EMUs to Didcot
Electric trains arrive in the Thames Valley ahead of semi-fast services to Reading and Didcot next year.
ELECTRIC trains have arrived in the Thames Valley, with the launch of Great Western Railway Class 387 services between Maidenhead and London Paddington.
The first train was the 0628 from Maidenhead on May 22. GWR has been running local electric trains to Hayes & Harlington in west London since last September, but this was the first time scheduled electric services had run on the Great Western Main Line. And unlike the wider electrification programme, it arrived spot on time.
By this autumn, the trains will have increased capacity through the Thames Valley by 40%, said GWR spokesman Dan Panes. Early next year the trains will take over semi-fast services to Reading and Didcot, once Network Rail has finished installing the wires.
GWR has taken delivery of 20 Class 387s from Bombardier, although initially only three pairs are operating to Maidenhead. The others are accumulating test mileage before clearance to carry passengers. In total, there will be 45 four-car trains in the Reading fleet.
In the meantime, GWR has to overcome the problem of the electric trains being maintained at the Reading depot, which they cannot yet reach under their own power. Trains are being temporarily stabled overnight closer to London, and to get back to base they have to be hauled by a hired Class 57.
Inside the depot more than 200 staff work at a site purpose-built for electric trains, but which has continued to maintain diesels for longer than anyone had expected.
To reach Maidenhead from Airport Junction, only 12 miles of new electrification were required. But this has involved 1,400 overhead structures, lowering the track at a dozen sites, as well as demolishing and rebuilding five bridges.
Network Rail said the electrification programme should entail wires being energised between Maidenhead and Didcot at the end of this year. Extending the wires to Cardiff will be more than 18 months later than expected, and will not be completed until 2019. No date has been set for the wires to reach Oxford, Bristol Temple Meads Swansea.
The launch of electric services was low-key and without fanfare. “It is a later start than we hoped, and that has been the subject of a great deal of public scrutiny already,” said GWR Deputy Managing Director Andy Mellors, during the first journey.
“There have certainly been challenges. This is all about capacity. We know the Thames Valley route is overcrowded. These brand new trains have eight carriages, better comfort and more seats.”
The Bombardier trains will replace older Thames Turbo Class 165/166 diesel multiple units, which will be cascaded initially to the Severn Beach Line and subsequently more widely in the Bristol area.
Panes said the first Hitachi Intercity Express Programme trains the autumn, with a target date of October 16. Four five-car sets will work in ten-car formations to Cardiff, Swansea and Hereford - a daily three-journey diagram of 800 miles.
It is likely that the trains will run on electric power from Paddington to Maidenhead, but thereafter rely on their diesel engines.
“That’s not a problem for us because the trains can seamlessly switch power supplies, and can use electric power further west as and when it becomes available,” said Panes.
He said this would not affect the operating speed of the trains, which could comfortably maintain the current timetable of the HSTs. Each train will provide 20% more capacity than the equivalent HST.