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File:2402 'County of Hampshire' at Wool.JPG

442402 "County of Hampshire" at Wool on 16 April 2004, with a South West Trains service from London Waterloo to Weymouth.

File:2407 at Moreton, Dorset.JPG

442407 "Thomas Hardy" at Moreton on 10 April 2006. This unit carries the revised South West Trains livery with differently coloured doors to conform with the Disability Discrimination Act.

The British Rail Class 442 Wessex Electric (or 5WES) electrical multiple units were introduced in 1988 on the South Western Main Line from London Waterloo to Southampton Central, Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth. Twenty-four of these 5-car units were built in 1988/89 by BREL at its Derby works. Their introduction coincided with the completion of electrification from Bournemouth to Weymouth. The entire fleet was operated by South West Trains up until February 2007, when the Class 442 services were replaced by Class 444 and Class 450 Desiros.

Since 2008 Southern has been refurbishing the units for the Gatwick Express service from Brighton to Gatwick Airport and London Victoria. The Southern refurbishment and overhaul programme will be complete for the December 2010 timetable with all 24 units expected to be in service with Gatwick Express and other Brighton Mainline routes.

The class holds the world speed record for a third rail train with 174 km/h (Template:Convert/outsep), attained on 11 April 1988.

Description[]

The Class 442 Wessex Electric is based on the British Rail Mark 3 carriage bodyshell, and has a number of features which distinguish it from the slam-door units it replaced:

  • Vehicle length is Template:Convert/m, as opposed to Template:Convert/m.
  • All vehicles are air-conditioned, and have powered internal doors and external plug doors.
  • Units consist of five vehicles, and operate as 5-car or 10-car trains, replacing 4-car units which operated as 4-, 8- or 12-car trains.
  • Maximum permitted speed is 100 mph (Template:Convert/outsep).

As was common on the British Rail Southern Region, many electrical components – including traction motors and electrical control gear – were salvaged from the Class 432 units they replaced. For this reason the older 4REP and 4TC units had to be withdrawn before their replacements were built.

The Class 442 "Wessex Electric" was one of the first types to make extensive use of plastics in construction, earning them the nickname among staff and rail enthusiasts of "Pigs" or "Piggies" [1]. When they were first introduced the units were plagued by minor technical failures, but they have subsequently become among the most reliable EMUs operating in the UK. Their generous accommodation made them some of the most luxurious long-distance commuter trains anywhere.

The increased top speed of the Class 442, combined with timetable changes, resulted in some minor journey time improvements, for example a non-stop service reaching Southampton Airport Parkway from London Waterloo in 58 minutes, over a journey of around Template:Convert/mi. The timetable change of December 2004 meant that the down non-stop train from London Waterloo took an hour to reach Winchester.

The units were initially used solely on the Weymouth line, but through the 1990s began to be used on the London Waterloo to Portsmouth direct line. Upon privatisation the whole fleet passed to the South West Trains franchise. Unit 442402 soon had an orange stripe added to its Network SouthEast livery, which looked very similar to Stagecoach Group's corporate image. From 1998 the units began to receive the new South West Trains Express livery of white, red and blue as they underwent overhaul at Crewe Works. Unit 442404 was the first to be so treated.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s the fleet continued to operate express services from London to Weymouth and Portsmouth. However in 2004, when the Class 444 "Desiro" trains had been brought into service, the "Wessex Electrics" were again used solely on the Weymouth line.

In early 2006 the fleet began to receive overhauls, with units emerging in a slightly revised livery which conformed with the Disability Discrimination Act. By January 2007 14 of the 24 units had received overhauls.

Withdrawal by South West Trains[]

Despite their recent overhauls, South West Trains withdrew the entire fleet in 2007. They have now been replaced on their duties by Class 444s, which were in turn replaced on their duties by Class 450s spare from the re-introduction of Class 458s into traffic after modifications to their destination displays.

The last class 442 Weymouth to London Waterloo operation was on 24 January 2007 with the final service on 3 February 2007. The lease expired on 4 February 2007 at 0200. The units were moved from Bournemouth Traincare Depot to Eastleigh Works for warm storage.

Southern is leasing 17 of these units to operate the extended Gatwick Express service which commenced during December 2008 that it is responsible for. Once all units are refurbished and repainted into Gatwick Express livery,[2] they are expected to run in pairs capable of carrying 600 passengers. However some units are to be kept out of service for spare parts.[3]. In October 2008 unit 442414 became the first unit to be fully refurbished inside and out, with 442412 and 442421 following shortly afterwards.

The new extended Gatwick Express service was introduced on 15 December 2008[4]. The new service, operating Monday to Friday, comprises six services in the morning from Brighton and six services to Brighton in the evening with an additional service terminating at Haywards Heath.

In April 2009 Southern took an extra two units from Eastleigh Works to make up for the shortfall in units caused by the units being used on other services. The 07:14 Eastbourne to London Bridge service, and on a new 18:22 London Bridge to Eastbourne service, although these services are in Gatwick Express livery, they do not stop at Gatwick Airport. For a short time the 06:24 Eastbourne to London Bridge service was also ran as a 10 coach 442. but was shortly replaced with class 377 rolling stock used on a Brighton to London Victoria service.

When Govia retained the Southern Franchise, it was announced that the off lease 442s would come back into use with heavy work being required as the units have not been maintained[citation needed]. 442409 will require an exceptional amount of work as it has been used as a donor for spare parts.

