British Rail Class 458
| British Rail Class 458 Juniper | |
|---|---|
 Class 458/4 unit at London Waterloo | |
| In service | 25 February 2000 – present |
| Manufacturer | Alstom |
| Built at | Washwood Heath, Birmingham |
| Family name | Coradia Juniper |
| Replaced | |
| Constructed | 1998–2002 |
| Refurbished |
|
| Number built | 36 (Original fleet of 30, plus 6 converted from Cl. 460) |
| Number in service | 24 |
| Formation |
|
| Fleet numbers |
|
| Capacity |
|
| Owners | Porterbrook |
| Operators |
|
| Depots |
|
| Specifications | |
| Car body construction | Steel |
| Car length |
|
| Width | 2.80 m (9 ft 2 in) |
| Height | 3.77 m (12 ft 4 in) |
| Doors | Double-leaf sliding plug (2 per side per car) |
| Maximum speed |
|
| Traction system | Alstom ONIX 800 IGBT |
| Traction motors | 6 × 270 kW (400 hp) (2 per motor car) |
| Power output | 1,620 kW (2,000 hp) |
| Electric system(s) | 750 V DC third rail |
| Current collector(s) | Contact shoe |
| UIC classification |
|
| Bogies | Alstom ACR[6] |
| Braking system(s) | Electro-pneumatic (disc), and regenerative |
| Safety system(s) | |
| Coupling system |
|
| Multiple working | Within class |
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge |
The British Rail Class 458 Juniper (5-JUP) is a class of electric multiple-unit passenger trains of the Alstom Coradia Juniper family, built at Washwood Heath between 1998 and 2002 for South West Trains.[7] The order for the original fleet of 30 four-car trains was placed in 1997, and delivery of the first unit followed in October 1998.[8] The fleet entered passenger service between 2000 and 2003 and is maintained at Bournemouth depot.[3][9]
Between 2013 and 2016, the class was merged with the mechanically similar Class 460 fleet and extensively rebuilt to form a fleet of 36 five-car units—designated Class 458/5—to provide an increase in capacity on services into London Waterloo.[10] The trains are now used by South Western Railway.[11]
In March 2021, South Western Railway announced that 28 Class 458 units would be refurbished for use on long-distance services on the Portsmouth Direct line, as a result of the company deciding to abandon its original plan to use upgraded Class 442 units for this purpose.[12] By 2024, this plan had been dropped, and the refurbished units were instead deployed on limited services out of London Waterloo from 24 June 2024.
History
[edit]South West Trains began operating the South Western franchise in February 1996, having inherited all of its rolling stock from British Rail. While this included a small number of trains built in the late 1980s and a larger number of suburban units delivered between 1982 and 1985, a significant proportion of the overall fleet was formed by much older slam-door First Generation EMUs, such as Classes 411 and 423. In order to begin replacing these older units, SWT issued in November 1996 a request for tenders to supply 30 new air-conditioned four-car EMUs, and in 1997 together with rolling stock lessor Porterbrook awarded to Alstom a £90 million contract for their delivery.[8][13]
Some railway industry commentators noted that SWT were going above and beyond the requirements of their franchise award in placing the order, and speculated that it could be a strategy to allay concerns about the fact that the same company—Stagecoach Group—owned both South West Trains and Porterbrook.[5] This represented a potential conflict of interest at a time when rolling stock leasing companies, and Porterbrook in particular, were being criticised for extracting significant profits from leasing cheaply-acquired ex-BR stock.[14]
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All 30 units, numbered 458001–458030, were manufactured at the former Metro-Cammell works at Washwood Heath in Birmingham, which Alstom had acquired in 1989.[5][15] Each unit was formed of two motor cars with driver's cabs, an intermediate trailer car, and an intermediate motor car. Both driving cars had small sections of first-class seating, while the intermediate cars were all standard class. The trailer car was provided with a pantograph well and space for an alternating-current transformer, enabling conversion to 25 kV 50 Hz AC overhead-line operation if required at a later date.[5] One bogie on each motor car was fitted with traction motors, for a total of 6 motors along the train, a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), and a cumulative power output of 1,620 kW (2,000 hp).[5] Both driving cars were also provided with end gangways, with the intent of allowing passengers and crew to move between coupled units. They are the only members of the Juniper family to have such provision.[5]
The first unit, 458001, was delivered to SWT for pre-acceptance testing on 31 October 1998.[4] Attempts to place the new class into passenger service were beset by delays and major technical problems. The roofs of the new trains leaked, allowing water ingress to both the driver's cabs and passenger saloons. Onboard electronics repeatedly failed, affecting the air-conditioning and traction systems, and the Train Management System (TMS) software also proved to be unreliable.[5][13] More problems were encountered in coupling process and the design of the end gangways – existing practice with ex-BR stock taught that units could be coupled or uncoupled in the space of just a few minutes, but the Juniper gangway design was significantly more complex and took far longer to operate. Additionally, the entire TMS had to be restarted whenever units were coupled and uncoupled, which meant that the total time taken to couple or uncouple Class 458 units could reach up to 30 minutes. Both of these facts in particular remained considerable limitations on the use of the new fleet; ultimately SWT had no choice but to treat the Junipers as being semi-permanently coupled in pairs.[16] The first Class 458 passenger service eventually ran on 25 February 2000, but even then only two units (458004 and 458005) were available for use.[5]
