Transport for London has signed the deal for Crossrail fleet of 65 nine car Class 345 trains with Bombardier after both parties observed the standard 10 day standing still period. The deal is worth £1.3bn and lasts until 2026. Of this money, £300m is for the building of the depot alongside £1bn for the fleet. TfL can extend the deal with Bombardier for maintenance period until 2046.
The deal will see all 585 carriages built at Bombardier Litchurch Lane plant that is currently building S Stock for TfL and 377/7 and 387’s for Southern. The deal will support (or be ‘created’ according to TfL) 760 UK manufacturing jobs (from the current Derby workforce) along with 80 apprenticeships when Bombardier builds the trains with 244 jobs and 16 apprenticeships building the depots. A total of 80 permanent created in the long term with the maintenance of the fleet.
The Crossrail fleet will help generate an extra 10% rail capacity across London giving relief to Central, District and Circle Lines while making new connections across London such as linking Abbey Wood to Canary Wharf directly for the first time. The new nine car 200m long (meaning a more average 23m long versus 20m for most UK EMU commuter units) are based on Bombardier’s second attempt of its Aventra platform that was redesigned after the failure of the company to get the Thameslink contract. There is also a clause allowing TfL to order a further 18 trains (162 carriages).
The introduction of the fleet will be as follows;
May 2017 – Liverpool Street (current platforms) to Shenfield
May 2018 – Heathrow to Paddington (current platforms) replacing Heathrow Connect service
December 2018 – Paddington Crossrail to Abbey Wood
May 2019 – Shenfield to Whitechapel/Paddington
December 2019 – Full Crossrail open with trains to Maidenhead from Paddington
The planned service is still yet to be written but the Class 345 fleet will be expected to run the following;
Great Western Services
4tph Heathrow Airport to London
4tph Maidenhead to London
2tph West Drayton to London
Crossrail Core
24tph in each direction with 12tph terminating at Paddington
Great Eastern
12tph London to Shenfield
Abbey Wood via Canary Wharf
12tph London to Abbey Wood
While TfL has stated its still working with Bombardier on the final design of the train, the announcement did include a picture of the Class 345 train as shown above with three doors per carriage similar to LUL trains allowing greater people to enter and exit the trains quicker. With the ability to carry up to 1,500 per train (compare that to a total of 1,754 people on a 240m 12 car Class 700). The trains will also feature walk through carriages like the Class 378 & 700 with intelligent air conditioning like the Class 700’s.
Derby’s work load is now healthy for the next few years with the following orders already been place;
8x Class 377/7 (40 carriages) – now being delivered
29x Class 387/1 (116 carriages) – first is due in May
57x Class 378 carriages to lengthen all 378 trains to five cars – First extended train in service later this year
1,395 S stock carriages with the 1,000th completed in December with final train completed in 2015.
Of course there are still yet more possible orders for Bombardier and its Derby work force with both a mix of extensions to existing orders and new orders to bid. Here’s a quick list of what’s on offer;
387/1 35 trains/140 carriages – Extension to initial Thameslink order
345 18 trains/162 carriages – Extension to Crossrail order
30 trains/120 carriages – New build WAML trains TfL have announced
8 Trains/32 carriages – New electric units for Gospel Oak to Barking
59 trains/177 carriages – New trains for Liverpool’s Merseyrail
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