First of London Northwestern Class 730 units enter service

The first of London Northwestern Railway’s new Class 730/2 fleet have entered service today.

A ten-car service (reported to be operated by 730223 and 730213) left London Euston at 1629 on the late-running 1619 to Northampton.

The new fleet will be slowly introduced over the coming months across the LNWR network and is part of a £1 billion fleet upgrade by its parent company, Transport UK. The trains are modelled on Alstom’s Aventra series and were built at the company’s Litchurch Lane facility in Derby.

LNWR ordered 36 of the units which are five-car trains - increasing the capacity by 20% on the units they are replacing, the 350s.

LNWR expect to couple units together on busier services to form 10-car workings. Once the full roll-out has been completed, the 730/2s will likely be operating routes on the West Coast Main Line, where demand on the current Class 350s has outstripped supply recently.

However, in the interim, they will be largely operated on southern routes until driver training on other routes has taken place.

Photos: PIP DUNN

LNWR does have plans between now and the end of the summer to begin rolling them out on a temporary basis on Liverpool to Birmingham, and then onto Crewe to London services later on in the year.

Ian McConnell, London Northwestern Railway Managing Director said that the new fleet was “the biggest and the best” of the company’s recent new fleet introductions.

“There are 178 stations on our patch. We operate 1,300 services a day, so it's a big, big operation. This is our third new train introduction in the last two years. We've been pretty busy, but this one is the biggest and the best and a hugely significant moment for us.”

It’s expected that more of the '350/2s' (currently leased by LNWR’s sister company West Midland Trains) will be handed back to the fleet’s owner Porterbrook, with seven already back with its owner.

McConnell said the introduction of the fleet was welcome, adding: “I think there is quite a lot of negativities about our industry in the news at the moment. This a little bit of good news.”

For Alstom, it is hoped that the new '730/2' series will help a period of stabilisation for the company which has seen a lack of train orders threaten closure of its Litchurch Lane site as well as having issues and delays with some Aventra orders (which it inherited from Bombardier when it purchased the company in 2021).

Alstom's UK and Ireland commercial director, Peter Broadley told RAIL: "It's been unbelievably hard. But then, you look at the trains in service, and you actually realise how incredible they are. You look at the way they're performing across greater Anglia, c2c, West Mids, London Overground and Elizabeth line and it’s all positive.

“That’s what we are focusing on now and it bodes well for the future.”