British Rail Class 385

In October 2014, immediately after being awarded the ScotRail franchise, Abellio ScotRail announced it had concluded an agreement with the Japanese manufacturer Hitachi Rail to procure 234 new EMU carriages from its A-Train family for use on routes in Scotland that were being electrified. During April 2015, a contract between Hitachi and Abellio ScotRail was signed, ordering 70 new-build trainsets at a cost of £475 million. The trainsets, which are formed into a mix of three- and four-car units, were procured for the purpose of operating along the main Glasgow to Edinburgh via Falkirk Line from December 2017, and across Central Scotland. In this manner, the electrification programme and purchase of new EMUs to operate services, will allow a subsequent cascade of the diesel multiple units currently used elsewhere on the network. The bulk of the new fleet was constructed at Newton Aycliffe, while the first seven units were instead built at factory in Kudamatsu, Yamaguchi, Japan. The trainsets were supplied to Abellio Scotrail through a leasing arrangement, which was formed at the time of the original order. Accordingly, the ownership of the fleet resides with Caledonian Rail Leasing, a subsidiary company of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Construction of the first Class 385 units commenced in November 2015, with the first units being delivered in December 2016. The construction process in Newton Aycliffe involved heavily defined processes, including 1,400 standard operating procedures generated from experience at Hitachi's Pistoia plant in Italy and Kasado factory in Japan. The option was not taken up, however. During early 2019, Hitachi held a series of discussions with the Scottish Government on the development of a variant of the Class 385, a battery electric multiple unit (BEMU) that would be capable of running on unelectrified sections of line along a route. In May 2021, the Class 385 fleet was inspected for the presence of a potential safety-related structural weakness that has been identified on the similar IETs, also built by Hitachi. While evidence of this issue was found on units of the fleet during these checks, it was not designated as a safety issue at this time. ==Design==

The Class 385 is a member of Hitachi's A-Train The trains are designed for a maximum speed of . Sets are formed of two powered driving cars and one or two unpowered intermediate cars. The trains are fitted with a Hitachi-designed IGBT traction pack. Four-carriage trainsets feature four powered bogies per set and the three-carriage trainsets have three powered bogies per set. The passenger doors are plug type and are located at 1/3 and 2/3s along the car body. Seating is in a 2+2 configuration with a mixture of four-seat table bays and airline seating with seat back tables. A toilet is fitted in each driving car. The trains are fully air conditioned. Due to a requirement to support at-seat catering for all passengers, it was necessary to include a front-end corridor connection; this design alteration required considerable redesign of the driver's cab and forward section in order to obtain the desired functionality while conforming with standards on crashworthiness and driver ergonomics, particularly sighting. The University of Liverpool’s Virtual Engineering Centre consulted on the cab's design, while feedback from drivers and train crews was also sought throughout the process. ==Operations==

During early 2015, when the order for the Class 385 was placed, the fleet was expected to be declared operational around autumn 2017. One month later, the fleet was reportedly experiencing software-related issues as well; these factors caused the type's entry into service to be further deferred to December 2018, although this was later rolled back due to progress made on the issue. In February 2018, type approval testing was reportedly nearly complete. Having received remedial work, the first trainset was able to enter service on 24 July 2018. Thereafter, further trainsets were promptly introduced. After the discovery of a critical issue, all units were briefly withdrawn on 4 October 2018, the type re-entered service on 13 October 2018. By November 2018, ten Class 385s were diagrammed for service; this rose to 32 during the following month and to 58 by May 2019. and Glasgow Central to Lanark services. The fleet's introduction allowed for the retirement of ScotRail's Class 314 fleet, along with the cascading of a number of Class 156, Class 158 and Class 170 diesel units. This Class 385's introduction was accompanied by various timetable changes. One prominent service change was the widespread use of eight-coach trains on the Edinburgh to Glasgow main line, which necessitated the completion of platform extension work at Glasgow Queen Street Station. A total of 546 passengers can be seated on an eight-coach Class 385 trainset, which represents a 45 per cent increase in seating over the six-coach Class 170 DMUs that had previously operated this service prior to the route's electrification. By April 2020, the Class 385 fleet had reportedly accumulated , of which within a four-week window just prior to Christmas 2019. Unlike the majority of ScotRail's fleet, the Class 385 is maintained under a ten-year contract with Hitachi; under this arrangement, management is based at the company's central planning contract office in Glasgow while the work is performed at the Craigentinny train maintenance centre. The fleet is actively monitored by a team of maintenance controllers and riding inspectors, there is a heavy emphasis on delay attribution and fleet performance metrics, particularly for reoccurring issues. The Class 385 incorporates Hitachi's Fleet Monitoring Tool, which is intended to consolidate data collection in real time and make relevant data readily accessible to various stakeholders, including ScotRail and Network Rail. Each trainset is subject to a balanced examination system, under which such inspections occur every 40 days or , although considerations towards greater condition-based maintenance have been made. Early issues with subsystems such as the brakes, door setup and speed control unit have been mostly resolved via software-based measures. ==Fleet details==