British Rail Class 395

British Rail Class 395 is a dual-voltage electric multiple unit (EMU) used by train operating company Southeastern for its services along High Speed 1 and onwards to the Kent coast. The trains were built in Japan by Hitachi and shipped to the United Kingdom to operate new high speed domestic services. The trains are the fastest operating domestic service trains in the United Kingdom, running at a maximum speed of 140 mph. "British Rail Class 395" is the Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) classification allocated to the EMU. During the 2012 Summer Olympics, Class 395 trains will be used to provide the Javelin shuttle service for visitors to the Olympic Games' main venue in Stratford and so the name Javelin has become a common nickname.

Order
An order worth £250 million was placed with Hitachi Europe for 28 high-speed ‘A-trains’ in 2004. A twenty-ninth train was later added to the agreement in order to provide additional capacity. The first train was delivered from Japan to Southampton Docks on 23 August 2007. It was then hauled to Ashford in Kent for acceptance testing by Serco. Three more trains were delivered in 2007, with the remainder of the fleet in 2008–2009. The final unit arrived in Southampton on 17 August 2009. The first of the trains to be delivered was present at the official opening of High Speed 1 and St Pancras station on 6 November 2007.

Operations
On 29 June 2009 Southeastern started running a small number of Class 395 trains on a weekday preview service between London St Pancras and Ebbsfleet International, extending to Ashford International during peak hours. On 7 September the service was enhanced with a few services to Ramsgate via Canterbury West or Dover. A regular service commenced on 13 December 2009. The trains run at 140 mph on High Speed 1, but are restricted to 100 mph on the South Eastern classic main lines and are based at a £53m five-road depot south of Ashford International railway station in Ashford, Kent, with stabling also at Ramsgate and Faversham. They are owned by HSBC Rail, and leased by Southeastern.

Specifications
The Class 395 units incorporate design elements from Hitachi's A-Train family including friction stir welded aluminium bodyshells, as well as elements of the 400 Series mini-shinkansen's design, the bogies are derived from shinkansen bogies. They are designed as true high-speed trains, capable of 225 km/h. The cab designs bear a resemblance to the 885 series EMUs used on limited express services on Japan's narrow gauge network. The units are dual voltage, able to operate on third rail 750V DC and 25kV AC 50 Hz overhead electrification systems. The train is equipped with GPS positioning equipment and a database to calculate the train’s exact position. The pressure-sealed doors on each car can only be opened with an exact alignment to the platform.

Train formation
The 6-car trainsets consist of: In total the train is 121.8 m long over the couplings. The train is unusual for a high speed train in that the doors and vestibules are not set at the ends over the bogies as on most long-distance trains (e.g. Mk 4 carriages), but in order to reduce dwell times (i.e. the waiting time at the station) they are set at approximately ¼ and ¾ along the carriage, which allows for faster loading and unloading, like most commuter trains (e.g. Electrostar); this means that the ride quality for passengers sitting over the bogies is diminished (due to transmission of vibration through the floor), though the quality of track on High Speed 1 is relatively high and the trains will not be used at speed on other lines. The 395 has internally-hung sliding doors, rather than plug doors; this has meant the sacrifice of a smooth external profile. The door system is identical to that in use on the Japanese Shinkansen or bullet train and has over 40 years of operational experience and development. The Class 395's seating capacity is as follows: Each DPT (1) vehicle seats 28, has 12 tip up seats in the wheelchair parking area and one RVAR wheelchair accessible toilet, each MS vehicle (four per a six carriage EMU train) seats 66 and finally each DPT (2) vehicle seats 48 and has one standard toilet.
 * 2 Driving trailer cars each of length 20.65 m
 * 4 Standard motor cars of length 20.0 m