Rail Operations Group - New owner announced

[ExRes]

https://www.railopsgroup.co.uk/news/

"Rail Operations (UK) Ltd, together with its subsidiaries, Rail Operations Group, Orion and Traxion, is pleased to announce that it has attracted significant new investment from STAR Capital Partnership, a leading European fund manager. STAR will acquire a majority stake in the group, alongside existing management.

Additionally STAR will provide significant growth capital to fuel the group's ambitious expansion plans. Growth capital will allow the group to acquire newly built and existing traction and rolling stock fleets, expand Orion High Speed Logistics, make further company acquisitions and develop its range of rolling stock engineering services.

A detailed press release will be issued in due course"

 

[apinnard]

The same outfit who used to own a stake in Eversholt. Along with Morgan Stanley and 3i.

 

[the sniper]

So, the Class 93s are presumably going to happen now...?

 

[Sod]

Excellent news. This could really shake the market up.

 

[Wyrleybart]

So, the Class 93s are presumably going to happen now...?

Certainly seems so from what I saw on another forum.

 

[ChristopherJ]

Still, my question what these 93s are actually for remains unanswered.

ROG's business portfolio consists mainly of unit or wagon drags for TOCs, they have no 'heavyweight' freight traffic - i.e intermodal or bulk traffic.

Europhoneix invested heavily refurbishing the ROG fleet and they are extremely reliable and tainted for the work ROG currently do have - their 37s run around the UK like a bluebottle with the sh*ts!

Why spend all this money reviving old locos just to immediately replace them with a brand new (untested) product?

 

[ExRes]

Still, my question what these 93s are actually for remains unanswered.

ROG's business portfolio consists mainly of unit or wagon drags for TOCs, they have no 'heavyweight' freight traffic - i.e intermodal or bulk traffic.

Europhoneix invested heavily refurbishing the ROG fleet and they are extremely reliable and tainted for the work ROG currently do have - their 37s run around the UK like a bluebottle with the sh*ts!

Why spend all this money reviving old locos just to immediately replace them with a brand new (untested) product?

Have you read the ROG statement? particularly the ".. fuel the group's ambitious expansion plans" part, just because they specialise in 'X' at the moment doesn't mean that 'X' is the only aim of the company in the future

As for the 37s and 57s, they are old and environmentally unfriendly locos that have played a major role over the last few years and will continue to do so until the 93s are built, tested and delivered

 

[Wyrleybart]

Still, my question what these 93s are actually for remains unanswered.

ROG's business portfolio consists mainly of unit or wagon drags for TOCs, they have no 'heavyweight' freight traffic - i.e intermodal or bulk traffic.

Europhoneix invested heavily refurbishing the ROG fleet and they are extremely reliable and tainted for the work ROG currently do have - their 37s run around the UK like a bluebottle with the sh*ts!

Why spend all this money reviving old locos just to immediately replace them with a brand new (untested) product?

I am sure I read somewhere that the latest class 37/5 or 37/6 overhaul was intended to give it five years of use - presumably for ROG. As the 93s have yet to be ordered, constructed, tested, delivered, commissioned and trained on, ROG need to transition from diesels to Bimodes - not an overnight exercise.

 

[DarloRich]

ROG's business portfolio consists mainly of unit or wagon drags for TOCs, they have no 'heavyweight' freight traffic

Yet. Perhaps they have designs on winning such work.

 

[popeter45]

there is also the possibility they could do like what DRS have done with the 68's and sub-lease there 93's to other operators but to do so they really should avoid what DRS did with the 88's and order more than 10

 

[ABB125]

Perhaps part of ROG's long term business plan is to set themselves up as an electric/bimode locomotive leasing organisation, so that the FOCs don't need to invest in small electric fleets themselves: simply hire 5 (or whatever) from ROG as required.

It's the kind of thing that would be sensible when combined with a large electrification program, maybe even with government support. So obviously it'll never happen...

 

[hooverboy]

I'd agree with popeter45 that economies of scale are much improved with a a larger fleet, and given the amount of heritage stock on the line, a fleet size of 50ish would be sufficient for like-for-like replacement.