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If you can tell us what one of the corrections is about, we can look for ourselves to see if it has been done. Then we will know if the problem is with the database or at your end.

23m vehicles operate on those routes now so you sort out any problems with short platforms by using SDO, just like they do in East Anglia with the 755 units.

Of course, if the first class is declassified, it will fall on the public purse - that’s just the nature of an NRC. Avanti are not on revenue risk. Much as he (Burnham) would like it, you can’t invent new contract terms just because you want to.

No, it doesn’t. The idea is push any displaced 80x sets back onto main line duties, not cascade them elsewhere. I wouldn’t get too hung up over 24m - Turbos are 23.5 metres approx so 5 x 24m will have its doors on probably all of the platforms that can currently take 5 x Turbo. It’s the 158...

No, it’s not a franchise (they all got cancelled in 2020) - it’s an NRC and the end date is May 2025, having already been extended. As it is one of the first NRC’s, it doesn’t have a core term - it just had a 26 period optional extension, which was exercised last year. The revised 701...

To do exactly what the DfT wants them to do, just like all the other companies. Change the company, no difference - because the DfT “minder” doesn’t change.

There is no fine - SWR are on a standard NRC.

GWR hasn’t terminated anything with the 802 fleet. It effectively acts as a sub contractor to Hitachi when it carries out any maintenance at Laira or Long Rock. The Hitachi fleets are on a Train Supply contract, not a lease, and GWR/LNER don’t have any rights to transfer maintenance to...

Yes, they insisted that Avanti staff leave couldn’t be carried over into 2024, as a cost saving. There has also been a problem with authorising a RDW agreement. It all has to be approved by the DfT. So they prefer to see cancellations rather than give way, for financial reasons. It won’t, of...

The key to getting more IET units back on mainline work is getting them off the services that were worked by the GTi HST sets. You are only going to get 80 IET units out of the 93 (and it is debatable that is too much, given the issues with them) so you really want those 5 cars back in 10 car...

To be fair to Avanti (and other TOCs), recruitment and training has been very tightly controlled by the DfT. They see it as a major cost line and the least the latter is authorised, the better.

No, they don’t get a percentage of income. Income goes to Government (who also pay for all the costs). They just get management fees - a basic fee and a contract performance fee which can be up to 2.5 times the basic fee. The owning groups have been pressing for some kind of bonus if they grow...

You are forgetting who really is in charge now, the DfT are the ones giving out the instructions. OLR or Owning Group, it makes no difference. The TOCs are there to do what they are told and if, for example, they are told their staff cannot carry over leave for cost reasons, that is it.

Not with the current availability target the GWR 387 fleet has to meet.

Until the money ran out for BR in 1990, NSE were committed to their proposed cl.171 fleet for this line, not electrification. The 159 fleet came about because of those financial restraints across all 3 BR passenger sectors. The 165 and 166 fleet also became less than anticipated.

Government operates in a financial world where its debt means something real, as does the methods of financing it. It isn’t just a matter of printing and handing out cash. Without going deeply into Economics on a railway forum, it isn’t a matter of politics, it’s how the Treasury had to get a...

Not really off topic because it plays into how many trains are available to the industry and therefore get deployed. Even in BR days, you still had to pay interest to the Treasury for finance, nothing was free. And in those days paying the Treasury rate was often more expensive than going...

Wrong on so many points. British law doesn’t allow for Government seizure of assets - they would have to compensate the ROSCOs at (their) book value. It is irrelevant how many vehicles a TOC leases - it doesn’t affect their profits at all. They only get management fees now - the Government...

Comparative clearance went out years ago. For any class wanting to go where they haven’t been cleared you have to provide the physical and dynamic details for the vehicles and then run it through the NR model that compares it to the infrastructure. Each class has to be done on its own - even...

Just to be clear here, GWR didn’t “agree” to cut its leasing bill - it was told to. The business plan process was that each TOC had to propose a large suite of cuts and the DfT then chose which ones it wanted to meet its budget line for that TOC. It also, in some cases, imposed specific cuts...