Northern/TPE Invitation to Tender published

[47802]

I can only speak for myself, but my most recent journey on a pacer (144015, for the record) was on Friday evening and despite being for only one stop my knees and shoulders ached afterwards with the bounce. Compared to my last journey on D-stock (admittedly about 4 years ago, and with less baggage) I almost hope that we DO get the "recycled underground trains" rather than them being ruled out for spurious political point-scoring.

You must travel on a different underground to me then, and bearing in mind most travel on the underground is fairly low speed

Anyway back to the point I hope there is no back peddling as far as the northern franchise.

 

[WatcherZero]

Anyway back to the point I hope there is back peddling as far as the northern franchise.

You want the pacers to remain?

Lol you edited it now

 

[kieron]

A problem with 175s for Northern is that they don't couple to anything else. Better to keep them all together. Shame they weren't all built as 3-car.

I see them running ECS coupled to Sprinters from time to time. And you wouldn't want to use them coupled up like that in service, as you'd lose the performance benefits over using the Sprinters you started with.

I suspect any 158s sent to ATW would have to have ERTMS equipment installed, and may need to be refurbish inside and out, so swapping 158s for 175s at some point in the future wouldn't be a quick fix.

And it isn't the thing the government decided to do months ago, which seems to me to be more to do with how they're messing with the boundary between Northern and TPE than anything.

 

[Domh245]

I see them running ECS coupled to Sprinters from time to time. And you wouldn't want to use them coupled up like that in service, as you'd lose the performance benefits over using the Sprinters you started with.

I fear you are imagining things. 175s are fitted with Dellner made Scharfenberg style couplers (as are the 171s, 180s, and 22x series) whilst the sprinters are fitted with BSI couplers.

 

[D365]

Be pedantic if you like but its still a tube train in my eyes, and I don't really need anybody to tell me the difference between surface line stock and deep level tube stock

It makes a hell of a lot of difference to the average public, whom on hearing 'The Tube' might normally associate all London Underground rolling stock with the deep-level type - some commenters have mistaken the D78 Stock to be of the smaller type.

 

[47802]

It makes a hell of a lot of difference to the average public, whom on hearing 'The Tube' might normally associate all London Underground rolling stock with the deep-level type - some commenters have mistaken the D78 Stock to be of the smaller type.

Well getting back to the point looks as though the franchise will only be slightly delayed if it is delayed, I'm hoping that the Northern gets the best of likely outcomes with New trains and cascaded stock with no Tube train or Railbuses, but I guess we will see, but I'm not going to speculate further until its announced as its just a fairly pointless speculation which has been gone over many times already.

 

[northwichcat]

Could anyone comment on or provide any information/links to the propose announcement of the new Northern Rail franchise which has been put on hold until next year due to the on going discussions and the need for the replacement of the 142's (Pacers) mainly in the North East area of the UK

Most of the 142s are not used in the North East.

The next franchise was due to start in February 2016 but that was put back to April 2016, I think due to the number of consultation responses and DfT taking their time to decide what the best course of action was following them finding out electrification wouldn't run to the original schedule. (Of course DfT pretended they only found out about electrification delays after the election despite the change in DfT policy before the election )
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It makes a hell of a lot of difference to the average public, whom on hearing 'The Tube' might normally associate all London Underground rolling stock with the deep-level type - some commenters have mistaken the D78 Stock to be of the smaller type.

Compared to the newest DMUs in the North (185s) the D78s are fat babies.

Carriage length is 18.1 to 18.3m opposed to 23.8m
Carriage height is 3.6m compared to 3.9m
Carriage width is 2.9m compared to 2.7m

 

[northwichcat]

Awards were originally supposed to be October/September and November but the last update to the franchising schedule published by the government in July had them both down as December. There was a couple of months delay resulting from other awards running late and ITT being published late.

December award dates confirmed by Patrick McLoughlin today

This work will sit alongside new TransPennine and Northern rail franchise awards which will be announced in December

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa.../290915-patrick-mcloughlin-to-peter-hendy.pdf

 

[Scotrail88]

Has there been any rumours regarding the awards?? I'm sure the current disruption and cancellations will be affecting Firsts outlook. If they don't win it will be a big loss.
Could we have Stagecoach /Virgin doing the full west coast??

 

[HH]

I doubt whether there'll be any shenanigans, because:

1. DfT are ****-scared of being taken to court again
2. Both awards are very heavily skewed towards price (despite what DfT says)

Not many rumours and I'm not surprised. We're too far away from award.

