vehicle to inspect areas which are not subject to regular maintenance checking. This has not identified any visible cracking on the components which have presented issues in Sydney.
CAF has advised that the bump stock and stiffening web components are also inspected monthly, during routine safety inspections, and through verification checks undertaken during component replacement. CAF has not identified any cracking in these locations on any of the other vehicles currently in the Canberra fleet.
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