Southern engineers finish major Electrostars mod

Southern has recently finished a major modification that made its Class 377 fleet more resilient to freezing, snowy weather this winter.

Line inductors are large 1.5-tonne components that sit beneath the train and smooth out spikes from the electric third rail current to protect the trains’ sensitive electronic equipment.

Over 30 months, the heavy repair team at Southern’s Selhurst Repair Shop, steadily removed no fewer than 518 line inductors from all 182 of their Electrostar trains and replaced them with units that Bombardier in Crewe had fitted with shields to prevent snow from getting in and shorting the circuitry.

Winter weather conditions have been a lot better since the heavy snowfalls of 2013 that prompted the work but Southern can nevertheless point to a 50% reduction in inductor failures thanks to the modification.

Justin Lanigan, Heavy Repair Manager at Southern’s Selhurst Repair Shop, said: “This was a huge campaign and credit must go to the team who completed this work and to other Southern colleagues who provided the units and berthing space to get this done.”

Engineering Director Gerry McFadden said: “The Class 377 Electrostar fleet is our core EMU on Southern and modifications were made to the vast majority of those trains in time for the cold weather this winter. Now the programme is complete, we’re finding much better rates of reliability.”

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