The British Rail Class 456 electric multiple-unit trains were built by BREL

BREL

British Rail Engineering Limited , was the railway systems engineering division of British Rail, until the design and building of trains in the UK was privatised in 1993. On 31 October 1969, the company was incorporated as British Rail Engineering Limited.-Main products:The vast majority of BREL's...

 at York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

 Works from 1990-91.

Description

24 two-car units were built as direct replacements for the elderly Class 416

British Rail Class 416

British Rail Class 416 electric multiple units were built between 1953 and 1956. They were intended for inner suburban passenger services on London's Southern Electric network...

 2EPB units which operated on the Central Division of the Southern Region of British Rail

Southern Region of British Railways

The Southern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s and was wound up at the end of 1992. The region covered south London, southern England and the south coast, including the busy commuter belt areas of Kent, Sussex...

. Units were delivered into traffic painted in Network SouthEast

Network SouthEast

Network SouthEast was one of three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE principally operated commuter trains in the London area and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the network reached as far west as Exeter...

 blue, red and white livery. Units were numbered in the range 456001-024. Each unit consisted of two carriages; a driving motor and a driving trailer. The technical description of the unit formation is DMSO+DTSO. Individual carriage numbers were as follows:

• 64735-64758 - DMSO
• 78250-78273 - DTSO

When first introduced, the units suffered from many technical and reliability problems, which delayed the replacement of the 2EPB units. However, once they settled down the units were used on many services, including London Bridge to London Victoria via Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace, London

Crystal Palace is a residential area in south London, England named from the former local landmark, The Crystal Palace, which occupied the area from 1854 to 1936. The area is located approximately 8 miles south east of Charing Cross, and offers impressive views over the capital...

, and London Victoria to Horsham

Horsham

Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...

. Before the lines closed in 1997 to allow the building of Tramlink

Tramlink

Tramlink is a tramway system in south London in the United Kingdom which began operation in May 2000...

, Class 456 units worked services on the West Croydon to Wimbledon Line. Recently, more Class 456 EMU trains have recently been allocated to Victoria - Epsom via Sutton and West Croydon, especially at peak times, as well as services from Epsom Downs and Dorking.

Current operations

Since the privatisation of Britain's railways, the entire Class 456 fleet passed into the Southern (formerly known as South Central) franchise, which was originally won by Connex South Central

Connex South Central

Connex South Central was a short-lived train operating company in the United Kingdom. It was owned by the Connex Group, and operated under the Connex brand between October 1996 until mid-2001....

. Only one unit, No. 456024, was repainted in white and yellow Connex livery, when it was named Sir Cosmo Bonsor

Henry Cosmo Orme Bonsor

Sir Cosmo Orme Bonsor, 1st Baronet was an English brewer and businessman and a Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1900....

 after a chairman of the South Eastern Railway

South Eastern Railway (UK)

The South Eastern Railway was a railway company in south-eastern England from 1836 until 1922. The company was formed to construct a route from London to Dover. Branch lines were later opened to Tunbridge Wells, Hastings, Canterbury and other places in Kent...

. The rest of the fleet had remained in NSE

Network SouthEast

Network SouthEast was one of three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE principally operated commuter trains in the London area and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the network reached as far west as Exeter...

 livery, until summer 2006 when the fleet started to be repainted.

In 2000, Connex lost the South Central franchise to the Go-Ahead Group

Go-Ahead Group

The Go-Ahead Group plc is a rail and bus operating company that was created following the privatisation of the UK's train and bus industries. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.-Early history:...

, who rebranded the company as Southern

Southern (train operating company)

Southern is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. Officially named Southern Railway Ltd., it is a subsidiary of Govia, a joint venture between transport groups Go-Ahead Group and Keolis, and has operated the South Central rail franchise since October 2000 and the Gatwick Express service...

 in 2004.

Refurbishment

In March 2005, No. 456006 was hauled away to Wolverton where it has been studied for corrosion assessment. This caused some doubt as to whether they would be refurbished. However, in a statement in April 2006 Southern said the class would receive a 'refresh', which meant they would not receive a refurbishment as major as the 455s, since the 456s are 10 years younger and already have high-backed seats (although of a different design). Also, on the newly released sets, new CCTV cameras and flooring have been installed; this was not mentioned on the original refurbishment plan.

All units have now been 'refreshed' and have been painted into Southern green colours. No. 456006 has been completed in a new, one-off promotional livery for rail safety on the Southern network. 456013 will now have an experimental cab-cooling system installed and 456022 will have some experimental air-conditioning fitted, in an effort to make drivers' jobs more comfortable.

Southern has now removed the toilets from the trains, to provide more capacity. Despite this the Class 456 EMU trains have lost two seats from each pair, due to a space being cleared for wheelchairs and pushchairs.

Criticism

Southern's refurbishment of the sets wasn't as extensive as with the British Rail Class 455

British Rail Class 455

The British Rail Class 455 is a type of electric multiple unit drawing power from a 750 V DC third rail. Built by BREL at York works in the early and mid-1980s, they were initially categorised as Class 510 as the successor to the Class 508...

 EMU trains, due to the 456s being newer. Previously, there was no electronic announcement boards on board, which meant that when they work in multiple with the 455s, none of their Passenger Information System visual boards work, and the automatic announcements cannot be played.
However this was rectified in 2009, when a Passenger Information System was fitted to the trains.

Future

There are plans to transfer the fleet to South West Trains

South West Trains

South West Trains is a British train operating company providing, under franchise, passenger rail services, mostly out of Waterloo station, to the southwest of London in the suburbs and in the counties of Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, Berkshire, and Wiltshire and on the Isle of Wight...

, where they would be paired up with s to make six-car trains. As at November 2010 there was no date fixed for this.

Fleet details

Class	Operator	No. Built	Year Built	Cars per Set	Unit nos.
Class 456	Southern	24	1990–1991	2	456001 - 456024