Porterbrook Acquires ‘379s’ For Lease To GTR
The title of this post, is the same as that of a small article in the April 2024 Edition of Modern Railways.
This is the first paragraph.
Porterbrook has successfully bid to acquire the fleet of 30 Class 379 Electrostar EMUs from Akiem and will lease them to Govia Thameslink railway, which will use them on Great Northern services.
Note.
- Will the Class 379 trains replace all or some of the 39 Class 387 trains currently used by Great Northern?
- The Class 379 trains are 25 KVAC overhead only trains, whereas the Class 387 trains are dual-voltage.
- If the Class 379 trains are not modified to run on 750 VDC third rail, they will be restricted to Great Northern routes.
- It may be a problem, that the Class 379 trains are only 100 mph trains, whereas the Class 387 trains are capable of 110 mph, but I suspect that the Class 379 trains can be upgraded to 110 mph.
It looks to me that it is likely that Govia Thameslink Railway will end up with thirty spare Class 387 trains.
The Wikipedia entry for the Class 387 train, says this about the differences between the two classes of Electrostar.
The Class 387 is a variation of the Class 379 with dual-voltage capability which allows units to run on 750 V DC third rail, as well as use 25 kV AC OLE.
This surely has three main ramifications for Govia Thameslink Railway.
- Third rail equipment can probably be fitted to the Class 379 train, if required.
- The Class 379 train can probably be uprated to the 110 mph of the Class 387 train.
- Retraining the drivers to use the new Class 379 trains, will not be a major exercise.
Govia Thameslink Railway will have the luxury of configuring the trains to run, the services their passengers need and want.
But Govia Thameslink Railway may have a collateral benefit.
In 2015, a Class 379 train was modified to do a trial as a battery-electric multiple unit.
This section in the Wikipedia entry for the Class 379 train, describes the trial.
During 2013, the national infrastructure owning company Network Rail announced that unit 379013 would be used as a testbed for a future Battery-Electric Multiple Unit. Following several months of conversion work and non-service testing, the unit was used to carry passengers for the first time on a Manningtree–Harwich Town service on 12 January 2015. Throughout its five-week trial period, data was gathered to assess its performance; it could reportedly operate for up to an hour on battery power alone, while charging via the pantograph took two hours.
Note.
- I feel it would be reasonable to assume, that a Class 387 train could be easily converted to battery electric operation.
- I’ve met commuters, who used the prototype every day between Harwich and Manningtree and it gave a good service.
- In an hour with stops, a typical Southern commuter service does just 35 miles.
Southern have two routes, where Class 171 diesel trains are still used.
- Ashford International and Ore – 25.4 miles
- Hurst Green Junction and Uckfield – 24.7 miles.
A battery-electric train with a range of 30 miles would surely decarbonise these routes.
- Batteries would be charged, where 750 VDC third-rail electrification is installed.
- As the Class 387 trains are dual-voltage, a short length of 25 KVAC overhead electrification, could be used to charge the train at Uckfield, if that was to be needed.
- Alternatively, the Vivarail Fast Charge system could be fitted.
A rough estimate is that ten battery-electric Class 387 trains would be needed to make Govia Thameslink Railway an all-electric railway.
- The now redundant Class 171 trains could be cascaded to someone, who needs them.
- The remaining twenty Class 387 trains could be used to replace twenty Class 377 trains, or converted to battery-electric operation and be cascaded to another operator.
Hopefully though, after all of the musical trains, there will be a reliable procedure to convert late model Electrostars into battery-electric trains.
The Definitive Battery-Electric Electrostar
It could have this specification.
- Based on a Class 377, Class 379 or Class 387 train.
- Three, four or five cars.
- I suspect the batteries would be spread around the cars.
- Dual-voltage or 25 KVAC overhead electrification only.
- Charging by 25 KVAC overhead electrification or Vivarail/GWR Fast Charge system.
Note.
- Battery range appropriate for the route.
- In GTR And Porterbrook Unveil £55 million Fleet Modernisation, I talk about an internal refurbishment of GTR’s trains.
It looks to me, that, whatever route Govia Thameslink Railway takes, there could be another twenty refurbished Class 377 or Class 387 trains, that could be available for conversion to four-car battery-electric trains.
