The Anonymous Widower

Are The Class 387 Trains Getting Excited?

I travelled from Blackfriars to St. Pancras on one of Thameslink’s Class 387 trains.

With only a couple of hours to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, are these trains getting excited about visiting places they never thought they would?

Since I wrote Rumours of Battery Powered Trains a few months ago, nothing has been heard. In that article I quoted from Modern Railways, who said this about future orders for Class 387 trains.

Delivery as IPEMUs would allow EMUs to make use of as much wiring as is available (and batteries beyond) while electrification pushes ahead under the delayed scheme, and in the longer term would allow units to run on sections not yet authorised for electrification, such as Newbury to Bedwyn. The use of IPEMUs might also hasten the cascade of Class 16x units to the west of the franchise.

Note that IPEMU is Network Rail’s term for a part-time battery train, that has the same performance as a standard train.

It is a deafening silence!

There has been nothing heard about electrification either, except the award of the contract for the Gospel Oak to Barking Line to J. Murphy and Sons as reported in this article in Rail Technology.

So is it a case of no news is good news for electrification?

I still believe that a fleet of Class 387 IPEMUs could be used to extend electrification by stealth, into areas, where everybody thinks it is impossible to go.

I would use them to run these routes for a start.

• Liverpool to Newcastle – There is one gap of 43 miles between Leeds and Manchester
• Blackpool to Scarborough – There might need to be some electrification at Scarborough
• Liverpool to Hull – There might need to be some electrification at Hull
• Euston to Blackpool
• Euston to Chester
• St. Pancras to Corby
• St. Pancras to Leicester – There might need to be some electrification at Leicester
• Kings Cross to Hull
• Kings Cross to Harrogate
• Kings Cross to Lincoln
• Kings Cross to Middlesbrough
• Kings Cross to Sunderland
• Liverpool Street to Lowestoft
• Liverpool Street to Norwich via Ely
• Ipswich to Cambridge
• Ipswich to Peterborough
• Paddington to Oxford, Newbury and Bedwyn
• St. Pancras to Ashford, Hastings and Eastbourne
• London Bridge to Uckfield
• Assorted Branch Lines to Barrow, Felixstowe, Greenford, Maidenhead, Marlow, Windermere and Yarmouth

On many of these lines, IPEMUs could run as soon as they are built or modified from existing trains!

If anybody doubts the concept, it could be proven on the Gospel Oak to Barking Line in North London.

So how does electrification figure in George Osborne’s statement?

Note these points!

• Electrification cuts carbon emmissions.
• Electric trains are faster and more efficient.
• Electrification needs to be done all over the country, so a lot of areas will benefit.
• It looks like there are upwards of thirty Class 387 trains, that have nowhere to go! But fitted with batteries they do!
• Using battery trains means that the costs and disruption of electrification are reduced.

If electrification is enabled using battery trains, it will be the biggest rabbit any Chancellor has ever pulled!

November 25, 2015 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Class 387 Train, Electrification, George Osborne, IPEMU