Midland Mainline Class 170/1s at in September 2003
Midland Mainline (MML) was the first operator to order Turbostars, the first being delivered in November 1998 and entering service in May 1999. The Class 170/1 units were built immediately after the units were built for
Chiltern Railways. MML ordered a fleet of 17 two-car Class 170 units, although the first ten were subsequently made up of three cars each instead. These were numbered 170101–117. The units were introduced on stopping services from to , and . They were also used on summer Saturday services from London to , which later became a year-round service with summer extension to . Class 170s were also used on direct services between London St Pancras and , these services ended upon the replacement of the Class 170s with new
Meridian units due to weight restrictions on the
Derwent Valley line to Matlock. In 2004, Midland Mainline introduced new Class 222
Meridian units, which started to replace the
Turbostars. As a result, the fleet was transferred to sister company
Central Trains. Ten units (170101–170110) are three-car units, and the remaining seven units (170111–170117) are two-car units. As with the three spot-hire units from Porterbrook, these 17 units had first-class accommodation, which was declassified.
Govia Thameslink Railway Class 170/7 no. 170725 arriving in in February 2004
Southern obtained six two-car Class 170/7 units, along with six four-car units, in 2003 to replace its slam-door and units on services on the
Marshlink Line and
Oxted Line to . Southern later fitted these units with the
Dellner type coupler used on its Class 171s, reclassifying its two-car units as , replacing the standard BSI coupler fitted to Class 170s. This was done to allow them to couple to in an emergency. Southern later acquired 170392 from South West Trains, which became its tenth four-car, 171730. This unit had already carried Southern livery, being ordered as an add-on to a Southern order to save costs, and was delivered accordingly in Southern livery as 170727. It was renumbered and reliveried at Ashford Chart Leacon Works before entering traffic. At the end of the
First ScotRail franchise in March 2015, 170416 to 170424 were returned to Eversholt Rail Group. The first five units then remained on hire to
Abellio ScotRail via a sublease arrangement until March 2020, while 170421 to 170424 moved to
Wolverton Works in April 2015. They were overhauled and converted to Class 171s intended for Southern. Following issues with the conversion and reliability issues, the remaining units were then handed back to Eversholt Rail Group where they were then re-leased to
East Midlands Railway. Two became two-car 171/2s and two four-car Class 171/4s. All four were returned to Eversholt in 2022 and leased to East Midlands Railway. Having been reformed back into their original three-carriage formations, the first three were transferred in September 2022. They will be converted back to Class 170s and resume their original identities, while the fourth will remain on sublease to
Govia Thameslink Railway.
Hull Trains Hull Trains began its to Hull services in September 2000 using Turbostars, initially with four sets on short-term lease from
Anglia Railways. In 2004, it received four of its own three-car Class 170/3 units, and returned the original units to Anglia. In 2005, following its acquisition by
FirstGroup, Hull Trains received four new
Pioneer units and transferred the Turbostars to its sister company
First ScotRail.
South West Trains Class 170/3 at
Clapham Junction in September 2001
South West Trains (SWT) acquired a fleet of eight two-car Class 170/3 units in 2000 (later to nine units supplemented by ex-Southern 170392), to supplement its existing fleet. Units operated on to , to ,
Southampton local services, and occasionally on services to , though this was not a regular route for these units, as they do not feature end gangways, making it difficult to provide trolley services, and they lacked selective door opening for the short platforms at stations on the route west of Salisbury. All but one of these units were transferred to First TransPennine Express at the end of 2006, in exchange for some Express Sprinters. Unit 170392 was transferred back to its original intended operator Southern and has since been reclassified and renumbered from 170392 to 171730.
Central Trains Class 170/5 in
Robin Hood Line livery in August 2003
Central Trains operated a fleet of 53 Class 170 units from various subclasses. In 1999, Central received its first batch of twenty-three two-car Class 170/5 and ten three-car Class 170/6 units. These were used to replace units on various longer-distance services. From late 2004, Central also took three Class 170/3 on lease from
Porterbrook. Units 170397–8 are three-car units and 170399 is a two-car unit. All three of these units contained first-class accommodation, which was declassified (allowing standard-class use throughout the train), as
first class travel was not provided on Central Trains services. The two three-car units' interiors were of Central Trains style, except the MML-style first class, and the two-car unit had a South West Trains interior. After the
Central Trains franchise ended, the two three-car units (170397 and 170398) remained with the new operator, CrossCountry. The one two-car unit was returned to Porterbrook, which subsequently leased it to
First TransPennine Express who renumbered the unit to 170309. All Class 170 units in service with Central were used on a variety of services (mostly long-distance) including –, – and Birmingham–. Class 170 units have been replaced by
Desiro units on Birmingham New Street to services. When Central Trains lost its franchise in 2007, 23 of Central Trains' units (17 two-coach and six three-coach) were transferred to
London Midland, which took over the West Midlands franchise and continued to use Class 170s for services on the
Chase Line, Birmingham to Hereford via Bromsgrove Line and Shrewsbury services. 29 out of the remaining 30 units (including the ex-Midland Mainline units and two out of the three spot hire units) were transferred to
CrossCountry, which took over the Cardiff-Birmingham-Nottingham and Birmingham-Leicester-Stansted Airport services. One of Central Trains' 170s (170399) went to
First TransPennine Express and was subsequently renumbered 170309;
East Midlands Trains did not receive any, despite taking over the previously Class-170-operated
Liverpool-to-
Norwich route. This route is now operated by refurbished units.
