World's apart from GWR's rapid introduction of their 36 802s.... First one into passenger traffic August 2018. Last one by April this year I believe. 8 months then and 14 of them are 9 car too so more carriages in total.
The slower introduction is because of a lack of ability to free up train crew for traction training. GWR weren’t training three new fleets at the same time. You mustn’t forget that delivery of the TPE fleets was supposed to be consecutive instead of parallel.
GWR and Hitachi had already brought lots of similar Class 800s into service by the time they got on to the 802s, so it was hardly surprising the latter were introduced at a rate of knots.
The introduction of the GWR 800s in 2017-18 was hardly a cakewalk, with months of training time lost in the middle of 2017 because electrical interference issues meant they could not get access to the Reading-Didcot section for familiarisation running. Some GWR drivers were learning other traction as well as IETs, due to developments like the build-up of the new Worcester depot around the same time.
Late 2017 and the first half of 2018 in much of GWR-land were a painful experience all round but reliability and punctuality has been transformed since then.
