The Grand Central Railway Company has announced that maintenance of its Class 180 trains will continue to be undertaken by Alstom for the next ten years.
Built by Alstom at its Washwood Heath plant in the West Midlands in 2000/2001, the Class 180 is one of the few diesel multiple units which can run at 125mph (200km/h).
Grand Central currently operates five Class 180 units, all with five cars, between London King’s Cross, Yorkshire and the North East. The fleet will grow to ten trains in 2017 as Grand Central takes over five additional units cascaded from the Great Western.
Alstom’s traincare facility in Chester will support the Class 180 fleet initially, before the work moves to Grand Central’s Heaton depot in Newcastle in 2018.
Nick Crossfield, Alstom’s managing director in the UK, commented on the announcement: “We’re delighted to be extending our contract with Grand Central and even happier that our support for the Class 180 trains is set to continue. It’s important that they are well maintained so that passengers can continue to enjoy the benefits the trains offer.”
So the Class 180’s will last 10 years on Grand Central before desisions have been made to order new Bi-Mode trains including the Hitachi IEP (Class 800 & Class 801) that Grand Central could also get new Bi-Mode Class 800/Class 801 trains as the Class 180’s could be used on other lines such as GEML between Liverpool St & Lowestoft (via Ipswich) and Liverpool St-Sheringham (via Norwich) semi-fast services operated by Abellio Greater Anglia or new train franchise to take over in October and to use some Class 180’s on those services.
The lease of the Class 180s by Great Central is separate to the maintenance contract which has been awarded, so your speculation doesn’t make sense here.