grumpyoldman01
Member
As erroneous information is often posted whenever class 60 locos are discussed, I'd like to try to set the record straight if I may.
Firstly, something which I've never seen mentioned at all and probably isn't widely known is that the BRB appointed Merz & McLellan to oversee the procurement process; one of their consulting engineers – Dick Hoare (I think his name was spelt with an 'e') – worked with the class 60 project team, and also managed an independent tender evaluation process undertaken by Merz.
Secondly – and I'll put this in capitals for emphasis – THERE WASN'T ANY POLITICAL PRESSURE TO BUY BRITISH; it just so happened that, because of the way events turned out, the Brush offer was “best”.
With regard to the procurement process, it has been recorded that BR was required – under EU procurement law – to invite tenders from throughout Europe; this is untrue. Although public procurement rules pre-dated the UK's membership of the EEC (as it then was), certain sectors – water, energy, transport, and telecomms – were excluded until 1992; BR therefore had freedom of choice when it came to selection of tenderers, specifications, etc., when it undertook this procurement exercise in 1987
The invitation to tender comprised three main elements; these can be summarised as a letter of invitation, the terms and conditions under which BR wanted to procure the locomotives, and a specification. Three tenders were received, from Brush, a GEC/GM partnership, and from Metro-Cammell; the last offered BR a “pick-and-mix” design, the onus being on the purchaser to decide which engine it wanted, who's electrical equipment should be used, etc, and it was quickly discarded.
Evaluation of the tenders was split into two elements; the commercial evaluation was undertaken by BR's procurement department, and the technical evaluation by a team lead by the Class 60 Project Engineer in the M&EE Dept. For those not familiar with the Railway Technical Centre in Derby, these departments were located in adjoining buildings on the RTC site, and easy liaison between those undertaking the evaluation was therefore possible.
With regard to the technical offers, what Brush offered is easy to see; there would have been “tweaks” to the design as a result of tender evaluation/clarification meetings between BR and Brush, but the original offer was very close to the locos which emerged from Loughborough.
GEC's proposed loco looked like a class 59, would have sounded like a 59 (because of its 16 cylinder EMD 645-series engine), but WASN'T a 59! This is something which is often overlooked by people commentating on class 60s by making suggestions such as BR should have just purchased more class 59s; quite simply, BR wasn't given the option of buying more locos of that type by GM, instead it being offered a GEC machine which looked like a 59 and had the same EMD engine. Although the 710 series engines had been introduced by that time, they weren't being used for locos outside of North America, and this is why the older 645 series was retained in the GEC/GM offer.
The tender evaluation process determined that:
As part of the technical evaluation, the Project Engineer and his team set about trying to validate claims regarding performance, reliability, etc made by the tenderers; these threw up some surprises.
Firstly, it is widely claimed that American diesels are far more reliable than British ones; because it maintained the 59s, BR had access to information about actual failures, etc, by the Foster Yeoman locos, and when it compared them to class 58s it discovered that – surprise! surprise! - the 58s were achieving more miles per technical failure than the 59s. They were, in fact, the more reliable locos.
With regard to the Mirrlees MB275 engines offered by Brush, BR had some experience of this engine type in 37901 – 4; at the time of the tender evaluation in late 1987, these were performing well, and consequently claims made by Brush about their performance were seen as reasonable.
The second major surprise arose as a consequence of a question raised by Dick Hoare. He acknowledged that, because of the types of work they did and the way they were maintained, the class 59s should be – theoretically – out-performing the 58s; the 58s were more general purpose locos, often stopping-and-starting, and being serviced/maintained by anyone, whereas the 59s were used only on stone trains, spent much of their time just plodding along the Berks & Hants, and were maintained by dedicated teams. Had, asked Dick, BR got any of its own locos which could be compared with the class 59s?
After some thought and digging about, the project engineering team settled on the Leicester outbased class 56s; they spent their lives on stone trains and were maintained only at Leicester.
And much to everyone's surprise, when the reliability figures for these specific locos were analysed it turned out that they were even more reliable than the 58s and the 59s!
From time-to-time, some work was re-done at the request of Merz; for example, the GEC/GM proposal didn't have BR's required cab design, and therefore would have scored '0' in the technical evaluation for that segment of the spec, whereas Brush would have had maximum points, and Merz asked for the evaluation to be undertaken again with elements such as this ignored. This didn't significantly change the score, and consequently the overall conclusion that the Brush offer was more technically compliant than the GEC/GM one.
As mentioned earlier, Merz undertook an independent evaluation of the Brush and GEC/GM tenders; they also concluded that the Brush offer was best, and the magnitude of difference between their scores for the two offers was greater than BR's.
