Britain’s passenger train fleets are getting younger
THE introduction of new trains, combined with the withdrawal of many older vehicles such as High Speed Trains, Mk 3s and Pacers, has lowered the average age of Britain’s passenger train fleets.
The average age of franchised operator fleets (as at March 2020) has decreased by 1.9 years to 17.3 years old, while non-franchised operator fleets have decreased by 0.1 years to 19.2 years, according to new data released by the Office of Rail and Road.
And it’s expected that the average age of the UK’s passenger trains will drop to 15 years by March 2021. This is because an extra 1,565 vehicles ordered during 2017-18 are now being introduced, meaning that the total number of new vehicles expected to be delivered between 2014 and 2021 will have reached almost 7,200 (more than half of the current fleet).
Changes in the average age of rolling stock are recorded against the same time period the previous year, and a vehicle drops out of the dataset once it’s no longer leased by an operator.
Because all existing rolling stock ages by one year, from one year to the next, any change in average age of below 1.0 years indicates either the introduction of new stock or the withdrawal of older fleets.
Merseyrail’s fleet is the oldest (40.6 years), contrasting with Hull Trains’ Paragon fleet (0.3 years). South Western Railway Class
483s, dating from 1940, remain the oldest trains in use with a franchised operator.
LNER recorded the biggest decrease in age (18.0 years) after Hitachi Class 800/801 fleets replaced High Speed Trains and Class 91/Mk 4 sets, followed by Hull Trains, which recorded a decrease of 16.6 years after Class 180s were replaced with new Hitachi ‘802/3s’.
Grand Central reported the biggest age increase - up 3.7 years after it began using more Class 180s while also leasing Mk 4s for its now-cancelled London EustonBlackpool North service.
The East Midlands franchise (which changed from East Midlands Trains to East Midlands Railway in August 2019) was next with a 2.6-year increase in age, after it added Class 156s to its fleet.
ORR states: “While new rolling stock may be more efficient and technologically advanced, existing trains can be refurbished during their lifetime to add better facilities (WiFi capability or increased seating capacity).
“Both newly-built and refurbished rolling stock can offer a more comfortable service for passengers. Therefore, the age of rolling stock does not necessarily affect passenger satisfaction. The introduction of refurbished rolling stock is not reflected in these statistics.”
ORR also highlighted research in Transport Focus’ Spring
2020 National Rail Passenger Survey (carried out from January 27-March 16 before being curtailed by the pandemic), specific to rolling stock and train facilities.
This showed that users were 78% very/fairly satisfied with the ‘overall, how satisfied were you with the train you boarded for your journey?’ category, an increase of one percentage point from the Spring 2019 survey.
Availability of power sockets had the highest ‘fairly poor/very poor’ percentage at 42%, but it also recorded the highest positive change of seven categories (up +7pp).