UK: 25 Siemens Six-Carriage Trainsets Ordered for Great Northern Route
Image courtesy of Siemens
Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) have placed a £200million order with Siemens for 25 six-carriage units (150 vehicles) to replace its suburban fleet currently operating on the Great Northern Route. The trainsets will be manufactured in Krefeld in Germany to be delivered in 2018.
The full length trains will feature full-width aisles for greater space and capacity, intelligent climate controlled air conditioning, passenger information systems delivering real-time information, power points throughout and passenger wi-fi.
The trains will operate between Moorgate in the City of London and Welwyn and Hertford, Stevenage and Letchworth. They are an adaptation of Siemens’ Class 700 trains which are modelled on the Desiro City platform to run on GTR’s Thameslink service. The trains will replace the 1976/77-built Class 313 trains currently in operation, which are the oldest electric trains still running in the UK.
GTR Chief Executive Officer Charles Horton said:
“We are delighted to have secured the financing for this new fleet which will give our passengers on Great Northern’s suburban routes a modern, high-quality environment which is light years ahead of what we have been able to offer to date with the current 40-year-old stock. And when we bring the Moorgate trains online we’ll also increase the frequency of services considerably in the off-peak and at weekends and even, to a lesser degree, in the morning and evening peaks. The new Moorgate trains make up just one of three major fleets we are introducing which will steadily improve services and drive up passenger satisfaction.”
Jochen Eickholt, CEO of the Siemens Mobility Division said:
“This is already the third order we’ve received for our Desiro City vehicle platform developed especially for the UK market. The platform concept was developed in the context of a two-year, 50-million-Euro research program based on proven Desiro UK trains, an investment that has paid off.”
