The cynicism of age says those preparing the business case will have difficulty in accurately forecasting the rail travel market in 2031 let alone beyond 2050 when these units will still be expected to continue operating in front line service. Could they still be soldiering on into the 2070s?
Why is building starting then? Why can’t the be built as soon as they are ordered? therefore replacing the sprinter units earlier.
As mentioned there's the detailed design phase to be done, until there's a firm order the manufacturers will not do a full design to Northern's specific requirements. The MMU's will take longer as they are a more complicated product than a simple DMU or EMU would be hence why the new EMU's should be delivered earlier.
Red tape, dithering, covid planning blight,and bureaucracy is the short answer.
This is a framework deal for a large quantity of rolling stock over eight years. Across the two phases listed it accounts for 943 vehicles, which is more than 5% the current GB mainline fleet across all operators. The actual number could be larger still as there could be further phases added on. There are lots which may be to show best value has been obtained rather than any intention to award to three separate suppliers. For Northern many crews will work across the various modes of power and a single platform will save a lot of training costs.
The framework part is good in principle, but really it needed to be tied to the expected major overhaul dates of current fleet. At the moment seems to be prone to dates drifting a year or three, which potentially means lots of expensive repair / life extension work to existing fleet
Yes there is time and cost of training, but this needs to be balanced against not incurring cost of patching up a fleet that is degrading (and likely to become more expensive to patch up longer it needs to keep going. If keeping delaying to get some universal wonder fleet sometime in 2030s then any savings from standardised training get dwarfed by old fleet.
I apologise for not being clear, I didn't mean start again, just pool resources. If they are all going to be bidding for same production capacity because they have same timescale, doesn't really make any difference overall to how quick all operators get their last deliveries
same argument, they are competing with factory capacity with other UK (and potentially European) operators, no manufacturer can suddenly build hundreds more vehicles if they already have other framework orders from Europe taking up next few years build slots.
This is true, but BEMUs are already designed (or at least the technical bits are as being rolled out around Europe), that means could potentially get in first as less to design, as using a derivative of a European train (just with UK size body shell), if that happened and GWR gets authorised first, suddenly Northern could find itself in a queue behind a build for GWR if it does not cooperate and accidentally chooses same supplier.
There is no signs that the award is being pushed back. If the process takes longer than expected, decided to change the planned process nearly always adds rather than reduces the time. It is extremely common for procurements to take longer than the original timeframes given, most buyers want things as soon as possible so anything which prevents a clear run causes dates to slip. Ideally you start earlier, but that's not something that can be changed now.
I'm not clear what resources you suggest they pool? Northern cannot ask their bidders to design trains for Chiltern, SWR or GWR it's not in scope and requires a restart to bring in. If people, seconding from those to Northern probably won't speed things up materially and would significantly delay those other operators in earlier stages of preparing for new fleet orders.
If you have three separate larger tenders (Southeastern, Northern and combined Chiltern/SWR/GWR) they could be awarded to three different manufacturers with single manufacturer per tender. That will use more capacity in parallel giving quicker overall delivery.
Northern cannot decide to buy some trains as it likes the look of them without considering alternative options, the decision will be challenged and order suspended very quickly. Even if they could, just sticking a UK size body shell won't meet their accessibility requirements and the different loading gauge might require substantial design changes.
If they all make it to this afternoon it’ll be a miracle.
Surprised me they've lasted this long, I don't use the Southport line, but I would to hear the original 319 motors.
The Manchester Oxford Road trains are better for the 769s. On electric from Ince now and they run at 75mph max between Bolton and Salford Crescent too.
do they actually use the original motors?
media.northernrailway.co.uk
The good news for me is there is a firm commitment to a new fleet; the bad news is this shows yet again how slow and bureaucratic ordering new fleets currently is, that we have to wait another year for this award and stuff to actually start being made.Northern has issued a media release.
Director to oversee the new trains has been appointed
Director appointed to deliver up to 450 new trains that will transform travel for Northern customers | Northern News
James Howard, who has taken charge of Northern’s plan to buy hundreds of new trains, said they will transform travel for millions of customers, by providing more reliable and comfortable journeys.
It's a bit worse than that, due to carefully selected words.
I'm not sure 'they' even know what they want yet.
If Northern are saying "First train delivered in 2030" that's to them in a signed off state for them to do their training, route clearance, platform clearances etc. The first fleet is a pure EMU one so order late 26/early 27 should be OK for 2030 passenger service, the EMU's are require for mid 2030 if the Huddersfield - York part of TRU is completed to it's current timescales.
The fact GWR, Southeastern and SWR are looking at new large fleet orders, with Chiltern and others also looking doing so, will slow down the production and delivery due to high demand, especially where commonality is being sought, unless every award goes to a different manufacturer. Do we know if the timescales here have factored this in?
It does rather seem to be everyone will get trains 2030-33
Will there not be many new trains between now and 2030?
Not many no, at the moment all most deliveries are expected in the early 2030s
There are the Hitachi 810s for EMR, AT300 orders being built for open access operators, not to mention HS2 stock (not yet fully designed).
There is also International timescales, even when trains are assembled in UK there are often parts that come from abroad. Cannot build a whole train if parts like bogies, motors, doors, batteries, seats or whatever are delayed by orders in Europe.
rollingstockworld.com
It says planned, it's not a firm commitment that they would be replaced by then. Plans are sometimes aspirational.
The 450 is a cap not a target number of units to be ordered. Framework agreements make it easy to call off future orders of a single spec avoiding microfleets. Delays will likely have moved the initial phases closer together than originally planned condensing planned timeframes.
Which is why instead of everyone having the same common fleet there will be a few large common fleets. Southeastern have rather different needs to the others and is expected to decide first. GWR, SWR and Chiltern aren't in a position to make an order before Northern. The timelines for delivery will be a big factor in which offer is gone for and will likely give a mix of winners as a result to spread construction across manufacturers.