Category Archives: Class 345

Derby builds new trains for the Elizabeth line.

12 Thursday Feb 2026

Posted by in Alstom, Class 345, Derbyshire, London, Photography, Rail Investment, Railways

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10 new 9 car Class 345 ‘Aventra’ trains for London’s Elizabeth line are currently under construction at Derby by Alstom. Ordered in June 2024 for delivery in 2026 the order saved the Derby site from closure due to a gap in orders before the start of building trains for the delayed and truncated HS2 project.

On Tuesday a selected group of journalists were given a tour of the production line. Here’s a gallery of pictures showing progress on the fleet and the first train.

Building trains at Derby is like assembling a kit of parts. Here’s the welding shop where aluminum sections brought in from off site are joined together to form frames, roofs, bodysides and other sections.
Once individual sections are completed they’re moved around the site between different shops on fleets of bespoke trollies. Here’s a pair of bodysides waiting their turn to enter U shop, where final assembly takes place.
Body ends in U shop waiting their turn to be fitted. ‘A bit like fitting a cap to a tube of Pringles’ was how it was described during our tour!
The cab of a 345 having the drivers control desk and associated electronics installed before being fitted to a bodyshell.
Painted bodysides complete with windows, internal insulation and some cabling waiting to be put on a jig where they’ll be joined to roof and floor sections.
A bodyshell nears completion. Now it gets most internal components and panels installed.
A look inside the bodyshell showing progress on fitting it out internally.
Here’s the next stage as a driving car for 345071 nears completion internally and externally but before the traction equipment is fitted.
The next stage in the line. Completed internally, the bodyshell is supported from below to allow the traction equipment to be slung underneath.

Next, the bodies will be moved to have their bogies fitted, then they’ll be formed into complete units. Despite the fact they’re a follow-on order of a type of train already running on the network they’ll undergo rigorous type testing before being accepted as part of the existing Elizabeth line fleet.

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