NEW TRAIN TIN-WATCH

New trains in the table: Stadler-built Class 755s at Norwich on 2 October 2019. Colin Boocock
Penultimate day in service: No 313052 was on the rear of a Stevenage to Moorgate working at Finsbury Park on 29 September 2019, one of only two pairs on duty the day before the class was withdrawn from Great Northern suburban routes; No 313059 was on the front. Joel Coulson

First, a note of explanation: some readers seem to have been perplexed by aronyms in this monthly table. I have included a handy acronym buster with this month’s contribution (p25), but as regards this page the key one is TIN. A Technical Incident Number is handed out when a service is stopped for three minutes or more due to a train fault. MTIN is miles per TIN: the higher the number, the more miles between TINs and the more reliable the train.

This month’s comparator heritage class is Govia Thameslink Railway’s Class 313, phased out of service from Moorgate suburban duties as this column went to press: more reliable than all but two of the new classes in the table. Unfortunately, I don’t have the figures on the new Moorgate units, the Class 717s, at present, hopefully these will come next month.

With just over two months to go to midnight on 31 December, when non-accessible rolling stock (theoretically) turns back into pumpkins, new fleets are continuing to enter the table.

This month’s newcomers are the Northern Class 331 EMUs and the Greater Anglia Stadler Class 755 bi-modes. But as the number sets in the table shows, deliveries are late and slow.

An analysis of fleet mileages shows that five are averaging over 10,000 miles per train per four-week Reporting Period. A further four fleets are between 5,000 and 10,000 miles.

What may be significant is that the members of the 10,000 miles plus club are also at the top of the table.

Intuitively, more miles run provides more opportunities for problems to show up and be eliminated.

TABLE 4: NEW TRAIN RELIABILITY, PERIOD 5 2019-20

TOC Class Traction Maker Number of units / trainsets Number of Technical Incidents (TIN) Unit Miles Miles/Technical Incident (MTIN) MTIN Moving Annual Average

SWR Class 707 EMU Siemens 30 2 212,755 106,378 46,577

ScotRail Class 385 EMU Hitachi 62 25 705,601 28,224 16,504

GTR Class 313 EMU BREL ? 10 158,496 15,850 14,315

GTR Class 700 EMU Siemens 115 99 1,328,616 13,420 13,233

GWR Class 800 Bi-mode Hitachi 57 77 847,819 11,011 9,422

GWR Class 802 Bi-mode Hitachi 36 62 522,031 8,420 8,381

LNER Class 800 Bi-mode Hitachi 12 26 178,069 6,849 8,279

GWR PRM modified

2+4 HST set Diesel BREL/Wabtec 2 10 99,452 9,945 6,630

TfL Rail (Crossrail) Class 345 RLU EMU Bombardier 16 19 100,936 5,312 6,142

ScotRail HST Set* Diesel BREL/Wabtec 19 25 167,623 6,705 6,138

Northern Class 331/1 EMU CAF 5 9 19,780 2,198 3,869

Northern Class 195/1 DMU CAF 12 22 91,343 4,152 3,515

TfL Rail (Crossrail) Class 345 FLU EMU Bombardier 11 19 8,861 466 3,147

Greater Anglia Class 755 Bi-mode Stadler 2 4 7,472 1,868 1,868

Arriva Rail London Class 710 EMU Bombardier 8 16 36,738 2,296 1,828

Northern Class 195/0 DMU CAF 3 3 3,106 1,035 1,488

West Midlands

Trains Class 230 Diesel Vivarail 3 30 12,555 419 461