The obvious 'do minimum' options are primarily to shrink fleet size and secondarily to life-extend 158s.
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Northern contract and Business Commitments
- Thread starter Snow1964
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Unless there was a massive programme of line closures that would make Beeching look minor*, Northern have far too many 150s and 156s for that to be viable. Though it might be possible if they got all the TfW 158s?
* Say goodbye to, for example, Ormskirk, Blackpool South, Headbolt, the Cumbrian Coast past Barrow, the S&C, Bentham, probably the Hope Valley locals, and they'd probably need to convince Manchester to convert more Manchester commuter lines to Metrolink, too. At least.
Apart from Huddersfield, one of which has already been extended and the other is being abolished, and Leeds, which is only platform 17 and this is a relatively simple job to extend, this really isn't an issue. Leeds needs quite a lot of money but it's not technically very challenging. Also platform 2C at Sheffield may be a pain but it's not a rate limiting step, and will also probably be extended within the next ten years.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
There are rather a lot of Express Sprinters which aren't in the franchise which will be available and could be life extended. I said it's a do minimum option, not a desirable option. There's also way too many 185s for the work, so some of those can take over the 195 work. Finally, as the discussion in the South Fylde thread showed, shrinking the fleet doesn't need to mean Beeching style closure, people are just purists who leap to these conclusions. There are actually a large number of options.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
If you cascaded Northern all the TfW 158s and 769s (if not already scrapped) it'd probably be workable.
The TfW ones will be available from 2025-26 and the ScotRail ones from 2030-31. The downside to this is that the factories may decline to bid for life extension works on 158s. Either way there's a metaphorical gun on the table for the incoming English SoS for Transport to deal with. 769s are junk sadly, and don't save money so they have no future.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
769s aren't great, but Northern do seem to be making them work-ish to the point of being usable.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Are there not off-lease class 175s and 379s? If you're building a business case you would surely consider the viability of refurbished/converted existing trains that are newer than the trains being withdrawn.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It's said that there's a taker for the full 175 fleet, but not yet which TOC.
The last thing that is needed is a commitment to a 1960s solution to the 21st century problem.
A local train uses about 2.5Kwh per vehicle mile. There are already buses and coaches with 300Kwh batteries under them - the going rate appears to be around 625kg/100Kwh.
There are more cost effective and faster solutions than a 60yr, £300bn rolling electrification programme.
Chiltern would be my bet, rather than Northern.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
If Chiltern take them on, they could still release vehicles newer than the Sprinters, which could be used in Northern's business case for replacement trains.
Haywain
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 3 Feb 2013
- Messages
- 24,549
While VTEC were able to do that, and the wording of the commitment helped, I doubt it would be anywhere near as easy for Northern to do it now that they are an OLR company.Wonder if Northern will take the same approach as VTEC then and rip out the barriers at stations they can't be bothered with manning the barrier for the required times
I'm not sure any released train sets would be suitable.
See dedicated thread here for discussion of the Northern unit tender and rolling stock aspects. This thread remains just in case anyone wanted to discuss the non-rolling stock related aspects of the Northern contract and business commitments.
Snow1964
Established Member
Seems Northern failed to meet their previous commitments in multiple areas.
There is a 7 page notice of breach letter, section B lists 19 of them towards the end
There is a 7 page notice of breach letter, section B lists 19 of them towards the end
Snow1964
Established Member
DfT has now added the Northern train services reqirements
www.gov.uk
Northern Railway 2022 OLR rail services contract
Services contract and ancillary legal documents for DfT OLR Holdings Limited and Northern Trains Limited.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
It's up to the manufacturers/Roscos to respond to a Northern ITT (which they haven't produced yet), with commercial proposals.
Northern won't be doing any engineering or re-engineering.
Northern then just chooses (with DfT checking their arithmetic).
The bids won't be cheap, as the bidders know all too well how the DfT can truncate or respecify train orders.
There is also likely to be a change of government and maybe a change in procurement policy, before an order is placed.
Last edited:
Greybeard33
Established Member
The TSRs in this document are for the December 2019 timetable, pre-Covid and prior to the December 2022 Manchester Task Force recast.DfT has now added the Northern train services reqirements
Northern Railway 2022 OLR rail services contract
Services contract and ancillary legal documents for DfT OLR Holdings Limited and Northern Trains Limited.
- Status