First Group has signed a deal with Angel Trains and Hitachi to lease 14 brand new Class 80X electric, battery electric or bi-mode trains at a cost of £500m
Manufactured in County Durham, the new trains will be used on the London – Carmarthen services and increase the number of trains available for Lumo and Hull Trains.
The agreement also includes an optional 13 more trains if the open-access applications are granted by the ORR.
It is expected that the new London – Rochdale services will feature these new trains as part of the Lumo expansion, the expansion of the London – Carmarthen service to run a service to Paignton and a new Hull Trains service to Sheffield from London.
“The introduction of our new service between London and Carmarthen, and the extra capacity on Lumo and Hull Trains, will significantly increase our open access portfolio over the next few years, with further expansion possible should our recent applications be successful. The new trains, to be manufactured for us in County Durham by Hitachi, will support UK manufacturing and offer customers more choice as they consider affordable, environmentally friendly modes of travel in the future, and we are pleased to be taking them forward.
FirstGroup Chief Executive Officer Graham Sutherland
Responses
Will the seats be as horrible as those on the GWR class 800s
Lumo could of ordered few more Class 803s and to run 10-Car service from London King’s Cross-Edinburgh Waverley and Hull Trains to order few more Class 802 Paragons to also run 10-Car service to Hull Paragon.
My suggestion would be for Hitachi to continue on manufacturing more IET “AT300” rolling stocks and perhaps manufacture more AT200 Commuter just like what ScotRail have got that the Class 385 are based on. And maybe more Class 385s could have been built to replace the Class 318 and Class 320.
Not quite sure how much of this brings new journey opportunities ….just a high percentage of duplication of service by the incumbent Train Operating Company … So revenue extraction from the tax payer ..
If this was all about new journey opportunities it would be Kings Cross to Retford, then on to Leeds then Settle and Appleby and then Carlisle and Annan to Glasgow … That would bring REAL new journey opportunities …
Will it be Class 802 and Class 803. With Grand Central to order new IETs that could be classed as Class 804, Class 806, Class 808 or Class 809. As GWR have got Class 800 and Class 802, LNER have got Class & Class 801 Azuma, TPE and Hull Trains have Class 802 that are named as Nova 1 and Paragon. Lumo have Class 803, Avanti Wesr Coast have started using the Class 805 and Class 807 Evero. And EMR to start introducing the Class 810 Aurora from next year. That they are to replace the Class 222 Meridian DEMUs.
First will need to come up with creative ideas to expand its open access beyond buying Grand Central. What about extending Lumo’s ECML service to Stirling (one staff base serving ECML and WCML) plus asking for a stop at Peterbourgh where the KX- Stirling service could be joined by a unit starting at Stansted serving Cambridge and Ely both growth hubs. An Edinburgh to South Wales via Hereford maybe a winner, as could a Brighton – Gatwick – Crewe via Northampton, with services going forward to Manchester Victoria and Edinburgh splitting at Crewe or Liverpool and Glasgow.