Testing of the first Great Western Railway Class 802 bi-mode train to be built at Pistoia by Hitachi Rail Italy begins in September. It will arrive in the UK in December, and enters traffic next year.
GWR has 36 Class 802s on order for its West of England services to Devon and Cornwall. These are formed into an initial order of 22 five-car and seven nine-car trains, supplemented last year by a further seven nine-car trains.
They will enable the replacement of the High Speed Trains on the route from the first week of March 2019.
- For much more on this, including news and pictures from the Pistoia facility, read RAIL 828, published on June 7.
- For a detailed trip around Pistoia to visit the '802' production line, read RAIL 829, published on June 21.
Melvyn - 25/05/2017 18:40
The Government and railway seems to have shot itself in the foot over rail electrification and bi-mode trains given there was a need to replace elderly HST trains but there was no chance of electrification of all the routes HST trains covered. Therefore, a plan involving both full electric and hybrid trains should have been announced from the beginning making it clear that some routes would become fully electric or those that already were would gain electric only trains . But to cover long distance routes hybrid trains would be introduced using electric power on lines already electrified with extent of electric operations extending as electrification progressed but able to switch to diesel mode beyond the wires to maintain connections. I still think it's time Meridian and Voyager trains had extra carriages added to make them bimode is worth it given increasing length of overhead they run under .