I reckon some people at First have got to the stage where they have to win one, so they'll have bid keener than a samurai sword.

More open perhaps is the Northern bid. Having won ScotRail, Abellio won't be desperate enough to buy Northern. I reckon that will be won on the fleet plan and the one rumour I have heard is that Abellio mucked that up. Still, rumours weren't very accurate around TSGN, so I'd take anything I heard with a large pinch of the white stuff...

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Has there been any rumours regarding the awards?? I'm sure the current disruption and cancellations will be affecting Firsts outlook. If they don't win it will be a big loss.
Could we have Stagecoach /Virgin doing the full west coast??

I doubt we'll know before December, even if the TPE decision has been made.
They want to announce TPE and Northern together, and I should think Northern is the one giving them sleepless nights.

 

[glbotu]

To what extent does an incumbent operator have an advantage in a franchise award. I mean, I assume there's a degree of anonymity to it, but does someone have an "experience bonus", because they know the routes/staffing requirements etc. Just curious, given that a large number of franchises have been re-awarded to the same company.

In this case, would Abellio have the upper hand?

On a different topic, are there any rumours about what sort of plans are being put forward (rather than who will win - I'm not too fussed about the colour of the trains, mostly whether there'll finally be enough of them), or will everyone stick rigidly to the ITT just with variants on where to get the stock from.

As a relevant example, TSGN planned to replace the 313s with new stock, which wasn't in the original ITT.

 

[387star]

Out of interest why is tpe separate from northern whereas emt and fgw especially run intercity and local,in the same franchise?

Tpe has some heavily overcrowded trains guess we must wait till electrification to sort that out or scotrail cascades
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Ad manchester to scotland will stay in the franchise do we know?

 

[glbotu]

Out of interest why is tpe separate from northern whereas emt and fgw especially run intercity and local,in the same franchise?

Tpe has some heavily overcrowded trains guess we must wait till electrification to sort that out or scotrail cascades
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Ad manchester to scotland will stay in the franchise do we know?

Book fudging, effectively.

Originally, the North had two franchises, Arriva Trains Northern and First North Western. FNW ran most of the lines out of Manchester and Liverpool, and ATN ran everything else. Manchester - Scotland was run by Virgin (as part of Virgin XC I think).

In order to improve reliability, ATN and FNW were merged into Northern, the results of which can be seen in the exceptionally complex diagrams that Northern operate to make best use of their limited stock. (Follow a single 142 around for a day on RTT, it's insane).

Anyway, having done this, they realised that it was important to show that the privatised railway were profitable. As such, they extracted the more profitable inter-regional routes and made TPE, so that there could be a "profitable" Northern franchise, rather than just one large subsidy eater.

 

[swt_passenger]

Has there been any rumours regarding the awards?? I'm sure the current disruption and cancellations will be affecting Firsts outlook. If they don't win it will be a big loss.
Could we have Stagecoach /Virgin doing the full west coast??

No matter how many times you post a question about rumours regarding who is about to win an award, I suggest there'll never be any this long in advance.

You should give up and just be patient.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

To what extent does an incumbent operator have an advantage in a franchise award. I mean, I assume there's a degree of anonymity to it, but does someone have an "experience bonus", because they know the routes/staffing requirements etc. Just curious, given that a large number of franchises have been re-awarded to the same company.
In this case, would Abellio have the upper hand?

On a different topic, are there any rumours about what sort of plans are being put forward (rather than who will win - I'm not too fussed about the colour of the trains, mostly whether there'll finally be enough of them), or will everyone stick rigidly to the ITT just with variants on where to get the stock from.

Bidders who don't stick to the ITT will not win.
They can submit additional options, but these will only be considered once the baseline competition is decided.
Abellio obviously has inside knowledge as the incumbent, but Govia and Arriva are no mugs either, and have access to all the same operational data as Abellio, and all the same ROSCO bids for the stock.

Book fudging, effectively.
Originally, the North had two franchises, Arriva Trains Northern and First North Western. FNW ran most of the lines out of Manchester and Liverpool, and ATN ran everything else. Manchester - Scotland was run by Virgin (as part of Virgin XC I think).

In order to improve reliability, ATN and FNW were merged into Northern, the results of which can be seen in the exceptionally complex diagrams that Northern operate to make best use of their limited stock. (Follow a single 142 around for a day on RTT, it's insane).

Anyway, having done this, they realised that it was important to show that the privatised railway were profitable. As such, they extracted the more profitable inter-regional routes and made TPE, so that there could be a "profitable" Northern franchise, rather than just one large subsidy eater.

