(car brakes squeaking)
Good morning. Hello.
Welcome to Cannon Street,
a station I rarely come to.
But I've come here this morning
especially to see, in service today for the first time,
the new Southeastern Class 707 trains.
So there are 30 of the Class 707 trains,
which originally came into service
for Southwestern Railway back in 2017.
But with their new build of trends for their entire fleet,
Southeastern have acquired the lease
for these new smart units
and rebranded them as City Beam Trains.
The first ones came over in early 2021 for testing,
and now they're being introduced
in passenger service
for the first time.
The trains have been brought in to add capacity
to busier Metro routes in London.
And so will bring extra space
on the lines that they will run on,
those being the Hayes, Sevenoaks and Dartford routes,
replacing the older 465 and 376 trains.
So time to go for a trip and to see what we think.
Who invited you?
Always here.
Literally always here.
So it's a brand new train of Southeastern Class 707.
The seven number is a clue to where it's come from.
It's part of the 700 family,
the Siemens family of trains.
So you've got the Thameslinks,
which are the 700s,
and you've got the 717 that run out the Moorgate lines.
So it's that family of trains,
which is why it's got the classic Thameslink seat.
But also you would have known them
because they'd been running on South Western
[Automated Female Announcer] We will shortly be arriving
at St. Johns.
South Western Trains/Railways for the past few years.
But as they're now getting their own new trains,
these ones kind of were spare.
And Southeastern were like, we'll have them.
And I caught up with a lovely lady called Jennifer
to tell us more about that.
Morning.
We're on board the City Beam
(Geoff laughs)
We are.
Tell me how many of these units have you got?
How many are being rolled out?
And this is the first day, right?
This is the first day. So this is the first 10-car today.
And we've got the second 10-car arriving this afternoon
in service.
And we will have in total 15 10-cars or 30 5-car units.
Yeah. So they're smarter.
So we've got better passenger information screens as well,
fresher, brighter.
Do you see them as recycled trains
or do you see them as new?
I suppose the customers,
the passengers will see them as new trains, won't they?
For our passengers they're new trains.
We've also refreshed the seat coverings.
We've updated all of the posters
and the passenger information system
is obviously relevant to us and our trains.
So for our passengers, absolutely.
They feel like new trains.
(train door beeping)
Alright, what have we got?
What they've got is like a bad penny.
All right, Chris.
Chris, if you could just take my camera.
Oh yeah, okay. Yeah I'll do your work for you.
That's fine yeah.
What I like, I didn't charge my phone this morning
before I came out of the house.
So what I still can't decide because on some trains,
don't they, they do that thing where the plug,
or the socket rather,
is upside down.
So if you're here,
is it better that you sort of lean over,
should that socket be upside down?
Rather than you then have to turn it through 180?
I also can't remember which train it is,
but one of the designers, one of the companies,
they put the socket on the side.
You choose.
Would you prefer if the socket was orientated 180
or does that mess with your head
and you want it the right way up?
If you still do polls, I might do a Twitter poll.
It may be a shiny new train
and it is shiny and lovely and new.
It's really bright.
And it's quite welcoming.
Please mind the gap
between the train and the platform.
Is that Matt from GTR doing the voiceover on Southeastern?
Excellent.
Phil's here to talk about the seating configuration.
(train beeping)
We're sat in the one by two seating area,
but it is predominantly two by two.
It is, yeah.
So when Southwestern ordered these,
these were sort of more metro-style than Thameslink.
So hence you've got bits of two plus one seating.
There's no first class.
There's also no toilets on these.
Phil, what's the pros and cons
between three by two seating and two by two seating?
So the reason the three by two seating gets ordered
is because when you're bidding for a franchise
or, as it used to be, because nobody bids
for franchise anymore, it was all about capacity.
And it's about the number of seats.
And you had to say, if you've got lots of people travelling
you want to give them all the seats.
The problem with that is,
do all the seats actually get used?
Where you've got three seats abreast,
do they actually get used?
So two by two seats is probably better.
It's much easier to move around the train,
moved down the aisle.
If you've been on the Greater Anglia Train,
you'll see the aisle is actually really quite narrow
in the three plus two seating side.
And on a train like this,
when you're doing Metro journeys,
it's all about dwell time.
It's all about quick station dwells.
And if you've got three by two seating,
that's not going to help that.
Two by two makes it really easy for people to go on and off.
(train door beeping)
(train door squeaking)
And you might just think that, you know,
this train has already run on service on Southwest.
So like a model railway,
you could just pick it up and put it on some other tracks,
but it's not quite as simple as that is it?
No, we've got Class 700s running around here,
which look very similar,
but a learned person has told me
that the ride height on these is slightly different
and the suspension is different.
And actually you can,
if you're used to Thameslink trains
and you're now travelling on one of these,
there is an appreciable difference in the way they ride.
Something like 10 millimetres.
So we have to gauge clear them.
And the other thing we had to do
was look at the power draw as well,
to make sure that the electrical substations along the line
were sets up to be able to power them.
Because I don't know if you remember 20 years ago, Geoff,
you're roughly the same age as me so you will.
