The British Rail Class 332 was 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 ...

passenger train built between 1997 and 1998 by CAF, with traction equipment supplied by

Siemens Transportation Systems Siemens Mobility GmbH is a separately-managed company of Siemens, arising from a corporate restructuring effective 1 August 2018. With its global headquarters in Munich, Siemens Mobility has four core business units: Mobility Management, dedi ...

. Fourteen units were built for dedicated use on

Heathrow Express Heathrow Express is a high-frequency airport rail link operating between London Heathrow Airport and . Opened in 1998, trains run non-stop, with a journey time of 15 minutes. The service is operated jointly by Great Western Railway and Heathrow ...

services between

London Paddington Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a London station group, Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services pro ...

and

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...

History

Following BAA being granted rights to operate services from

, 14 trains were ordered in July 1994 from

. They were built by CAF in

Zaragoza Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...

, Spain. The first two were tested at the

Velim railway test circuit The Velim test center ( cs, Zkušební centrum Velim) is a railway rolling stock testing facility at Cerhenice, close to the town of Kolín in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. Perhaps its most notable feature is the Velim railwa ...

and in Germany, while the next two were sent directly to England arriving at

Old Oak Common TMD Old Oak Common TMD was a traction maintenance depot located west of Paddington railway station, London Paddington, in Old Oak Common. The depot was the main facility for the storage and servicing of locomotives and multiple-units from Paddingto ...

in March 1997. The units had

automatic train protection Automatic train protection (ATP) is a type of train protection system which continually checks that the speed of a train is compatible with the permitted speed allowed by signalling, including automatic stop at certain signal aspects. If it is ...

(ATP), one of the few fleets in the UK to do so. This was largely as a consequence of the Paddington-Heathrow route being mainly 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 ...

, which was equipped with ATP in the early 1990s as part of a trial of the system by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

. The units were not fitted with

Train Protection & Warning System The Train Protection & Warning System (TPWS) is a train protection system used throughout the British passenger main-line railway network, and in Victoria, Australia. The British Rail Safety and Standards Board's definition is: The purpose of TPW ...

(TPWS). A derogation was issued in 2001, which exempted the class from mandatory TPWS installation, due the fitment of the ATP. Given the lack of TPWS, the trains were not compatible for use elsewhere on the rail network. The units were maintained at a purpose-built depot at Old Oak Common. Following withdrawal of the units, the depot was demolished as part of the construction of

High Speed 2 High Speed 2 (HS2) is a planned high-speed railway line in England, the first phase of which is under construction in stages and due for completion between 2029 and 2033, depending on approval for later stages. The new line will run from its m ...

and Old Oak Common station.

Operator

The Class first entered service on 19 January 1998 when services commenced from London Paddington to Heathrow Junction. They operated through to Terminal 4 from May 1998 until March 2008, when the Heathrow Express was diverted to serve Terminal 5. The original order was for twelve three-car and two four-car sets. The twelve three-carriage sets were increased to four-car sets by the end of 1998. In 2002, five sets had a fifth car added.

2016 recall

On 29 February 2016, the entire class was withdrawn after a structural defect was found on the underside of a driving car of unit number 332014. They were replaced by

Heathrow Connect Heathrow Connect was a train service in London provided jointly by Heathrow Express and Great Western Railway (GWR), between Paddington station and Heathrow Airport. The service followed the same route as the non-stop Heathrow Express servic ...

Class 360s. The Class 332 trains were gradually returned to service from 11 March 2016 onwards.

Replacement

In March 2018,

Heathrow Airport Holdings Heathrow Airport Holdings is the United Kingdom-based operator of Heathrow Airport. The company also operated Gatwick Airport, Stansted Airport, Edinburgh Airport and several other UK airports, but was forced by the Competition Commission to se ...

announced that operation of the Heathrow Express was to be contracted to

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 ...

. However, in September 2019, Heathrow Express announced that Heathrow Airport Holdings were to continue owning Heathrow Express until at least 2028 and that instead, GWR would manage the introduction of the Class 387 to replace the Class 332. The first unit, 332014 was sent to be scrapped in November 2020 at

Sims Metal Sims Limited (formerly Sims Metal Management Limited) is a global environmental services conglomerate, operating through a number of divisions, with a focus on: (a) Ferrous and Non-ferrous metal recycling, (b) enterprise data destruction and cl ...

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

. The last day in service for the remaining Class 332 units was 28 December 2020. Apart from three carriages from 332001 that were retained by Siemens, the remaining sets were scrapped by Sims Metal, Newport in the first quarter of 2021.

Further use

Three cars from 332001 (63400, 72412 and 78400) are now based at

Siemens Goole Siemens Goole is a train factory located in Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Siemens Mobility scoped several sites in the United Kingdom before settling on Goole with an intent to build the plant if it were successful in gaining orders ...

for private use.

Fleet details

References

External links

{{British Rail EMU, state=collapsed 332 CAF multiple units Train-related introductions in 1998 25 kV AC multiple units