THE 1990s was a period of major change for Britain’s railways, with the privatisation of the network, which took place between 1994 and 1997. The extended sell-off period brought with it a number of issues, including slowness in the procurement of rolling stock. A proposed fleet for services on the Great Northern, LTS and Kent Coast routes, designated Class 371/471 and first proposed in 1991, had failed to materialise so, when a £150 million Government grant for the leasing of new rolling stock was announced in autumn 1992, attention was turned to using a modified version of the Class 465 Networker for long distance work instead.
A prototype ‘Networker Express’ was created by adapting an existing ‘465’, No. 465037. Two cars from the set had their 3+2 commuter seats replaced with 2+2 seats intended for longer distance use, and a first class section with 2+1 seating was added to the driving car. After display and evaluation at Waterloo, and gauging trials on the Great
