Work on the £117m project to upgrade Avanti West Coast‘s Pendolino fleet began back in July and a video has been released showing some of the work already undertaken.
Footage has been released this week by the train operating company showing the work taking place at Alstom‘s Widnes facility.
The first train for overhaul is expected to be back on the West Coast Main Line later this year.
390125 is the first of the 56 strong Pendolino fleet and the work is expected to take place on the trains until early 2024.
The trains run between London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Edinburgh and the project will upgrade the 20 year old trains to ‘as new’ condition.
Passengers will see many improvements to the carriages, with all the Standard Class seats being replaced, along with new lighting and carpets.
The trains will have extra luggage space, power points for every seat an the trains will have a new Cafe Bar.
100 skilled works at the depot in Widnes will be working on the project.
Phil Whittingham, Managing Director for Avanti West Coast. said “These images really reveal the full extent of the amount of work being undertaken to transform our Pendolino trains. Our customers can look forward to a real step change in their travelling experience and seeing these developments in progress, we can’t wait for the first train to enter service.”
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Responses
Good news but I doubt they are enlarging the windows that give a claustrophobic feel. Good news also that they’re increasing the luggage space – those steel tube and glass racks waste a lot of space. My original view of the Pendos was fast, smooth and quiet, but cramped, claustrophobic and smelly. I hope they sort out the problems.
Maybe because they needed a refurbishment because they would of had remains of Virgin Trains before they lost the franchise and Avanti West Coast took over couple years ago.
Not all of the units and vehicles are 20 years old. Yes build started in 2001, but as 8-car units; the 9th cars were built and inserted in 2004 (17 years ago) when the last of the original units were being built as 9-cars in the first place.
And then in 2009-2012 (9 to 12 years ago) 10th and 11th vehicles were built and inserted into what were some of the 9-car (and even originally 8-car) units, and four additional units were also built then, meaning that an 11-car unit that isn’t one of the four 9 to 12 year old ones has 17 to 20 year old 1st to 8th cars, 17 year old 9th cars and 9 to 12 year old 10th and 11th cars.
As for the 9-car units, none of those are entirely 20 years old as even in the ones with 20 (rather than 17/18/19) year old 1st to 8th cars the 9th cars are 17 years old.