Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) has completed a comprehensive modernisation programme for Southern Railway’s fleet of 75 Class 377/4 trains.

The trains are leased from the Rolling Stock Leasing Company, Porterbrook, and represent a key milestone in a five-year, £55 million programme by Porterbrook. whose investment in the programme could rise to £100 million.

Future enhancements could include passenger priorities such as information screens and at-seat charging and power points, and engineering features designed to streamline maintenance and improve reliability.

In total, Govia Thameslink Railway and Porterbrook are enhancing 270 trains, the UK’s biggest fleet of “Electrostars”, to the same standards of modern passenger facilities and technical equipment. At 18 years old the 377/4s are among the oldest and the largest sub-class in the fleet.

The upgrade programme is being carried out by Govia Thameslink Railway’s own engineering team at its Selhurst depot in South London, using technical processes designed by Alstom. New power sockets, information screens, and energy-saving LED lighting will be installed and passenger-counting technology will be fitted.

The company’s engineers are also carrying out the same package of improvements for the 62 slightly-older Class 377/1 trains in service on Southern routes. The upgrade will be extended to include all 214 of Southern’s 377s and 56 Class 387s currently working on Great Northern and Gatwick Express routes.

By bringing every train up to the same modern standards, with common features across the whole fleet, GTR’s engineers can streamline their routine maintenance and repairs. To accelerate maintenance and improve reliability further, a new “smart” On-Train Data Recorder helps to predict and diagnose faults, allowing some problems to be fixed without returning to the depot. To help analyse incidents that delay services, new forward-facing CCTV cameras are being fitted to film tracks in front of the trains.

GTR’s Engineering Director Steve Lammin said: “These Electrostars are great trains. Taking on board our passengers’ feedback, this comprehensive upgrade will provide an even better on-board experience and more reliability. With collaboration from Alstom and Porterbrook, our team at Selhurst Depot has developed and streamlined a process of stripping out a train’s seats, interior panels and old wiring, installing all the new features, refitting seats and panels, testing and returning to service, at a rate of just one week per train.

“Well over a quarter of the fleet has now been through the programme, and more and more passengers will notice the benefits over the coming years.

“I’m really pleased that GTR is working with Porterbrook and Alstom to build a better railway for our customers.”

Ben Ackroyd, Chief Operating Officer at Porterbrook said: “Porterbrook’s £100m investment programme to upgrade the Electrostar fleet, operated by GTR, highlights our commitment to providing an improved passenger experience with better information displays, more access to plug sockets and efficient LED lighting. The installation of Automated Passenger Counting now provides insight into real-time demand on service.

“From an infrastructure perspective, Forward-Facing CCTV and enhanced GPS feeds enable remote monitoring of track conditions. This can help deliver improved network performance and reliability by reducing the need for dedicated track inspection vehicles and allows rail staff to assess conditions flexibly.”

Peter Broadley, Managing Director of Services at Alstom UK & Ireland said: “It is great to see the Electrostars get a new lease of life, fit for purpose for the next phase of their operations. Working closely with our partners at GTR and Porterbrook we have created a great product which significantly enhances the customer experience across the GTR network. I’m looking forward to successfully completing the project in a little over two years from now.”