#5883
British Rail Class 717
🇬🇧 United Kingdom ·built by Siemens Mobility· from 2018· British EMU Rail Class
2 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. Great Northern Class 717 Desiro City at Palmers Green June 2019 cropped: Scully Hitchcock (with cropping, alignment, and exposure adjustments by XAM2175 )· CC BY-SA 4.0
- 2. Class 717 Desiro City EMU: Samson Ng . D201@EAL· CC BY-SA 4.0
what is it?
The British Rail Class 717 Desiro City is an electric multiple unit passenger train built by Siemens Mobility, currently operated by Greater Thameslink Railway on its Great Northern Hertford Loop and Welwyn stopping routes. Built to replace Class 313 trains on services into Moorgate, a total of 25 six-car units began entering regular service from March 2019. The units are similar to the Class 700s (in use with Thameslink) and the Class 707s (in use with Southeastern).
who runs it
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
fun facts
- First built 8 years ago, in 2018.
- 122 m long: about 27 cars parked nose to tail.
- Seats 362: 7 full city buses (~50 seats each).
multiple unit: A self-propelled train: motors are spread under the passenger cars, so no separate locomotive.
spec sheet
- built
- 2018
- in service from
- 2018
- status
- in service
- number built
- 25
- kind
- multiple unit
- traction
- electric
- origin
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- builders
- Siemens Mobility
- operators
- Greater Thameslink Railway, Govia Thameslink Railway
- top speed
- 137 km/h
- power
- —
- formation
- 6 cars per unit:, DMOS, Driver's cab, Motor car, Open saloon, Standard class-TOS, Trailer car, Open saloon, Standard cl…
- length
- 122 m
- capacity
- 362 passengers
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q24088445, Wikipedia: British Rail Class 717 (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.