Southeastern brings its HS1 Javelin train maintenance in-house
Southeastern is bringing the maintenance of its high-speed Class 395 ‘Javelin’ trains in-house, and will no longer be outsourcing the work to the train manufacturer, Hitachi Rail.
Hitachi will still provide technical support and spare parts, but the actual repair and maintenance work will be carried out by Southeastern staff. The Javelin trains are the only ones operated by Southeastern that it didn’t maintain itself, so the change will remove that slight anomaly.
There will be no changes to services, timetables, or any customer-facing aspects.
Since entering service in 2009, Hitachi has maintained the fleet at the Ashford Train Maintenance Centre, a newly built facility on old rail sidings that opened in 2007.
The Class 395 is currently undergoing a £ 27 million refurbishment programme, jointly delivered by Southeastern and Hitachi Rail. The internal refurbishment is now past the halfway mark with the final unit due to enter service in Spring next year. Following that, a further programme to replace the external livery and upgrade the onboard customer information facilities will be carried out.
Mark Johnson, Engineering Director at Southeastern, said: “Our highspeed fleet is a flagship of Southeastern and the wider UK railway and therefore maintaining them to the highest possible standards is vital for us and Hitachi.
“We look forward to welcoming our new colleagues from January next year and continuing to work with Hitachi to deliver the best possible service for our customers across the Southeastern highspeed network.”
The new contractual arrangements start from 12th January 2025 at which point a number of current Hitachi Rail colleagues will transfer to Southeastern under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, also known as TUPE.
Stop upgrading perfectly good trains and concentrate on a good service anything to skim more money off for bogus bonuses