It did eventually move as I saw it at Aldershot today. It was testing, not sure on the latter though.
On has to wonder, given the original cost of the trains was £895 million, what the value to the taxpayer is of leasing trains these days, given they will certainly last significantly more than 10 years.Bidstats is showing award for the new nationalised SWR leases
class 701 £494m Rock Rail South Western
Class 158/159 £78.9m Porterbrook leasing
Class 455 £46.2m Porterbrook leasing
so yes appear to be spending extra £46.2m because of failure to withdraw the 455s due to late usage of 701s
Also class 444/450 £377m with Siemens as train service agreement
and for completeness £49.9m for maintenance of gates with Cubic
Appears to be £494m for 5 years for all 750 class 701 vehicles, so £99m a year (a lot of which is being paid for semi-permanently parked trains)
Lease for Class 701 Rolling Stock [Award]
Direct award of a 5 year contract for the leasing of 60 x 10 car units and 30 x 5 car units of Class... A Contract Award Notice by South Western Railway. Value £494M.bidstats.uk
If there were, I would have expected more units to have entered service by now rather than just the eight (to cover six diagrams)
There's going to be 14 diagrams scheduled at the timetable change. However, not all of them will be able to be covered immediately, so will be substituted by 455s. Week by week, they will be replaced, with this approach allowing this to happen as soon as possible instead of having to wait for the start of a new week to switch over.
How long is the initial 455 lease?Bidstats is showing award for the new nationalised SWR leases
class 701 £494m Rock Rail South Western
Class 158/159 £78.9m Porterbrook leasing
Class 455 £46.2m Porterbrook leasing
so yes appear to be spending extra £46.2m because of failure to withdraw the 455s due to late usage of 701s
Also class 444/450 £377m with Siemens as train service agreement
and for completeness £49.9m for maintenance of gates with Cubic
Appears to be £494m for 5 years for all 750 class 701 vehicles, so £99m a year (a lot of which is being paid for semi-permanently parked trains)
Lease for Class 701 Rolling Stock [Award]
Direct award of a 5 year contract for the leasing of 60 x 10 car units and 30 x 5 car units of Class... A Contract Award Notice by South Western Railway. Value £494M.
455s for upto 3 years extra to Spring 2028 (but likely to be gone earlier as option to give months notice for each unit)
If the Conservatives get back in power the policy is to revert to GBR/DFT giving out short term franchise contracts to private train operators again, hense short leases (which do not give taxpayer and ticket buyer advantages but boost profits of private ROSCOs) ?
Hense the confusion with Civil servants in the DFT about a new 5 year lease (which ideally, and most cost effective, should be more tied to the potential life of the trains)
Sounds like a proper rollout at last, the sort that happens elsewhere but has been elusive in SWR Land so far!
and we should hopefully find out what diagrams will be operated by either tomorrow or thursday when the STP's come out
what’s an STP please?
Short term planning ?
Hopefully for the Reading service this is the last week that will happen
There's been an awful lot of "hopefully" associated with the 701s for a long time now!
This particular instance isn't really about 701 introduction, rather it's do with 458 diagrams being introduced from next week. And that's something that has actually been happening relatively smoothly!
701s cannot come soon enough. There are almost 100 services being short-formed daily at the moment.
Shall we have a sweepstake for which day next week a 455 will go to Reading?
Likely every day until the first 701 goes to Reading (and that won't be next week)
That's not what's been reported at all, thankfully. 458s are returning to the Reading line next week with the one remaining diagrammed pair of 458/5s returning on weekdays (the current all-day 455 diagram I believe) as well as one 458/4 pair being introduced.
