Bombardier £188m Order from Southern

[tbtc]

Now now

But actually that does raise a serious point, it seemed a lot of the outrage was over the loss jobs (even though Thameslink would have only saved 200) but have we been told how many this new deal is going to save?

No, I think that they are hoping that we won't do the maths (and realise taht over a thousand jobs are still "lost" even after this deal)

 

[Minstral25]

Originally Posted by Peter Sarf
I suppose that not all routes on Southern or SWT will go 10 car. Moving the 456s to SWT leaves both SWT and southern with some 455s to work the remaining 8-car (or less) services. Oh and the alternative would perhaps mean ordering more 450s - and that would not be fair would it ?.

All the routes on SWT are planned to go to 10 car though. That is the basis on which NR have just awarded a £30m contract to extend the platforms on every remaining suburban route. As all the diagrams get to Waterloo at some stage during the morning peak, I can't see how you can get away with only extend some of the trains...

But so are all the Southern routes in the metro area, that's the Dec 2013 commitment to TfL which has caused this order.

What routes do Southern have that 4-car 455's can work that are not Metro routes - Horsham via Gatwick and Horsham via Dorking, East Grinstead (can 455's run as 12 car units?), Brighton - Southampton? Do 455's have toilets?

Not saying I right but that's why I have never understood the rumour oft repeated to send the 456's to SWT as they are perfect to make a 455+455+456 10 car unit for Southern (46 455's and 24 456's - leaves a spare 456)

 

[WatcherZero]

Now now

But actually that does raise a serious point, it seemed a lot of the outrage was over the loss jobs (even though Thameslink would have only saved 200) but have we been told how many this new deal is going to save?

Bombardier released a statement saying they didnt know yet if any jobs would be saved by this order or not. If they were to be saved they would know already as they would have to assign personnel to the production lines while scheduling completion and delivery dates so I guess the answer is a no.

 

[ushawk]

But so are all the Southern routes in the metro area, that's the Dec 2013 commitment to TfL which has caused this order.

What routes do Southern have that 4-car 455's can work that are not Metro routes - Horsham via Gatwick and Horsham via Dorking, East Grinstead (can 455's run as 12 car units?), Brighton - Southampton? Do 455's have toilets?

Not saying I right but that's why I have never understood the rumour oft repeated to send the 456's to SWT as they are perfect to make a 455+455+456 10 car unit for Southern (46 455's and 24 456's - leaves a spare 456)

Think i saw a rumour somewhere that a couple of 455's could come down to the Coastways, although nothing as such has happened and i dont believe it will.

 

[swt_passenger]

Not saying I right but that's why I have never understood the rumour oft repeated to send the 456's to SWT as they are perfect to make a 455+455+456 10 car unit for Southern (46 455's and 24 456's - leaves a spare 456)

I agree. Despite NR going into print about 455/456s in multiple being used on the SW suburban routes (which I think is more than a rumour), it seems to me the numbers don't add up at all for SWT, whereas they do for SN as you rightly point out.

I expect if there's to be an announcement it'll be pretty low key when it happens - as it would be a fairly serious reduction (48 vehicles) compared to the gain of 130 vehicles that is being trumpeted by DfT this week...

 

[Wyvern]

Re this 1000 days. This is the main reason the Derby Works is in a mess. One minute it is swamped by a massive order, the next nothing. How can any company organise itself effectively.

We know there are future requirements. Wouldn't it make sense to budget for a steady programmed annual renewal process? But British railway finance has never worked like that and, if you get some money from the government , you need to spend it quick before it changes its mind. I understand the original plan for the LUL stock was to build a small number of prototypes and run them for a year in service to iron out the snags, but this was overruled by the customer.

The best outcome would be to build 377s exactly like the previous batch. Then we know they should be compatible and there's no new gadgets to cause problems.

As for employment I suspect the contract workers that form part of the 1400 will not be taken on. But some of the redundancies I am given to understand are senior managers and directors, who have been replaced by head office people. A night of the long knives?

