The British Rail Class 175 is a type of diesel multiple-unit (DMU) passenger train from the Alstom Coradia 1000 family, currently operated by Transport for Wales Rail in the United Kingdom. The fleet of 27 sets was ordered from the French train manufacturer Alstom during July 1997 and were constructed between 1999 and 2001 at Washwood Heath, Birmingham. Early plans for some of the fleet to be capable of were in place but subsequently abandoned. Driver training and extensive testing of the new fleet was performed at the Old Dalby Test Track from November 1999. The first Class 175 entered revenue service with the train operating company First North Western on 20 June 2000. Ownership of the fleet is held by Angel Trains, who has leased the fleet to various train operators. The first operator of the Class 175, North Western Trains (later known as First North Western), did not operate the fleet for long before Wales & Borders was created and inherited it. During December 2003, the new franchisee Arriva Trains Wales took over the Class 175s, by which point early reliability problems had been mostly resolved. First TransPennine Express also briefly operated several. In February 2018, the entire Class 175 fleet was temporarily withdrawn from service for safety checks. During October 2018, the fleet was transferred to the Transport for Wales Rail Services (KeolisAmey Wales) and then to the government-owned Transport for Wales Rail during 2021. The Class 175 is scheduled to be replaced with a new-build fleet of Class 197 DMUs by 2023. History During July 1997, the train operating company North Western Trains placed an order reportedly valued at £64 million with the French train manufacturer Alstom for a total of 27 diesel multiple-units, comprising 11 two-carriage units with a top speed of , seven three-carriage units with a top speed of 100 mph, and nine three-carriage units with a top speed of . The specification called for the train to be a redesign of the Alstom Coradia Juniper family, with considerable emphasis placed on ride smoothness. Their introduction would enable the withdrawal of rolling stock dating back four decades by that point already. Manufacturing was undertaken at Alstom's facility in Washwood Heath, Birmingham. However, the company subsequently decided to reconfigure the order to instead cover 11 two-carriage and 16 three-carriage units, all of which possessed a maximum speed of 100 mph. In conjunction with the