PHILIPE
Veteran Member
Yep, that seems reasonable. Even more reasonable (and what I thought might be the case) would be that the 8 or 9 class 153 being purchased by TfW and retained long-term were taken from the 13 (? - I forget the exact number) that received full PRM mods as part of the original TfW-RS plan before all the extra units (eg. Porterbrook 769 compensation) were added.
From your earlier post, it looks like 13 class 153s have completed the full PRM programme, but that these are a mix of 5 Angel (now TfW-owned) units and 8 Porterbrook ones. I'm guessing that was the original fleet I mention in the previous paragraph and that the fact it was shared between ROSCOs made it difficult for TfW to purchase them all together. Apart from having two ROSCOs involved, it does seem like the sensible thing to do would have been to purchase the 13 units (or 9 of them if that's all that will be required for the HOWL in future) that are already PRM compliant rather than doing full PRM mods on any more units unless it's needed in the short term due to the 769 problems.
It's been suggested up thread that TFW wanted to actually own their own fleet and that although Angel were willing to sell, Porterbrook may have been unwilling to. That is something that we may find it difficult to obtain the actual answer to on the grounds of being commercially sensitive.
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