Bombardier’s Electrostar Units for National Express well into Production at Derby, UK

Bombardier ELECTROSTAR car in final assembly

Over 2100 BOMBARDIER ELECTROSTAR cars manufactured to date at Bombardier’s Derby site, the only site building trains in the UK today.
The award winning ELECTROSTAR is the most successful EMU in passenger
service in the UK.

Derby, July 21, 2010 – Bombardier is pleased to confirm that production of its class 379 ELECTROSTAR trains for National Express is well underway at its manufacturing site at Derby. The 120 ELECTROSTAR vehicles were ordered in April 2009 by Lloyds TSB and London Eastern Railways, a subsidiary of National Express. The 30 four-car Electric Multiple units will operate on the Stansted Express service between Stansted Airport and  London’s Liverpool Street Station as part of the National Express East Anglia network.

With two production lines running at Derby in parallel, all 120 cars are on track for delivery between March and June 2011. The first completed train will be on Bombardier’s test track in Derby during September 2010. Currently Bombardier has 8 cars at various stages of construction on the production line.

Andrew Chivers, Managing Director, National Express East Anglia said: “The planned introduction of new trains on our Stansted Express and West Anglia routes in 2011 represents a major improvement in comfort and reliability for the thousands of customers using these popular services every day. We are pleased to be working with Bombardier and our other partners on these exciting plans, significantly improving the quality of service for customers.”

Colin S Walton, Chairman, Bombardier Transportation UK added: “National Express is a long established customer of Bombardier. They already operate the most reliable fleet of ELECTROSTAR trains running in the UK today on their c2c services. Our Services Division will be maintaining these new vehicles, which will feature our market leading BOMBARDIER ORBITA predictive monitoring system to guarantee high levels of reliability from these units for our customer. We look forward to continuing our long and successful partnership with National Express.”

Francis Paonessa, President of Passengers Business Unit RS1 said: “Bombardier is extremely proud of its ELECTROSTAR train, which is not only the most reliable UK train, but is also a successful British export. Our ELECTROSTAR vehicles are now in operation In 2/3 South Africa, where they were used to transport fans to and from the World Cup. We are, however far from complacent about the success of this product and over the last few years have been working hard to design the next generation of electric commuter train. Our BOMBARDIER AVENTRA train will be even more reliable and be 21% lighter than our current ELECTROSTAR train, already the lightest modern trains in operation today in the UK.

The AVENTRA vehicles will also be efficient to run, elegant, comfortable and have new levels of passenger safety.”

The new 160 km/h ELECTROSTAR train for Stansted is equipped with extra large luggage racks, air conditioning and an improved level of passenger security through the use of enhanced CCTV (closed circuit television). Passengers will also be able to enjoy a greater level of passenger communication through the incorporation of WIFI. The units also feature
the renowned and sophisticated BOMBARDIER MITRAC propulsion and controls system to recover and feed back energy while braking.

The ELECTROSTAR trains are now in operation with Southeastern, Southern, c2c, First Capital Connect, on London’s Overground Services and in Gauteng Province, South Africa.