No doubt Brush had marshalled political support to press for BR to procure British, it being widely assumed that the decision would be to acquire class 59s from GM; but 59s weren't offered and the Brush tender came out on top solely on its own merits. Consequently, political pressure wasn't needed, and therefore wasn't made; to argue that it was is detrimental to the guys at Brush who responded well to BR's tender invitation, and particularly to its spec. I believe what was a political decision was that by Wisconsin Central to procure the class 66s; they wouldn't have been under any obligation to invite tenders (in accordance with EU public procurement rules), and could simply award a contract to EMD, which they did. Quite simply, it was an American company buying American, a product they were very familiar with. With hindsight, the sale of all of the ex-BR freight companies to Wisconsin Central probably signalled the end of British diesel locomotive building, although I guess this wasn't thought about at the time by government.
Merz produced a comprehensive report at the end of the process recording most of the above; much documentation was destroyed by BR at privatisation, and it's quite possible that a copy of it doesn't exist in the public domain. Anyone know if a copy is at York or in the National Archive at Kew?
Before privatisation, the class 60 fleet was split three ways, 33/33/34, between BR's three freight companies; the engineer responsible for the split ensured his company got the 34th loco, so he must have held the class with high regard!
There's sometimes speculation about which diesels would have followed the class 60s if BR hadn't been privatised; so far as I am aware, the only ones being considered in the early 1990s were the class 48s, passenger diesels primarily for XC but also for EPS (for working with 'Nightstock'). This project collapsed really because the IC250 project didn't go ahead; Mk IIIs would have been cascaded from the WCML to XC, and they would have worked with the 48s in push-pull mode (most likely with DVTs cascaded from the WCML, but they may have been modified to carry passengers). The class 38 concept had gone very quiet by this time; perhaps it had been delayed by the class 37 heavy overhaul programme, and then “died” as a result of privatisation.
Sorry about the length of this post; moreover, I hope its OK to start this as a new thread, as there doesn't seem to be any “natural home” for this information which, hopefully, helps to clear-up some of the misconceptions, etc., which seem to surround the procurement of the class 60s. It's over 30 years since the locos were ordered, and there are some details which I can't remember (such as the margin of the class 58's superior reliability over the class 59s), but hopefully the above helps people understand why the order for these locos was awarded to Brush.
Firstly, something which I've never seen mentioned at all and probably isn't widely known is that the BRB appointed Merz & McLellan to oversee the procurement process; one of their consulting engineers – Dick Hoare (I think his name was spelt with an 'e') – worked with the class 60 project team, and also managed an independent tender evaluation process undertaken by Merz.
Secondly – and I'll put this in capitals for emphasis – THERE WASN'T ANY POLITICAL PRESSURE TO BUY BRITISH; it just so happened that, because of the way events turned out, the Brush offer was “best”.
With regard to the procurement process, it has been recorded that BR was required – under EU procurement law – to invite tenders from throughout Europe; this is untrue. Although public procurement rules pre-dated the UK's membership of the EEC (as it then was), certain sectors – water, energy, transport, and telecomms – were excluded until 1992; BR therefore had freedom of choice when it came to selection of tenderers, specifications, etc., when it undertook this procurement exercise in 1987
The invitation to tender comprised three main elements; these can be summarised as a letter of invitation, the terms and conditions under which BR wanted to procure the locomotives, and a specification. Three tenders were received, from Brush, a GEC/GM partnership, and from Metro-Cammell; the last offered BR a “pick-and-mix” design, the onus being on the purchaser to decide which engine it wanted, who's electrical equipment should be used, etc, and it was quickly discarded.
Evaluation of the tenders was split into two elements; the commercial evaluation was undertaken by BR's procurement department, and the technical evaluation by a team lead by the Class 60 Project Engineer in the M&EE Dept. For those not familiar with the Railway Technical Centre in Derby, these departments were located in adjoining buildings on the RTC site, and easy liaison between those undertaking the evaluation was therefore possible.
With regard to the technical offers, what Brush offered is easy to see; there would have been “tweaks” to the design as a result of tender evaluation/clarification meetings between BR and Brush, but the original offer was very close to the locos which emerged from Loughborough.
GEC's proposed loco looked like a class 59, would have sounded like a 59 (because of its 16 cylinder EMD 645-series engine), but WASN'T a 59! This is something which is often overlooked by people commentating on class 60s by making suggestions such as BR should have just purchased more class 59s; quite simply, BR wasn't given the option of buying more locos of that type by GM, instead it being offered a GEC machine which looked like a 59 and had the same EMD engine. Although the 710 series engines had been introduced by that time, they weren't being used for locos outside of North America, and this is why the older 645 series was retained in the GEC/GM offer.
