VR Class Sm3

The Sm3 had a long prototype phase before the main series was ordered, with reliability issues being brought up by the press from time to time. Negative reporting continues to haunt the series' reputation. Reliability problems cannot be proven, as no statistics of specific train types are available. The train has not managed to cope with harsh Finnish weather conditions, and the time benefit of the tilting mechanism has not be taken into account since the timetables of winter 2011–2012. Nevertheless, the Sm3 has also received positive feedback from passengers and has led to increased operating speeds on the Finnish rail network.

History

1992: Ordering

VR announced its 2 billion Finnish Mark Pendolino order on 7 February 1992, consisting of two firm orders and twenty-three options. ABB's X 2000 and the Talgo Pendular were considered in addition to the Italian train; the latter was chosen due to its lower price (70 million FIM per unit) and because it was already running. Only these two tilting trains were considered due to the twisting nature Finland's railway network. Thanks to its tilting mechanism, the Pendolino – unlike such other European high-speed trains like the TGV, Thalys, and AVE – does not need to run on specialised high-speed lines, which was important to VR; instead, it runs on existing lines, and was expected to surpass the speed attained by traditional trains by 35%. This has both beneficial and negative consequences. The trains cannot run at as high a speed as, for example, the TGV, due to the lines. However, the Pendolino can also run alongside normal non-tilting trains, allowing for greater use of the railway. Building trains that could ensure passenger comfort at high speed on these routes by tilting through the curves was seen as a much cheaper solution than reconstructing the railway network itself due to Finland's low population and long distances. The train was originally called the Sm200, but in May 1995 it was officially named Sm3 according to VR's nomenclature for multiple units.

It was expected that the train would, as in Italy, run at a maximum speed of 250 km/h (160 mph) and significantly shorten the travel times between major cities. As an example, the 2-hour and 7-minute travel time between Helsinki and Turku was expected to drop to 1:28 by 2010; however, the top speed of the train was limited to 220 km/h (140 mph) and the advertised times were never achieved. As of July 2011, 1:44 is the fastest train link between the two cities (on the S126).

1993–1997: Testing the prototypes

A test carriage from an ETR 460 arrived by boat into Finland from Italy in March 1993. It was used to test how the Pendolino would cope with Finland's winter and rail network by running it in Northern Karelia between Nurmes and Vieki. The carriage had to be fitted with new bogies over night at Hanko as it was designed for standard gauge instead of the broader Finnish 1,524 mm (5 ft) gauge. Another carriage was built by Transtech according to the specifications of the new train (nomenclature KOEV from koevaunu, test carriage). It was later included in the first completed unit as the fourth car, TT 7401. Before a full trainset was finished, some test runs were made with only the first three carriages of the train in late 1994.

The first finished train was unveiled to the press on 14 October 1994, and the first two trainsets started their regular test traffic on 27 November 1995 between Helsinki and Turku on the coastal track. Test traffic was stopped only after three months, at the end of February 1996, due to technical difficulties with the trains. Testing later resumed, and VR announced in 1997 that it would start normal operations with the Pendolino despite electrical problems. The ability of the train to cope with the Finnish winter was put into question, but VR denied that coldness had been a factor in the electrical failures.

1997–2006: The main series

Testing ended in August 1997, after the two trainsets had covered a total of 815,000 kilometres (506,000 mi) during 3,870 trips between Helsinki and Turku. Only six of three thousand journeys were terminated due to technical issues. VR's CEO Henri Kuitunen was positive about the new train in 1998, stating that passengers feel it has been a good purchase. Passenger numbers rose by 17% between Helsinki and Turku in 1997.

Eight additional Pendolinos were ordered at the end 1997 at the price of FIM 77 million per train (€13 million). They were delivered between 2000 and 2002. The main series trains differed in various ways from the prototypes. The new trains allowed Pendolino traffic to extend: they started running between Helsinki and Jyväskylä on 22 October 2001. In June 2002, the network was expanded further, and routes were continued from Tampere onwards to Oulu and from Jyväskylä to Kuopio. One of the main series trains (number 7x08) was damaged during maritime transport in October 2001. The badly secured train had come loose during a storm on the Atlantic, almost causing the loss of M/S Traden, the ship carrying it. Thanks to good actions of the ship's crew, it was able to reach Le Havre and the train was sent back to Italy to be repaired.

Not all passengers were happy with the new train. In 2005, a delegation of commuters between Helsinki and Tampere collected criticism from fellow passengers on the Internet and delivered it to VR's head of passenger transport Antti Jaatinen. The delegation's leader, Kaj-Erik Fohlin, had made 30 trips between the two cities in January 2005 using the Pendolino, 12 of which had been on schedule.

