South Western Railway has confirmed that the first Class 701 train has arrived at Wimbledon depot this week.
The arrival on Tuesday 30th June 2020 marked a significant milestone in the £1bn transformation of South Western Railway travel.
The 10-car train will be stabled at the depot over the coming weeks and will become the focus of training and testing to ensure the fleet are passenger-ready.
Neil Drury, SWR's Engineering Director, said: “We're delighted Wimbledon depot has received its first class 701 train. There will be many significant developments in this programme – this is one of them.
“Train 6 allows us to prepare our drivers, maintenance staff and other colleagues for a generational step-change in service performance, and ensure that the important components which define the experience of travelling on these new trains are ready before the fleet's eventual introduction.”
All the current fleet of Class 455, 456, 458 and 707 trains will be replaced over a two year period by new trains.
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Good point, MR/Mrs Anonymous; these are clearly Driver-only operation, so presumably we can expect another outbreak of silliness from the RMT?
This train is the guard killer
Perhaps South Western Railway might allow to operate some of the Class 701s to operate on other destinations on their network including to Alton and to work alongside with the Class 450. Or they should retain the Class 458/5s for the Alton Line service that would allow the Class 450s used on the Alton service to be transferred to work on the Portsmouth Harbour,
Portsmouth & Southsea, Southampton Central, Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth services (working alongside with the Class 442 and Class 444).
Maybe Class 701s could operate to Alton, Basingstoke, Ascot, Guildford, Woking and Reading & Windsor & Eton Riverside routes.
And as usual operating on the suburban services including Weybridge, Hampton Court, Chessington South, Shepperton, Staines, Wokingham, Strawberry Hill, Brentford, Hounslow, Richmond, Twickenham, Wimbledon, Epsom, Putney and Barnes.
Which will replace the Class 455, Class 456, Class 458 and Class 707. And to cascade the Class 707s to Southeastern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_701