Northern’s newbie No. 331105 arrives at
Doncaster on June 28, withatestrun fromLeeds
ahead of entering service on July1.
Paul BickerdykeNorthern hopes its newCAF-built ‘Civity’ units will transform travelint he North, soNeville Hillwent to
Yorkshireins earch of the Class 331 EMUversion.
C
ATCHINGup with brand-new
traction can sometimes be
unrewarding. Someclasses are
sidelined with gremlins thatappearas
soonas they aretestedin fron tline
service.Alot depends ongood ‘intel’too,
which isless of aproblem inthis internet
agebut, even so, sometimes besetby
‘fak enews’.
It hadbeen suggestedthat just
one of thetwoself-contained diagrams
neededtoworkthe Leeds-Do ncaster
localswouldbeaClass331 and, of
course, itwasnot the circuit that
immediatelyconnectedout of my main
line trainatDoncaster. Icould catch
the next localto South Elmsall though,
andthuspick up the ‘331’ on itsinward
journey,except onthis da yall Leeds
serviceswere susp endedfollowinga
signallingblackout at Adwick.
Now, Adwick wasexactly where
Iwantedtobe. Th ePenni ne foothills
createagoodfew sl ping starts, but
thenew stationsat dwick and Bentley
offer dead levelterri ory to measur ethe
acceleratio ns to 60mph.
TheClass 331 inbound trainhadbeen terminated atWakefieldWestgate,
butIeventuallycaughtup with it there
afterre-routingmyself viaSheffield.
Accele rations up the 1-in-100to
Outwoodand,coming back,on the
1-in-150 down from Fitzwilliamtowards
SouthElmsallwere promising.
The 3minlatestart fromLeeds
had stretchedto4½min latefrom
Adwick(nowreopened), sothe re was
every incentivetoput in afull po wer
effort and60mph wasreached in just
0.37milesand 41.13sec–placingit
fourthinour leaguetable sofar. You
might think thiswas impressive,but
it wasslightl ydisappointingas a
somewhat unspecificonline graph had
half-promised afigure belo w40sec
in thevery to pechelon of modern
performance.
TheREFactorcame outat12527,
whichiscomfortabl yint he upper half
of ourleague.Thisfigure suggests
the unit wasoperatingwellwithin its
capabilities,orhighe st results(15000+)
bein gdomin ated by older units being
worked hardontoday’s railway.
My ‘331’ hadbeen afour-carversion(Class 331/1,formed oftwodriving
motor cars and twocentretrailer cars)
butthree-carversions (Class331/0)
with just one centre trailer car arepromisedforthe AireValleyroutesand
elsewhere. Thesewillpresumablybe
capable of improvingonwhat is already
anotablygood performance.26 RAIL EXPRESS September 2019
PERFORMANCE
Just hownimble aretoday’s
locos and units, and what’s
the quickest off the mark?
Unit 331110
Vehicles/tare/gross tonnes4/148/152
Train13.21 Leeds to Doncaster
DateJuly 3, 2019
RecorderNeville Hill/3rdof4Miles Location Sch MS MPH
0.00 Adwick d. 0000 T
0.02 00910
0.04 01520
0.08 01930
0.14 02540
0.23 0.31 50
0.37 0.41 60
0.65 0.56 70/75
2.25 Bentleya 3½ 3.13
Notes:Timed to 1/100th ofasecond androunde dtonearest full second; 0-30mph distances
measured infeet and rounde dtonearest 1/100th ofamile; Averag espeed calculations to check
the table have used the unroundedfigures.ADWICKTOBENTLEY
E