One of the future Elizabeth line (nee Crossrail) trains has made a trip to Vienna — to be frozen.

Bombardier, which is building the new trains in Derby, delivered the front carriage of a test train to the Rail Tec Arsenal test centre in Vienna for three weeks of testing in a number of weather conditions, with temperatures ranging from -25ºC up to +40ºC.

The facility in Vienna is the only place in Europe that can carry out this level of testing on trains.

The heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system, windscreen wipers and demister, train horns and the traction motors all went through simulations of hot, cold, windy and — apt for today — foggy weather to check that the Elizabeth line trains can still function in British weather.

Bombardier continues to build the first trains which will be tested in Derby before coming to London where the drivers will learn to drive them with the first train due to enter service in May 2017.

Oh, Vienna.

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6 comments
  1. David pritchard says:
    30 December 2016 at 3:42 pm

    I hope they will check it for the wrong kind of snow

  2. Adrian Jones says:
    30 December 2016 at 4:11 pm

    Have they tested for leaves on the line?

  3. Andyp1972 says:
    30 December 2016 at 5:08 pm

    What about the “wrong sort of sunshine”

  4. Vin says:
    31 December 2016 at 7:27 am

    at least the on-board toilets will be o.k…

  5. Colin says:
    31 December 2016 at 6:29 pm

    Do these trains work ok when the drivers are on strike?

  6. Richard says:
    6 January 2017 at 7:39 am

    How impressive the degree of expertise that goes into creating our transport infrastructure; we should be grateful to the highly educated men and women who bring this technical skill to bear.
    I bet they welcome pathetic, un-funny little comments like those above.

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