The tender evaluation process determined that:
- the Brush capital cost per loco was lower than that quoted by GEC/GM;
- the whole life cost for the Brush loco was lower than for the GEC/GM one;
- Brush could deliver locos earlier that GEC/GM;
- the Brush loco was more technically compliant with BR's spec than the GEC/GM one was;
- and BR was unable to reach agreement with GEC/GM on commercial matters, whereas it was with Brush
As part of the technical evaluation, the Project Engineer and his team set about trying to validate claims regarding performance, reliability, etc made by the tenderers; these threw up some surprises.
Firstly, it is widely claimed that American diesels are far more reliable than British ones; because it maintained the 59s, BR had access to information about actual failures, etc, by the Foster Yeoman locos, and when it compared them to class 58s it discovered that – surprise! surprise! - the 58s were achieving more miles per technical failure than the 59s. They were, in fact, the more reliable locos.
With regard to the Mirrlees MB275 engines offered by Brush, BR had some experience of this engine type in 37901 – 4; at the time of the tender evaluation in late 1987, these were performing well, and consequently claims made by Brush about their performance were seen as reasonable.
The second major surprise arose as a consequence of a question raised by Dick Hoare. He acknowledged that, because of the types of work they did and the way they were maintained, the class 59s should be – theoretically – out-performing the 58s; the 58s were more general purpose locos, often stopping-and-starting, and being serviced/maintained by anyone, whereas the 59s were used only on stone trains, spent much of their time just plodding along the Berks & Hants, and were maintained by dedicated teams. Had, asked Dick, BR got any of its own locos which could be compared with the class 59s?
After some thought and digging about, the project engineering team settled on the Leicester outbased class 56s; they spent their lives on stone trains and were maintained only at Leicester.
And much to everyone's surprise, when the reliability figures for these specific locos were analysed it turned out that they were even more reliable than the 58s and the 59s!
From time-to-time, some work was re-done at the request of Merz; for example, the GEC/GM proposal didn't have BR's required cab design, and therefore would have scored '0' in the technical evaluation for that segment of the spec, whereas Brush would have had maximum points, and Merz asked for the evaluation to be undertaken again with elements such as this ignored. This didn't significantly change the score, and consequently the overall conclusion that the Brush offer was more technically compliant than the GEC/GM one.
As mentioned earlier, Merz undertook an independent evaluation of the Brush and GEC/GM tenders; they also concluded that the Brush offer was best, and the magnitude of difference between their scores for the two offers was greater than BR's.
No doubt Brush had marshalled political support to press for BR to procure British, it being widely assumed that the decision would be to acquire class 59s from GM; but 59s weren't offered and the Brush tender came out on top solely on its own merits. Consequently, political pressure wasn't needed, and therefore wasn't made; to argue that it was is detrimental to the guys at Brush who responded well to BR's tender invitation, and particularly to its spec. I believe what was a political decision was that by Wisconsin Central to procure the class 66s; they wouldn't have been under any obligation to invite tenders (in accordance with EU public procurement rules), and could simply award a contract to EMD, which they did. Quite simply, it was an American company buying American, a product they were very familiar with. With hindsight, the sale of all of the ex-BR freight companies to Wisconsin Central probably signalled the end of British diesel locomotive building, although I guess this wasn't thought about at the time by government.
Merz produced a comprehensive report at the end of the process recording most of the above; much documentation was destroyed by BR at privatisation, and it's quite possible that a copy of it doesn't exist in the public domain. Anyone know if a copy is at York or in the National Archive at Kew?
Before privatisation, the class 60 fleet was split three ways, 33/33/34, between BR's three freight companies; the engineer responsible for the split ensured his company got the 34th loco, so he must have held the class with high regard!
There's sometimes speculation about which diesels would have followed the class 60s if BR hadn't been privatised; so far as I am aware, the only ones being considered in the early 1990s were the class 48s, passenger diesels primarily for XC but also for EPS (for working with 'Nightstock'). This project collapsed really because the IC250 project didn't go ahead; Mk IIIs would have been cascaded from the WCML to XC, and they would have worked with the 48s in push-pull mode (most likely with DVTs cascaded from the WCML, but they may have been modified to carry passengers). The class 38 concept had gone very quiet by this time; perhaps it had been delayed by the class 37 heavy overhaul programme, and then “died” as a result of privatisation.
Sorry about the length of this post; moreover, I hope its OK to start this as a new thread, as there doesn't seem to be any “natural home” for this information which, hopefully, helps to clear-up some of the misconceptions, etc., which seem to surround the procurement of the class 60s. It's over 30 years since the locos were ordered, and there are some details which I can't remember (such as the margin of the class 58's superior reliability over the class 59s), but hopefully the above helps people understand why the order for these locos was awarded to Brush.
