Photos of the first 2 units under construction for SWR are on page 17 of this thread (before you joined the forum) so take what is in MR with a pinch of salt...
Derby is operating multiple production lines so 701 and 720 production in parallel just as 345s and 710s have been produced in parallel. Production for 701 and 720 will ramp up once 345 and 710 production completes.
Indeed, but since the 710s are about a year behind schedule, so too will be the 701s.
blame Modern Railways not me, they clearly have old information although they are not complete units ready to leave are they?? Under construction doesn’t count as complete.
The 710s are only a year late due to the testing issues. They weren't built a year late.
That's interesting. Maybe static testing before moving to Old Dalby isn't that far off.
True for most of the fleet but some are still being built now either that or they just havent been delivered
You have seen the CAF rolling stock threads?
I don't think you'll find that's the case. The MK5A sets for Transpennine are almost as late as the 710s were for LO.
At least 30x 710 units stored + some at Old Dalby and Crewe for testing.
As "Samuelmorris" says, CAF aren't exactly without their own issues. SWR will have ordered the Aventras in good faith as the best deal at the time, of course not knowing about the future issues. If they were ordering now, possibly they would have gone elsewhere.
There is also significantly less pressure on SWR as there aren't any PRM issues / deadline with the exiting stock and Waterloo and Feltham works are running late and the power supply need improving in places so not the biggest rush.
Are 707 and 455 PRM compliant? Last i heard neither these had a universal accessible toilets?
PRM only specifies that if there is a toilet, at least one must be accessible. Since they have no toilets they still comply.
Indeed. One suggested way of achieving PRM compliance on the 153s without reducing capacity has been to permanently lock the toilet. Not sure whether this is actually going to happen though.
I note that the franchise specification stated that coaches for any new stock must be max 20m. Given that the 710s will also have toilets it's possible that the extra row of seats was needed to meet the capacity specification.
20m because of a few infrastructure issues.
You cannot achieve PRM compliance just by locking toilets out of use. There are a range of other items that need to be compliant, including but not limited to: wheelchair spaces, call for aid facility, PIS, door button position, door opening sounders, handrail position/colour etc etc
Fitting a universal access toilet, however, is by far the most expensive modification to make and also tends to have the biggest impact on capacity (which on a 153 is at a premium!).
Yawn, the seat complaint is getting more and more boring everytime it is mentioned.
Yep and I'm really starting to regret doing the April Fools' ironing on the ironing board spoof 6 years ago
