Porterbrook moans about new franchises ordering new trains

[hwl]

Please remember to post links to sources for information.
I'm not saying I don't believe you, just for further reading.

The 5 car units are of course the same length as a 6 car today.
Ware (adjacent LC) is soluble but SDO will be a big part of the solution all over Anglia

 

[F Great Eastern]

The 5 car units are of course the same length as a 6 car today.
Ware (adjacent LC) is soluble but SDO will be a big part of the solution all over Anglia

There is no such thing is a 6 car train on Greater Anglia, since all the EMUs are four car units.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Please remember to post links to sources for information.
I'm not saying I don't believe you, just for further reading.

In the rolling stock forum, search in the Greater Anglia stock updates thread.

 

[adrock1976]

Was Porterbrook once owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland at one point?

If so, the New Labour* government at the time of the global economic crisis of 2008 missed a trick by taking ownership of Porterbrook (if it was them that was owned by RBS) in return for the bailout that RBS received.

*They were not new, and were most certainly not Labour at all.

 

[43096]

Ware (adjacent LC) is soluble

Was Porterbrook once owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland at one point?

If so, the New Labour* government at the time of the global economic crisis of 2008 missed a trick by taking ownership of Porterbrook (if it was them that was owned by RBS) in return for the bailout that RBS received.

*They were not new, and were most certainly not Labour at all.

No, it was Angel that was owned by RBS until 2008.

Porterbrook had a Class 87 named after RBS. Well, it was until RBS bought Angel.

 

[adrock1976]

No, it was Angel that was owned by RBS until 2008.

Porterbrook had a Class 87 named after RBS. Well, it was until RBS bought Angel.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[47421]

There is no such thing is a 6 car train on Greater Anglia, since all the EMUs are four car units.

Yes that is the case currently but all the new EMUs are either 10 car (10x Stadler IC Norwich LivSt standard and first, 10x Stadler StanstedAirport standard only, 22x Aventras) with longer carriages so 10 car equivalent to 12 car 321/360/379, or 89x 5 car Aventras, equivalent to 6 car existing units, if those existed.

The Franchise Agreement required various platforms to be extended by 1 Sept 2018. For reasons that are not clear but probably to do with the general malaise affecting Network Rail the work has not been done and apparently is not scheduled. Implications not entirely clear, in some cases can SDO, subject to blocking crossings, in others SDO does not work, most notably Hertford East where the signal is at the end of the 8 car platform, and also the crossover allowing access to either platform is just near the end of the platform. So work needed seems to include moving signals and a crossover, which of course means re-jigging the overheads. Unless it is done 5 cars only to Hertford East

 

[etc9]

Considering I know someone who has been involved in franchise bidding recently...

You assume I don't.

...the general feeling is that unless you propose new stock in your bid you don’t stand a hope of getting the franchise.

Obviously I'm not a regular poster on these forums, but I do read them a fair amount. In general I find that this site has lots of very well informed commentary. A notable exception to this is the mythology surrounding how DfT award franchises.

It is really not that complicated - they publish an ITT on their website for all to see, and when they receive the bids they stick rigidly to the evaluation criteria described in that ITT. If they just chose the bid they liked the look of because it had shiny new trains they would be taken to court by the losing bidders.

Some franchise bidders have proposed refurbished trains and have lost franchises to other bids who were bidding mass new train orders.

I'm not familiar with the bids you're referring to but I would be very surprised if the choice of rolling stock was the clinching factor for the winning bid. Far more likely to have been the premium. The weighting on the rolling stock bid plan is not that high when you consider the premiums that were bid in the last five years (the weighting on quality score is not a fixed element so it diminishes when the bidders are bidding high premiums - look up MEAT in any of the ITTs).

It's also important to bear in mind that when DfT are scoring bids, the rolling stock score isn't just based on the type of train proposed to be used - it's also about lots of boring detail like day-to-day management, asset maintenance, depot provision etc. Again, read the ITTs. The upshot of this is that an excellent management plan using rolling stock refurbished to a high standard cannot score significantly fewer points than an excellent management plan with new trains.