Whether this is a good thing for the world's oldest train building facility still in production, only time will tell. Are they losing old guard people who are set in their ways, disillusioned by recent decades, coasting down to retirement? Or are they getting a group of George Dixon's "new university educated five minute managers"?

 

[Schnellzug]

Re this 1000 days. This is the main reason the Derby Works is in a mess. One minute it is swamped by a massive order, the next nothing. How can any company organise itself effectively.

We know there are future requirements. Wouldn't it make sense to budget for a steady programmed annual renewal process? But British railway finance has never worked like that and, if you get some money from the government , you need to spend it quick before it changes its mind.

Indeed, and, not wanting to go into the wearisome "should BR be Brought Back?" argument again, it's all because it always relies on Government finance, isn't it. So yet again, why not let the train operators do exactly what any other industry- haulage companies, bus companies, airlines- do, in fact, as the rail freight companies do, and let them chose what to buy & when? If it's going to be argued, as I expect it will, that they wouldn't possibly be able to afford to do that or be interested in doing that, being only interested in profit, well, so are all the other industries referred to. Only they can plan and budget for long term investment since they don't need to worry about whether their franchise'll be renewed in a few years time. Yet another argument, see, for scrapping the franchise system & letting the companies take full responsibility.

 

[jopsuk]

What routes do Southern have that 4-car 455's can work that are not Metro routes - Horsham via Gatwick and Horsham via Dorking, East Grinstead (can 455's run as 12 car units?), Brighton - Southampton? Do 455's have toilets?

Nope. loo-free metro units the lot of them

Not saying I right but that's why I have never understood the rumour oft repeated to send the 456's to SWT as they are perfect to make a 455+455+456 10 car unit for Southern (46 455's and 24 456's - leaves a spare 456)

Would it be so hard to reinstate the corridor connector on the Southern 455s and tack a 456 car to one end? could go further and "reclaim" the driving cab and driver's vestibule to become passenger cabin space. if being radical, they could be set up as Japanese-style assymetric units, with a full width 456 cab at one end and a through-corridor cab at the other. Would need careful diagramming and perhaps a couple of judicious turning facilities to ensure all 10-car workings had the units the right way round.

After all, whilst the way Southern removed the connector on their fleet is much mocked (rightly) for being ugly, it is a less permanent change than Scotrail/SPT modifying their 318 fleet.

 

[Nym]

Or just longer franchises...

But yeah, I don't see any 10 year old Eddie Stobart vehicles kicking about on their network, and they turn a healthy profit...

If a franchise was long enough for operators to actually be able to see a return on their investment (at least half the expected lifespan of rolling stock) then I can see some companies willing to invest in new rolling stock and enhanced services, look at what happened with Operation Princess, if the TOC have had free reign over it's units, would we still be faced with 4 or 5 car units today, would they all now have generator carriages inserted into them? Even if the TOC wanted longer units, do you really think they could have faced going to the DfT/SRA/ORR whatever and begging permission to buy or lease more?

 

[ainsworth74]

Re this 1000 days. This is the main reason the Derby Works is in a mess. One minute it is swamped by a massive order, the next nothing. How can any company organise itself effectively.

Hell the first 1,000 days is the reason we only have one train building factory in the UK! If there had never been that massive gap then whilst I still think what was once BREL would have shrunk I do think it wouldn't have shrunk to just one factory in the Midlands.

 

[87015]

Or just longer franchises...

But yeah, I don't see any 10 year old Eddie Stobart vehicles kicking about on their network, and they turn a healthy profit...

If a franchise was long enough for operators to actually be able to see a return on their investment (at least half the expected lifespan of rolling stock) then I can see some companies willing to invest in new rolling stock and enhanced services, look at what happened with Operation Princess, if the TOC have had free reign over it's units, would we still be faced with 4 or 5 car units today, would they all now have generator carriages inserted into them? Even if the TOC wanted longer units, do you really think they could have faced going to the DfT/SRA/ORR whatever and begging permission to buy or lease more?

But Operation Princess ruined VXC financially, they had to give up and get bailed out onto a management contract, so what money would a truly private XC have had to invest in more coaches, or to pay for anything in the first place?

