UK: A revenue passenger service was operated by one of South Western Railway’s Alstom Class 701 electric multiple-units for the first time on January 9.
The 750 V DC third-rail EMU is scheduled to operate one return passenger service a day on the London Waterloo – Windsor & Eton Riverside route for four days this week. A similar very limited service is planned for the next week.
SWR said the launch marks the first step in the phased roll-out of the full 90 train fleet later this year, firstly on the Windsor route and then across the rest of its southwest London suburban network, although no timescale is being given.
The operator said the new EMUs which it has branded Arterio would be ‘the beating heart of our commuter network’. They will offer improved performance, with faster acceleration and regenerative braking. Driver-operated doors are expected to reduce station dwell times.
The 60 10-car Class 701/0 and 30 five-car Class 701/5 EMUs have 2+2 seating and wide gangways. From a passenger perspective, they should offer a significant improvement on the ageing ex-British Class 455 EMUs they will replace, as they are fitted with wi-fi, charging points, air-conditioning and toilets.
There is one toilet per five-car set and two on a 10-car set. SWR said the fully accessible toilets with bioreactors to biologically and thermally treat waste are the first of their kind to be used across an entire UK fleet, and are similar to toilets in used in the Netherlands and Switzerland.
There are two wheelchair and three cycle spaces on five cars sets, and double this on the longer variant.
An Alstom spokesperson told Rail Business UK it was ‘really pleased with the reaction from passengers’ to the ‘modern reliable commuter train’.
Long delay
The contract for Bombardier Transportation — subsequently acquired by Alstom — to supply 60 10-car and 30 five-car Class 701 third-rail EMUs from its Aventra family was announced in June 2017. The £895m order was financed by leasing company Rock Rail and partners SL Capital and GLIL Infrastructure.
Entry into service was originally planned for mid-2019, but was put back to mid-2020 because the manufacturer required more time to complete software development. The first EMU was delivered for testing in June 2020, but in January 2022 SWR said it was still waiting for Alstom ‘to supply a train that performs to specification’ before it could begin an testing, crew training and mobilisation.
Problems were understood to include the cab layout, where the production sets differed from the design agreed with drivers’ trade union ASLEF.
Audits by Alstom following its purchase of Bombardier Transportation also identified problems with the manufacturing process that were leading to trains being completed with large numbers of defects needing to be rectified at significant cost.
