New plan to produce Electrostar family announced

Electrostars, which will make up the tooling suite of Accurascale’s first unit. The sheer variation of detail differences across this large family of units makes it Accurascale’s biggest project to date in terms of tooling and cost, as well as development lead time. Excited by the prospect of being associated with such a groundbreaking and technologically innovative model, Rails of Sheffield was keen to partner up with Accurascale to bring the Electrostar to market and became involved in the embryonic stages of the project.

The launch of the project is being considered over two separate production runs, with the most technologically complex dual-power versions, namely the 375/6s, the 377/2s and 377/5s, the 379s and the 387/1s and 387/2s forming the basis of the project. Should these be successful, other members of the Electrostar family will then be modelled in future runs.

Accurascale’s vision for its first UK outline multiple unit is equally ambitious, with a desire to bring the highest specification possible to the Electrostar model. The model will feature DCC operating pantographs, operating CDL lights, motors driving the leading and trailing axles of the DMCOs, which also have working magnetic front mounted Tightlock, or Dellner couplings (depending on variant).

Each sound fitted unit will have a speaker mounted in every car to give a full surround sound experience of the real trains. Full interior lighting with each car having a power bank of capacitors for flicker free lighting. Each unit will have correct seating arrangements depending on class and operator, and all the DCC functions will be controlled by one central DCC decoder only. Fully directional lighting, with full range of light options for day/night running and shunting/yard configurations, and of course, separate cab lighting at each end along with front and side lit destination boards.

A total of 10 running numbers across three different operators and from Classes 375 and 377 form the first run, with Classes 379 and 387 arriving in the second run.

To ensure that this risk is mitigated as much as possible, Accurascale and Rails are calling for concrete “expressions of interest” to be placed for this model at either the Accurascale or Rails of Sheffield website, with a £50 reservation fee required when placing an order per unit before Friday, March 28th, 2025 at 5pm.

Should the project get the green light from modellers, the CAD, which is ready to go to tooling, will be submitted to the factory and tooling will commence straight away.

As per the Class 89, the models will be available exclusively via the Accurascale and Rails of Sheffield websites, and the Rails of Sheffield shop. Total price is £499.95 for DC/DCC Silent Fitted 4 car unit, and £599.95 DCC Sound Fitted, with £50 reservation fees deducted from this total amount should the project go ahead. 

About the prototype

The Electrostar story spans a manufacturing period of 18 years, seven different classes, a multitude of sub-classes, three different manufacturers’ names above the door, over 650 sets in service and a geographical spread across southern Britain, and still the story continues.

The privatisation of the United Kingdom’s rail market in the mid-1990s was more akin to the 1889 Oklahoma land rush, with a horde of new franchises poised to take over the rail network, and manufacturers saw the opportunity to create more modern passenger train designs to fulfil their needs, with Siemens, Alstom and ADtranz being the prominent players in the market. ADtranz, in particular, saw the potential in creating a modular design based on a common body to suit both suburban and outer-suburban markets, with differing seating layouts, traction sources and train lengths, and to meet this concept, the Turbostar (diesel powered) and Electrostar (AC/DC powered) families were created.

Bodies were built as aluminium monocoques, with steel ends for energy absorption (the cabs being GRP and steel), with one piece aluminium roofs and the underframe equipment being suspended from a ‘raft’, allowing for flexibility in equipment layout. Two pairs of bi-parting doors on each side of the vehicles allows for rapid entry/exit of passengers and an integrated seating rail in the body design allows for different seating configurations of 2+1, 2+2 and 2+3 laterally, or even longitudinal seating.

Traction for the Electrostars can be via 750V DC bogie mounted Third Rail provision, or 25kV AC overhead power collection via the pantograph and where AC power is not required, the pantograph equipment is simply omitted, leaving a blank well on those TSOL vehicles. The bogies themselves were ADTranz’s own design, being the P3-25 powered bogie, or the T3-25 trailer bogie. The first of the Electrostar family built were the Class 357 4-car sets, constructed by ADTranz and entering service in 2000, and these were followed by the Class 375 family of 3-car 375/3 units, and 375/6, 375/7, 375/8 and 375/9 4-car units, being built by ADTranz (subsequently Bombardier) for the Kent Coast services under Connex, then SouthEastern.

At the same time, the South Central franchise (later Southern) also required replacements for its slamdoor stock and although these Tightlock equipped sets were initially delivered as Class 375, a change to Dellner couplings resulted in a change of classification, becoming the Class 377 family of 4-car 377/1, 377/2, 377/4 and 377/5 units, and the 3-car 377/3 units. Subsequently, Southern also added 5-car units to the fleet in 2013 to cover delayed Thameslink stock, resulting in the addition of 377/6 and 377/7 variants.

Electrostars were also built to serve the high volume services in South-East London, North Kent and London Overground, resulting in the 5-car Class 376 sets and Class 378 ‘Capitalstar’ sets of the mid-2000s. At the end of the 21st century’s first decade, National Express East Anglia ordered Electrostar sets for the Stansted Express and Cambridge services and with their extended luggage accommodation and low density seating, these 4-car sets became Class 379, setting the standard for the last of the Electrostar family to enter service.

The final member of the family was the 4-car Class 387; a development of the Class 377 and Class 379 fleets that was capable of running at 110mph and suitable for long distance workings. Originally ordered for Thameslink as Class 387/1, the Class has extended to another two variants; 377/2 and 377/3 as the type have gone on to serve Great Western Railway, Gatwick Express, Heathrow Express, Great Northern, c2c and recently, Southern.