 

[swt_passenger]

Seems to me though, that the basic problem is that with rolling stock having a book life of 35-40 years, and assuming you ever got the peaks and troughs in demand sorted out, is there really enough work out there for there to be realistic competition for a number of UK manufacturers?

In other words, what would be the steady state number of replacement rail vehicles required per year - and can it ever support a 'rail industry'?

 

[Nym]

But Operation Princess ruined VXC financially, they had to give up and get bailed out onto a management contract, so what money would a truly private XC have had to invest in more coaches, or to pay for anything in the first place?

More going for the example of success by way of increasing passenger numbers, rather than what it cost, if it where a 30 or 40 year franchise then leasing companies may have looked upon them more favourably. But the thing is, VXC showed that new stock, more services etc. does make more pax.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Re this 1000 days. This is the main reason the Derby Works is in a mess. One minute it is swamped by a massive order, the next nothing. How can any company organise itself effectively.

The rail industry is a global one, and Derby has been in multi-national ownership for more than 20 years.
Where are the orders for export to fill the gap left by domestic work?
Bombardier makes trains and aircraft parts all over the world (including Belfast).
An integrated business would be seeking to load its factories efficiently dependent on the flow of orders worldwide.
It may need to cut capacity, but that's its decision if the orders are inufficient.
How is it that Derby is still stuck in the last century waiting for limited UK orders?
Is it a failure of the local management or of corporate vision over the ABB/Adranz/Bombardier years?
Didn't they build trams for Strasbourg, and Gautrain for South Africa?
It is not entirely the UK government's fault that Derby is in the position it is.

Just my 5p.

 

[ainsworth74]

Where are the orders for export to fill the gap left by domestic work?

That's very true but the problem is that Derby will always struggle to compete on the international market due to it's position in the UK. When it comes to moving rolling stock from Derby to Europe (for example) you can't take it by rail as most of the rolling stock that would be built wouldn't fit the reduced UK loading gauge down to London or to a nearby port (which is a bit of fallacy as Derby is about as far away from the sea as you can get) so you have to take each vehicle by road either a port or HS1. This increases your delivery costs massively. Conversely a European Mainland bases factory can ship it's new trains in large consists by rail.

What Derby needs to do in the short term at least is bid on some of the upcoming refurbishment work that will have to be done to make rolling stock DDA compliant. Informed Sources in Modern Railways calculated that there would be something like 300/400 vehicles per year (I could be off on that figure but nonetheless it's a lot of vehicles per year) that needed modifications until 2019. That's the sort of work that could keep Derby open.

 

[asylumxl]

Just my 5p.

A good 5p it is.

Forgive me for being a cynic, but I can't help feel Bombardier wants to get maximum return out of one or two inhereted designs, and then shut up shop.

 

[anthony263]

What Derby needs to do in the short term at least is bid on some of the upcoming refurbishment work that will have to be done to make rolling stock DDA compliant. Informed Sources in Modern Railways calculated that there would be something like 300/400 vehicles per year (I could be off on that figure but nonetheless it's a lot of vehicles per year) that needed modifications until 2019. That's the sort of work that could keep Derby open.

That is true and to be honest the DFT and ROSCO's need to hurry up and get on with it.

I can see a major rush to get the class 150/153/158/165/166 fleets refurbished/rebuilt to meet the DDA rules, in this rush I can see some shortage of DMU's witha possible short term return to loco hauled trains to provide some cover.

An example could be a return to loco hauled trains on the Cardiff - Taunton/Paignton diagrams perhaps?

 

[jopsuk]

Seems to me though, that the basic problem is that with rolling stock having a book life of 35-40 years, and assuming you ever got the peaks and troughs in demand sorted out, is there really enough work out there for there to be realistic competition for a number of UK manufacturers?

In other words, what would be the steady state number of replacement rail vehicles required per year - and can it ever support a 'rail industry'?

