Porterbrook Leasing announces its purchase of an additional 92 Class 387 Electrostar vehicles from Bombardier Transportation for Great Western Railway.

The vehicles will be built at Bombardier’s Derby site and delivery of the vehicles will commence from April 2017, with full delivery to be taken by October 2017.

Having supported the Department for Transport’s aspiration for the rolling stock market to invest in new vehicles to satisfy increasing capacity requirements in the near and medium term, Porterbrook’s previous order in October 2015 of 80 vehicles will be split, as previously announced, with 24 vehicles being delivered to the Essex Thameside franchise for c2c and the remaining 56 vehicles going to GWR.

GWR will now therefore benefit from a brand new fleet of 180 vehicles (inclusive of the 32 vehicles already in build), in GWR livery, in readiness for the Thames Valley services. These new trains will be in 4-car formation, able to run at 110mph and offering to the passenger the highest level of comfort and features.

With this investment, Porterbrook demonstrates its support to the aspirations of the rail industry and the Department for Transport to alleviate the capacity pinch points in the network and provide Britain with a sustainable, world-class transport system.

Porterbrook would like to thank its customers, namely c2c and GWR for their confidence in its ability to deliver the introduction of a new fleet in partnership with Bombardier Transportation.

This latest acquisition, added to the recent order of 80 class 387 vehicles last October, the existing fleet of 224 vehicles delivered to the TSGN franchise and the 32 vehicles currently on build and soon to be delivered to the Great Western franchise, reaffirms Porterbrook’s investment strategy in commuter multiple units and its long term confidence in Bombardier’s Electrostar platform.