Leasing Costs

[BantamMenace]

I'm looking for as much information and data as possible about the leasing costs of uk passenger rolling stock.

I'd ideal like the monthly cost of as many different classes as possible. As well as questions answering such as;

-Is this data even in the public domain or is it commercially sensitive and falls under management accounting data instead of financial accounting data useful for investor decisions?
-Are LHCS sets such as HSTs and 225s leased per car or per set?
-Is any maintenance covered in the cost of the lease?
-Are operators held to ransom at lease contract renewals as the ROSCOs know they need the stock to operate their franchise committed timetables?

I'm collecting this data for an upcoming academic project of mine and whilst references of where the figures come from would be helpful it isnt entily essential.

I'll hopefully edit this opening post to form a list of costs on a class by class basis as the thread progresses if this information is available.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I'm looking for as much information and data as possible about the leasing costs of uk passenger rolling stock.

I'd ideal like the monthly cost of as many different classes as possible. As well as questions answering such as;

-Is this data even in the public domain or is it commercially sensitive and falls under management accounting data instead of financial accounting data useful for investor decisions?
-Are LHCS sets such as HSTs and 225s leased per car or per set?
-Is any maintenance covered in the cost of the lease?
-Are operators held to ransom at lease contract renewals as the ROSCOs know they need the stock to operate their franchise committed timetables?

It is, or course, commercially sensitive.
It's the core business of several private sector companies/banks and they do everything possible to disguise the cost of doing business.
As far as I know (which is very little), leasing costs are normally per car and include lifecycle maintenance (but not usually day to day servicing).
The ROSCOs also cover regulatory costs (like the new accessibility regulations), so as to extend the working life of the vehicle.

The answer to your last question is either Yes or No depending on your point of view.
There was a long-running dispute between the DfT and the ROSCOs about the lease costs of the ex-BR fleet, which DfT thought was excessive.
It was referred to the Competition Commission, who concluded that they were not excessive, and that the DfT routinely rigged the franchising contracts to the extent that is was not a normal competitive market.
The CC report was "Rolling Stock Leasing Market Investigation" dated 7 April 2009.
It should be on the Competition and Markets Authority web site but I can't find a link for you - the CC became the CMA and archived all the CC material.
There was also a fierce DfT riposte denying they interfered with the market, but of course they still do it, by telling TOCs which stock to use and for how long.
There is still a legacy of this dispute today, and most of the recent large deals have bypassed the original ROSCOS.
In some ways the market is more level now, because the ex-BR fleet is approaching life expiry and the cost of keeping it in service is getting closer to the cost of leasing new trains (which avoids the cost of compliance to new regulations).

Leasing contracts are now often package deals between several companies, providing the stock, maintenance, depots and funding.
For instance Pendolinos, Voyagers, IEP, Thameslink and most new fleets are like this, so you will never get to the bare per-coach leasing cost to compare apples and apples.
For IEP for instance, you lease a "diagram" which is one train set per day, which is replaced if it goes out of service with a fault.
This puts the reliability risk on the provider (ROSCO) rather than the TOC.

 

[Gareth Marston]

If you look at the Office of a Rail Regulators website they produce a yearly spreadsheet on UK Rail. Financial information including a heading of rolling stock costs for each TOC. Though as has been said the terms of each fleet are vastly different whilst the fleets on long term packages costs are in there it's not detailed enough to see if maintainence on non package fleets is included.

I had the figures Wales and Borders trains were paying in 2003. A 3 car 175 was about £450K per annum but this included the total care package provided by Alstom. The ex BR fleet was just lease costs with maintainence paid by the TOC separately. 158's were £250K per annum, 150's £150K and Pacers £85K per annum.