A 100 million GBP project to upgrade trains for passengers in the south east of England has been completed as the final unit rolls off the production line this weekend.

Project Aurora has now officially been delivered both on-time and on-budget, with the 304th Electrostar train now due back onto the rails this weekend.

The project team celebrating at Selhurst depot

© Govia Thameslink

Work to improve the fleet was carried out over the course of the past five years at Southern’s Selhurst depot in South London, and aim to bring both reliability and onboard benefits for passengers travelling on Southern, Gatwick Express, Great Northern and Southeastern services.

All improvements were funded by Porterbrook and carried out by Southern engineers, with the newly upgrades units now featuring plug sockets, information screens, LED lighting, improved Wi-Fi and a new digital ‘backbone’ which allows for faster repairs.

Technical specification, design work and materials for the project were provided by Alstom.

Ben Ackroyd, Chief Operating Officer at Porterbrook, said:

This has always been about making sure that we provide passengers with the best quality trains that we can, and we’re confident that they will see the benefits of these extensive upgrades.

It’s been a real team effort, and I want to thank GTR, Alstom and all the other companies involved for playing their part in Project Aurora’s success.

More trains were added to the scope mid-scheme, resulting in Aurora becoming one of the largest fleet upgrades in the country with a total of 1,222 carriages upgraded.

Overall, the 304 units required 280km of wiring, 39,000 LED lighting tubes, 36,000 power sockets (each with two USB sockets) and 2.8 million fixings and fastenings.

During the project’s peak, two trans were upgraded and returned to passenger service each and every week.

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Each of the units has been equipped with new smart on-board data recorders and updates to the Train Data Network, enabling improved remote monitoring of the train’s operational systems.

Forward-facing and track debris CCTV has also been installed on each train, which allows for remote live streaming, as well as the downloading of images to aid in incident analysis.

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