UK: The £120m refurbishment of Avanti West Coast’s 56 Class 390 Pendolino trainsets is on course for completion by next June year, in what Alstom says is the largest programme of its kind in the UK.
The work is being undertaken at Alstom’s Widnes Technology Centre, which has undergone an £3m capacity expansion including the installation of additional sidings.
Nine-car sets
As of October 11, all 35 of the 11-car Pendolinos have been refurbished; the first entered traffic in April last year.
Work is now underway on the 21 nine-car sets, with 390 050 being the fourth to enter the workshop overnight on October 8.
John Clerk, Head of Operations & Parts at Alstom, explained that while the first train had taken 30 weeks to complete, the Widnes team can now refit a nine-car set in just 10 working days, of which two days are allocated to testing and de-snagging the finished train.
Clerk suggested that ‘in theory’ refurbishment of the nine-car trains should be quicker and easier than the 11-car variants, not just because the trains are shorter but because there is no requirement to convert one of the first class coaches to standard. That said, a number of amendments to the planned enhancements of the trains have emerged during the programme.
A novel seat reservation system has been fitted to two trains, with every set from number 34 in the programme onwards receiving it. Other key technology upgrades include installation of cameras able to detect seat occupancy, vestibule passenger counting equipment, remote condition monitoring devices to monitor toilet effluent levels, and upgraded software to manage the active body tilt mechanism.
From an aesthetic point of view, the project includes fitting 25 000 replacement standard class seats similar to those used by FirstGroup’s East Coast Main Line open access operator Lumo. In first class, the existing seat frames and shell are being refurbished by a contractor in Coventry for reuse with new fabrics; this has required a derogation from RSSB, confirming that the seats still comply with the technical standards in force at the time they were first installed. Every seat is being fitted with a power point.
Other changes included refurbishment of the onboard shop, improved lighting, new carpets made from British wool, ‘customer-friendly’ information screens, additional luggage space in standard class and refurbished toilets. Cycle stowage racks are being fitted in the luggage area in one driving car.
‘Great condition’
According to Clerk, the Pendolinos are ‘in great condition structurally’, with their aluminium bodyshells showing little sign of corrosion or other defects despite more than 20 years of service in most cases.
Key areas to be addressed in the refit include the floors, where long-standing issues with water ‘overtanking’ mean some trains have damage to the floorboards caused by moisture ingress. Re-equipping the café-bar area is a logistical challenge; Alstom is removing the roof-mounted HVAC equipment to create a ‘sunroof’ through which seven pre-assembled modules can be installed to create the revamped shop.
Approximately 60 staff are now working on each train, with Alstom using a warehouse in nearby Haydock to store up to three trains’ worth of components to mitigate any supply chain disruption. Approximately 80% of the suppliers used in the programme are UK-based, the company reports.
305 million miles
Avanti West Coast says its current timetable requires 49 trains to be available each day, plus one ‘hot spare’. Although the operator is running only around 80% of its 2019 timetable, the refurbishment programme is adding 2·5 million extra standard class seats per year, a 22·6% increase.
Of the 278 booked services running in its standard Monday to Saturday timetable, 135 are diagrammed for 11-car formations; the longer trains are diagrammed according to predicted demand, with 49 of the 135 being allocated to London Euston – Manchester Piccadilly services. Avanti reports that the fleet has accumulated 305 million miles in traffic since entering service in 2002.
Widnes replaces Preston
Alstom opened its Widnes site in July 2017, and since 2021 it has been part of the group’s Services & Overhaul business unit alongside the ex-Bombardier Transportation facilities at Ilford and Crewe. Alstom transferred activity from its former Preston component repair plant to Widnes after it opened, and its first major project was to repaint the Class 390 fleet externally.
However, long-term plans to develop Widnes as a base for assembly of new trains have been shelved in the wake of Alstom gaining the Litchurch Lane factory in Derby after its acquisition of Bombardier Transportation.
As well as refurbishing the Class 390 fleet, Alstom is using Widnes to overhaul Class 458 EMUs for South Western Railway.
Clerk says the company is in ‘currently in advanced negotiations’ for a major refurbishment contract that would follow the Pendolino programme; this would fill its workshop until the end of 2026.
