Rail commuters promised longer peak-hour trains next year

FIRST Capital Connect is offering hope to its beleaguered peak-time travellers with a promise of extra carriages on the Bedford to Brighton line next year. The company is receiving four additional dual-voltage trains which can run on the Thameslink line n

FIRST Capital Connect is offering hope to its beleaguered peak-time travellers with a promise of extra carriages on the Bedford to Brighton line next year.

The company is receiving four additional dual-voltage trains which can run on the Thameslink line next month with another four in the spring - the last of the country's class 319 fleet of four-carriage units.

But next year FCC will be taking delivery of an extra 92 newly-built class 377 air-conditioned Electrostar carriages which should offer new standards of comfort on the line.

The dual-voltage trains and the 377s are both part of complex sub-leasing arrangements FCC has with Southern.

A spokesperson explained: "In short, it means that by Spring 2009, we will have doubled the length from four to eight carriages on 19 separate peak-hour train services.

"It means that all morning peak-hour services will be eight carriages long - the maximum length until platforms are lengthened under the Thameslink Programme - and just six of our evening peak-hour services will be four carriages in length."

He pointed out that those would be either side of the busiest times, during the so-called "shoulder peak".