Azuma arrives
VTEC Managing Director confirms December 2018 as the start date for first of operator’s new Azuma trains.
VIRGIN Trains East Coast Managing Director David Horne has confirmed to RAIL that the first passenger services to be operated by its new Intercity Expres Programme (Azuma) fleet will commence in December 2018.
Although VTEC had previously committed to bringing the Hitachibuilt trains into traffic during 2018, this is the first time that a specific month has been officially confirmed by the operator.
In an exclusive interview with RAIL, Horne said that VTEC plans to take delivery of its first four Azumas from Hitachi in November 2018, with two initially made available for service. Discussions are still ongoing to establish on which route and the exact date the first Azuma services will be launched.
VTEC has 12 five-car Class 801/1 and 30 nine-car Class 801/2 electric multiple units on order from Hitachi, plus 13 nine-car ‘800/1s’ and ten five-car ‘800/2’ bi-modes. The bodyshells are built in Kosado (Japan), before the majority of the trains are assembled at Newton Aycliffe in County Durham. They will be owned by Agility Trains.
Horne confirmed that to date, five of the Azuma trains on order are in completed condition in the UK, including two ‘801/1s’ at Hitachi Rail Europe’s Doncaster Carr depot that are about to begin main line testing (see story, page 26).
Meanwhile 801201 has been completed at Newton Aycliffe but has yet to be released, and 800101 has been delivered for testing. A second nine-car bi-mode is currently in store at Teesport, having arrived by sea from Japan.
Horne said that VTEC will start
the driver training process for the Azumas early next year, after the first of four simulators to be installed at its traincrew depots was commissioned at King’s Cross as this issue of RAIL went to press. The others will be built at Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh.
‘Live’ driver training will then begin next summer on the East Coast Main Line, before the first trains are delivered in November for fault finding and mileage accumulation.
“You’ll start to see more of our Azumas running up and down from July on driver training before we put them into passenger service Nine-car bi-mode 800101 runs past Marholm (near Peterborough) on March 10. The Class 800/1 is one of five Intercity Express Programme trains destined for Virgin Trains East Coast that are currently in the UK. IEP enters traffic with VTEC in December 2018. JOHN RUDD. in December,” said Horne.
“We need to choose a route to launch the first service, but we’re not quite at that stage yet.
“We have a tired set of trains out there that have done a fantastic job over the last 30 years, but they weren’t designed with the levels of secondary systems and reliability that new trains now come with. The Azumas are also going to give us significantly more capacity - roughly 100 more seats per train - so we’re very much looking forward to the new trains.” @paul_rail
■ A full interview with David Horne will appear in RAIL 839.