The Anonymous Widower

Aventras And The Romford To Upminster Line

The Romford to Upminster Line is probably a line that Transport for London sometimes wishes had been chopped with the Beeching Axe.

I suspect though, that given the railway mania in London and the South East, the arrival of Crossrail at Romford in the next few years and the ambitious expansionist tendencies of both TfL and c2c, that this line won’t remain a simple shuttle in perpetuity.

At present the line is worked by a single four-car Class 317 train, which I found in A Clean Train From Romford To Upminster.

But from May 2018, Aventras in the shape new  Class 710 trains, will start to arrive on the London Overground.

I just wonder, if one of the first trains will get allocated to this isolated line in East London.

• It surely would be an ideal test track to get to know the trains and familiarise drivers with their new charges.
• The novelty of new trains in this backwater, but linked to Crossrail, might encourage more passengers to use the line.
• Train-spotters and other anoraks will certainly visit.

The line is also only five kilometres long, but fully electrified, so I do wonder, if TfL will investigate the IPEMU capabilities of the Class 710 trains, if they decide to fit on-board energy storage.

• I suspect, there would be no modifications to track, electrification or signalling needed to run the linewith a train running as an IPEMU.
• Five kilometres or ten if both ways, is well within the capabilities of an IPEMU.
• During testing, if the energy storage should fail, the driver would just swear, put the pantograph up and continue.
• Charging of the energy storage, would happen in one or both of the terminal platforms.

According to Wikipedia, the line is not signalled, so the possibility must exist of running this short line on stored energy to reduce track maintenance costs.

April 12, 2016 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Class 710 Train, IPEMU, Romford And Upminster Line