South Western Railway is poised to undertake a “soft launch” of its long-delayed Class 701 Arterio electric multiple unit, according to sources at the company, with its first unit running along its Windsor route, on January 9.
The Derby-built unit has been due in service in 2019. SWR had promised the rolling stock would enter passenger service in 2023 - a promise echoed by the Department for Transport in a statement last May, which said the trains would run “this calendar year”.
It is now thought that a single unit will run off-peak Monday to Friday between London Waterloo and Windsor, in order to fulfil that commitment. It will either make one single round trip each day, or work between 1000 and 1600. A driver manager and guard manager will operate the service, and the company will carry out “in-service training”.
No frills
On January 9, the maiden 'Arterio' trip was a first step in a 'phased roll-out' of the full 90 train fleet later this year, commencing with the SWR's Windsor route before spreading to its suburban network.
An SWR source said that only “a handful” of main line drivers have been trained. RAIL previously reported that depot driver training had begun on April 20. SWR will need to train 769 main line drivers on the Arterios. The training programme takes eight days for each driver.
The £1 billion fleet of 90 Class 701 trains, comprising 750 vehicles, was ordered after First MTR took over the SWR franchise from Stagecoach in 2017. It was intended that a single homogenous fleet of Wimbledon-based trains would replace all existing suburban rolling stock.
SWR said that by early December it had accepted 50 ten-car trains and 14 five-car trains from Alstom. It said the remaining 26 sets “are in various phases between production and acceptance”. Most are currently in storage, including at Long Marston, Eastleigh and Marchwood.
Alstom redundancies
Alstom is consulting on widespread redundancies at its Litchurch Lane assembly line after the order has been completed in spring 2024 (RAIL 997). In all, it has built more than 2,600 vehicles on the Aventra platform. Similar trains are in service with the Elizabeth line, London Overground, Greater Anglia, c2c and West Midlands Railway.
Transport for London is pushing the Department for Transport to support a small order for additional Elizabeth line stock, to help meet passenger demand in the years between HS2’s Old Oak Common station opening and Euston station being rebuilt.
Refurbishment no more?
It is also thought SWR is changing its plans for the refurbished fleet of Class 458s that currently serve on the Reading route. They were being modified to run on Portsmouth direct services, where journey times are longer and line speeds higher. It is now being suggested they will not move to Portsmouth after all. The refurbishment was first announced three years ago. Almost all SWR’s fleet of 30 Class 707 Siemens suburban trains have been transferred to Southeastern. The company has retained Class 455s at the Wimbledon depot longer than planned, to cover the absence of the Arterios.
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