These past few weeks have been very sad weeks for trainspotters as the Class 313s have gone out of service for good and you can no longer ride on them on the Southern mainlines. Here are a few photos I got from their new home Eastleigh Arlington. They will forever be missed...
Aww man! Oh well, at least the Coastway commuters will have a slightly nicer ride on the Electrostars (and some toilets!)
So what is replacing them then because Southern can't have just waved a magic wond and made more electrostars appear, could they?
Short forms elsewhere - government are looking for things to trim as much as possible so fleets are being stretched. Also they were awful things, one is going to the NRM though - but it's NRs unit as it's closer to original condition
first the 455 and now 313...... I wonder how many other services got reduced? Or did they acquired replacement 377 from elsewhere?
The 313s were originally brought in to allow the 3-car 377s to move to the mainline and London Suburban services, so it is quite interesting to see the Electrostars go back down to the Coastways. I can't imagine how short the trains are going to be now, but hey. I'm sure they'll figure something out!
GTR has made a request for proposals for new rolling stock leases, most likely going to be the ex-Greater Anglia Class 379 fleet that is currently stored to operate on Great Northern services out of King's Cross. This would allow the dual voltage Class 387/1s to head back south of the Thames and provide Southern/Gatwick Express with additional trainsets to compensate for the withdrawal of the Class 313 and 455 now that passenger numbers are increasing again.
