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I don’t know if I’ve just been lucky but the announcements on both the 701s and 450s seem massively toned down this week No longer getting more than a minute of continuous announcements at Wimbledon anymore

It’s a real shame that SWR let the fleet get so grubby. Back in SWT days the red used to really pop so it was nice to see again one last time.

If anything, the 450s need a damn good wash. They’re absolutely filthy externally, I guess that’s down to them being worked hard and covering so many suburban diagrams. I still notice a lot of 455s covering for 701 diagrams so although the plan is for no more 455s after the December timetable...

This diagram has been 455 operated every day this week so far

Took a trip to Germany a couple of months ago and was shocked at how smooth their track was compared to ours. It’s rock solid. And this was on several lines around Frankfurt and Wiesbaden. If they can manage it why can’t we? The quality of service certainly didn’t match however. I’ve...

I’d like to know this too. I’ve seen it on a lot of units recently. It’s always the same smiley face. SWR shouldn’t be letting their units get that dirty but that’s another matter.

SWR clean their fleet? Could have fooled me! The 450s have black fronts now and most of the 455s have brown translucent windows. I get that the 455s are going so they’re not a priority for the carriage wash but I don’t get why the 450s look so neglected. The strange thing is that internally...

Mitcham Junction used to have two before Tramlink came along, but now there’s just sharp curves entering and leaving the station in both directions. EDIT: Just spotted it’s already been mentioned

Track quality and geometry is noticeably poor in the UK compared to our continental neighbours in my experience. I’m always amazed at how smooth trains feel when I’m in countries like Germany or Italy. Having said that, I’ve seen some shockingly overgrown tracks in rural France and I can’t...

701 services are still announced as “South Western Railway Arterio service” though

The portion of the down platform at Balcombe underneath the road bridge. It’s less than the distance to the yellow line so you’re only allowed to alight there.

I know we’ve only seen new diagrams this week but what’s a realistic timeframe for the next round? Assuming that the driver training programme is continuing at pace surely they’ll need more services to be 701s in the near future.

Although that doesn’t sound like a lot, if there’s about 50 4 car 455s still in service you’d only need about 25 10 car 701s to replace them. Roughly quarter of the way there already.

Hopefully the new 701 diagrams will reduce the number of short form 4 car 455s running about on the network

It’s not 3 seconds, it’s more like 10-15 which does matter on the high frequency sections like Wimbledon and Barnes inwards. I’m including the time it takes the doors to release in the first place here too.

I don’t think the acceleration of the current 455s is the main issue on journey times. Without a conversion to something like ETCS trains will still hit the back of the queue at places like Wimbledon and Clapham junction. Is the ABDO (Automatic Braking Door Open) that was originally planned...

So this isn’t a new delay, rather just a poor report on what’s been going on so far?

They don’t even have to be centre cars. GWR have a number of 3 car units that are made of 3 driving cars with a cab in the middle

So at this rate it’s going to take about 10 years to roll out all the units November 2020, not that it makes too much difference at this stage

Is this the last blocker before mass rollout can begin, or are there other unresolved issues 8 years after the order for these trains was first placed?