MTR chief executive defends decision to purchase new trains for SWR

Jeremy Long, chief executive officer, European Business at MTR Corporation has defended South Western Railway’s decision to order new trains despite the fact the previous franchise holder had already ordered new rolling stock.

The European boss of MTR – which jointly runs the South Western Railway network with the First Group, admitted the current fleet was “too complex” for the network, which serves towns and cities including Exeter, Portsmouth, and Southampton as well as the Isle of Wight and several commuter lines in and out of London Waterloo.

“It was absolutely the right decision [to order new trains] in terms of the capacity that can be delivered and the ease of use when these trains come in, because we will have a pretty much homogeneous fleet,” he said.

“We have a complex fleet at the moment; we have too many types for the railway we operate. This [changing the fleet] will allow us to have a much more homogeneous fleet which will be more uniformed to maintain with the skillsets in the depots which we will be able to refine much more effectively.”

Long also conceded it would be a struggle to restore public faith in the network after four or five years of decline, concluding: “It is a non-trivial task; we’re working at it from lots of different points of view. There is a lot of work going on which doesn’t always manifest itself at first.

“There is an awful lot of turnaround work which we know is already having an influence. But this is not as simple as being able to say once upgrades are finished the railways would be able to come out with a ten-point PPM [project portfolio management] improvement.”

SWR currently operates Class 158 and ‘159’ diesel multiple units, and Class 444, ‘450’, ‘455’, 456’, ‘458’ and ‘707’ electric multiple units, as well as ex-London Underground 1938built Class 483s on the Isle of Wight.

SWR is to withdraw its ‘455’, ‘456’, ‘458’ and ‘707’ fleets (the latter ordered in 2014 with the last introduced this year), and introduce 1988-built, but re-tractioned, ‘442s’ and 90 brand new Class 701 EMUs. ■ Eastleigh reborn, pages 54-55.