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Great Western Railway Heathrow Express Class 387 Refittment and Service Updates

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leomartin125

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Today, GWR's 387134 left Reading Traincare Depot bound for Ilford E.M.U.D. to be stripped in preparation for HEX upgrades, and will receive it's HEX livery whilst it's there.
 
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Murray J

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387134 Arrived at ilford E.M.U.D at 1:30 PM today, seemingly not under it's own power. Looks like it came with a locomotive from Leicester L.I.P, where europhenix and ROG have many trains.
 

Antman

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If it’s the one, I think, it came from Reading with a DRS blue 57.....
 

Murray J

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Yeah it came from reading traincare. The loco seems to have arrived at reading from Leicester L.I.P around an hour before departing for ilford. Not sure if DRS have any trains at leicester but I know that ROG have 57s in a blue, sort of similar, livery to DRS. According to real-time trains the loco that hauled the 387 departed ilford around 2 and was meant to come back to reading. For an unknown reason the service was cancelled at Acton west.
 

leomartin125

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Yeah it came from reading traincare. The loco seems to have arrived at reading from Leicester L.I.P around an hour before departing for ilford. Not sure if DRS have any trains at leicester but I know that ROG have 57s in a blue, sort of similar, livery to DRS. According to real-time trains the loco that hauled the 387 departed ilford around 2 and was meant to come back to reading. For an unknown reason the service was cancelled at Acton west.
The service was operated by DRS 57306 which is currently on permanent loan to GWR for the sleeper services. It was meant to be operated by the loco that came down from Leicester today, however I'm guessing the same happened that happened a few weeks back - wrong coupler was brought so ROG had to 'borrow' GWR's 57306 to complete the move (what would they do without DRS!). A 387 would struggle to get from Reading to Ilford 'under it's own power' as I'm not sure you have noticed but Acton Wells Junction isn't electrified from the GWML...
 

JN114

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Yeah it came from reading traincare. The loco seems to have arrived at reading from Leicester L.I.P around an hour before departing for ilford. Not sure if DRS have any trains at leicester but I know that ROG have 57s in a blue, sort of similar, livery to DRS. According to real-time trains the loco that hauled the 387 departed ilford around 2 and was meant to come back to reading. For an unknown reason the service was cancelled at Acton west.

The loco was needed urgently as a rescue engine elsewhere.
 

reddragon

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Is there an actual confirmed date for the switch for class 332s at OOC to class 387s ar Reading, because the official date when announced was the December timetable change. Officially OOC still closes in December! HS2 timelines seem to have the site cleared by March too.
 

TFN

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The tunnels were closed last Saturday (23/10) due to Network Rail stuff.

Does anyone know if it was for signalling/testing purposes?
 

fgwrich

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Upon passing the depot yesterday, I noticed that 132 has some seats in it. Does anyone know if they are new for Hex or the standard GW ones just not yet removed?
 

JN114

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Upon passing the depot yesterday, I noticed that 132 has some seats in it. Does anyone know if they are new for Hex or the standard GW ones just not yet removed?

The latter.

Work Package 1 is interior strip and relivery.
Work Package 2 is ETCS fitting.
Work Package 3 is new interior fit-out.

All the HX units currently at Reading have only had package 1.
The unit at Old Dalby (387135) and one of the units at Ilford (whichever unit went there after 135 I gather, but I forget which) have had 1 and 2.
 

Malcolmffc

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The service was operated by DRS 57306 which is currently on permanent loan to GWR for the sleeper services. It was meant to be operated by the loco that came down from Leicester today, however I'm guessing the same happened that happened a few weeks back - wrong coupler was brought so ROG had to 'borrow' GWR's 57306 to complete the move (what would they do without DRS!). A 387 would struggle to get from Reading to Ilford 'under it's own power' as I'm not sure you have noticed but Acton Wells Junction isn't electrified from the GWML...

off topic I know, but that is madness given the junction is surrounded by electrified lines.
 

T-Karmel

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Are these units actually going to be ready for 15th December?

First units will be put in service "early next year" and they will be replacing 332s in phases, not all at once.

The tunnels were closed last Saturday (23/10) due to Network Rail stuff.

Saturday 19th Oct tunnels were closed due to works enabling 345s to get into the tunnel, though I don't know what exactly were they doing there.

Faulty fireproofing, sadly.

That was the matter on Monday 21st Oct, not on Saturday.
 

