Coming in 2026: New trains ordered for Southeastern Metro?
A new entry now in a series of posts looking at what may happen this coming year and today it’s a look at whether a new order will be made for Southeastern Metro trains.
It’s no secret the government-controlled company’s management want new stock to be ordered to replace Networkers before they reach 40 years in service, but the question remain whether the Department for Transport and Treasury will agree.
The initial timeline laid out back in 2022 is now well out of date. Back then the hope was a full fleet in place by 2027, and well, even if an order was confirmed tomorrow it’s unlikely even one new train would be in service by the end of 2027.
Given just about every new train fleet sees substantial delays it’d be unlikely a full fleet would be in place by 2030. See new DLR trains which were supposed to enter service before April 2024. Three made it into service in late 2025 before all have been withdrawn due to issues.
Piccadilly line trains? The 2025 target has been missed. Still, those are nothing compared to the saga around third rail units for South Western Railway which sees the Class 701 programme around five years late.
Other examples include the Tyne and Wear Metro where all trains were supposed to be in service by 2023. That didn’t happen with issues plaguing the fleet in 2025.
Plugging on
With no confirmed order and extremely long lead times when orders are made it’s no surprise that it was announced recently that £20 million would be spent to keep the Networkers going.
One big question regarding any new fleet is how big it’ll be. Back in 2022 the range of potential carriages varied enormously from 350 to 570. If the DfT and treasury do agree to new stock will it total a lower number than existing trains?
It’s certain new stock would have fewer seats than Networkers and likely to resemble the “City Beam” Class 707s and include more standing space. Could that mean fewer carriages across the network with overall passengers capacity the same?
Would they go as far as longitudinal seating to reduce carriages ordered? That’d be controversial.
Ord possibly a design similar to the Elizabeth line?
Growth
A potential order also brings to mind the question of whether any order considers growth over the long term. Passenger numbers took a big hit in 2020 and widespread metro cuts in 2022 did little to help recovery, though now the network is again seeing around ten per cent passenger increases.
Some stations are nearing double that at housing hotspots such as Kidbrooke, Lower Sydenham and Deptford.
In fact you’d be hard pressed to find any Metro station in parts of the network that doesn’t see plans for mass-housing in the vicinity with hotspots across north Kent as well as London.
Projected housing numbers change constantly. Just last month it became known a large estate near Woolwich Dockyard station may be comprehensively redeveloped with a net gain of 1,000 homes. That is in addition to more than 700 new homes currently being built nearby, and that’s just one spot on the network.
Whether the DfT realises that remains to be seen. Back when their was an aborted attempt to re-let the franchise in 2017 consultation documents contained wildly outdated numbers on future housing across the Metro network area.
A further issues arises this year remains as the Great British Railways bill passes through Parliament and an idea of its structure becomes established, though as yet the form it takes isn’t finalised by a long shot. Whether that halts any order until its established remains an unknown.
That could be prudent to see how growth goes but then with so much new housing at what point would a decision be made? They’d need to separate growth between former users returning to the office and that generated by new housing.
Lots to consider then and 2026 looks like a year we may get some answers – perhaps!
Siemens Desiro City, CAF Civity, Alstom Adessia/Aventra or Hitachi AT100 “Metro” and AT200 “Commuter”. That’s what Southeastern could be looking at to replace the Class 465 and Class 466 Networkers and to keep the Class 375, Class 376 and Class 377 Electrostars and Class 707 City Beam. And maybe transfer some of the Class 377/2s back to Southern once the new trains have been built and in service.
I think it’s about time that Southeastern should consider replacing the Class 465 and Class 466 Networker fleet as they are 40 years old and getting quite old and do need replacing at some point in few years. And with train manufacturers such as CAF, Stadler, Alstom, Siemens, Hitachi etc to build and manufacture new DC 750v 3rd Rail trains for Southeastern. With some of the Class 377/2s that were transferred from Southern to be transferred back to Southern once the new trains have entered service.
Southeastern should deserve to order new trains and to get rid of the Class 465 and Class 466 Networker units as they are getting old and should be scrapped. It depends whoever is willing to build new DC 3rd rail trains to replace the Networker trains and to transfer some of the Ex-Southern Class 377/2s back to Southern.
Southeastern could perhaps inherit the Class 458/4s that have gone for storage and South Western Railway are now using the Class 701 Arterios on their suburban and metro services in & out of London Waterloo. And the Class 455 which have been replaced by the Class 701 have been sent for scrap.