The last eight trains were ordered in 2002 and delivered in 2004–2006, finalising the fleet of 18 trains. At that point it had become clear that the speed limits on the rail network were mostly too low for the trains to run at their maximum operating speed, even though they were chosen specifically to prevent the costly work of straightening existing lines. Work on lines has continued, and, on modernised lines, the speed difference between the Pendolino and non-tilting trains has become minimal. The Sm3 was able to attain its maximum operating speed in regular traffic only in 2006, when a new rail line was opened between Kerava and Lahti and the full Pendolino fleet was available.

2006 onwards: The New Train Era

VR advertised the arrival of the full Pendolino fleet with the slogan "New Train Era" (Finnish: Uusi juna-aika). It started on 3 September 2006, when the line between Kerava and Lahti was officially opened and timetables changed to take the full potential of the Sm3 into account. Travel times between Helsinki and eastern Finland were cut by up to an hour.

The Pendolino has received bad publicity since the first units were taken in service for its serious reliability issues, mostly caused by technical problems with the tilting system and the couplers. The coupling problems grew particularly important with the expansion of the Pendolino network in 2006, requiring rapid on-the-fly coupling of two trains at intersection stations. Because the units often could not be coupled the train units had to be run as two separate trains running one after another. This consumed one extra train slot on the heavily used rail sections causing cascading timetable delays. Sometimes two trains would not separate after coupling them, caused by moisture in the couplers. Due to the problems VR ended the practice of coupling Pendolino trains on-the-fly at the two intersection stations; in Tampere in late 2007 and in Kouvola during autumn 2008.

VR has given mixed statements about the fault-sensitivity of the train. Pentti Kuokkanen, project coordinator of VR Engineering downplayed the problems when questioned about the reliability of another Fiat Ferroviaria multiple unit, the Sm4, in 1999. According to him, the Pendolino had been VR's most reliable passenger train during winter 1998–1999. In 2006, VR's CEO Henri Kuitunen affirmed that the Pendolino was causing serious image problems to VR Group. In 2010, the company's head of traffic control Mauno Haapala stated that the Sm3 was not more fault-sensitive than their other trains. However during winter 2011, VR Group's head of service and production department Pertti Saarela gave a totally different answer, saying that Pendolinos are more prone to failures especially during winter. It is impossible to know if the train has more problems than VR's other rolling stock, as the company does not give out punctuality statistics for specific train types.

In the 2010s, the novelty of the Pendolino has worn off and VR has even used the train in regional traffic between Oulu and Rovaniemi due to rail works in summer 2011. The problematic tilting mechanism was not used during winter 2010–2011 and the time benefit of the tilting was not taken into account in timetables of winter 2011–2012.

On 19 August 2011, VR announced it would start a refurbishment of all its Sm3 units to improve the operating conditions during winter. The work will be done between 2012 and 2014 and will cost 10 million Euros. Alstom will cover half of the expenses. The problematic couplers will be changed to allow trains to be coupled on-the-fly again at intermediate stations. Heaters will be installed in the trains' undercarriages to prevent the formation of ice during the winter. In addition to these modifications, the tilt angle of the bogies will be lowered from the current eight degrees. The operating speed of the train will remain the same. As of January 2013, new couplers have been installed in at least Sm3 units 7x12 and 7x18.

VR has been experiencing high maintenance costs and a low availability of the tilting system in its daily operations with the original Italian-designed tilting hydraulics. The original solution is based on analog hydraulics with many servo valves, which the extreme temperature differences and contamination of hydraulic oil have made very failure-prone. VR contracted Finnish scientists of Tampere University of Technology to demonstrate the feasibility of a conversion of the tilting technology using digital hydraulic technology developed at the university. Digital hydraulics replace conventional continuously adjustable servo valves with a number of smaller intelligently controlled on/off valves. The result of the study was a retrofit kit for the conversion of all Pendolinos with a plug-and-play solution that fits seamlessly into the mechanical, hydraulic and electrical interfaces of present VR Pendolinos. The kit is provided by Rexroth. Two carriages were fitted with the new system in 2012. During two years of tests in Pendolino trains in normal use there was no single failure of the system. VR has decided to retrofit the entire Pendolino fleet with digital hydraulics.

Pendolino traffic on the coastal line ended in December 2012. The two remaining services were replaced with InterCity trains, which run at similar speeds.