Energy

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I was wondering, wouldn't an 5 car class 800 be better for airport, you would only loose about 30m compared to an 8 car (2 x 4) class 387 and as it is meant to be an express, surely an express train would be better? And the 800s can be serviced at North Pole whereas the 387s have to go to Reading.

Also are the HeX trains going to run in 4 or 8 cars?
 

T-Karmel

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I was wondering, wouldn't an 5 car class 800 be better for airport, you would only loose about 30m compared to an 8 car (2 x 4) class 387 and as it is meant to be an express, surely an express train would be better? And the 800s can be serviced at North Pole whereas the 387s have to go to Reading.

387s for HEX might be stored in West Ealing sidings (not decided yet) so it will save trips between services in Reading. These 30 m diffrence is actually a lot on HEX service as in rush hour trains go full. Also, 800 are longdistance and made to run 200 kmph. HEX is airport shuttle for just 15 mins (well, 21 mins) journey and top electric speed is only 160 kmph on this part of the line anyway. Also, according to some 8 cars 387s are almost as long as 9 car 332s as cars are longer on 387s (I didn't check it).

Also are the HeX trains going to run in 4 or 8 cars?

8 cars "at all times" (but obviously if one breaks down, they will decouple it)
 

samuelmorris

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387s for HEX might be stored in West Ealing sidings (not decided yet) so it will save trips between services in Reading. These 30 m diffrence is actually a lot on HEX service as in rush hour trains go full. Also, 800 are longdistance and made to run 200 kmph. HEX is airport shuttle for just 15 mins (well, 21 mins) journey and top electric speed is only 160 kmph on this part of the line anyway. Also, according to some 8 cars 387s are almost as long as 9 car 332s as cars are longer on 387s (I didn't check it).



8 cars "at all times" (but obviously if one breaks down, they will decouple it)
Other way round, 8-car 332s are as long as (would-be) 9-car 387s.
 

Mag_seven

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If GWR have donated 387s to the HEX operation does that imply short formations on their regular 387 operated services?
 

Bessie

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No, because Crossrail trains will run to Reading and use some existing 387 paths
 

Energy

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These 30 m diffrence is actually a lot on HEX service as in rush hour trains go full.
Wait HeX trains get full? With the high pricing and frequency of trains I assumed that they don't get to busy, anyway with crossrail HeX will probably loose some demand as to get to canary wharf you can get crossrail to go direct, taking away lots of demand for business travellers, and crossrail may provide a good enough service that leisure travellers decide the extra price of HeX isn't worth it, right now HeX isn't really for leisure travellers, Heathrow Connect / TfL rail is.
 

T-Karmel

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Other way round, 8-car 332s are as long as (would-be) 9-car 387s.
That doesn't really make sense... 9 car 332s take all platform's lenght at Heathrow, and what you are suggesting is 8-car 387s would be even shorter than 7 cars of 332s. That is making it way shorter than it is, whilst HEX is claiming that train will not be much shorter then they are now.

Wait HeX trains get full? With the high pricing and frequency of trains I assumed that they don't get to busy, anyway with crossrail HeX will probably loose some demand as to get to canary wharf you can get crossrail to go direct, taking away lots of demand for business travellers, and crossrail may provide a good enough service that leisure travellers decide the extra price of HeX isn't worth it, right now HeX isn't really for leisure travellers, Heathrow Connect / TfL rail is.

That is true but at the moment TfL Rail is no change to previous Heathrow Connect operation, so it does not affect HEX (yet) and yes, in rush hour, especially Monday mornings and Friday afternoons, long trains are so busy there's all seats taken and customers are standing in Standard class whilst 2 carriages of Business class are just enough or there are just a few seats left.

If the train runs short formation, sometimes 1 Business carriage is not enough for all FC customers in off-peak, during the day for example at noon.

No, because Crossrail trains will run to Reading and use some existing 387 paths

Exactly
 

T-Karmel

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A 9 car 332 is approx 207m, 8 car 387 is 160m......

So I googled the lenght of their carriages and yes, you're right. That is very weird that they were saying what I have heard... New trains will be way shorter and that will only work when Elizabeth line will take a good stake of HEXes passengers. Until then they'll be all cramped :D
 

Nippy

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They will only be getting 12 units. Need 10 for a full 5x8 car service. I'm pretty sure 12s won't fit at the Heathrow Platforms. They had to extend them to get 9 car 332s in......
 
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