Southeastern Networkers head to the scrapyard
Two former Southeastern Networker trains have travelled from a storage siding to the scrapyard today.
The 466s dating from the early 1990s were dragged from Ely to Newport to be cut up marking the end of decades of service in south east London and Kent.
It’s coming up to four years since the first were withdrawn from service and stored. Since then some have sat at Ely sidings near Cambridge with one sold to a company in Great Yarmouth.
Another has sat beside Doncaster station for some time.
The Class 466 version of the Networker was two coaches in length and often enabled six or ten-car trains. On occasion two were in service together with the four-car Class 465 variant.
Stock begun to be withdrawn as Class 707s came over from South Western Railway and a total of 30 of those are now in service.
Despite the arrival of 30 Class 707 “City Beam” trains and 36 Class 376 trains that arrived in the mid 2000s, the Networkers remain the mainstay of the Metro fleet.
Of 43 Class 466s a total of 30 are still in service. Out of 147 Class 465s, a total of 121 are still in service.
A tender was issued in November 2023 for possible replacement but no award has yet been made. Meanwhile one has been painted back into its original Network Southeast livery and is expected to be fully unveiled soon.
The original Southeastern livery looks cheap. It’s typical of the network to drag its heels and do the bare minimum. The fares go up, but the “long suffering” train user rides the same old, clapped out rolling stock.
I wonder if the withdrawn trains stuck around to see if somebody wanted to convert them to battery power for branch line use.
Is it just the Class 466 that are first to face getting scrapped and the Class 465 to follow on that they too would be scrapped as well. And with Southeastern wanting to order new trains to replace the Class 465 and Class 466. And maybe send some of the Class 377/1s back to Southern once the new trains have been built and are in service.
Perhaps Alstom should start on manufacturing the Adessia trains for Southeastern and to keep jobs going at Litchurch Lane train manufacturing plant in Derby. With building the new Adessia rolling stock. And to see them coming into service in the next 4-5 years.
Farewell old friend. It’s nice to have you serving most of Kent, Medway and East Sussex. Since you were built in the 1990’s. So sad to see you going for scrap. But you will never be forgotten.
RIP Class 465. 1991-2025 or 2026
RIP Class 466. 1993-2025.
465s/466s have never served East Sussex!