Heathrow ‘332s’ scrapped, but logistics plan for ‘360s’
TWO fleets of electric multiple units used on the Heathrow Airport route have experienced very different fortunes at the start of 2021.
While the Heathrow
Express Class 332 fleet has been scrapped (apart from three vehicles), the Heathrow Connect Class 360/2s have been purchased by Rail Operations
(UK) Limited for possible use with its sister logistics company, Orion.
Fourteen Class 332s and the five ‘360s’ owned by Heathrow Airport Ltd were removed from traffic at the end of last year, following the introduction of new fleets and changes in the way services between London Paddington and UK’s largest airport operated.
Great Western Railway took over the Heathrow Express operations (although the latter remains a separate company) and introduced refurbished Class 387/1s from the end of last year.
TfL Rail had taken over Heathrow
Connect in May 2018, and from late last year was finally able to use Bombardier Class 345s on these services in place of the ‘360s’.
Rail Operations (UK) Limited Chief Executive Karl Watts told RAIL that while the company does retain a passenger licence, it hasn’t been used for a while. It is likely that the newly acquired ‘360s’ will instead have their interiors removed as part of plans to offer more electric trains for its planned logistics operations.
He said buying them made sense because they were modern EMU vehicles that otherwise would have been destined for scrap. All five have been moved from the former Siemens Mobility depot at Old
Oak Common to MoD Bicester for storage, pending developments.
The first four Class 360/2s were built by Siemens in 2002 as demonstrators, before being dispatched to the UK. A fifth set was delivered as a five-car, with four additional Trailer Standard vehicles also arriving in the UK in 2006.
Meanwhile, the 14-strong fleet of Siemens/CAF Class 332 EMUs built for Heathrow Express have all been scrapped, except for three vehicles.
Sims Metals at Newport Docks took delivery of 332009/011 on February 10, followed by the final pair (332004/008) on February 16.
The three surviving vehicles are from 332001. These were moved north by road to Goole, where they will be used as temporary classrooms at the site of Siemens Mobility’s planned factory.
Siemens won the Class 332
order in 1994, and they were built by CAF in Zaragoza. They featured Siemens traction equipment and CAF bogies.
Because of the route they ran on, the ‘332s’ were not fitted with Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) but with Automatic Train Protection (ATP) equipment, which made them non-standard.
Added to the cost of required corrosion repairs, purchase by a rolling stock company, a need for an interior refurbishment to make them suitable for other markets, and the upcoming withdrawal of newer EMUs, this meant they were always likely to be scrapped.