The British Rail Class 801 ''Azuma'' is a type of

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...

(EMU) built by

Hitachi Rail () is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Nissan ''zaibatsu'' and later DKB Group and Fuyo ...

for

London North Eastern Railway London North Eastern Railway (LNER) is a British train operating company. It is owned by the DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT). The company's name echoes that of the London and North Eastern Railway, one of the Big Four ...

. The units have been built since 2017 at Hitachi's Newton Aycliffe Manufacturing Facility and have been used on services on the East Coast Main Line since 16 September 2019. As part of its production, the Class 801 units were ordered as part of the

Intercity Express Programme The Intercity Express Programme (IEP) is an initiative of the Department for Transport (DfT) in the United Kingdom to procure new trains to replace the InterCity 125 and InterCity 225 fleets on the East Coast Main Line and Great Western Main Li ...

and are in the Hitachi AT300 product family, alongside the closely related Class 800 units. LNER have branded the units as the ''Azuma'', just like on their Class 800 units.

Background and design

As part of the UK Government's

, the Class 801 units were to be built as replacements for the

InterCity 125 The InterCity 125 (originally Inter-City 125New trai ...

and InterCity 225 sets which were the main trains used for services on the

Great Western Main Line The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the or ...

(GWML) and the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between London and Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broa ...

(ECML) at the time. Differing from the Class 800 units, which they were built alongside, the Class 801 units were designed as purely electric multiple units, but with one diesel engine fitted to a single coach of each unit for emergency use. The Class 801 units were to enter service for both

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

and

but due to delays in the

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histor ...

of the GWML, it was announced in June 2016 that 21 nine-car (801/0) sets that were going to enter service with GWR would instead be converted to bi-modal operation. As a consequence, all of these sets were re-classified as 800/3 units and the Class 801 units will only see operation on the ECML. However, GWR do have the option to convert all of their Class 800 units to electric-only operation by removal of the diesel engines should it be exercised, in which case they would be re-classified as a Class 801 unit.

Operation

The Class 801 units first entered service on 16 September 2019 with LNER, which were two five-car 801/1 units that were doubled up to make a ten-car train. 801109 and 801110 were the units, having started and finished their diagram at

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

. Following this shortly were the nine-car 801/2 sets, with two units (801205 and 801207) entering service on 18 November 2019 onto the London King's Cross -

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

route.

Fleet details

References

External links

Official Website, Hitachi
{{High-speed rail High-speed trains of the United Kingdom Hitachi multiple units Train-related introductions in 2019 25 kV AC multiple units