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I wrote a lot of the notes of this review on my outward trip from London to Leicester on Saturday 11th July 2026. Luckily not on the the return leg.
Hitachi won the contract to replace the EMR Meridians class 222s DMUs. The general look of them does look very much the like all the Hitachi units we have in the UK now. With that said there is much to like.
The Uits are Bi-modal that run on 25Kv Overhead lines and diesel where the Midland Mainline is unelectrified. The Units are known as 'Aurora' and work between London St. Pancras International the Sheffield and Nottingham. Thirty-Three units have been ordered and as at June 2026 less than ten are in service reguarly. On 19th June 2026 810015 was in a fatal accident just south of Bedford and as at 13th July no decision has been made on the units future.
On my trip I travelled on the following:
1D28 10:35 St Pancras Internation to Nottingham 810022 and I sat in Coach D (standard section).
It appears that Coach D has no blinds that can be pulled down although it appears that the first class section does have blinds. The interiors are pretty nice quite bright. The lighting in the carriage was bright but not too bright. The seating in first is 2 - 1 seating with nice wide seats and the airline seats have a fixed table across both of them. Standard class has 2 - seating. The Airline seats have a fold down table. This is my first gripe. The table is way too long. If you're a slinny individual than great but if you are a normal person then the table ends up quite close to your body. Not the best design. Also it is a a bit narrow, usually I can get a notebook (A6 size) and my phone in Landscape side by side but these tables are a bit tight for that.
The seats themselves are ok. Not too hard but a little too upright for comfort. They maybe the same as the 80x classes but they felt a little different. The uppper part of the seat does have a nice faux leather / Vinyl section that looks pretty good.
The automatic announcements were clears when made and when the on board staff made announcements it was also quite clear. On the outward trip the air con was nice and cool but not cold. Acceleration from St Pancras was nice and felt quite quick. Over the points the ride was initially bumpy but as the train sped up it did even out a fair bit. I used a App on my phone caled Speedometer and I am FULLY aware that it will NOT be fully acurate. In the Radlett area the Speedometer app registers a Max speed of 125mph. And whenever the app showed over 96 mph the ride became a bit shakey and bumpy. This could be down to infrastructure. All in all a pretty decent ride.
Externally the units do looks as I said the same shape as the other Hitachi products but the EMR purple liver does suit them well.
My view of the cl.810s changed on the return. I decided to catch 1C47 Sheffield to St Pancras 810014 from Leicester.
On boarding and sitting again in Coach D (I wanted to see if the experience was the same) there was an announcement that the Airon in coach D was not workig correctly and a fitter had worked on it and it should cool down in the next 20 or so muinutes. We didn't have 20 minutes. About 3 miles outside we managed a top speed of 47 Mph and an average of just 15mph before 810014 sat down and failed.
And there we sat for over an hour and 20 minutes. the heat in the carriage was awful. The rest of the train air con also stopped. Behind was another cl.810 (ironically 810022) but rather than assist they ran it past our train.
the upshot if it was a Fitter arrived after abotu an hour and 15 mintes and we were on the move. Air con was working but not too well. On arrival at Kettering (not a booked stopped) the unit wa terminated and returned to Derby as 5Z47.
Overall I was ok with the unit but again it's another copy of the other Hitachi units and while they do what the do and do it fairly well I do think they aren't the best.
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