South West Trains has announced its
intention to award a contract for 150 new train carriages to
manufacturer Siemens and leasing company Angel Trains.
The 30 new five-carriage Desiro City trains
will boost capacity on services at South West Trains, providing for
more than 18,000 extra peak-time passengers every day travelling into
London Waterloo, the country's busiest station. The train order will
also allow for a further 6,000 daily peak-time passengers once
infrastructure upgrades are completed on the mainline and Hounslow loop.
The first of the new carriages will begin arriving in 2017 and all will be in service by early 2018. Major
infrastructure improvements will be carried out at London Waterloo to
enable the introduction of the new fleet of trains.
The order comes as South West Trains
continues the roll-out of a £65 million investment in 108 additional
refurbished carriages for the network. Collectively, these projects will
deliver an increase in total peak-time capacity of around 30% by 2018.
Over the last two decades, the number of
passengers using South West Trains services has increased by more than
100% and now over 222 million passenger journeys are made on the network
every year.
The new train order is part of a
comprehensive five-year plan developed by the South West Trains-Network
Rail Alliance to transform services for passengers. It incorporates
longer platforms, full re-opening of platforms at the former Waterloo
International Terminal and other associated infrastructure
improvements.
The project to introduce the new Desiro
City trains is being managed by Stagecoach South Western Trains. Formal
completion of the contract award is subject to a standard standstill
period. The process, which will also include an amendment to the current
franchise agreement, is expected to be finalised within the next few
weeks.