When they introduced a whole fleet of new trains
on this part of the network
they had enormous an problem
because the new trains all had air conditioning, computers,
all this stuff on it.
And they drew a lot more current
than the old trains they replaced.
And it meant the substations were unable to cope
with the amount of power they were able to supply.
So one of the key things we do
whenever a new train is introduced
is look at what the current draw is.
Have we the infrastructure to cope with it?
And the other thing of course is signalling as well.
So in this part of the world,
train's return current gets fed back into the running rails,
not like transport for London
where they've got a fourth rail
which is also on the running rails where the signalling
system lives and where it knows where trains are.
So you have to make absolutely certain that any current
that this train is feeding back into the running rails,
doesn't interfere with the signalling system
and give a false positive.
They're really quiet.
They're really smooth.
They're really bright.
They're really spacious.
I want to chat to the driver.
It feels like the acceleration and deceleration
is a little bit smarter as well.
It just feels like a new train.
If I don't do this, people will be like,
[Female Announcer] We'll shortly be arriving
at Sidcup.
It's the classic elbow by the window test.
It's sort of, oh, that is borderline.
(Chris laughs)
It's enough, but it feels like it might go any second.
[Female Announcer] We're not approaching Sidcup.
Please make sure you have all your belongings.
And take care as you leave the train.
We're just coming into Albany Park, just to highlight.
[Female Announcer] We're now approaching Albany Park.
Thank you. We're in the accessible area
where there's a huge space here.
If you're a wheelchair user, which is good,
but there are no toilets.
(train door beeping)
So we're at Crayford.
10:18 out at 10 19. We're on time.
Well done Southeastern.
And technically we're on a Crayford train
that now loops round.
It's a Cannon Street looper.
A rounder.
A rounder! What'd I call it?
Rounder!
A rounder.
Now that's like that game you play at school, rounders.
Can I call it a Cannon Street Looper?
Do you wanna call it a looper or a rounder?
And now it will round back round the loop.
It will.
(Geoff laughs)
Back to Cannon Street.
Please mind the gap
between the train and the platform.
(train door beeping)
[Female Announcer] This station is Slade Green.
So we're in at 27,
I'm going to get a classic shot,
oh, that's into the sun,
of the two units together.
Look, this is nice. This is nice.
This is Paul.
Are we gonna have a quick peek in the cab?
You can, look, while we're stationary.
This hasn't been refurbished, has it?
Or have Southeastern done anything?
Nope, the cabin is as it was.
But you get a great view
of the other unit from here.
You do.
(train humming)
In the distance Plumstead sidings, purple trains.
Would it be outrageous if I said I'd prefer these 707s
to the purple trains?
[Female Announcer] We will shortly be arriving
at Plumstead.
Hello Plumstead.
They do break smarter.
It's just new technology means that when they pull away,
they accelerate faster
and they've got a combination
of tread and disc brakes
on different units
and the different cars.
So the braking just feels smooth as well.
It's really smooth.
Look how un-bumpy the camera is right now.
It's a really smooth ride.
[Female Announcer] Now approaching Plumstead.
Please make sure you have all your belongings,
and take care as you leave the train.
I'm being given a badge, a Class 707 badge
by Paul, who doesn't want to be on camera.
That's amazing. Thanks!
You're welcome.
I got a 707 badge!
(train beeping)
So Phil's given me a copy of Modern Railways.
You're gonna find the page. Where is it?
Where basically you discussed the reliability,
what's this called?
So this is New Train Tin-Watch.
So Roger Ford, who runs our Informed Sources Column,
started this, I don't know, a couple of years ago
because there were lots of new trains coming to service.
So he wanted to chart the reliability.
So we've done the Golden Spanner Awards for lots of years,
(Geoff laughs)
which are for the most reliable trains.
We do that once a year in the January issue.
This is a once a month thing
where we're charting all the new trains.
So the Class 707, when they were with Southwestern,
they were in this
and their reliability just shut off, it's overtaken,
virtually everything else.
Because basically
they were the most reliable train.
Yeah.
They were so reliable,
Roger took them out of the table running.
Because they got to sort of a hundred thousand miles
per technical incident, which is kind of massive.
So them and the Hitachi Class 385 for ScotRail.
They've been sort of really reliable new trains.
Others have struggled a bit, so not quite so good.
And some of them are still struggling.
But these are really reliable.
(train humming)
(train door beeping)
Okay so our day is ending.
Thanks Chris.
He's on the doors.
[Female Announcer] This station
is London Bridge.
It is London bridge.
That is the new City Beam train from Southeastern.
They've come over from the Southwest. They're here.
They're really nice. Class 707 as per the diagram.
They're running on the network.
Chris was just coming up with one amazing, amazing fact.
And this will be on YouTube, is he right or not?
Go for it, Chris.
We were just talking.
And I wonder if Southeastern is the only TOC,
Train Operating Company,
to operate trains that run as two car,
three car, four car, five car, like this one
and six as well.
Well because the Javelins are six cars right?
Because the six javelins.
Is that unique?
And if there's another TOC that does that,
comment!
Bye!
(train beeping)