Aurora – A new dawn for the East Midlands

To learn about the major rolling stock changes planned for the Midland Main Line, Rail Engineer was pleased to meet Rachel Turner, head of new trains at East Midlands Railway (EMR).

The Midland Railway Main Line from London St. Pancras to Nottingham, Sheffield, Derby, and Leicester has had a varied history of traction and rolling stock allocation. The move from steam traction led to an era of heavy diesel locomotives and British Railways-hauled carriages moving through to air-conditioned vehicles and electric train heating. The sectorisation of British Rail in the early 1980s brought the reallocation of high-speed trains to the route while the ‘Bedpan’ electrification scheme from London to Bedford introduced Class 317 electric multiple units under overhead lines to Bedford itself, only. Class 170 diesel multiple units made an appearance in the early 1990s, and eventually Meridian Class 222 units appeared in a mix with High-Speed Train sets.

Plans were drawn up and design commenced for the electrification of the entire route and several assumptions were made for electric trains, either new or cascaded. With pauses to the electrification scheme influenced by short-term development questions, decisions were made to order diesel / electric hybrid multiple units. As electrification had proceeded to the branch to Corby Class 360, electric multiple units were cascaded to the line as an outer suburban service.

At the time of writing, the mainline overhead line installation stops short south of Leicester at Wigston and it may be assumed that there is no middle term strategy for electrification of the regular diversionary routes through Melton Mowbray, the Erewash Valley line, and the ‘Old Road’ from Chesterfield to Sheffield.

New dawn

Thus came togther the specification for new electric bi-mode rolling stock for the route and this has begun construction, appearing as the Class 810 – the ‘New dawn’.  The new trains comprise 33 five-car sets of Class 810 (known as ‘Aurora’) and are manufactured by Hitachi Rail at its facility in Newton Aycliffe. Finance is being dealt with by Rock Rail. The first units are planned to be delivered to EMR for the second quarter of 2025 with all being in place by the third quarter of 2026. Entry into service will be dependent upon the driver training programme.  Although based on the AT300, Aurora is a substantially new product, specifically designed to EMR requirements.

Those main requirements are the ability to cover the core routes of London St. Pancras to Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield (including via Corby & Melton Mowbray), and Lincoln, together with Sheffield to Leeds and York. Consideration will be given to covering short-term routes from Derby to Crewe and Nottingham to Skegness. Within the tentative consideration for capable routes are Oakham to Peterborough and other tertiary destinations.

The Class 810 is known by Hitachi as the AT300-SXR – the SXR stands for Shortened and Extended Range. The ‘S’ part has been particularly challenging. There is no less equipment on the 24-metre coaches of the Class 810 than those on a standard 26-metre AT300 Bi-Mode. In fact, there is one more generator unit and associated fuel tank per five-car and an additional toilet. Packaging that extra equipment into 10 metres less of underframe length per unit has been complex.

Compared to the existing long-distance Inter-City fleet, the new trains in diesel mode will bring significant benefits to the environmental impact with Euro5 engines producing reduced nitrous oxide and particulates, allowing improved air quality at stations, and carbon dioxide emissions reduction in diesel mode (66% with OCS to South Wigston). Noise reduction emerges as a positive contribution to the environment of the railway.

Customers will benefit from higher-quality communications, allowing better passenger information system connectivity with improved Wi-Fi and mobile signals. Comfort will be enhanced by seats with improved legroom and luggage space, and added value will come from a train manager interface to those onboard passenger information systems. Passenger capacity will increase with 19% more seats than a Class 222 five-car, providing 46% more seats to the fleet compared to Class 222 capacity. An accompanying bonus will be a larger overall fleet, with four more units than current numbers.

Operationally, a single-unit design simplifies interfaces at stations making diagramming simpler, while 10-car operation will support a significant capacity boost and flexibility. As indicated, there are key differences from the 80X fleets currently in service on the UK rail network but, where appropriate, many features are retained.

Still in place are an Automatic Selective Door Operation system with a GPS database, a power changeover system and the same driver’s and second person’s seats (though the driver seat is in slightly more centred position). Inter-car jumper arrangements are modified to give increased distances between ‘loops’, as per the modification made to other AT300 fleets as mitigation for train surfing. Regarding the body, the catering trolley interface is the same although the storage area is different due to the body end profile. Other similarities are exterior doors and the interior doors (with IR detection).

However, there are significant differences from other fleets, and these can be identified by vehicle sub-group.

Structure

Despite the difference in length, the structure is recognisably similar to the Inter City Express Programme. Regarding the fatigue issues which occurred in the predecessor, the Class 810 has a different interface arrangement with no welds being used in the vulnerable areas. In terms of materials, the Class 810 uses 6000 series aluminium as against that used in the AT200/AT300 which used aluminium vulnerable to stress corrosion cracking.

There has been no shipment from Japan – all car bodies have been welded and painted in the UK at Newton Aycliffe.  Structurally, Aurora uses a ‘roll cage’ cab design and there is no taper at gangway ends – the doors open ‘out ways’. Significantly, there are more windows and fewer ‘deadlight’ areas.

