'Wrong track' leaves trains idle

Now it is the wrong sort of track. Embarrassed rail chiefs were forced to admit today that while their new £12 million-a-time trains are equipped with state of the art technology there is just one problem: they won't work on London's busiest commuter routes because the electricity supply is not powerful enough.

The 12-carriage Electrostar 375 trains underwent extensive testing in Sweden but not, it appears, on routes serving the capital, and now the problem has only just been discovered.

The 55 trains costing more than £200 million in total have been beset with on-board computer glitches and other "teething troubles."

They should have come into service earlier this year but the bulk of the fleet - aimed at reducing chronic overcrowding on London's cattle-truck routes - won't come into passenger service until next May, and now they will have to be restricted to four and eight-car lengths.

A spokesman for Connex, which plans to run the trains on its longer-distance routes from Kent into Cannon Street, London Bridge and Charing Cross, said: "Once going these trains are more energy-efficient but they are heavier and require more current than the old slam-door coaches."

The trains come equipped with all the latest gadgets including dual air-conditioning, sliding doors, passenger information systems and rapid acceleration aimed at reducing journey times.

But all that requires extra power from the track. An industry source said: "If we try to run 12-carriage formations of the new trains we will blow the fuses and then everything will come to a stop."

A Railtrack spokeswoman admitted: "The new trains are bigger and heavier than the old ones and use power in a fundamentally different way."

She said Railtrack and Connex could understand the " frustrations" of passengers but "recently completed" investigations had revealed that the power supply would have to be upgraded throughout the South-East.

A number of platforms will also have to be lengthened to make sure they can accommodate the 12-carriage trains. Passenger watchdog-Mike Hewitson said he "could not believe" Connex had discovered the power problem so late.

He added: "One has to take a deep breath and count to 10. They have had the specifications for these trains for three years.

"It begs the question what on earth have they being doing all this time? When you are wiring a house you tend to bother to find out how much power you are going to need and what the limits are, " said Mr Hewitson, spokesman for the Rail Passengers Committee.

"I would have thought this would have been a priority for Connex but clearly not. This is just yet another problem with the trains we have been promised for so long."

The fleet, built by Bombardier in Derby, has already been beset with teething troubles, which have mostly been related to the onboard computers.

Connex currently only has a few of the trains in passenger service, with 47 standing idle in sidings in the South-East and Derby.

The company is refusing to accept them from the factory saying they are unreliable and will not be put into passenger service until the faults are fixed.