The NEW Avanti Class 805 Trains Now In Service

Avanti have their new Class 805 ‘Evero’ trains running on the West Coast Main from London to Chester and North Wales, to replace the old Voyagers. The first ones ran on Sunday June 2nd. Avanti invited me on a driver test train on a trip to Euston to Crewe, so i went along to find out everything you need to know about the new units …

ALSO:
There’s no Standard Premium coach, just four standard and one First Class. The Class 807 will have have 1.5 coaches of First Class.

Thanks to commenters, Scotrail’s Class 385 trains also have Assistance Mode on the toilets, which I didn’t know – this is excellent!

good morning good morning from London Houston very excited on there platform 15 it’s the brand new Hitachi class 805 train that Avanti are now running as of last Sunday in service up the West Coast Mainline so we’re going to jump on board uh this is a test train so it’s not on the departure Board Test train go for ride up to crew and find out everything you need to know about the new trains so it’s a test train currently sat in first class there’s four or five people here Phil’s down there we’re going to chat to him in a second and we’re going to ride uh two and a half hours up to crew before we do that here’s a quick summary of the Hitachi flute gwr will the first use these Hitachi trains with the class 800 and then class 802 bu mode train L and have the class 801s whilst transpan on Express and H trains also use the 802s lumo have their electric only 803s which they just use and then coming in the future East Midlands Railway will have their class 810s but Advan his new trains are The Bu mode class 805 which I’m on today and then Advan we also have some electric only class 807 trains coming in the Future the train leaves Houston running on electric under the wires I want to know how much better the acceleration is for pulling away from stations so that’s something I’ll be asking later uh I’m in the rear cap blinds down can’t see out but it’s okay we’re going to chat to uh some people are you are you offering to raise the blind ra the BL for you I can raise the bar and raise and you got to raise the bar by raising the no but we’re going to we’ve got permission to go and be in the front cab so we will get a shot out the front and we’re going to chat to very people there’s various members of staff on board always love chatting to the St to find out the real nitty-gritty the real info about the new DRS thank you just taking a wand through standard uh if you’ve watched my pendolino upgrade video from a couple of years ago you’ll recognize uh these seats the pendolino uh they’re going through a program are being uh refurbished so these uh these seats here uh will be familiar to you uh table seats I’m told that on the old voyagers the 221s which these trains are predominantly replacing uh only about a third 33 34% of uh the seats had table seats but on these on the 805 hit taches 50% have table seats so there’s more chance of you getting a table seat which lines up perfectly with the window Richard morning Jeff morning just gave me a bag hello hello what’s this what’s the name so that it’s a named train you’ve given them a name it’s very exciting do you want to know how to pronounce it well is it EO or evero what do you think I think it’s evero evero spot on well done evero why are you calling them evero well there’s a method in the madness we got together a load of staff and stakeholders about two years ago scary to think now time flies to sort of debate to try and come up with a name that’s memorable that would sit alongside pendolino okay and from that was born evero and why well EV is a nod to electric vehicle electric vehicle okay one of the big things about these trains their efficiency they’re very green reduced carbon emissions so that’s set well and for the language Scholars Vero in Italian is truth so it e Vero it’s the truth so it’s almost like I’m working in comms I only deal in truth it’s almost like electric truth indeed but we’re on an 805 this is an 805 please tell me that this isn’t by chance it’s deliberate the 805s are five carriages long and they’re the ones that have just started to be rolled out but the 87s which I understand are coming later how many carriages seven carries it’s like meth so that is deliberate right yes it wasn’t just by chance okay okay at the moment they’re running on like Chester hollyhead and Birmingham wolver there a couple of wolver Hampton trips in there yeah but predominantly Chester and North Wales and then later I saw on your map that you provided it might Liverpool Lime Street uh coming later and what was the other day Blackpool gets gets a treat yeah position sort this out Phil new train it’s a new train he thoughts comments kind have a video without filling it new train uh comment some I mean I think it looks really smart really nice Livery and I think actually the Livery looks nicer on these than it does on the pendos I don’t I’ve got a theory that I think when when when operators into new livery and they’ve ordered new trains they do the Livery for the new trains so there examp like SWR probably looks better on the 701 it does on the Legacy stock that’s my personal Theory will you miss the voyagers well be kind to the voyagers voyagers forages of a good trainer done good service and and I mean lots of them are going on to cross country anyway where where they add great extra capacity but obviously the massive benefit of these is you’ve got the electric mode so you’re not running load of diesel under the wise which is always wild the CST I then chat to Greg he’s the class 805 project manager about the design of the train which includes the layout of the shop which we specifically go and have a look at the obviously the seats are a big talking point over previous trains and we’ve you know we’ve benefited from the experience of the uh pendolino refurbishment same seat Supply suppli the standard class seats and used the same sort of