First TransPennine Express Class 170/3 at in April 2008 From late 2006 to 2016,
First TransPennine Express operated nine Class 170s, used on the to route. Originally, were set to operate the route, but a combination of weight-restriction problems on the
Selby to Hull Line, chronic overcrowding on several of the company's services and the government reducing the amount of money available to First TransPennine Express for new trains resulted in Class 170s coming into service. First TransPennine Express received eight Turbostars from
South West Trains, 170301–308 at the end of 2006 and the start of 2007, as well as 170399 from
Central Trains in November 2007, which was renumbered 170309. From September 2009, two Class 170s were used Sundays to Thursdays on the Cleethorpes–Manchester Airport service. The units were maintained by Bombardier Crofton. The 170s have since been fully refurbished to include
CCTV, power sockets throughout, replacement carpets and seat covers and the removal / declassification of one of the two first-class sections, providing more seats. The work was carried out by Transys at
Clacton-on-Sea. However, in March 2014 it was revealed that the nine Turbostars would move to
Chiltern Railways. MP
Stephen Hammond revealed on 12 March 2014 that all the Class 170/3s would remain with First TransPennine Express until the May 2015 timetable change, when Chiltern would take five of the 170s with the remaining four remaining with First TransPennine Express until the end of the franchise in March 2016 later changed to 8 July 2016. Upon delivery, the Class 170s were modified in
Brush Traction to allow them to be used with Chiltern's existing units, and were subsequently reclassified as Class 168/3s. Today, the unit numbers are 168321–168329. However, it was confirmed in November 2018 that
TransPennine Express would be hiring one Class 170 per day from Northern to run services on the Manchester/Leeds and Huddersfield local services, to allow more Class 185s to be used on other busier services until the new Nova Fleets arrive in 2019. This arrangement ended in May 2019, when Northern's subleased Class 185 units returned to TPE.
Greater Anglia and predecessors Class 170/2 at in September 2011
Anglia Railways ordered two batches of Turbostars. The first batch of eight three-car Class 170/2 units were built between 1999 and 2000 for to , , and services. These supplemented the existing locomotive-hauled trains from London to Norwich. Four of these units were later hired to
Hull Trains from 2000–2004, before that company acquired its own Turbostars. Other units, including the spot-hire set 170399, were used on Anglia's short-lived Norwich to '
London Crosslink' service. In 2002, Anglia introduced a new to Norwich direct service, and acquired four two-car units dedicated to working these services. Class 170/2 at in August 2012 In 2004, the Greater Anglia franchise was won by
National Express subsidiary One, rebranded as
National Express East Anglia in 2008, and passed onto
Abellio Greater Anglia in 2012. Since then, two-car Turbostars have been used for the Cambridge to Norwich route, and also on new through services including Cambridge (via Ipswich), Bury St Edmunds (via Ipswich), (via Ipswich) and Lowestoft (via Ipswich and East Suffolk Line or Ipswich and Norwich) - via Ipswich, although with a new timetable all Class 170 London services ended in December 2010, in favour of connecting branch line trains with GEML expresses. The three-car trains used to include a buffet and larger first-class area, but because more seating was needed, the buffet area has been removed and the number of first-class seats reduced. In late 2019, these units were displaced by and transferred to
Transport for Wales by February 2020.
West Midlands Railway/London Midland Class 170/5 at in November 2018
West Midlands Trains (WMT) operated twenty-three Class 170 Turbostars, which they had inherited from their predecessor
London Midland in 2017, on services on the Birmingham to Hereford via Bromsgrove Line, and Birmingham - Shrewsbury via Telford Central services. WMT replaced all of its 170s with 26 new
Civity units from late 2022. However, these 170s had already started moving to East Midlands Railway (EMR) in 2021, with the first moving in February 2021. The final four ex-WMT 170s joined EMR in May 2023. Class 170/6 at in May 2013 For the vast majority of the duration that these 23 170s were operated on the West Midlands franchise, they were formed as 17 two-car 170/5s and six three-car 170/6s. However, in 2021, before they had all transferred to EMR, the centre cars of what were WMT's six Class 170/6s moved to
CrossCountry, to enable it to strengthen some of its previously-two-car units, meaning that EMR received the ex-WMT 170s as 23 two-car 170/5s, as they only leased the driving cars (with CrossCountry's lengthened units changing subclass from 170/5 to 170/6).
Transport for Wales Class 170/2 at in December 2019 In September 2019,
Transport for Wales received three Class 170/2s (one three-car unit and two two-car units) from
Abellio Greater Anglia, with driver training following. In November 2019, three more units (two three-car and one two-car) transferred depots from
Norwich Crown Point to
Cardiff Canton, with a further four three-car units delivered in December 2019, the last three-car unit delivered in January 2020 and the last two-car unit delivered in February 2020. This meant that
Transport for Wales Rail leased the entire 12-strong 170/2 subclass of eight three-car units and four two-car units. These were the first Class 170s on the
Wales & Borders franchise and they were used on
services between Cardiff / Bridgend and Ebbw Vale, and
services between Maesteg and Cheltenham/Gloucester. On 12 December 2019, three-car unit 170202 worked TfW Rail's first Class 170 passenger services (between Bridgend and Ebbw Vale Town via Cardiff Central) and the units started to enter service in multiple quantities on 16 December 2019, with 5 units (three three-car and two two-car) running in passenger service on that day. All units had entered service by April 2020 when three-car unit 170206 was the last to enter service. These were originally due to stay with TfW for the duration of the franchise (albeit working different services once their brand new trains were in service), however, following a revision of TfW's long-term rolling stock strategy, it was later announced all were to transfer to
East Midlands Railway. The two-car units transferred first, followed by the three-car units. 170208 was the last to leave, on 29 January 2024. ==Fleet details==