BR wasn't doing too bad a job with smooth replacement. But then we had a run-down to privitisation culminating in a 1000 day order drought, followed by a rush as operators were held to plans to wipe out the slam door stock (other than HSTs/very limited other uses). If NSE had been left to get rid of their slam doors, the program may well have concluded around the same time, but it would have been a steady stream of Networkers over that time (more than likely), whilst diesel slam door units in the rest of the country may have hung on a little longer- the flood of turbostars might not have happened. maybe. Possibly.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Forgive me for being a cynic, but I can't help feel Bombardier wants to get maximum return out of one or two inhereted designs, and then shut up shop.

you could be onto something there. Then Litchurch Lane could be flogged off for housing

 

[Wyvern]

you can't take it by rail as most of the rolling stock that would be built wouldn't fit the reduced UK loading gauge down to London or to a nearby port

This is why the East Midlands should be more keen to see the MML upgraded. HS2 is not going to be that much help, going round by Birmingham. Trouble is people have got too fond of their cars. How much of it is actually too small? (excluding London itself since the traffic we are taking about willl miss it.)

What Derby needs to do in the short term at least is bid on some of the upcoming refurbishment work that will have to be done to make rolling stock DDA compliant.

Derby survived on refurbishment of LUL stock for many years. Then they started refusing it for some reason. My pet theory is it takes a great deal of logistics organisation. Perhaps the new management has the skills to organise it. That's if it isn't simply a wrecking crew.

 

[Blindtraveler]

agree where refurb work is concerned. If the roscos are keen to keep sprinters etc going it must be done.
Another point is the major refurbishment of the voyagers which although0built on the continent could be done, with or without pato cars at Darby?
With money also asigned for sleaper replacement then design and build work might be theres too and would make sense as they already do work closely with Scotrails turbostars

 

[Nym]

A fair few leasing companies are looking to bring maintenance and overhauls in house, I know one is, because the're making a big drive for qualified and graduate engineers with practical experience at the minute...

 

[HSTEd]

A good 5p it is.

Forgive me for being a cynic, but I can't help feel Bombardier wants to get maximum return out of one or two inhereted designs, and then shut up shop.

My father called this at privatisation (he worked for the railways 68/9-01) and it would appear he is finally been proved correct, the same thing that happened to the other old BREL works is finally happening at derby.

Especially for the loading guage reasons, the only sustainable solution is the DfT bring rolling stock construction "in house" as it is the one that effectively orders all the stock these days.

But that would be socialist.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I understand the original plan for the LUL stock was to build a small number of prototypes and run them for a year in service to iron out the snags, but this was overruled by the customer.

And look what has happened with the S Stock as a result! TfL must be wishing they had listened?

 

[150222]

In defence of the Derby works the class 170 is compatible with Sprinters while the 175s and 185s are not. The 170 could even be modified to be compatible with EMUs (as Southern have done) and 185s (as TPE have done.) The 185s as built were not compatible with any other type of train and the Siemens 350s and 380s aren't compatible with each other which is why the LM/TPE order is for the older 350 design not the 380 design.

TPE 170's and 185's are not compatible!

 

[Blindtraveler]

i admit to taking my finger off the button but whats happened with the S stock? I know deliveries are currently caped.

 

[Wyvern]

TPE 170's and 185's are not compatible!

I think that's what he meant ??
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

This is why the East Midlands should be more keen to see the MML upgraded. HS2 is not going to be that much help, going round by Birmingham. Trouble is people have got too fond of their cars. How much of it is actually too small? (excluding London itself since the traffic we are taking about willl miss it.)

Quoting myself here. I've just remembered Network Rail is upgrading a path across country to international gauge. This presumably means Syston Junction and Stenson Junction, which is within spitting distance of Derby.

 

[Blindtraveler]

good!

 

[DesiroDom]

Good news - will be interesting to see whether these are 377s or 379s!

Probably 377's since Southern already operate them and that is very good news wish the government gave the Thameslink contract to Bombardier instead of Siemens

 

[Wyvern]

Probably 377's since Southern already operate them and that is very good news wish the government gave the Thameslink contract to Bombardier instead of Siemens

377/6 I've read somwhere on here. 377 works in a 379 body?