AFTER a series of setbacks including later than expected delivery, dealing with the respective impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, technical problems involving battery overheating (solved through the fitting of a replacement component) and most recently the collapse of Vivarail (the company supplying them), No. 230010 became the first of the five Transport for Wales (TfW) Class 230s to work a revenueearning service on April 3.
Following months of testing and training with the fleet, which was also subject to pauses and restarting as a result of the issues, the unit’s first working was the 07.31 from Wrexham Central to Bidston.
Owned by TfW, each of the trains, which have been built using the shells of former London Underground D78 units, has 120 seats and can carry 420 passengers in total.
Hybrid units