The Anonymous Widower

The Design Of The Class 378 Trains Keeps The Gospel Oak To Barking Line Running

In some ways, London Overground’s Class 378 trains are the ultimate Electrostars.

These ten-year-old trains are  no high-performance trains, but they are people carriers par excellence.

Wikipedia describes their interiors like this.

The design is similar to the Class 376 trains used by Southeastern, featuring the same wider metro-style sliding pocket doors for more efficient boarding and alighting. However, it also has significant differences from the Class 376, such as fully longitudinal seating similar to that used on London Underground rolling stock to give more standing and less seating capacity and reduce overcrowding, suitable for the high-volume metro-style services on London Overground.

This picture shows a view through the five cars of a standard-length train.

At the present time they are the only heavy rail train with this seating layout. Although London Overground will soon be running some Class 710 trains with a similar layout.

• The seats are reasonably comfortable.
• All passengers get at least one arm-rest.
• Passengers can walk between cars to find a seat or more space.
• The aisle between the seats is wide enough for passengers to stretch their legs and others to walk through, when all seats are taken.
• There’s plenty of space for standees and lots of handholds.
• In less busy times, everybody gets at least one seat.

There are also wide lobbies and doors for easy embarking and alighting.

Note the perches either side of the door and the numerous handholds.

In my travels across Europe, I’ve never found a better inner-city commuter train.

To run a four trains per hour (tph) service on the Gospel Oak to Barking Line, ideally eight trains are needed; six to run the service, one in maintenance and a spare.

But all London Overground can scrape together is three Class 378 trains shortened to four-cars.

• This limited number of trains can only run a two tph service.
• The four-car Class 378 trains have 152 seats (including tip-up seats) and thirty-two double perch seats.
• The two-car Class 172 trains have 124 seats.

This gives these seats per hour for the two services.

• Class 172 trains – four tph – 496
• Class 378 trains – two tph – 432

The Class 378 trains may offer less seats, but each four-car train can hold a lot of standees.

This article on Railway Gazette is entitled London Overground Class 378 Ready To Enter Service, says that four-car versions of Class 378 trains can hold up to 700 passengers.

If you’ve ever travelled on the East and North London Lines around Dalston in the Peak, you’ll know how many people these trains can hold at a push!

Since the two tph service started yesterday I’ve done several trips on the Gospel Oak to Baring Line over two days.

• 09:20 – Gospel Oak to Barking
• 10:33 – Barking to Blackhorse Road
• 14:27 – Harringay Green Lanes to Gospel Oak
• 14:50 – Gospel Oak to Barking
• 15:33 – Barking to Gospel Oak
• 07:33 – Barking to Gospel Oak

Only the last trip can really be considered to be in the Peak.

I have the following observations on the Off Peak trips.

• There were typically at least twenty per cent of seats available.
• No-one was ever forced to stand, although some were.
• A proportion of passengers were doing short trips of one or two stops.
• Some stops like Crouch Hill, Blackhorse Road and Leyton Midland Road seemed to have more passenger traffic than others.
• The trains had more passengers towards the Barking end of the route.
• I asked a few passengers, if they’d had to wait long and all said, they’d read the timetable and arrived accordingly.
• The usual accessories like dogs, buggies and baggage were carried by a proportion of passengers.
• Two station staff said passengers were only complaining about the frequency.

It appears to me, that Off Peak journeys on the route will be adequate if not as frequent as passengers want.

I have the following observations for the single Peak journey at 07:33 this morning.

• Nearly all seats were taken for the whole route.
• Dwell times were slowed at certain stations, due to the numbers wanting to enter and alight.
• All standees had a decent hand-hold.
• Some passengers were still doing short trips of one or two stops.
• Blackhorse Road with its connection to the Victoria Line was busy.
• A staff member told me, that it all gets less busy after eight o’clock.

I should also say, that one passenger was complaining hard, as he had to stand for his short journey from Crouch Hill to Gospel Oak. But then he was dressed like he would pay for a First Class seat.

On arrival at Gospel Oak, I took a North London Line train to Hampstead Heath and that was carrying more passengers per car.. This added a perspective to the trip.

But then, in my part of London, at times, there are more overcrowded trains that I use regularly.

• The Central, Victoria and Northern Lines on the Underground.
• The North and East London Lines of the Overground.
• The Northern City Line into Moorgate station.

Today’s Peak trip was no worse, than some I’ve experienced in the North of England.

Conclusion

The three gallant Class 378 trains are coping well and if they don’t suffer any failures, I suspect they can hold the line, until reinforcements arrive.

My trip today, illustrated the strengths of the train design as a large number of passengers were transported in a half-hour journey across North London.

Bombardier must also be pleased that it is three of their ten year-old-trains, that have been quickly reconfigured and have made up for their software shortcomings, that are causing late delivery of the Class 710 trains.

 

 

 

 

 

March 19, 2019 - Posted by AnonW | Computing, Transport/Travel | Class 378 Train, Class 710 Train, Electrostar, Gospel Oak And Barking Line, Software