Hitachi has used some new (to them) manufacturing techniques for the Class 810 which are based on Hitachi Rail Italy’s preferred methods. For example, the ‘Megarack’ assembly of underframe cabling and pipework which is built and tested away from the line and offered up as a whole. Additionally, the ‘roll cage’ approach for the cab end is also new to the Hitachi UK fleet and has saved a significant number of hours for cab assembly.

Interior layouts and finishes

An important part of the travel experience for customers is the seat. Installed in the new units is the FISA LEAN seat, a design based on the innovative concept of the self-supporting iron shell bolted to the structural underframe. However, this has been selected and customised for EMR in conjunction with DGD Design of Derby. The FISA seat is comfortable, but the EMR version has additional support in key areas, looking comfortable, inviting, and unique. Interestingly customer reaction was tested by provision of a set of seats at Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield stations for passers-by to test.

Underfloor heating is installed while the 800mm standard seat pitch has a spacious feel. Further enhancements include racks, bike-space, real time passenger information, screens in vehicle ends and vestibules, and even defibrillators.

Traction architecture

The power supply off-wire is provided by four 735kW Euro5 engines per 5-car set: water-cooled.   Four motored bogies (cars 2 and 4) with 8 x 290kW traction motors.

Incorporated is redundancy design of high/medium/low voltage architecture with battery load-shedding.

System integration

The new trains bring with them significant issues with systems changes from previous times. These cover heating, ventilation, and air conditioning by Merak and Brakes by Knorr Bremse. Sanding is variable on first motored axles. Fire Suppression is by Total Mist Services and is Class 810 specific. These issues have been approached with rigor to allow successful introduction to service.

 Derby depot facilities

The main depot facilities can be found at Derby Etches Park, EMR’s main regional and Intercity maintenance depot.

Located south-east of Derby station, the depot is a residual part of the former, extensive, 19th century railway works.  The facilities consist of the South Shed, used for the maintenance of the regional fleet (recently HSTs and Class 180s). The North Shed is currently used for the maintenance of the Class 222 fleet, together with other facilities including fuelling, wheel lathe, carriage washes, and a five-car underframe clean facility.

The scope of work is considerable, and multiple changes have been required at the site.  Around the South Shed has been the relocation of the stores accompanied by the temporary relocation of meeting rooms  facilities, leading to the build of a new office block and the upgrading of existing offices. Functional improvements at the shed are of significant scope including fume extraction, fluid delivery, and the delivery apron.

At the North Shed, the fuel road extension has taken place in line with the shed extension and track works. Main works here have included the fuel road equipment renewal, the north shed side extension, and revised extraction and gantries.

With the increasing main line electrification on the route, a necessary installation has been the erection of OLE meeting the requirements to test and maintain the new electric traction equipment at the Derby location.

Additionally, the London Cricklewood servicing and stabling location will see the installation of portable AdBlue facilities.

Challenges

Rachel emphasised that the introduction of the rolling stock met significant challenges. A major profile impact came from the changes of standards since the AT300 design first appeared with new homologation requirements, allied to the change of design authority to Hitachi Italy.

To further drive the need for focussed management effort was the development of welding capability at Hitachi Newton Aycliffe, paralleled by the development of painting capability with a change of supplier.

Testing and commissioning are a vital part of any engineering project and the EMR team concentrated considerable effort in securing testing capacity in the United Kingdom. However, progress on this was not helped by landslips at the Rail Industry Development Centre at Melton.

Added to the challenges were the disrupting influences of the economic conditions during the work as well the supply chain impacts that bedevilled progress. However, both were successfully overcome.

These challenges will be met in the progression of testing and commissioning and are illustrated on the flow chart below.

At the core of the new vehicle’s introduction are a significant basket of Key Safety Imperatives (KSIs). Though the overall change is deemed significant, many of the activities present either no change or minimal changes to how the railway operates today.

To ensure the focus of the independent external safety review by the Assessment Body (ASBO) is commensurate with the risk, it has been deemed that items that are new and/or novel to EMR operation, extensive and complex, and which impact safety are KSIs.

For the Aurora project, meeting these criteria are Power Changeover, Automatic Selective Door Opening, and a distributed, high-pressure, water fire suppression system for the engines.

To summarise, EMR has a set of views on future development. It is discussing the potential for the use of batteries on Class 810 as per a recent Angel/Transpennine Express trial. This would be for those journeys beyond the currently planned electrification of the MML, for example from Nottingham to Lincoln or via our diversionary routes.

EMR is also discussing the potential for fitment of Hitachi’s HMAX data suite which brings advantages to operator, maintainer, and the route authority through the use of on-board sensors and cameras.

Many thanks are due to EMR, in particular Rachel Turner, for access to the story of the ‘New Dawn.’ Much of this article was assisted by the presentation given by Rachel to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Railway Division.

The route is deserving of 21st century hardware and it can only be hoped that the provision of electrification contact systems will proceed apace to deliver a fully modernised, energy efficient railway for the entire route.

Image credit: EMR