Great Western Routes That Could Be Run By Battery-Electric Electrostars
Great Western Railway have 30 Class 387 trains, which are used on Thames Valley services around the London end of the Great Western Main Line.
Routes that could be suitable for Battery-Electric Electrostars include.
- London Paddington and Didcot Parkway – two trains per hour (tph) – 10 trains
- London Paddington and Oxford – one tph – 5 trains – 10.5 miles x 2
- London Paddington and Newbury – one tph – 5 trains
- Reading and Newbury – one tph – 2 trains
- Newbury and Bedwyn – one tph – 1 train – 13.3 miles x 2
- Reading and Basingstoke – two tph – 2 trains – 13.6 miles x 2
- Reading and Gatwick – two tph – 7 trains – 18.6 miles
Note.
- The number of trains is my rough estimate of the number, that would be needed to run each route.
- The miles is how much running would be needed on batteries.
My estimated total is 32, but there might be savings from more efficient routes. It looks like a range of around thirty miles would be sufficient.
Conclusion
It looks like after decarbonising Govia Thameslink Railway and the Thames Valley Services of Great Western Railway, there will be twenty high quality Electrostars available to decarbonise other routes.
The Anonymous Widower 
I think most Southern commuters would just want more 377s to replace all the 455s that were withdrawn and not replaced, resulting in permanent cuts to train services and short-formation trains, which are increasingly overcrowded.
Comment by balhamist | March 26, 2024 |
Until I read balamist’s reply, I hadn’t realised that the majority of Class 377 sub classes are dc-only, which means that the traction transformer as fitted to the dual voltage is not required.
An emu traction transformer and its accessories is a pretty heavy component (Hitachi quote a minimum of 2 tonnes) and for the vehicle dynamics to remain the same across the total 377 fleet, dc-only units need to have weight added to them. So fars as these dc units are concerned, the obvious question for me is whether a battery pack and its associated inverter, etc, could be substituted.
The Rail Forum website, back in September 2019, has an interesting thread, which concludes that because of charging restrictions from the standard third rail, it was impractical. However, that thread was written before the advent of a number of fast charging solutions being promoted by a variety of companies.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/dc-bimode-options.191479/
Worth another look?
Comment by fammorris | March 26, 2024 |
Hitachi have indicated indirectly to me that they could charge batteries in a Class 8xx train from a short length of overhead electrification in a terminal station. The batteries in Lumo’s 803s must be charged from the overhead, as there’s no other power source.
A Class 387 train with batteries must be able to run on 25 KVAC overhead or 750 VDC third rail as the standard train does. The batteries could be charged by a short length of overhead line in terminal stations. So for Uckfield and Marshlink, there could be short length of overhead wires or fast chargers at Ashford International, Eastbourne, London Bridge and Uckfield.
Comment by AnonW | March 26, 2024 |
The 387s are coming to Southern to release some 377s to SE to kill off more Networkers but also allow some extra inner suburban southerns to run.
Govt happy to spend money on lots of lunatic ideas for net zero but not on anything sensible like BEMUs. Theres going to be 30 odd 35ps spare soon as well and Siemens could convert those to bemus and then several diesel routes operated by 40yr old diesels operating partly under wires could be converted around Birmingham New St and help air quality down there
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | March 27, 2024 |
I can’t understand the Government’s attitude to BEMUs, which seems against that from rail professionals in Merseyrail, First Group, Porterbrook, Eversholt, Greater Anglia and Network Rail. As we have had several Rail Ministers, with at least two having enough knowledge to understand battery trains, I suspect that it not wholly the fault of politicians, but somebody with power in the DofT or the Treasury is blocking them on principle.
Comment by AnonW | March 27, 2024 |
Theres enough negative people in the rail industry though as they believe nothing less than full electrification is the answer. However, until NR get costs down which i just don’t believe they are capable of as they are just too cautious and risk adverse that outcome isn’t going to be realised. Also its very time consuming to construct now although it wasn’t – i was involved with ECML electrification and we got from Hitchin to Edinburgh in four years now look how long its taking to do wigan to warrington barely six miles!! As someone who was involved in all DC and AC electrifications schemes in the 80’s i am a natural advocate but BEMUs are the answer now for dozens of routes where we have wires or DC already over at least 50% of the route. We should have had called for prototype units or existing conversions from all the manufacturers run them for a couple of years then bought two to three hundred of a single type for the UK not mess around letting each operator do their own thing and could have eliminated a big chunk of diesel working.
