Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
British Rail Class 458
The British Rail Class 458 Coradia Juniper (4-JOP; later 5-JUP) is a class of electric multiple-unit passenger trains of the Alstom Coradia Juniper family, built at Washwood Heath between 1998 and 2002 for South West Trains. The order for the original fleet of 30 four-car trains was placed in 1997, and delivery of the first unit followed in October 1998. The fleet entered passenger service between 2000 and 2003 and is maintained at Bournemouth depot.
Between 2013 and 2016, the class was merged with the mechanically similar Class 460 fleet and extensively rebuilt to form a fleet of 36 five-car units—designated Class 458/5—to provide an increase in capacity on services into London Waterloo. The trains are now used by South Western Railway.
In March 2021, South Western Railway announced that 28 Class 458 units would be refurbished for use on long-distance services on the Portsmouth Direct line, as a result of the company deciding to abandon its original plan to use upgraded Class 442 units for this purpose. By 2024, this plan had been dropped, and the refurbished units were instead deployed on limited services out of London Waterloo from 24 June 2024.
South West Trains began operating the South Western franchise in February 1996, having inherited all of its rolling stock from British Rail. While this included a small number of trains built in the late 1980s and a larger number of suburban units delivered between 1982 and 1985, a significant proportion of the overall fleet was formed by much older slam-door First Generation EMUs, such as Classes 411 and 423. In order to begin replacing these older units, SWT issued in November 1996 a request for tenders to supply 30 new air-conditioned four-car EMUs, and in 1997 together with rolling stock lessor Porterbrook awarded to Alstom a £90 million contract for their delivery.
Some railway industry commentators noted that SWT were going above and beyond the requirements of their franchise award in placing the order, and speculated that it could be a strategy to allay concerns about the fact that the same company—Stagecoach Group—owned both South West Trains and Porterbrook. This represented a potential conflict of interest at a time when rolling stock leasing companies, and Porterbrook in particular, were being criticised for extracting significant profits from leasing cheaply-acquired ex-BR stock.
All 30 units, numbered 458001–458030, were fitted out at the former Metro-Cammell works at Washwood Heath in Birmingham, which Alstom had acquired in 1989, with the bodyshells being built in Barcelona, Spain. Each unit was formed of two motor cars with driver's cabs, an intermediate trailer car, and an intermediate motor car. Both driving cars had small sections of first-class seating, while the intermediate cars were all standard class. The trailer car was provided with a pantograph well and space for an alternating-current transformer, enabling conversion to 25 kV 50 Hz AC overhead-line operation if required at a later date. One bogie on each motor car was fitted with traction motors, for a total of 6 motors along the train, a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), and a cumulative power output of 1,620 kW (2,000 hp). Both driving cars were also provided with end gangways, with the intent of allowing passengers and crew to move between coupled units. They are the only members of the Coradia Juniper family to have such provision.
The first unit, 458001, was delivered to SWT for pre-acceptance testing on 31 October 1998. Attempts to place the new class into passenger service were beset by delays and major technical problems. The roofs of the new trains leaked, allowing water ingress to both the driver's cabs and passenger saloons. Onboard electronics repeatedly failed, affecting the air-conditioning and traction systems, and the Train Management System (TMS) software also proved to be unreliable. More problems were encountered in coupling process and the design of the end gangways – existing practice with ex-BR stock taught that units could be coupled or uncoupled in the space of just a few minutes, but the Coradia Juniper gangway design was significantly more complex and took far longer to operate. Additionally, the entire TMS had to be restarted whenever units were coupled and uncoupled, which meant that the total time taken to couple or uncouple Class 458 units could reach up to 30 minutes. Both of these facts in particular remained considerable limitations on the use of the new fleet; ultimately SWT had no choice but to treat the Coradia Junipers as being semi-permanently coupled in pairs. The first Class 458 passenger service eventually ran on 25 February 2000, but even then only two units (458004 and 458005) were available for use.
By March 2002 twenty-four of the thirty units had been delivered, but on an average day only nine to ten units were actually available for service. The last six units eventually arrived by October 2002, but it was another seven months—May 2003—before the entire fleet had entered service. The protracted and difficult introduction of the Coradia Juniper fleet is credited with influencing SWT's decision in April 2001 to replace the rest of its slam-door units with an order of 785 vehicles from the competing Siemens Desiro family.
