Green light given for Greenford trial

VIVARAIL says its Class 230 battery-electric multiple unit, No. 230001, is expected to enter service with Great Western Railway on the West Ealing-Greenford branch in January, writes Graeme Pickering.

Driver training with GWR was due to follow October’s successful completion of shakedown tests on the Bedford-Bletchley line. Revenueearning operation of the unit, which is scheduled for a trial of at least a year on the branch, was originally planned to begin during 2022, but Vivarail says there have been “unexpected challenges with both train and infrastructure”.

The unit, which the company claims as the first of its kind anywhere in the world, will use Vivarail’s Fast Charge system – a length of conductor rail activated when the train is over it – to top-up its batteries in the bay platform at West Ealing station.

Right: Vivarail’s battery-powered No. 230001 was shown off to the public during last year’s COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, seen here at the city’s Central station on October 29, 2021.