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.
A Lonely Stansted Express In East London
When I last visited Emerson Park station, I travelled in a rather clean Class 317 train, that had been refurbished for use on the Stansted Express. I was surprised to see that today it is still there.
As this is a train with a universal-access toilet, luggage racks, a First Class section and has been fully refurbished in only 2000, surely this train, which is one of fifteen, could be better employed somewhere else. These two airport routes are possibilities.
1. Routes to Manchester Airport from Liverpool and in the near future, Preston and Bolton.
2. Cardiff to Swansea via Cardiff Airport, after South Wales is fully electrified.
But then as Northern Rail are happy with their Class 319 Trains, perhaps we’re getting to the point that we’re going to have to put better class trains into storage.
On the other hand cities like Glasgow and Leeds are looking to create purpose-built rail links to their airports. So building these links will hopefully be more affordable as the trains might not need to be built.
It has also to be noted that according to the Future section in Wikipedia for the Class 317 trains, a demonstration is being built to see if it is worth fitting new traction equipment and an updated interior, to give the trains a life extension of twenty years.
Remember though that these trains are based on Mark 3 Coaches and thus are inbred to both chameleons and Lazarus, so it looks like if they refurbish the Class 317 trains, they’ll outlive some of the much younger trains.
A Clean Train From Romford To Upminster
The last time, I travelled on the Romford to Upminster line, the train was a rather tired Class 315. Today’s train was a much smarter Class 317.
Perhaps someone from London Overground, bagged this one for when they takeover the service in May 2015. It certainly had lots of orange, but I think it might have been an old Stansted Express unit.
From Upminster To Romford
When I heard this morning, that the Romford to Upminster line was to get a new train, I thought it was something I should visit. So I took the District line to Upminster, used the branch to get to Romford and came back to Liverpool Street on the first train. These pictures tell the story.
Both trains two and three were Class 315. The train to Romford was surprisingly busy for about twelve o’clock. They both sounded to be in reasonable mechanical condition and the only problem with the trains, is the awful pink colour around the doors.
It looks like these trains will be sent to Wales after refurbishment. So perhaps the Welsh can choose another colour scheme.
New Train For Romford To Upminster
Until this morning, I didn’t know there was a train line from Romford to Upminster. But there is and it has a comprehensive Wikipedia page, which says it generally has a half hour service run by an elderly Class 315.
Today though, one of my trawls picked by the news that Transport for London has asked for tenders for new trains for the West Anglia and Gospel Oak to Barking services. The story is on Global Rail News. This the last paragraph.
Thirty of the new trains will replace the current West Anglia stock, which will undergo a deep clean and rebranding. Eight more will go the newly-electrified Gospel Oak to Barking route, with the remaining unit going into service on the Romford to Upminster line.
So the Romford to Upminster line gets the 39th train.
This section is on Wikipedia about the future uses of Class 315.
As most duties of the 315s will be taken over by new Class 345 Aventra trains once Crossrail is built, it has been suggested that the 315s could be cascaded to the Wales and Borders passenger franchise to be used on Valley Lines services in the Cardiff area following electrification.
If most of the class do go to Wales, it will be a long way to move the single train on the Romford to Upminster line for servicing.
I can only see one reason why the order will not go to Bombardier to deliver some more of the excellent Class 378 and that would be because the company didn’t feel it wanted to bid.
The Anonymous Widower 