‘717s’ taking shape
PAUL STEPHEN heads to Germany, to see Siemens’ production line for 25 six-car Class 717s on order for Govia Thameslink Railway
RAIL travels to Germany, to see the Siemens production line for ‘717s’ on order for Govia Thameslink Railway…
On May 2, Siemens invited members of the press to tour its main manufacturing facility at Krefeld (in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), where the company is busy delivering a £ 200 million order for 25 Class 717s for Govia Thameslink Railway’s Great Northern-operated suburban services from London Moorgate (see news story, page 10-11).
With more than 2,400 employees, the 253,190m2 site was also responsible for building the two other variants of Siemens’ Desiro City range of trains for the UK: 150 Class 707 carriages for South West Trains (30 five-car units) between 2015-17; and 1,140 Class 700 carriages for GTR’s Thameslink routes ( 55 12-car and 60 eight-car sets) between 2013-18.
As the ‘717’ uses the same body shells and operations systems as the ‘700s’ and ‘707s’, the class also shares many of the same production techniques.
On a production line worked by a team of 30 employees, each car takes approximately five days to complete, with an output of one car per day.
At the time of RAIL’s visit, 12 six-car trains (717001-012) had been built and moved to Siemens’ Wildenrath test track for dynamic testing and mileage accumulation.
A 13th train (717013) was complete and awaiting transfer from Krefeld to Wildenrath, while the remaining 12 (717014-025) were in various states of production.
All 25 are planned to be delivered to the UK via the Channel Tunnel between August-December, and will have entered service with Great Northern by spring 2019.