New London Overground trains delayed due to manufacturing defects

A report before a TfL meeting to be held next week shows that entry into service of London Overground trains has been delayed after manufacturing defects.

This is the latest problem with the Aventra class of trains ordered from Bombardier by TfL and South Western Railway.

The company saw many issues reverberating across London due to problems with new trains, with the business eventually being bought by Alstom.

Elizabeth line trains are also part of the Aventra model range, and they’ve seen issues with software hampering services.

The main problems though have arisen on South Western Railway where hundreds of carriages are still not in public use more than three years after service introduction was due to begin.

That in turn has delayed cascading trains to Southeastern from South Western Railway.

Defects

TfL have introduced many of their Aventra trains but they’ve not been without issue. The latest report states that on the London Overground: “The last two will be further delayed into Quarter 2 2023/24 because of persisting material shortages for rectification of build-quality defects.”

Still, that’s much better than the long-running saga with SWR. Across London Overground they’ve got 51 running.

As for SWR, there’s now talk they may, just about, start making it into service at the end of 2023 rather than 2019 when first expected.

When they do, 12 trains will move across the Southeastern where they’ve been branded as City Beam. 18 are already running but delays with new stock have hampered the transfer of those final 12.

Entry of 12 City Beams at Southeastern will see a further 12 Networkers head into storage and likely scrap. The remainder of the Networkers are likely to go before the end of this decade, given it’s now more than 30 years since introduction on Metro routes.