ROLLING STOCK & TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
A new-look Class 156 fleet
RTM talks to Greater Anglia fleet manager Steve Mitchell about the upcoming £3m upgrade to its Class 156 fleet as part of its C6 overhaul.
G
reater Anglia, the Abellio-owned TOC which took over the franchise to run
services across East Anglia in February, has announced an overhaul of its nine two-carriage Class 156 vehicles.
Alongside the engineering work ‘Major improvements’
Therese Coffey, MP for Suffolk Coastal, whose constituency includes the Ipswich – Lowestoft East Suffolk Line, one of the routes on which the Class 156s are used, said: “I’m delighted that passengers on the East Suffolk Line will benefit from refurbished trains with a nicer travelling environment, better information provision and upgraded toilet facilities.
“Coupled with the introduction of an hourly service on the route from December, it means passengers along this vitally important corridor are seeing major improvements to their train service over the coming months, which will also support the local economy, help local communities and make our region more accessible. I’m pleased to see Greater Anglia delivering on their commitments to enhance train services on the Ipswich to Lowestoft line.”
Greater Anglia’s punctuality, according to the latest PPM statistics, was at 94.5%, just above the national average. Its moving annual average stood at 91.5%. Abellio also runs Merseyrail and Northern in a 50:50 joint venture with Serco.
34 | rail technology magazine Oct/Nov 12 being undertaken as part of the trains’ C6, such as
Steve Mitchell, fleet manager at the Crown Point depot in Norwich, explained: “In order to do that, there are some quite significant changes that are required for the units to reach that standard. A strategic decision was made about the units being used beyond that date and actually achieving the TSI PRM with minimum downtime for the operator, so they don’t have to take the units out of service at another point before that date.
“Even though TSI PRM doesn’t strictly say we must have a CET tank if they’re replacing the whole toilet, I think quite sensibly they’ve gone down the road of adding the CET tank to the vehicle as well. There’s a significant level of work required to rip out the old toilets: in fact we have to lose a couple of seats as well, so the toilets are slightly bigger with a little bit more space in order to fit in a new toilet module.”
Another key point in the disability legislation is around passenger information systems needing to offer both visual and audio information, which will
corrosion repair and repainting, there will be more extensive interior refurbishment and reconfiguration to ensure they can continue running past the deadline for compliance with the Technical Specification for Interoperability for Persons with Reduced Mobility (TSI PRM) at the end of 2019.
also be part of this upgrade, ordered by asset owner Porterbrook.
Mitchell added: “Also, because the 156 is occasionally coupled to a 170 – albeit not normally in service, but even out of service the destination blinds have to be consistent – they’ve gone for a system which is fully compatible with our current 170s. The current 170s only have visual, but they are compatible from the point of view of display, and they can pull up the same databases and so on.”
In addition, the disabled ramps are getting locating lugs, and will be located in a particular place of the car near the disabled toilets, so it can be easily located. A revised seating layout will provide priority seats and two wheelchair spaces with ‘call for aid’ buttons alongside the new universal toilet, which will also be fitted with a help button. That module is manufactured by Phenolic Ltd.
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