London’s scrapped trains to revamp rail line?

TRAINS from the London Underground could be brought North to service one of Yorkshire’s most important lines in the biggest upgrade planned for the region’s rail network in nearly 20 years.

The ambitious £150m scheme to electrify the line between Leeds and York via Harrogate has been unveiled today to drag the current beleaguered services into the 21st century.

The upgrade is earmarked to be completed by 2015 and would slash journey times by up to 12 per cent, dramatically increase the number of services and provide a long-awaited replacement to existing diesel trains on the 38-mile stretch of track.

Business leaders and politicians are petitioning the Government to secure funding from £25bn that is due to be spent on improving the nation’s rail network up until 2013/14.

Hopes are high that the money will be obtained as the plans meet many of the credentials set out by former Civil Aviation Authority chairman Sir Roy McNulty in a report published in May outlining a radical overhaul to save Britain’s railways £1bn a year.

The 10:15 Service to Harrogate Will Leave from Platform 3

 

Trains currently being used on the London Underground’s District Line that are due to be scrapped by 2014 would instead be re-deployed to the Yorkshire route. The upgrade would also provide the foundations for a long-term vision for new stations, including a stop-off for Leeds-Bradford International Airport.

The Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce’s chief executive, Brian Dunsby, is spearheading the project which has been developed over the past nine months.

A low-cost ground-level electrification system would be introduced, similar to technology already on London’s Docklands Light Railway and in Copenhagen and Berlin. A fleet of 20 trains from London would undergo modifications costing £500,000 so they can be used on the Yorkshire route.

Passenger capacity would increase by about 40 per cent from the existing diesel stock with seat numbers rising from 207 to 280. Space for standing passengers would also increase dramatically.

The remainder of the £150m would be spent on electrifying the line, and building a maintenance depot near Harrogate. Project director Mark Leving, a former managing director of Hull Trains, claimed the lightweight metrostyle trains provide a ready-made, tried and tested solution to lowering the cost of running the route.

Siemens Named Preferred Bidder for New Thameslink Fleet

Siemens Plc and XL Trains – a consortium comprising of Siemens Project Ventures GmbH, Innisfree Ltd and 3i Infrastructure Plc – have been appointed preferred bidder to build, own, finance and maintain the 1200 new carriages for the Thameslink Upgrade Programme.

The Department for Transport has selected Siemens Plc and XL Trains – a consortium comprising of Siemens Project Ventures GmbH, Innisfree Ltd and 3i Infrastructure Plc – as the preferred bidder in the competition to provide the new trains and depots for the Thameslink Programme.

The Thameslink Programme requirement is for 1200 new carriages to be delivered between 2015 and 2018 which will allow the existing Thameslink trains to be cascaded to other operators.

The above video is a flythrough view of the trains specified and to those in the know, the trains in the animation bear more than a striking resemblance to the Desiro City design produced by Siemens.  The only difference that will be required of the production trains is the need for exit doors in the nose ends of the units to comply with tunnel safety requirements.

The contract will create up to 2,000 new UK jobs. This includes work being created at Siemens’ factory in Hebburn, Tyne and Wear, as well as in the rail industry supply chain. It also includes jobs at two maintenance depots for the new trains which, subject to planning permission, will be built at Three Bridges near Crawley and at Hornsey in the London Borough of Haringey.