South Western’s Class 701 fleet finally enter service after four year delay

South Western Railway’s Class 701 fleet of new Arterio have been almost 4 years late due to the pandemic apparent software issues. However though, they have finally entered service on the Tuesday 9th January, on a service from London Waterloo to Windsor & Eton Riverside, where it is scheduled to run one service a day on the route for 4 days as a passenger trial of the new 750 V DC EMU built by Atslom in Derby. After this, it is scheduled to have a similar, very limited service for the next week.

SWR have said that the launch marks the first step in the phased roll-out of the full 90-train fleet, continuing this throughout the year, although no timescale has been given so far. Out of this 90, 60 are 10-car 701/0’s and the other 30 are 701/5’s, a shorter, 5-car variant. The new trains are part of Atslom’s “Aventra” family of trains, used across the UK by various operators (e.g. Tfl’s London Overground and Elizabeth Line/Crossrail & Greater Anglia to name a few) and the Class 701’s are designed to replace South Western’s aging ex-British Rail Class 455 and 456 EMUs. The new trains are fully equipped with wi-fi, charging points, air-conditioning and toilets. There is one toilet per 5 cars, meaning that the /0’s will have 2 and the /5’s will have 1. The toilets are a feature of paticular highlight, the first of their kind in the UK. They are fully accessible and treat waste thermally and biologically with bioreactors and are similar to those used in the Netherlands and Switzerland. The 701/5’s have 2 wheelchair spaces and 3 cycle spaces and double this on the 10-car /0’s.