Just looking through the current (November) edition of the UK magazine Modern Railways, it looks like you have an additional attraction heading to the home of the EBT/Rockhill Trolley Museum next year!
A two-car former London Underground train, rebuilt by Vivarail (a Company supported by Henry Posners Railroad Development Corporation) to battery operation is being sent to the USA for trial use on "pop up metro" operations.
Rather bizzarely, the magazine lists its intitial destination as "Orbisonia, Pennsylvania".
As it's currently a standard gauge unit, that rules out the EBT for trials, so is it going to do some demonstration/test runs at the trolley museum before heading off elsewhere in the US?
No mention of April 1st anywhere in the article....

This is what a class 230 looks like https://vivarail.co.uk/class-230-development/

I have no info, but the trolley museum has a nice section of standard gauge track in good condition. Certainly seems plausible.

A lot of companies use smaller railroads for testing of equipment. When I was working at TVRM, we had an electronics company hire us to test their wheel/axel counters. They'd set the counters up on the track and have us run a train over them. We'd simulate real world conditions by having the train stop with the wheels on the counter device or a certain axel spotted on the device-ex. third axel of the fifth car in the train.

The real fun was that when we were simulating a train stopping with a wheel on the counter, we had a margin of three inches either way. Most of the time we did this using radios. One day, the engineer forgot the radios and we had to use hand signals. That and the section of track we used for testing was on a grade, with the test train usually running downhill. That took real skill on the parts of the engineer and spotter.

I think I remember reading that at least once, Crown sent some engines for testing at the EBT. Can anyone verify this?

John

There’s a couple of photos of a crown steamer being tested there in the late 60’s.

The Hawaiian locomotive, Anaka, was also tested there in 1970 I believe.

Thank you!

John

One or two of the preserved lines here in the UK have used their ability to test new/adapted items of rolling stock, away from the "big railway", as a useful revenue stream.
Whilst all UK preserved lines are limited to 25 mph for their normal passenger services, the Great Central Railway out of Loughborough is passed for up to 60 mph for testing purposes, so you will occasionally find new rolling stock there on test amongst the preserved stock, such as this loco a few years ago which was destined for the Far East....

They have also been used to test bi-mode conversions of surplus class 319 EMU's after they were fitted with diesel engines and even for testing a new design of track switch which has been designed by a local University.
It all adds money to the bank account at the end of the day!

Since I know a little about getting equipment in and out of Orbisonia ;-} --

These were D78s built for four-rail (so no return current in running rails) and were modified with AC motors and 'proprietary' controllers to run off four small gensets. Presumably the battery versions substitute storage for those. I don't know what is proposed for charging the batteries, but it's difficult to imagine something Rockhill would have that many other locations much easier to reach from ocean transport would provide.

Supposedly these battery cars have been tested in service (on London Northwestern) since April 2019, and I cannot imagine any duty cycle they might be given on Rockhill's trackage, with Rockhill's prospective ridership during the pandemic, that could not be achieved elsewhere.

I'm reluctant to check with Henry Posner about this until I have more objective proof of the details.

When they were nice and new on the LT District Line in 1980 as 4 rail electrics, they looked like this..

The conversions that Vivarail have done for the Bletchley-Bedford (Marston Vale) line are the diesel conversions from some of the former LT cars made up into 2-car formations. There are 3 like that and have been in service on that line since 2019.
There are 5 diesel/battery hybrid 3-car ones for Transport for Wales (intended for the Wrexham-Bidston line) which are currently on test.

The one that is apparently destined for the US is a 2 car battery powered version that, as far as I'm aware, has not been used "in anger" on the UK network yet other than some demonstration runs.

The Wikipedia article on the conversions (which actually seems correct..) is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_230

I had to do a double-take when I saw Orbisonia mentioned in the article, knowing what the area is like having been there three times myself to cover both the Trolley Museum and the EBT!
I expect most readers of "Modern Railways" wouldn't recognise the significance of the name or be able to find it on a map anyway....
MR is recognised as the main magazine for the UK rail industry, and it was mentioned within an article on what Vivarail has achieved so far with their "recycled" trains.

Perhaps a suitable "out of the way" place is sought for testing in the US before it gets moved on to demonstrate in other, more likely, markets?

Will be interesting to see what transpires in the coming months.

Having some other nation's cast off junk foisted off on us is proof positive that we have at last attained third world nation status.

One man's cast-off junk is another man's serious preservation.

It occurred to me that one place where a VERY inexpensive MU train like that could be marketed is Vancouver Island, there is currently another push by the First Nations people there to get a rehab of the old E&N for passenger service, but the holdup is always the estimates of cost for DMU-type trains, on top of all the ties it needs, and BC and the national government don't want to pay. As I recall the last passenger operation was some sort of Econoline-type passenger van outfitted with Fairmont rims, which means the former London tube train thing would be a step up. So it would be Canada that is the Third-World country.

I find it highly ironic that heavily rebuilt 1980 era train stock is "cast off junk" when compared to the screeching and gnashing of teeth over the failure of a certain National Railroad Passenger Corporation to rebuild 1940's and 1950's era train stock yet again.

It will be interesting to see if the underlying propulsion technology will gain a foothold here in the USA. IMHO the best use of that class of equipment is for services that were abandoned in favor of highways and automobiles.

The relatively new build Trenton to Camden New Jersey River Line is one example.

As for Orbisonia, reading the Wikipedia article make it plain that this is a short term battery application. In other words out in the burbs use overhead wire or third rail and in the Central Business district run off the batteries. I assume the Rockhill Trolley museum uses 600 volts DC trolley wire. It can't be that hard for the Vivarail folks to figure out how to use such power that is only a few feet above the carbody. Besides, with an "up to 40 mile battery range" and "accompanying charging unit" would there really be any need to feed from the trolley wire?

Brian

What that seems to call for is a certain 100mph-capable railbus currently languishing on the East Coast, perhaps needing very little to give it a hybrid transmission under some government transportation grant or other... ;-}

I'd volunteer to work on it.

Yes, and barely used, too. I have day-dreamed about that railbus as well, say, get a reliable truck engine and transmission from a new rolled-over totaled semi truck, those show up all the time, and then come up with a more than adequate cooling system. There are third world countries currently using old railbuses from the 1930s for whom that Leyland bus would be like a TGV.