ATN + FNW would have made an unwieldy franchise trying to meet conflicting short and long distance needs.
The SRA wanted an intercity franchise and a local franchise with different management objectives, hence TPE and Northern.
They also wanted to clip the XC franchise.
All of these were heavily loss-making when they started, hence Manchester-Scotland being "downgraded".
All have now improved, although Northern is still the weakest.
I think it's evident that TPE and Northern franchises have improved significantly since 2004.
FTPE has always been well-regarded by DfT for turning the business round.
Remember also FTPE is actually a joint First/Keolis operation, and they are both bidding separately this time.

 

[glbotu]

Bidders who don't stick to the ITT will not win.
They can submit additional options, but these will only be considered once the baseline competition is decided.
Abellio obviously has inside knowledge as the incumbent, but Govia and Arriva are no mugs either, and have access to all the same operational data as Abellio, and all the same ROSCO bids for the stock.

Obviously. I meant more about going beyond the ITT. Surely it's a game of "we will do what the ITT says and............" or are DfT looking more at different ways of meeting the ITT.

ATN + FNW would have made an unwieldy franchise trying to meet conflicting short and long distance needs.
The SRA wanted an intercity franchise and a local franchise with different management objectives, hence TPE and Northern.

That does make sense.

They also wanted to clip the XC franchise.

I was unaware of this. What was the point of this.

All of these were heavily loss-making when they started, hence Manchester-Scotland being "downgraded".
All have now improved, although Northern is still the weakest.
I think it's evident that TPE and Northern franchises have improved significantly since 2004.
FTPE has always been well-regarded by DfT for turning the business round.
Remember also FTPE is actually a joint First/Keolis operation, and they are both bidding separately this time.

How many of the TPE routes are now profitable? Have they turned the whole thing around or is it just select services. Obviously the whole of ATN/FNW were unprofitable, but was it the case on a per-line basis. I'm finding it difficult to find info on ATN/FNW, what were the services like compared to now?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Obviously. I meant more about going beyond the ITT. Surely it's a game of "we will do what the ITT says and............" or are DfT looking more at different ways of meeting the ITT.

You can be pretty sure the DfT is initially looking at the lowest cost to deliver the ITT spec.
Quality also comes into it (see the scoring process in the ITT).
Once they have nailed that, they will open discussion about options the winning bidder has put forward, and other options the DfT has decided it needs since the ITT was published.
There won't be much money for extras, because the basic ITT already includes a big increase in operating cost and number of vehicles (some new).

In 2006, the SRA took the view that Manchester-Preston was being duplicated by XC and TPE services.
XC was deeply unprofitable, so they took the opportunity to dump the XC presence and transfer its routes to TPE, thereby reducing the costs.
The XC Voyagers went to the WC Euston-Chester/North Wales service.
The XC Birmingham-Scotland service was transferred from XC to WC at the same time (staying with Virgin).

There are no route figures to analyse for any of the franchises, but TPE reduced its subsidy requirement sharply over the 2004-15 period.

 

[HH]

I've seen the route figures and they all grew by comparatively similar amounts. It's just that growth was quite high across the piece.

 

[northwichcat]

The XC Voyagers went to the WC Euston-Chester/North Wales service.
The XC Birmingham-Scotland service was transferred from XC to WC at the same time (staying with Virgin).

That also resulted in Scotland to Birmingham via Preston services no longer continuing to Bristol and the South West, with alternate Manchester services running to Bristol and the South West instead.

 

[WatcherZero]

Statement to Parliament today, nothing new but continuing to make pledges making it harder and harder to U-turn.

On 30 September (2015), I was pleased to confirm that work to electrify TransPennine and Midland Mainline railways would resume under plans announced as part of Sir Peter Hendy’s work to reset Network Rail’s upgrade programme.

Sir Peter Hendy, the Chair of Network Rail, outlined to me how work could continue. I replied to him asking Network Rail to un-pause this work.

Network Rail will work with the Department for Transport (DfT) and Rail North to develop a new plan for electrification of the TransPennine line between Stalybridge and Leeds and on to York and Selby to focus on delivering key passenger benefits as quickly as possible. This is an improvement on the previous plan which only changed the power supply of the trains.

The new plan will deliver faster journey times and significantly more capacity between Manchester, Leeds and York. The upgrade is expected to provide capacity for 6 fast or semifast trains per hour, take up to 15 minutes off today’s journey time between Manchester and York and be complete by 2022. When the work is finished, the whole route from Liverpool to Newcastle (via Manchester, Leeds and York) will be fully electrified and journey times will be significantly reduced compared to today’s railway.

