OK, now we have the official word:
The Mayor said: ‘For far too long passengers on our Overground lines have suffered from crumbling, unreliable trains that were just not up to muster.
‘Every element on these brand spanking new trains has been crafted to meet the Capital’s needs and the standard of design will surprise even the most hardened traveller.
‘Air conditioning, walkthrough carriages and CCTV, combined with the completion of all the East London Line work by 2012, will revolutionise the London Overground network.’
I think our prediction wasn’t far off.
Update : The mischievous Railway Eye obviously has his reading glasses on today, as I’d missed this apparent howler:
London’s Transport Commissioner, Peter Hendy, said: ‘The new trains will play a vital role in providing transport for Olympic spectators and are a dramatic improvement on the trains we inherited. ‘By 2011 we will be able to add a fourth carriage, increasing capacity by 50 per cent.
I suspect this is because the new trains are intended to carry 33% more people per carriage, or something, which gives a 50% increase moving from three car 313s to four car 378s. Mostly standing, of course – I wasn’t joking about the bendy bus ambience (which there’s nothing wrong with, of course, the 378 design is essentially about swapping a suburban commuter service for a high-density metro to meet the massive increase in demand on the North London Line as well as the East London Line which was already a metro anyway).
Tags: class 378 · obvious spin · overground7 Comments
7 responses so far ↓
Are the current class 313s on the NLL ‘crumbling’ or ‘unreliable’?
I thought the problem with the line was largely down to it being shared with a large amount of freight traffic, which is what causes the delays – and the lack of space for people inside the trains.
Not that I don’t welcome shiny new trains, of course…
“Are the current class 313s on the NLL ‘crumbling’ or ‘unreliable’?”
Certainly unreliable, according to the miles-per-casualty figures, which are in the low thousands, well down on what the best EMUs manage these days – you should be looking at 20-30,000 mpc easily, even for modern EMUs which are much more complicated with aircon, computers etc. Look what c2c get with theirs..
Sharing with freights doesn’t help, but 313s are nearly the oldest trains in regular use these days (may even be so now) and have been pretty much thrashed to death. The 2+3 seating in the interior is also irritating when so many people are boarding/alighting at each stop.
The 313s are bashed about, but they aren’t 2+3 anymore – one of the first things that happened when LO took over was to remove the 3rd seat & widen the aisle.
And they’re not quite the oldest trains left in regular National Rail service – the slam-door trains on SWT’s Lymington branch are older. But apparently they’re being scrapped in December. HSTs (Intercity 125s) are one year younger.
I’ve curiously seen old 313s rumbling around Bristol Temple Meads and Cardiff – exactly the same ’silverlink’ paint job, but with a ‘First’ logo slapped on them. Wonder if any more of the displaced units from London will find their way down there?
They’ll be ex-Silverlink Class 150s, not 313s. Bristol’s not electrified and 313s are electric units.
Thanks, John, I’d forgotten they’d removed the seat – not been on Overground much recently.
As a regular user of the over ground network I will be looking forward to these new trains. The present ones are a complete pain in the ass during rush hour times, especially when there are clowns with bikes on them.
Having had a rush hour ride on one last night I see where you’re coming from – it’s not a nice experience compared with the District Line, let alone modern EMUs on SWT, which are the other local offerings.