Class 341 and Class 342 were proposed electric multiple unit classes from the Networker series, to be introduced in the late 1990s. The trains were planned to run on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and

Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway l ...

projects. Both projects were halted in the early 1990s, following the early 1990s recession. With the subsequent

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the indust ...

in 1994, neither train was ordered.

Class 341

Class 341 was intended as the rolling stock for the

project, and would have entered service in the late 1990s. A mock-up unit demonstrating the design of the train (and

moquette Moquette, derived from the French word for carpet, is a type of woven pile fabric in which cut or uncut threads form a short dense cut or loop pile. As well as giving it a distinctive velvet-like feel, the pile construction is particularly durabl ...

) was built in 1991. At one point, the Class 341 would form part of the Networker family of trains as 'Networker Crossrail'. The Crossrail project was rejected by Parliament in 1994, and the train was not ordered. The specifications drawn up for the Class 341 were subsequently used as a base for laying down specifications for the new Class 345 units built to run on

. The Bombardier built Class 345 units were introduced in June 2017, with the Crossrail project opening as the

Elizabeth line The Elizabeth line is a high-frequency hybrid urban–suburban rail service in London and its suburbs. It runs services on dedicated infrastructure in central London from the Great Western Main Line west of Paddington to and via Whitechapel ...

in May 2022.

Class 342

Class 342 was intended to operate domestic services on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) high speed line between

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and the

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

coast. Plans for the high speed line were delayed in the early 1990s, and the trains never got beyond the proposal stage. The CTRL (now High Speed 1) was subsequently built from 1998 onwards, and was completed in 2007. Domestic services began running in 2009, operated by

Southeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

using Hitachi built Class 395 high speed trains.

References

341 Abandoned trains of the United Kingdom {{England-rail-transport-stub