By March 2002 twenty-four of the thirty units had been delivered, but on an average day only nine to ten units were actually available for service.[17] The last six units eventually arrived by October 2002, but it was another seven months—May 2003—before the entire fleet had entered service.[5] The protracted and difficult introduction of the Juniper fleet is credited with influencing SWT's decision in April 2001 to replace the rest of its slam-door units with an order of 785 vehicles from the competing Siemens Desiro family.[16][18]
Withdrawal from service
[edit]Even after the full complement of units had entered service, reliability remained so poor that in January 2004 South West Trains announced that they would withdraw the entire Class 458 fleet at the December 2005 timetable change in readiness to return them to lessor Porterbrook when the lease on the fleet expired in February 2006.[13] At the time of the announcement the trains were only managing an average of 4,300 miles (6,900 km) between major failures, whereas the new Siemens Desiro (Class 450) units—which had only entered service in October 2003—were already achieving an average of 21,000 miles (34,000 km) between faults, and the slam-door fleet had regularly managed intervals of circa 50,000 miles (80,000 km).[13]
An additional 17 Class 450 units had been ordered to replace the Class 458 fleet, but as these new units would not be delivered for some time yet Porterbrook later agreed with SWT that the Junipers could stay in service on a pay-per-use basis past the original end of the lease. In a separate arrangement units 458001 and 458002 were transferred to Gatwick Express in September 2005 to act as a spare train for that operator, but they were returned to SWT in December 2006 without having been used.[19]
In addition to reliability problems, continued use of the Class 458 fleet was complicated by issues surrounding compliance with the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations (RVAR) 1998. The Regulations, which mandate the accessibility features that vehicle designers and operators need to provide in order to meet the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, were in the process of being formulated at the same time as the Class 458 fleet was being designed and the finished units accordingly received temporary exemptions from compliance on a total of 10 different points.[20][21] The exemption relating to the size of the internal passenger
- ^ Dunn, Pip (21 August 2024). "First of refurbished SWR 458/4s enter traffic". Network News. Rail Magazine. No. 1016. p. 21.
- ^ "Class 458 "Coradia Juniper"". South Western Railway. Archived from the original on 20 January 2021. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
- ^ a b "The first refurbished SWR Class 458/4s enter service". News. Railways Illustrated. No. 259. September 2024. p. 12.
- ^ a b Lindop, Peter (4 April 2000). "Class 458". www.lococarriage.org.uk/. The Locomotive & Carriage Institution. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
458 – A Fast-Track Development?
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Introduction". extra.southernelectric.org.uk. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
- ^ Marsden, C. J. (2007). Traction Recognition. Hersham: Ian Allan Publishing. pp. 234–235. ISBN 978-0-7110-3277-4. OCLC 230804946. OL 16902750M.
- ^ "Railtex 2000 review". Railway Gazette International. 1 January 2001. Archived from the original on 7 June 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
- ^ a b Lindop, Peter (4 April 2000). "458 – A Fast Track Development?". Locomotive & Carriage Institution. Archived from the original on 5 March 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
- ^ "Golden Spanners Awards 2015". Modern Railways. 3 December 2015. Archived from the original on 7 June 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
- ^ Llewelyn, Hugh (2016). EMUs A History. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 9781445649832.
- ^ "First train arrives late at South Western Railway launch". Rail Magazine. Peterborough. 5 September 2017. Archived from the original on 9 September 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
- ^ "SWR abandons '442s' but retains '458s'". Modern Railways. Key Publishing. 14 April 2021. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
- ^ a b c d "Train firm to replace new fleet". BBC News. 12 January 2004. Archived from the original on 13 March 2007. Retrieved 2 July 2008.
A commuter rail company is to replace 30 of its newest fleet of trains because they keep breaking down.
- ^ "Porterbrook Three have a laugh at our expense". The Independent. 1 August 1996. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
- ^ "Alstom's first Juniper unit delivered to South West Trains". Rail Magazine. No. 344. Peterborough. 18 November – 1 December 1998. p. 7. ISSN 0953-4563.
- ^ a b "Fall and Rise of the 458s". extra.southernelectric.org.uk. Archived from the original on 23 October 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
- ^ "When old trains are better than new". BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. 18 March 2002. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
- ^ "Class 450". semgonline.com. Archived from the original on 23 November 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
- ^ Gatwick Express 458s Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine – Southern Electric Group. Retrieved 26 December 2010.
- ^ "The Rail Vehicle Accessibility (South West Trains Class 458 Vehicles) Exemption Order 1999", legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 2 September 1999, SI 1999/2404, retrieved 3 February 2022
- ^ "Explanatory Memorandum – The Rail Vehicle Accessibility (South West Trains Class 458 Vehicles) Exemption (Amendment) Order 2004 No.2149" (PDF). legislation.gov.uk. The National Archives. 18 August 2004. Retrieved 3 February 2022.