Network Rail will also recommence work to electrify the Midland Mainline, the vital long-distance corridor which serves the UK’s industrial heartland. Sir Peter Hendy proposed that line speed and capacity improvement works already in hand are added to, with electrification of the line north of Bedford to Kettering and Corby by 2019 and the line north of Kettering to Leicester, Derby/Nottingham and Sheffield by 2023.

New Northern and TransPennine rail franchise awards will be announced before the end of the year. The new franchises will deliver new train carriages and remove out-dated Pacer trains; introduce free Wi-Fi on trains; and offer a one-third increase in capacity with 200 additional services on weekdays and Saturdays and 300 more train services on Sundays.

Connecting up the great cities of the north is at the heart of our plan to build a Northern Powerhouse. The total programme of rail electrification and upgrades will completely transform the railways for passengers in the north and Midlands and help ensure that every part of Britain benefits from a growing economy.

 

[Frothy]

New Northern and TransPennine rail franchise awards will be announced before the end of the year.

Might I remark that the original schedule for the franchise awards was October, and this suspiciously sounds like later than October.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Might I remark that the original schedule for the franchise awards was October, and this suspiciously sounds like later than October.

No date was set in either ITT.
They just say "from May 2015" for the TPE bids and "from June 2015" for Northern.
Then it's "Preparation for commencement of franchise" from December-March 2016 in both.
It's no surprise that they keep mentioning December.
These must be two of the hardest contracts to be let (especially Northern), with all the Rail North consultations going on in parallel.

 

[WatcherZero]

Original award date was indeed October/November, they updated it to December last July.

 

[northwichcat]

With Stadler's FLIRT rumoured to be one of two options for the new minimum 120 new self-powered vehicles, the factsheet for trains they are building for a new line in Texas may be of interest: http://www.stadlerrail.com/media/uploads/F3TR0415en.pdf Those will have a top speed of 79mph and will have c.20m carriages and be for a 1,435 mm gauge (same as UK), the difference would be those will likely be designed for lower platforms than in the UK. The cost of them is $100m for 8 x 4 car trains (32 carriages) so $3.125m per carriage or £2.02m in UK currency - presumably the cost could be lower per carriage for a larger order.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

With Stadler's FLIRT rumoured to be one of two options for the new minimum 120 new self-powered vehicles, the factsheet for trains they are building for a new line in Texas may be of interest: http://www.stadlerrail.com/media/uploads/F3TR0415en.pdf Those will have a top speed of 79mph and will have c.20m carriages and be for a 1,435 mm gauge (same as UK), the difference would be those will likely be designed for lower platforms than in the UK. The cost of them is $100m for 8 x 4 car trains (32 carriages) so $3.125m per carriage or £2.02m in UK currency - presumably the cost could be lower per carriage for a larger order.

The FLIRT you should be looking at is the bi-mode unit designed for Valle d’Aosta in Italy, as long as Network Rail can clear the articulated design for UK use.

 

[northwichcat]

The FLIRT you should be looking at is the bi-mode unit designed for Valle d’Aosta in Italy, as long as Network Rail can clear the articulated design for UK use.

No factsheet available for any FLIRTs designed for Valle d’Aosta in Italy not even ones in Italian or German.

Things like the number of seats or length of carriages vary very little between different types of FLIRT and things like air conditioning and toilets or options for toilets seem to be available for all FLIRTs.

I think the Texas design proves you can have 1,435 mm gauge and a corridor in the articulated vehicle, something some people were doubtful of.

 

[WatcherZero]

It would need to be 6cm thinner, slightly less tall and squeeze in electrical transformer equipment for the UK.

 

[northwichcat]

slightly less tall

How tall are they? Stadler don't give any vehicle heights but as the saloon will be lower than it would be in the UK I'd be surprised if the total vehicle height is too high for the UK.

electrical transformer equipment

Why would additional electric equipment be required? The US version has
"Redundant traction power system consisting of two units, each
with a diesel engine, asynchronous generator, IGBT power converter
and asynchronous drive motor"

I admit I don't know exactly what Stadler have offered Northern bidders but there isn't any requirement for Northern to deliver trains which either can run on overheads or can be converted to run on overheads.

 

[WatcherZero]

Would be surprised if they wernt at least convertible, ROSCO's would want certainty that they had a long term future.

They are 4.0-4.2m tall 4.15m being a common height, the shorter 4m ones generally have 600mm wheel diameter and the taller 4.15/4.2m ones 720-860mm