Fleet details[]

Units are numbered 442401–424 and are formed of two outer driving trailers, two intermediate trailers, and an intermediate motor vehicle. In accordance with Southern Region practice, the units only carried the last four digits of their unit numbers when in service with South West Trains. Units refurbished for Southern now carry the full six digits.

Individual vehicles are numbered as follows:

  • 77382–77405 - DTS - Driving Trailer Standard (formally DTFo (Driving Trailer First Semi-open) )
  • 71818–71841 - TSO - Trailer Standard Open
  • 62937–62960 - MLC - Motor Luggage Composite (formally MBLS (Motor Buffet Lounge Standard) )
  • 71842–71865 - TSW - Trailer Standard Wheelchair
  • 77406–77429 - DTS - Driving Trailer Standard
File:Christchurch. - geograph.org.uk - 58729.jpg

Class 442 in original Network South East livery

The motor buffet vehicles were all modernised in a works programme at Crewe in 1997/98. At the same time units were repainted from their original Network SouthEast livery into South West Trains' Express livery. During 2006 South West Trains sent some units to Bombardier at Ilford, where the livery was modified to make it Disability Discrimination Act friendly; however, not all trains were modified as it was later announced that the trains were to be withdrawn from service. In 2008, units started to go to Wolverton works for refurbishment. The refurbishment included the removal of the buffet from the motor coach, all new seats, and the removal of first class from the front of the train to the motor coach. Door controls were also placed in the driving cabs so doors could be released and closed by the driver, although Gatwick Express intends on only using this for door release.

The description of this formation is DTS+TSO+MLC+TSW+DTS.

During the years of Network SouthEast and South West Trains various units have received names. Most of these were towns or places along the routes that they worked, but a few were for publicity purposes. When the South West Trains lease expired all nameplates were removed.

The complete fleet list is shown below, with details of vehicle numbers, former names and livery.

Unit number Former name
(Removed after the South
West Trains lease expired)
Livery Individual coach numbers Date withdrawn
(SWT)
Date withdrawn
(GX)[5]
Notes
DTS TSO MLC TSW DTS
442401 Beaulieu Gatwick Express 77382 71818 62937 71842 77406 22 January 2007 7 May 2016 Stored
442402 County of Hampshire Gatwick Express 77383 71819 62938 71843 77407 16 February 2007 - Will move to the London Bridge - Eastbourne service.[6]
442403 The New Forest Gatwick Express 77384 71820 62941 71844 77408 17 January 2007 - -
442404 Borough of Woking Gatwick Express 77385 71821 62939 71845 77409 15 January 2007 24 May 2016 Stored
442405 City of Portsmouth Gatwick Express 77386 71822 62944 71846 77410 15 February 2007 - -
442406 Victory Gatwick Express 77389 71823 62942 71847 77411 15 January 2007 - Will move to the London Bridge - Eastbourne service.[7]
442407 Thomas Hardy Gatwick Express 77388 71824 62943 71848 77412 22 January 2007 - -
442408 County of Dorset Gatwick Express 77387 71825 62945 71849 77413 17 January 2007 - Will move to the London Bridge - Eastbourne service.[8]
442409 Bournemouth Orchestras Gatwick Express 77390 71826 62946 71850 77414 12 January 2007 7 May 2016 Stored
442410 Meridian Tonight Gatwick Express 77391 71827 62948 71851 77415 24 January 2007 - Will move to the London Bridge - Eastbourne service.[9]
442411 The Railway Children Gatwick Express 77392 71828 62940 71858 77422 29 January 2007 - -
442412 Special Olympics Gatwick Express 77393 71829 62947 71853 77417 12 February 2007 - -
442413 Gatwick Express 77394 71830 62949 71854 77418[nb 1] 2 February 2007 - Will move to the London Bridge - Eastbourne service.[10]
442414 Gatwick Express 77395 71831 62950 71855 77419 24 January 2007 - -
442415 Mary Rose Gatwick Express 77396 71832 62951 71856 77420 10 November 2006 5 July 2016 Stored
442416 Mum in a Million 1997 - Doreen Scanlon Gatwick Express 77397 71833 62952 71857 77421 31 December 2006 - -
442417 Woking Homes Gatwick Express 77398 71834 62953 71852 77416 19 January 2007 - -
442418 Wessex Cancer Trust Gatwick Express 77399 71835 62954 71859 77423 24 January 2007 20 May 2016 Stored
442419 BBC South Today[nb 2] Gatwick Express 77400 71836 62955 71860 77424 12 February 2007 - Will move to the London Bridge - Eastbourne service.[11]
442420 City of Southampton Gatwick Express 77401 71837 62956 71861 77425 12 January 2007 - -
442421 Gatwick Express 77402 71838 62957 71862 77426 26 January 2007 - -
442422 Operation Overlord Gatwick Express 77403 71839 62958 71863 77427 11 January 2007 8 April 2016 Stored
442423 County of Surrey Gatwick Express 77404 71840 62959 71864 77428 18 April 2007 7 July 2016 Stored
442424 Gerry Newson Gatwick Express 77405 71841 62960 71865 77429 22 January 2007 20 May 2016 Stored

External links[]

Template:Commons category

References[]

Template:Mark 3-derived

Template:Use dmy dates


simple:British Rail Class 442
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