British Rail Class 357 - Livery, Problems and Maintenance

Livery, Problems and Maintenance

In June 2001, units 357 025 and 357 027 had vinyl stickers applied with two prototype variants of the proposed purplish blue and magenta c2c livery at Bombardier's Litchurch Lane Works in Derby. They were delivered to East Ham EMU Depot for evaluation. Each set of vinyl stickers cost about £40,000. Rollout of the new livery on the whole fleet began by mid-2002, and was completed over the next three months. Hence, although the underlying paintwork and interiors of the two sub-classes were different when delivered, their exterior appearance is identical, and the only way to distinguish them externally is by their numbering. When the Quiet Zone car was introduced in each set, this was marked on the exterior of the doors by a magenta and white sticker.

On 19 April 2004, the unusually large rate of increase in atmospheric pressure led to an airlock and failure of hydraulic pressure on eight of the Class 357 trains which caused their computer's software to lower their pantographs and so be unable to collect power from the overhead lines, causing service disruption. However, after their teething problems were sorted out, they have since been the most reliable fleet of EMUs in the United Kingdom, winning Best Modern Era EMU at the Golden Spanners Awards from 2005 to 2007, for an average annual miles per casualty (MPC) figure of 43,180 in 2005, 37,391 in 2006, and 45,459 in 2007 (defined as the number of miles a train runs before a defect develops causing 5 minutes or longer delay).

The Class 357 units are all normally maintained by Bombardier service technicians at c2c's East Ham Depot, which won the Golden Spanner Award for Maintenance Team of the Year (Rolling Stock) at the Annual National Rail Awards in 2005 and 2006 and their Shoeburyness depot.

On 14 December 2005, c2c's East Ham depot began putting advertising vinyl wraps on some carriages, starting with branding the MSO intermediate trailer car 74716 in set 357 216 as a 'Cough-Free Zone' by the cough syrup makers Benylin for the winter. This has not been done for quite some time.

In June 2009, c2c and Bombardier began a repainting programme on the Class 357 units beginning with 357 203. When the vinyl wraps were taken off the Class 357 units, slight corrosion caused by water getting trapped behind the vinyl was found in the aluminium around the doors, so a bodywork maintenance and repair programme was carried out. The corrosion was treated by rubbing the aluminium down and repainting it with two-pack paint. More serious corrosion caused by water seeping in through a poorly-sealed join between panels was found behind several panels on the lower part of the vehicle bodysides, which had spread to the outside. A thick, tight mastic seal was introduced between the panels to prevent this issue from re-occurring. To save money during construction, stainless steel bolts were used to secure the external aluminium panels in place; however, this resulted in galvanic corrosion of the more reactive aluminium, so the bolts have been replaced by aluminium ones. Salts in water catalyse corrosion, a problem for the c2c fleet as they run beside the sea.

After repair at Bombardier's Litchurch Lane Works in Derby, 357 203 was repainted and re-entered service on 30 July 2009. Similar work was carried out on the rest of the fleet over the next 21 months at Bombardier's Ilford Depot, where the units were repainted into their original white colour, but with dark blue doors, and branded with both "national express" and "c2c" logos in lower-case. The "Quiet Zone" stickers are now white with sky-blue lettering instead of magenta with white lettering. c2c ran a special "Farewell to the Blue Train" railtour service to commemorate the last day of running in passenger service of the blue livery on Saturday 5 March 2011.

In 2012 in celebration of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee, Units 357005, 357006, 357019, 357225 and 357227 received special vinyls applied to the doors and a Union Jack provided at the toilet end of the PTOSL.

During the winters of both 2009-2010 and 2010–2011, fine powdery snow settling on the Auxiliary Control Modules (ACMs) melted by warmer air led to water leaking into the ACMs, causing damage and their shutdown, subsequently causing passenger information system, heating, and lighting failure in some carriages. Several units also had to run in service with fewer traction motors working. The ACMs were modified in six ways to try to prevent this from recurring.