IT WAS enough to make the now unemployed Ivor the Engine green with envy.

Standing on a meticulously crafted new train set to run on Stagecoach's South West Trains (SWT) network I could see why Ivor, and all avid trainspotters from John O' Groats to Lands End, get all steamed up with excitement over all things rail.

The 45 new Class 444 Desiro Trains being manufactured by Siemens in Austria and Germany - set to grace the Southampton Central-to-London Waterloo track from Autumn 2003 - have five carriages and are 23 metres long but that doesn't begin to describe what they have to offer.

Part of a £1billion investment in new rolling stock, the Class 444 has tiny CCTV cameras fitted into each carriage, and another feature set to help reassure lone and night-time passengers is a transparent guard's office. There is also an emergency telecom link to the train driver by each set of doors.

One thing that most train users are keen on in these days of high crime rates is keeping an eye on their bags, jackets or whatever else has accompanied them on the train. Usually you have to crane your neck to almost impossible angles to see whether your possessions are still in place, but the new Class 444s come with glass-panelled overhead storage racks.

As well as the anti-theft benefits it also helps you remember exactly what you did bring on the 8.25am from Winchester to Basingstoke, thus preventing panic-stricken trips to a station's lost property department.

Moving on down the train you come to the toilets, all sparkling new and not a queue in sight. The disabled toilets are "bigger than my old bedsit," according to Jane Lee, head of public relations at SWT, and I could see what she meant.

I think space creating a feeling of space has been a key concept of Siemens engineers at their plants in Vienna and Duewag, near Dusseldorf.

Sitting in a standard class carriage you welcome the extra legroom that has been introduced - especially if you are 6ft 1 and not noted for impressive dexterity. There's also more gangway space to avoid inevitable outstretched limbs. In fact the buffet car is the only area which is smaller than before.

The first class carriages are fitted with laptop power points and have extremely generous legroom between seats. Unfortunately, with the trains not being in operation yet, I did not have the chance to sample the First Class menu.

Apparently each seat on the new Stagecoach trains has a timetable design incorporated into it - but, given that each timetable was less than 2mm in diameter, I couldn't tell you whether your travel plans need to be altered. The seats also have a bright orange handgrip attached to them to help you stand up.

The close inspection of the new Class 444s has left Stagecoach Executive Director Graham Eccles in an upbeat mood.

"The engineering quality of these new trains is top notch," he says with enthusiasm. "There are so many added features and I think our customers will appreciate them. We are making a real effort to make our customers feel as safe as possible on our trains and the CCTV cameras and new guard office will put a lot of people at ease.

"The new trains are also more vandal-proof and are made of materials similar to that of a car bonnet which makes it easier to remove graffiti. We have always been very conscious of maintaining the appearance of our train stock."

The 1,000-plus workers at Siemens' Vienna plant and a similar number at their German factory have also been hard at work on 100 new four-carriage Class 450 Desiro trains and 32 new five-carriage Class 450-2 trains set to operate in north Hampshire and Surrey next year.

However, due to the ongoing power supply upgrade of the South East rail network led by the Strategic Rail Authority and Railtrack, only around 30 of the new trains will be introduced next March with the rest being integrated within six months.

The first Class 450 trains are expected to be brought to Bournemouth next week to be put through a rigorous testing programme.

Looking through one of the new 450s under construction, its silver shell makes it appear like an old New York subway train that brings to mind films like Death Wish starring Charles Bronson and Taking a Pelham 1-2-3.