The first Class 345s for MTR Crossrail, the operator of the Crossrail/Elizabeth line service, have entered customer service operating off peak trips between Liverpool Street and Shenfield. These are the initial application of the new Bombardier Aventra platform, and were expected in service in mid-May, but it took another six weeks or so before the public could get on board. However once they could, it seemed rude not to go for a ride!
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| Initially just one train a day operated, at 10:35. This was additional to the timetable...if it failed it didn't count towards Charter! |
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| And this is what they replace, the humble Class 315. |
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| One of the more unusual features of the '345, at least far as the public can see, is 26m long carriages (a first for the UK although the IEP will also have 26m vehicles) and three sets of doors per carriage. |
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| Class 345s made grown men and women take selfies. With a train! |
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| The 'SFE' (sexy front end) might be the attraction, and looks rather sleek compared to the '315. Also of note is these are first trains of recent times (since steam trains?) to not have yellow ends. New regs mean sufficient brightness (luminoscity? lux?) from lights rule out the need for the yellow visible ends. |
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| Until the end of 2018 the '345s will be operating as seven-car trains between Liverpool St and Shenfield. Once operations commence through the Crossrail tunnel the final two vehicles will be added. |
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| Designed for standing! The interior of the 345 has plenty of standing room, tip up seats and longitudinal seating. These will no doubt be extremely busy once running through central London, but like Underground S8 and Thameslink '700s they are both metro and commuter trains beyond zone 6 so some degree of compromise has been taken with the interior layout and availability of seating. The bare metal grab rails are quite unusual, certainly unlike any other train in use in the south east, but will be familiar to MTRers who have transferred from Hong Kong operations. |
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| Four bays of four seats are in each vehicle, two each between the three sets of doors. |
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| There are modern flat screen customer information displays, although not as visually appealing as those on the Thameslink Class 700s. I found it surprising the service was mot described as the 'TfL Rail service to Shenfield'. Indeed the driver made a manual announcement calling it an 'MTR Crossrail service to Shenfield'. Announcing MTR Crossrail (or for that matter, Keolis Amey Docklands or Arriva Rail London) will only serve to confuse customers. |
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| The automated system then decided we were skipping Stratford and our next stop is Maryland. The driver's announcement confirmed we would be stopping at Startford. |
People like shiney new air conditioned things, though these trains will be real crowd movers before too long. They seem well built (I tried to break everything I could). Clearly there's some teething problems which delayed entry to service and the very cautious single daily trip in customer service. Best to sort before out on all day diagrams, and as Roger Ford often says, nothing ever works out of the box!