Bi-mode trains and cascaded units
Bi-mode trains will be introduced by East Midlands Railway on the Midland Main Line from April 2022.
No builder had been confirmed as this issue of RAIL went to press, but speculation has strongly linked Bombardier with a deal to supply a bi-mode Aventra product.
Hitachi and Stadler were known to be bidding, as was Talgo, although the Spanish manufacturer confirmed to RAIL that it had not won the deal.
The bi-mode trains are needed after Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling cancelled electrification of the MML north of Kettering and Corby in July 2017.
Expresses on the MML are currently operated by High Speed Trains and Class 222 Meridians. The HSTs do not comply with accessibility regulations that come into effect on January 1 2020, leaving a potential shortfall of rolling stock until new trains enter service.
Regarding this issue, a DfT spokesman told RAIL: “The East Midlands will have a fully accessible fleet by the end of 2020. The bidder has, as part of its bid, included the use of Class 180s from the May 2020 timetable change. The base plan has a fully compliant fleet from December 2020.”
The Class 180s will be the four currently used by Hull Trains, which are due to be replaced by the end of the year. They have been plagued with reliability problems for around a year, forcing the open access operator to hire two HSTs.
As for the period before December 2020, the DfT spokesman said that four options were being developed as alternative short-term measures.
These included one or more of: “the inward cascade of highquality HSTs from LNER once the new Azuma trains allow for their release from this autumn: the earlier deployment of the bidder’s December 2020 fleet; the upgrade of some or all of EMT’s existing fleet via a procurement process that EMT is running on the Department’s behalf; and possible short-term, customer-facing mitigation measures which Abellio has committed to work with DfT to develop.”
The December 2020 fleet is rumoured to be the 21 four-car Class 360/1s used by Greater Anglia that are due off-lease in August next year. These would be used on the Corby route, releasing ‘222s’ for other MML services.
Meanwhile, the entire regional fleet of Class 15x diesel multiple units is to be replaced with “faster, more modern and comfortable trains”, according to DfT. Because of the ten-day standstill period, neither the DfT nor Abellio would comment on what these trains could be.
A Porterbrook spokesman confirmed that the 17 two-car and six three-car Class 170s it owns, which are due to be sent off-lease from West Midlands Railway, could be an option.
Other possibilities include 11 two-car and 16 three-car Class 175s due to be replaced by Transport for Wales, as well as 22 three-car ‘185s’ currently due to leave TransPennine Express once its new trains are in traffic, although these could yet be retained if the Nottingham-Liverpool route transfers to TPE.