London Waterloo has unveiled a £1 billion fleet of ‘platform hoover’ trains to tackle extreme overcrowding

If you commute via Waterloo Station, you’ll know it’s not usually a pleasant experience. As one of the capital’s busiest train stations, the south London hub has been plagued with overcrowding for years. 

To curb this issue, dozens of new trains will soon be rolled out along routes that serve Waterloo, and the bosses are calling them ‘platform hoovers’. 

Not the most appealing metaphor, we’d say. If you’re imagining thousands of travellers being sucked up by a giant Henry, that’s sort of the idea. The vacuum analogy has come from the fact that the £1 billion fleet will be able to carry about 50 percent more passengers than the current trains in service. 

This has been a long time coming, and harried commuters are still patiently waiting for the new fleet to be rolled out – it was first promised in 2019 by South Western Railway (SWR), but currently only 14 of the proposed 90 Arterio trains are in service. 

When they do arrive, the 10-carriage locomotives will be air-conditioned and fully walk-through. They will also have wi-fi, charging points at every seat, real-time information and accessible toilets. SWR hasn’t confirmed when the full fleet will come into service, but promised that ‘more’ trains would be rolled out ‘over the coming weeks’. 

This announcement came after Labour MP Fleur Anderson raised concerns about platforms at Putney and Wandsworth Town stations becoming so busy that people are unable to board trains, which she called ‘extreme overcrowding’. 

‘These new trains, which are great, have been announced several times. They’re coming,’ Anderson told the Standard. 

She added: ‘The rollout has been really, really slow... But I’ve met with the chief executive and he is now going to consistently roll out more every week. It is really, really late but it is finally good to have them coming.’

A spokesperson for SWR said: ‘We've introduced eight more trains in the past two months and, as of today, we are running 14 Arterios on more than 160 services every weekday, on routes to Dorking, Guildford, Hampton Court, Kingston, Reading, Shepperton, Twickenham and Windsor & Eton Riverside.

‘We’re looking forward to many more customers enjoying the increased capacity and comfort the Arterios bring to journeys as we introduce more trains into service over the coming weeks.’

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