class 319s at catford?
 

when passing catford bridge station the other day i saw 2 class 319s one in 'southern' livery and one in 'first capital connect livery',ive heard southeastern are receiving some to help redeploy 465s,but ive also heard fcc are taking all the 319s of of southern to help there company? please can someone explain?

Well this is old news now, but here goes.

Under the Thameslink programme, the 3 bay platforms at Blackfriars have been closed. Therefor Catford Loop trains from Sevenoaks are continuing through London to either Kentish Town, St Albans, Luton or Bedford. Since the Traction Supply changes from 750v DC to 25kV AC at Farringdon all stock for this service must be Dual Voltage - ie, class 319s.

Hence almost all of Southern's 319 fleet has been transfered to FCC for this purpose (remembering of course that 319s are also still used on FCCs Sutton Loop and most Brighton services).

One of the conditions of TL2000 is that crews shouldn't changeover throughout the journey as far as is possible. Consequently FCC have had to learn the (Southeastern) road to Sevenoaks, and SE crews have had to learn the FCC road to Bedford.

'Ownership' of the train changes over at Blackfriars, so Southbound trains belong to SE and northbound trans belong to FCC.

This can give rise to the weird situation whereby you get on a train at Sevenoaks which has Southern livery, is driven by an FCC driver, but is being operated by Southeastern.

You couldn't make it up could you ! ;)

(I've heard that some 465s may go over to the Southern temporarily, but this is because they're surplus since they're not needed on the Catford Loop)

HTH

FP

thanks 'FLYING PIG',
i heard of this story but it says southeastern are receiving class 319s in the near future,i heard this in 'The Railway Magazine' a couple of months back dunno weather its true,but in my mind if i was FCC i would loan the class 365 to southeastern were they orinally from under connex,and this would be a good combo with the 465s so for EG: a 365 and 465 couple together and make the route to bedford this would be more economical,because fcc wouldnt have to loan as many trains,and as for the 319s,they could do the 365s route,do you agree?cheers again anyway,
SouthEastern-465(NSERS member)

Well 465s can't work the route to Bedford as they're DC only traction. And they couldn't be hauled by 365s as a stipulation of the Thameslink Corridor is that trains on half-power (which is effectively what a 365+465 on the AC would be) shouldn't work through due to the steep gradients. 365s of course currently work over the Great Northern route, not the Thameslink route.

Perhaps 'The Railway Magazine' got confused. Certainly 319 stock will be working over Southeastern metals, as Phase 2 of the Thameslink Programme would see FCC trains running to Dartford and Ashford, but FCC is due to keep all class 319s since they have the Dual Voltage capability and their seat layout is well suited to the Airport services, ie: baggage space. This is expected to be until 2011 when a completely new fleet is to be introduced.

There is some confusion that at the moment when 319s are running on SE, they and their crews are effectively subleased to Southeastern, but they're still owned by FCC.

(It gets even more complicated with 377s. If you see an FCC liveried 377 on the Southeastern, it's been temporarily leased to FCC by Southern who actually bought it, and then FCC are Sub-leasing it to Southeastern whilst it's on their metals).



Hope this makes it clearer.

sorry flying pig i forgot 465s are dc electric sorry for mix up dopy t**t i am!

im just getting to far ahead of my self now and keep forgeting about the AC and DC electric combonations!so that explains how i forgot 465s were only DC not AC aswell
sorry for confusion flying pig,
SouthEastern-465