Rant over
Comment by nickrl | March 27, 2024
Never mind BEMUs, what with Alstom, Derby coming to the end of their production line in the next week, and Hitachi “reviewing all options” as they contemplate business drying up, the general future for rolling stock is looking bleak.
Comment by fammorris | March 27, 2024
This outcome was a forgone conclusion and we never learn the lessons of history that by giving tax breaks to Hitachi, CAF and Siemens we were driving a stake through the heart of Derby. Then with everything in this country its all going down the pan due to the inept politicians we have had for decades quite frankly. There was no need for the mass build of EMUs ordered by any of the ML operators it completely overloaded Derby and resulted in a poor quality unit coming out and left them no capacity for producing trains that were actually need ie MerseyRail, Tyne Metro and the Cardiff Valleys. Instead what we now have is far too many newish (c10 yrs or less) emus sitting idle or soon to be idled and 100’s of the BR class 15x generation all at least 35 years old with no replacement in sight. BR would have had a strategy to deal with this but DafT don’t and that other inept organisation RDG haven’t even bothered to coordinate the industry into at least agreeing a base specification that covers all user of these trains and let them just decide what interior and colour scheme they want so a supplier could have been found before we reached the cliff edge.
Comment by nickrl | March 27, 2024
Nick, I don’t think I would have characterised the presence of the three companies you mentioned being solely due to tax breaks, but more to the rampant and unnecessary programme of vehicle building, which as you say dispaced a significant quantity of trains that were not life expired. From November 2012 when the DfT authorised the procurement of 26 x 5-car Class 377 units for the Southern franchise there was a glut of new trains with around 7,500 vehicles ordered before the end of the decade at a cost of well over £10 billion. This was due to three large Government procurements of the InterCity Express Programme, Thameslink, and Crossrail trains and the attraction of cheap finance for new franchisees as well as the over emphasis on quality (of new trains as opposed to the then existing stock) when evaluating franchise bids. Bombardier, as was, sealed its own fate by overleveraging its balance sheet, relying on a series of bailouts and an inability to execute its business and operational targets. Colleagues of mine working in Derby during the second half of the last decade regaled me with the farcical state of the corporate and local management that resulted in the £1 billion fleet of new Class 701 Arterio trains for South Western Railway running four years late. Ever since Alstom agreed to takeover Bombardier, I’ve been asking myself why. Perhaps it was the promise of participation in wonderful HS2 project?
As for the other organisations and politicians you mention, the word ‘inept’ sums them up.
Comment by fammorris | March 27, 2024 |
Of the new suburban trains, as an engineer and passenger, I feel that the Aventras are a more pleasurable experience, than products from CAF and Siemens.
The most underwhelming train I have ridden in the last few years has been Alstom’s hydrogen-powered Coradia iLint. The hydrogen works, but the transmission is not as quiet as one would expect from a train designed from the wheels up for hydrogen.
According to articles in Modern Railways and Rail, the Aventra design can be developed for 125 mph and into a bi-mode option.
Could it be that Alstom feel that hydrogen is the way to go and on taking a good look at the Aventra, feel they could create a 125 mph hydrogen-hybrid train, with a very long range.
But saying that they did a deal with Eversholt to product thirty x three-car hydrogen-Aventras and it seems these trains have got stuck in the production queue at Derby?
Comment by AnonW | March 27, 2024 |
What production line queue?
On Thursday Alstom in Derby have no more work
https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/derby-news/alstom-we-run-out-time-9178665
Comment by fammorris | March 27, 2024
To be honest I do think that the Class 379 Electrostar EMUs should have a 2nd life and Great Northern to look after them that these units are to replace the Class 387. And the Class 379 to work on London King’s Cross-Peterborough, Cambridge, King’s Lynn, Ely and Cambridge North services.
And maybe upgrade them to 110mph (177km/h) just like the Class 387s that can reach speeds of 110mph on the East Coast Main Line. It would be nice to see the Class 379s back in passenger service.
Comment by andrewjg2289 | June 23, 2024 |