Hub AI
British Rail Class 458 AI simulator
(@British Rail Class 458_simulator)
British Rail Class 458
The British Rail Class 458 Coradia Juniper (4-JOP; later 5-JUP) is a class of electric multiple-unit passenger trains of the Alstom Coradia Juniper family, built at Washwood Heath between 1998 and 2002 for South West Trains. The order for the original fleet of 30 four-car trains was placed in 1997, and delivery of the first unit followed in October 1998. The fleet entered passenger service between 2000 and 2003 and is maintained at Bournemouth depot.
Between 2013 and 2016, the class was merged with the mechanically similar Class 460 fleet and extensively rebuilt to form a fleet of 36 five-car units—designated Class 458/5—to provide an increase in capacity on services into London Waterloo. The trains are now used by South Western Railway.
In March 2021, South Western Railway announced that 28 Class 458 units would be refurbished for use on long-distance services on the Portsmouth Direct line, as a result of the company deciding to abandon its original plan to use upgraded Class 442 units for this purpose. By 2024, this plan had been dropped, and the refurbished units were instead deployed on limited services out of London Waterloo from 24 June 2024.
South West Trains began operating the South Western franchise in February 1996, having inherited all of its rolling stock from British Rail. While this included a small number of trains built in the late 1980s and a larger number of suburban units delivered between 1982 and 1985, a significant proportion of the overall fleet was formed by much older slam-door First Generation EMUs, such as Classes 411 and 423. In order to begin replacing these older units, SWT issued in November 1996 a request for tenders to supply 30 new air-conditioned four-car EMUs, and in 1997 together with rolling stock lessor Porterbrook awarded to Alstom a £90 million contract for their delivery.
Some railway industry commentators noted that SWT were going above and beyond the requirements of their franchise award in placing the order, and speculated that it could be a strategy to allay concerns about the fact that the same company—Stagecoach Group—owned both South West Trains and Porterbrook. This represented a potential conflict of interest at a time when rolling stock leasing companies, and Porterbrook in particular, were being criticised for extracting significant profits from leasing cheaply-acquired ex-BR stock.
All 30 units, numbered 458001–458030, were fitted out at the former Metro-Cammell works at Washwood Heath in Birmingham, which Alstom had acquired in 1989, with the bodyshells being built in Barcelona, Spain. Each unit was formed of two motor cars with driver's cabs, an intermediate trailer car, and an intermediate motor car. Both driving cars had small sections of first-class seating, while the intermediate cars were all standard class. The trailer car was provided with a pantograph well and space for an alternating-current transformer, enabling conversion to 25 kV 50 Hz AC overhead-line operation if required at a later date. One bogie on each motor car was fitted with traction motors, for a total of 6 motors along the train, a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), and a cumulative power output of 1,620 kW (2,000 hp). Both driving cars were also provided with end gangways, with the intent of allowing passengers and crew to move between coupled units. They are the only members of the Coradia Juniper family to have such provision.
The first unit, 458001, was delivered to SWT for pre-acceptance testing on 31 October 1998. Attempts to place the new class into passenger service were beset by delays and major technical problems. The roofs of the new trains leaked, allowing water ingress to both the driver's cabs and passenger saloons. Onboard electronics repeatedly failed, affecting the air-conditioning and traction systems, and the Train Management System (TMS) software also proved to be unreliable. More problems were encountered in coupling process and the design of the end gangways – existing practice with ex-BR stock taught that units could be coupled or uncoupled in the space of just a few minutes, but the Coradia Juniper gangway design was significantly more complex and took far longer to operate. Additionally, the entire TMS had to be restarted whenever units were coupled and uncoupled, which meant that the total time taken to couple or uncouple Class 458 units could reach up to 30 minutes. Both of these facts in particular remained considerable limitations on the use of the new fleet; ultimately SWT had no choice but to treat the Coradia Junipers as being semi-permanently coupled in pairs. The first Class 458 passenger service eventually ran on 25 February 2000, but even then only two units (458004 and 458005) were available for use.
By March 2002 twenty-four of the thirty units had been delivered, but on an average day only nine to ten units were actually available for service. The last six units eventually arrived by October 2002, but it was another seven months—May 2003—before the entire fleet had entered service. The protracted and difficult introduction of the Coradia Juniper fleet is credited with influencing SWT's decision in April 2001 to replace the rest of its slam-door units with an order of 785 vehicles from the competing Siemens Desiro family.