Capacity on overcrowded high-speed railway lines will be doubled under plans to introduce a fleet of as many as 2,000 carriages, with the new system far more fuel efficient than today’s trains.

The Department for Transport (DfT) yesterday invited train manufacturers from around the world to submit proposals for a fleet of trains that will be powered by both diesel and electricity. They will be lighter than existing trains and capable of capturing and storing the energy normally lost during braking.

The DfT said yesterday that it would order at least 500 carriages and possibly as many as 2,000. They will replace the 30-year-old high-speed trains, the Intercity 125s, which were built by British Rail and which operate on the Great Western Main Line, Midland Main Line and the East Coast Main Line.

These trains are reliable but their diesel engines cause air pollution and deliver poor fuel efficiency.

Their slam doors cause delays at stations and their lavatories empty on to the tracks, a practice now deemed a health hazard.

The new trains will have electric doors and up to 100 more seats, with more carriages. Unlike the Intercity 125s, seats are likely to be fitted in the power cars at the front and rear. They will be the first trains since privatisation a decade ago to be ordered by the Government, as opposed to the train-leasing companies, which the DfT has claimed are making excessive profits.

The DfT accepts that Britain’s intercity lines need a big increase in capacity to cope with the thousands of passengers each week switching from congested roads. The total distance travelled on longdistance lines increased by 9 per cent last year. The DfT wants the new trains to be capable of operating on all parts of the longdistance network, including sections where there are no overhead electric power lines.

It is proposing a “dual-power train”, which will have diesel engines and a pantograph to draw electricity from power lines. Existing electric trains, such as Virgin’s Pendolino and GNER’s Intercity 225, are restricted to electrified track.

The DfT said that the weight per seat of the trains would have to be much less than present standards. It is keen to match efficiency levels achieved in Japan, where bullet trains weigh only 0.5 tonnes a passenger, compared with more than a tonne a passenger on the Pendolino.

Roger Ford, technical editor of Modern Railways magazine, said that the DfT’s failure to invest in electrifying the entire intercity network meant that it had to order a more expensive train. “ The train will carry lots of heavy, redundant equipment, with diesel engines lying idle while running under the wires. There has been a total failure of vision by the DfT, which has left Britain alone in Europe in having so much unelectrified high-speed track.”

He said it would be cheaper in the long term to electrify the Great Western Main Line, Midland Main Line and extensions of the East Coast Main Line than to run a dual-power fleet.

The trains are due to be tested on the East Coast Main Line from 2012 and introduced more widely from 2014, with 250 carriages delivered each year.

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