Hitachi awarded £350m Avanti West Coast fleet contract

The trains will comprise 10 seven-car EMUs and 13 five-car bi-mode diesel and electric trains, which will be built at Hitachi’s County Durham factory. The electric trains will operate between London, the West Midlands and Liverpool while the bi-mode version will serve the London to North Wales route.

The Anglo-Italian 70:30 joint venture of First Group and Trenitalia won the West Coast Partnership franchise in August, taking over from Virgin Trains.

The fleet will offer a quieter journey compared with the existing diesel fleet it will replace, with free Wi-Fi, at-seat wireless charging for electronic devices, power sockets and USB slots, as well as catering and a real-time passenger information system that can advise customers of connecting rail services.

Each seven-car trains has capacity for 453 passengers, while the five-car train has capacity for 301 passengers, an increase from the 258 seats on the class 221 Voyager tilting DMUs they replace. The seven-car trains will have a similar numbers of seats to a nine-coach Pendolino, owing to the longer body shells of the Hitachi trains, which will be 26m-long.

The bi-mode trains will run for most of the journey using electric traction, switching to diesel for those parts of the network that are not electrified such as Crewe and Holyhead, and Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury.

The diesel engines’ high environmental standards means the particulate matter emissions they produce will be reduced by more than 90%, while nitrogen oxide emissions will be reduced by more than 60% compared with the engines currently in service. The introduction of electric operation is expected to reduce the franchise’s CO₂ emissions by around two-thirds.

The investment is being financed through Rock Rail West Coast, a joint venture between Rock Rail and Aberdeen Standard Investments. Rock Rail West Coast will own the trains and lease them to First Trenitalia. As with Rock Rail’s previous new rolling stock deals, debt will be provided by institutional investor organisations.

First Trenitalia has also signed contracts with Hitachi and Alstom for aspects of the fleet maintenance, with the trains to be maintained by a joint team from Hitachi and Alstom at the existing Oxley depot in Wolverhampton.

FirstGroup is introducing new rolling stock across its Britaish franchises, including Great Western Railway, Hull Trains, South Western Railway and TransPennine Express, with a £1.8bn investment in more than 1000 vehicles.

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