Siemens Mobility built 30 five-carriage sets. Initially leased by South West Trains, its franchise successor South Western Railway began moves towards phasing them out of their network — and that even though the full compliment had not yet been delivered. Since September 18 have entered service with Southeastern. The remaining 12 are due to be transferred to Southeastern by late Just to add, the s should have been transferred entirely to Southeastern a long time back, however various factors have seen to it that the Siemens units have stayed much longer with SWR.
One of these has been the numerous issues with the new Class Arterios which has ensured more than a year and a half extra stay for the s on SWR. And in a nutshell its why the s have enjoyed a stay of extended duration on SWR. Curiously the s first units entered service not with SWR but with the older South Western company! They were first seen towards the end of but did not enter service for quite a few more months. These units worked passenger services for three whole days under the old South Western company — on 20th August SWR took over the franchise for the lines out of Waterloo.
Before the entire compliment of 30 units had even been employed on the SWR the decision to replace them with the s was made. As the Evening Standard wrote back in , the idea of this occurring — of brand new trains being replaced by even newer ones — was due to the madness of ROSCOS and train leasing.
Built by Siemens in Krefeld, Germany, it is known as a Desiro City Class and only entered service in the past few months. The previous operator of your line, South West Trains, decided to order 30 of them back in to expand the Waterloo fleet. Trains take a while to build, so deliveries only began towards the end of last year, with the last one expected to be finished and carrying passengers in the next couple of weeks.
Lucky you. For, despite the fact that trains are built to last at least 30 years, these carriages will be out of service by the end of next year. Because the franchise changed hands and the new operators FirstGroup and MTR have struck another deal to replace them all with an even more brand new set.
