National Express doing well

[WatcherZero]

Been named preferred bidder for five Nuremberg S-Bahn routes in two twelve year franchises worth a combined £1bn starting Dec 2018, currently run by DB Regio and carrying 20m passengers per annum. Only second time after Bremen that DB has lost a metropolitan franchise. Comes on top of NX winning two suburban franchises in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2013.

Who says Franchises in Europe can only be run by the nationalised operators?

 

[zuriblue]

They are also supplying new trains to the Bayern rail authority.

Interestingly they are going for 5 car single deck Skoda 7Evs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Škoda_7Ev

 

[gordonthemoron]

Nuremberg S-Bahn has only recently got some new trains (although they're the same as the RE/RB ones)

 

[duesselmartin]

yes, the new Talent 2 trains can easily be cascaded to other region for RE services, although they are very unpopular by the travelling public..
Interesting is the Skoda contract, taking another bite out of the Bombardier/Alsthom dominace. Siemens seems to be doing poorly in German when it comes to regional products.

 

[northwichcat]

The two biggest British transport companies who have rail franchises are Stagecoach and First and they seem more interested in North America bus and coach operations than bidding for Europe rail operations.

Arriva did have rail operations in Europe before they were purchased by DB.

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

Interestingly, one of the S-Bahn lines will be running on the high speed line Nuremberg-Ingolstadt (line S5). I guess it will be a bit expensive for NX to run on that line.

 

[dutchflyer]

Do you consider those French multiglobal concerns like Veolia and TransDEV as state run?
BTW-Nat Express did not fare well with its try-out set up in Germany to run coaches as c2c-abolished after a year or so.

 

[radamfi]

National Express made a press release around spring 2014 saying how well their German coach operation was doing and they were planning to expand further. Within a few months they had pulled out saying that the competition was too fierce.

I had wondered why Stagecoach hadn't entered the German coach market when it was first deregulated in 2013 and after National Express pulled out it might have seemed that Stagecoach were smart not to enter the market. But they did enter belatedly and are now opening depots in Germany.

 

[fandroid]

I'm not sure that I would describe the Nuremberg S-Bahn network as 'metropolitan'. The U-Bahn deals with most urban routes. The S-Bahn around Nuremberg looks more like a regional network.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Interestingly, one of the S-Bahn lines will be running on the high speed line Nuremberg-Ingolstadt (line S5). I guess it will be a bit expensive for NX to run on that line.

where are the details on that? there are only 2/3 stations between Frankenstadion and Ingolstadt and no areas of population to build new ones. Plus the existing RE services can do 200kph, will the new s-bahn trains be capable of that speed?

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

where are the details on that? there are only 2/3 stations between Frankenstadion and Ingolstadt and no areas of population to build new ones. Plus the existing RE services can do 200kph, will the new s-bahn trains be capable of that speed?

The S5 will not run the entire line, it will be a non-stop service from Nürnberg Hbf to Allersberg (Rothsee), currently these trains are RE trains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allersberg-Express

I don't know whether Škoda's trains can do that speed.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The S5 will not run the entire line, it will be a non-stop service from Nürnberg Hbf to Allersberg (Rothsee), currently these trains are RE trains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allersberg-Express

I don't know whether Škoda's trains can do that speed.

Wiki suggests that the existing REs only run at 140km/h, which seems rather a waste of capacity on a high speed line. Wouldn't something like a Javelin be more appropriate?

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

Wiki suggests that the existing REs only run at 140km/h, which seems rather a waste of capacity on a high speed line. Wouldn't something like a Javelin be more appropriate?

English wikipedia is a bit outdated, German wikipedia says there are now the same trains like on the München-Nürnberg-Express, which run up to 200 km/h.

 

[Bletchleyite]

English wikipedia is a bit outdated, German wikipedia says there are now the same trains like on the München-Nürnberg-Express, which run up to 200 km/h.

Ah OK, that's a bit more like the Swiss approach, then, where 200km/h trains on the Olten NBS are usual.