I live near to Hitachi in Newton Aycliffe and there was a bit on the local news last night how they have imported 2 Azuma trains from Japan for training. It said they’re due to start the rollout from December this year, and for some reason I always had this down as June? Guess that would be as good reason as any for the delay? Can’t wait to hear an update though, the wait is killing me!
I think initial hopes were summer 2018 for the rollout, but this has been pushed back to December. Interestingly, if the Twitter team are correct with their info, the full rollout will take 3 years as I noticed someone asked the question a few days ago.