Southeastern Metro Class 376 turn blue
The first of Southeastern Metro’s 36 Class 376 to be painted blue has entered service.
It’s part of a long-awaited interior and exterior change for the fleet.
These photos were taken at London Bridge today but typically I got the wrong platform for decent shots. I thought it’d been substituted.
Then once I was on another train I realised it’d pulled into platform 7 rather than 6 at London Bridge. Hence a rush job into the sun through a dirty train window departing the station. Hopefully Southeastern put out some better images soon.
All the fleet will be painted blue in a similar fashion to the 30 Class 707 trains that moved over from South Western Railway.
Once that’s finished 66 Metro trains will be blue. Networkers aren’t due for the new colour scheme as they’re due to be replaced – though a replacement order is not yet signed off.
UPDATE: Southeastern have now uploaded a video:
Interior
Work on the tired interior will occur later this year.
New seat colours and on-brand fittings will be installed alongside plug sockets but no air con or toilets.
Class 376 trains were ordered by Connex in the early 2000s and have now reached 20 years of age. They were the last UK stock to be ordered without air conditioning.
While no toilets are to be added to Class 376, the Class 707 “City Beams” will see toilets added.
Now will we see a new name for the stock? The Class 465/466 from the early 1990s is called the Networker. The 707 is City Beam, What could we called the 376s?
I was on the new blue liveried 376 today. It looks smart although I was disappointed to see that the interior refresh has yet to happen.
As the Class 707 have been nicknamed “City Beam”. Perhaps the Class 376 should have been nicknamed “Metrostar”. But it’s nice to see the Class 376 to get a new coat of blue paint to match up with the Class 375, Class 377/5, Class 395 Javelin and the Class 707 City Beam.
It’s nice to see the Class 376 receiving the new paint and livery. Will the interiors also be upgraded despite there wouldn’t be toilets fitted on the Class 376.
Maybe Southeastern should have refurbished the Class 376s few years ago as they inherited the Class 707 Desiro City from South Western Railway.
I saw one of these a couple of days’ ago, but it didn’t really register as I am quite used to seeing the ‘City beam’ rolling stock.
It would be nice if toilets could have been installed on the Class 376 but that won’t happen. As the Class 376 were built to operate on shorter commuter and metro services in and around Southeast London and parts of Kent. And they were the first DC 750v 3rd Rail Electrostar units that does not have air-conditioning except it has hopper windows that passengers can open and close the windows.