July start for Hitachi’s West of England Class 802s

CLASS 802s will start operating two booked duties with Great Western Railway from July 16.

Two pairs of five-car sets will be used, replacing High Speed Trains on the West of England route. These are the first booked services for GWR’s new Hitachi trains west of Taunton, which is currently served by Class 800/0 Intercity Express Trains (IETs).

The first pair will operate the 0553 Plymouth-London Paddington, the 0950 London PaddingtonOxford and 1201 return, and the 1633 London Paddington-Exeter St Davids and 1955 return.

The second pair operates the 0730 London PaddingtonPenzance ,1400 return and 2003 London Paddington-Plymouth. This will then run to Laira depot, before starting with the 0553 from Plymouth the following day.

There are currently two fivecar Class 802/0s (802001/002) undergoing testing and commissioning in the UK, as well as nine-car 802101.

Two more five-car ‘802/0s’ (802003/004) are on their way from Pistoia (Italy), where Hitachi Rail Europe is building the fleet. However, as this issue of RAIL went to press they were in Munich, awaiting paperwork in order for them to continue their journey.

In total, GWR has 22 five-car and 14 nine-car Class 802s on order, in a £497 million deal financed by Eversholt Rail.

Unlike the IETs, the Class 802s can be maintained at GWR depots, whereas the Class 800s are contractually due to return to Hitachi depots at North Pole, Stoke Gifford (Bristol) and Swansea Maliphant.

All the GWR Class 802s are due to be in the UK before the end of 2018, with a timetable recast planned for January next year.

The operator expects to withdraw the final long-distance HSTs from long-distance West of England services next March, after which GWR will only use shortformed 2+4 ‘Castle’ HSTs on ‘local’ services.

Meanwhile, GWR expects to put the first nine-car Class 800/3s into traffic from June. Currently 800302-800304 have been released for testing and commissioning, with 800302/303 having worked on the Great Western Main Line while 800304 (the first assembled at Newton Aycliffe) has been dispatched to Doncaster Carr for testing and commissioning.

At Newton Aycliffe, 800305800308 have been completed and are being tested before being released. GWR has 21 Class 800/3s on order.