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FLIRTs: engaging the industry

When Abellio was bidding for the East Anglia franchise in 2015, it was clear that passengers and stakeholders wanted new trains. Now, nearly one year into its new franchise and following a recent external consultation over their design, Mike Kean, Greater Anglia’s deputy managing director, explains what the new Stadler trains will bring to the franchise.

Transformation is our watchword, and we are working hard to fulfil our promise to introduce two completely new fleets of trains as part of a £1.4bn investment. We are replacing every single train in our current fleet with 1,043 brand new carriages made up of 665 Bombardier Aventra carriages built in Derby and 378 FLIRT carriages from Swiss manufacturer, Stadler. Not only are we replacing all our current trains, we are actually increasing the overall size of our fleet by about 10%, allowing us to run longer and more frequent services.

These new trains will begin to appear on the network from mid-2018 for testing, and passengers will start using them by spring 2019. 

The FLIRT train is already used in other European countries. Its name actually stands for ‘Fast Light Intercity and Regional Train’ – but it’s clearly easier to say FLIRT. Our 378 carriages will comprise: 

• 10 electric 12-car intercity trains
• 10 electric 12-car trains to serve Stansted Airport (Stansted Express)
• 38 bi-mode trains (24 x four-car sets and 14 x three-car sets) 

The electric intercity trains will run on the Great Eastern Main Line serving Norwich, Diss, Stowmarket, Ipswich, Manningtree, Colchester, Chelmsford, Stratford and Liverpool Street. They will also operate Stansted Express services.  

The FLIRT bi-mode trains will serve Marks Tey to Sudbury; Norwich to Sheringham, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Cambridge; and Ipswich to Felixstowe, Lowestoft, Cambridge and Peterborough. The bi-mode trains also enable us to restore direct services from Lowestoft to London for the first time since 2010. 

Key features of the FLIRT are: 

• Standard Class accommodation with ‘2x2’ seating on intercity routes, first class carriages with ‘2x1’ seating
• All carriages air-conditioned and with high-capacity broadband and plug sockets throughout
• An on-board ‘bistro’ serving a range of food and drinks on intercity services
• Six cycle spaces on intercity and regional bi-mode trains, and up to 18 spaces on Stansted Express services
• Intercity and Stansted Express trains will have five toilets: four standard and one accessible, while regional bi-mode trains will have one standard and one accessible toilet
• Improved accessibility due to the FLIRT’s ‘low floor’ design making more stations ‘step free’
• More seats for more people: >750 passengers on intercity/airport trains, and around 170/230 seats on three- and four-carriage bi-mode trains respectively 

There’s a lot to do to put the new trains into service, and we want to get it right. This is why we have proactively sought the views of our customers, colleagues and stakeholders about the new trains. 

We published the initial designs of both fleets of trains online, which has attracted more than 1,000 comments and suggestions. 

A large life-sized ‘mock-up’ of the new Stadler train, shipped from Switzerland to our depot in Norwich, has been seen by the region’s media and more than 60 stakeholders from groups such as Greater Anglia’s customer panels, local authorities, rail user groups, chambers of commerce, local enterprise partnerships, community rail partnerships and cycling groups. 

Our own Stakeholder Board and Cycle Forum have visited the site and we’ve hosted visits from rail passenger bodies, such as Transport Focus and London TravelWatch, plus disability groups and the DfT. Local police and emergency services have been consulted about the designs and we also invited selected groups of our employees to view it. For the designs of the seats, we’ve consulted leading ergonomic experts. 

Visitors like the FLIRT’s seating layout, plug points and USB ports, large windows, the ‘bistro’ areas, the easier access onto and through the train, new customer information systems and the separate dedicated areas for wheelchair users and bicycles. They have also raised constructive suggestions about some aspects of the seating, signage and labelling and marking out of the cycle area.  

We are pleased that this extensive consultation process has resulted in so much useful feedback, which is informing and shaping the final designs that are now with our new fleet teams. We’re now engaged in similar consultations for the 665 Bombardier Aventra carriages, and we will be reporting back on how we’ve responded to comments and feedback on both fleets in due course. 

Of course, both fleets of trains will need to be maintained and stabled, so we’re investing £120m in building a new depot at Brantham in south Suffolk and improving and extending our existing depots at Norwich Crown Point and Ilford. We’re also developing new sites for stabling all the new rolling stock and lengthening station platforms to cope with longer trains. 

In short, we are really looking forward to transforming train services in East Anglia, giving our customers faster journeys on many routes, more seats and, we hope, a more reliable service – making their lives a little easier.

For more information

W: www.greateranglia.co.uk/newtrains