First Hull Trains has announced the beginning of a major mechanical and electrical modification and reliability improvement project on the company’s fleet of trains.
Part of a £5 million overhaul of the entire Class 180 fleet, along with those of other train operating companies, will go through a comprehensive programme to enable train operators ‘to offer an improvement to reliability in the future’.
Work will include improvements to the provision of on-board heating and air conditioning, the fitting of new bogies to improve ride quality and enhancements to ensure that electrical supplies are constantly maintained within the passenger areas of the train.
Overall the programme involves 15 ‘mini-projects’ on each train unit with the work taking approximately three weeks per train and the whole programme should be completed by early summer 2012.
The first train unit has already started the programme at Loughborough and to support the remaining fleet an alternative unit has been acquired to allow First Hull Trains to minimise delays and disruption.
A better ride through new bogies for the Adelantes is long overdue. Adelantes’ poor ride compared with good old HSTs was immediately apparent to anyone who had travelled on GWR since HSTs started in 1976.
I cannot understand how or why train designers manage to go backwards in terms of ride quality? Surely the mistakes of the past are available to all?
Let’s move forward to better ride quality please!