100th SWR Desiro unit to be repainted is unveiled at Bournemouth

  • 100th Desiro unit to be repainted in the South Western Railway colours
  • The Desiro first came into service in 2004
  • All 100 units have been repainted at Bournemouth Traincare Depot

The 100th repainted Desiro unit has been unveiled at Bournemouth Traincare Depot. Representatives from SWR, Siemens Mobility and Angel Trains joined members of the train painting team as unit 450100 was displayed in its shiny new livery.

This was a significant moment as the repainting programme has been an example of collaborative working between SWR, Siemens Mobility (the train manufacturers and technical maintenance) and Angel Trains (who SWR lease the trains from).

SWR’s Deputy Engineering Director, James Wale, said; “It’s great to see the 100th Desiro unit repainted and ready to go back into service, where our customers will soon be able to enjoy the benefits of its repainting and cleaning.

“It has shown how much we can achieve when we work collaboratively, and I’d like to thank our partners Siemens Mobility and Angel Trains for their cooperation and enthusiasm as well as all of the train painters at Bournemouth for their hard work”.

Matt Colclough, Customer Services Operations Director for Siemens Mobility Limited, said; “ This is a great example of collaboration and team work between SWR, Angel Trains, Siemens Mobility and industry. The Desiro fleet of 172 trains has travelled over 386 million miles, the same as 4 return trips to Mars and have carried over 173million passengers, so it is fantastic to see them looking as good as new, ready for serving customers from the south coast to London. What a great effort by all the teams involved from SWR, Siemens Mobility and Angel on the repaint project and keeping these trains in service day in and day out.”

David Jordon, COO of Angel Trains, said “We are excited for our 100th Desiro unit to return to service following its repainting in Bournemouth last week. It is a pleasure to work alongside South Western Railways and Siemens Mobility, and to celebrate this milestone together.”

The Desiro train was first brought into service in 2004 by SWR’s predecessor South West Trains and when the franchise was awarded to SWR in 2017, a programme was announced to repaint the trains in SWR’s corporate colours. The first unit’s repaint was completed in November 2019 and, like the previous 99 units, number 450100 has been repainted by the train painting team at Bournemouth Depot.

Each four-car unit takes seven days to paint, requires 210 litres of paint and 7,500 metres of masking tape and once the work is finished the train undergoes a deep clean before returning to service.

So far the repainting programme has used 210,000 litres of paint, painting 9 kilometres of train which is the same as 120 jumbo jets and enough masking tape to go from London to Weymouth and back – twice.