experience of understanding of ergonomics for the first class seat selection you you know there was a certain amount of u variation opportunity for us built into the contract so we were able to to change the design of the shop we were able to pick the sort of some of the you know the interior finish and seat suppliers and and sort of make those specific changes uh over the previous bill so we had a bit of Freedom we have actually come down to the shop so there’s a forward faceing counter and the counter to my left and the counter to my right I feel like another here Chi trains that one isn’t open that’s closed it’s completely closed it’s just there but you’ve got this thing so where do you prefer people to queue at that end or at that end or I’ve never stood in in the shop before I think like can you wave as I pan my camera and we’ll pretend you’re you’re a customer okay specific local isue and then I discover an incredible new feature in the accessible toilet it has something called assistance mode Greg has taken me down to the accessible toilet uh there’s obviously accessible spaces with the wheelchair symbol on the floor there’s two accessible toilets there’s what they call like an assistance mode or mode or a Cara mode where rather than the door opening up all the way and everybody can sort of peer in be a to see there from the Sol there’s a halfway door setting that’s right so that a carer with somebody they with assist need they can set them up okay and then exit the toilet discreetly so it’ll only open partway fantastic and then shut the door from the outside and then obviously they can guard the door from the outside and then when the occupants finished they can reenter and and help them out so can you show us like the halfway DOR we come in we lock the door the door is now locked we press the the Cara mode button twice assistant mode has now been activated speaks for itself and what that enables you to do now is while the toilet’s still engaged you can unlock the door and now the carer can exit the door but it’ll only open the door partway M maintain a bit of discretion for the person inside so I can come out I can close the door and I’ve got controls over the door from the outside I take take a quick look around standard class and then our train being on a driver training test day is making an irregular stop in standard regular luggage racks at the end here and then through into the vesal area you got the standard uh Standard Toilets as well to either side and the standard Hitachi uh bike rack as well we appear to have stopped at Northampton I that’s most irregular so just from a novelty point of view we’ll chat to Andrew our train manager just because this train would never normally stop at Northampton right never going north going south once a day I can see flip up seat yeah these are good these are kind of Staff uh seats so you’ve got a little table obviously with the pendolino reubs they did put seats out back in the kind of crew Corridor but we’ve got a table now on these ones all modc cons uh a table uh so uh staff have got an area here so this is classed as the uh when the Cab’s not in use at the rear it’s classed as the G or train manager workstation uh that’s the kind of terminology they’re using so I can access CCTV of alarms going on in the in the train uh obviously we got the radio to contact the signaler we can make announcements here we’ve got the train management system computer up at the top there so you can access everything from here you can even dispatch the train from here as well uh cuz we do guards and train managers will dispatch here at Avan so we got a panel there we can use the big slam door which is a bit old school in that respect which is nice it’s nice to slam a door there nothing like slamming a door to be fair does that remind of the old Mark 3s oh it does it does indeed us the old Mark 3s I didn’t used to work them but I used to put the reservations on them when I was platforms but I do remember them I do remember them the old pretendo pretendo the pretendo that’s it the old Mark II come up the front of the train just admiring the uh the healthy amount of luggage space this seems slightly deeper to me like there’s more luggage space in fact rich is nodding there and he’s confirming that that the case now I wanted to touch on the fact that obviously uh these are Hitachi trains the acceleration was incredible when we pulled out of Houston and they are much much quicker uh than the Voyages when accelerating so uh it is of no detriment to the time table to the timetable will be adhered to ads before I can ask some more about that and how the train is performing cuz they’re letting us go in the camp the change of point from Electric to diesel is at Stafford so after we pull in I chat to our driver and watch him as he switches from one mode to another and then simply ask how much better the acceleration is so I’m assuming you drive voyages as well yes so when you pull out one of these under the wires at Houston like how how much faster is it twice as fast as a pendolino twice as fast as a pendolino yeah set you back in your seat set you back in your seat from a dead start 30 seconds a pendal will be doing 26 M hour uh 805 between do 51 mph so that that is that’s an incredible that is that is incredible okay and it’s not every day that this filmmaker gets to be in the cab of a train going up the West Coast Mainline so I stuck around for a bit to enjoy the view thank you aanti for that and then we got to crew we have arrived at crew pulled in on platform 2 I don’t think I’ve ever got a train on platform 2 before it’ll sit up here for about 45 50 minutes and then head back uh there are 13 CL 805 units coming to Avanti West Coast and then hopefully later this year in 2024 I believe it’s 10 class 807 which are the all electric ones these of course are the B modes Diesel and electric that is your new class 805 train out now in service on Avent thanks for watching see you again next time [Music]