The Anonymous Widower

Musical Trains In Sussex

This article from Rail Magazine is entitled Class 387/2s enter traffic with GTR.

It says that as Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) already has Thameslink drivers qualified to drive the trains and the training for drivers on Gatwick Express hasn’t been completed yet, then two of the new Class 387/2 trains for Gatwick Express have started to be used on Thameslink services to replace the ugly Class 319 trains.

The Class 700 trains, start to be delivered this spring on Thameslink and will obviously replace the remaining 319s first. But as numbers increase, what is going to happen to the displaced new Class 387/1 trains, currently running the route with the 319s?

Surely to park them in sidings, until the much-delayed Great Western Electrification is completed will be a scandal.

It is also complicated by the fact that after Bombardier finish the Class 387/2s for Gatwick Express, they are going to build another twenty-eight four-car trains to add to the collection in the sidings.

Unless of course, someone decides that they will be better off earning revenue.

It’s all gone rather quiet on the IPEMU front, except for a presentation in Derby by Network Rail to the IMechE, but surely if the technology works, wouldn’t it be better to fit batteries to some of these trains and use them on services, where IPEMUs are an alternative to full electrification.

GTR could even use a few of the IPEMU variant of the Class 387 train on their Southern franchise to replace their diesel Class 171 trains on the Oxted Line and the Marshlink Line.

Surely, if there was ever a low-risk strategy to try out these innovative IPEMU trains in revenue earning service, it is on these two lines.

• GTR has a lot of experience with running and training drivers for Class 387 trains.
• Both the Oxted and Marshlink lines need an increase in capacity.
• I suspect, that modifications need to be done to allow four-car trains to run on the Oxted Line to Uckfield.
• Four-car trains already run on the Marshlink Line.
• GTR would end up with an all-electric passenger train fleet.

But surely the main reason, is that some modern diesel trains in good condition, would become available for cascade to places, where they are really needed.

I’ve just found this article on the Southern Railway web site, which is entitled Uckfield line platform extensions. It describes how all platforms on the line are being lengthened for twelve-car trains. This is said on timescales.

Permanent works started in September 2015 at some sites and they will start in the New Year for others. The stations will be completed on a staggered basis between February and July 2016.

The article also says that until February 19th, there will be a replacement bus service from Crowborough to Uckfield via Buxted.  So it is reasonable to assume that from the end of this month, that at least the last three stations on the line will be able to take longer trains. This surely says that if selective door opening is used on a few stations, then by the May 2016 timetable change, longer trains can be used on the Uckfield branch.

Progress on the platform lengthening seems tro be going well, as I wrote in A Trip To Uckfield.

But where are they going to get serviceable four-car trains, let alone twelve-car ones to run on the Uckfield branch?

Perhaps they are going to use two Class 37 locomotives and a few clapped-out coaches.

My devious mind thinks that running the two Gatwick Express trains on Thameslink, frees up two four-car Class 387 trains, which could go to a convenient depot to be fitted with their batteries and IPEMU capability.

After all, when Bombardier created the Class 379 demonstrator for the technology, they didn’t take the train out of service for more than a few months.

There is also this paragraph in Network Rail’s Route Specification for the South East published in April 2015, in a sub-section called Electification Strategy under Route Specification Sussex. This said.

For routes for which it is unlikely that a case can be made for conventional electrification, there could be an opportunity for alternative solutions to be considered in place of diesel traction, for example battery train operation through an Independently Powered Electric Multiple Unit (IPEMU).

Could Network Rail have decided that now is the time to facilitate IPEMU introduction on the two  lines in Sussex, that are not electrified?

Replacing two Class 387/1 trains with two Class 387/2 trains, releases the trains for modification.

At the end of the month, when the Class 387/2 trains are needed to start services on Gatwick Express, the modified Class 387/1 trains can be returned to service and run without using their IPEMU capability.

When the Class 700 trains are approved for Thameslink, the Class 387/1 with the IPEMU capability can go where they are needed.

As Network Rail are spending money on platform lengthening on the Uckfield Branch, I think we’ll be seeing some of the first IPEMUs serving it in the near future.

Politics says they’ll turn up before the First of May!

February 4, 2016 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Class 387 Train, Govia Thameslink Railway, IPEMU