Recent content by Energy

MK5s may struggle for political support unless CAF can move production from Spain to Newport. I seem to remember she wasn't impressed with the 387s, particularly their worse first class... They'll still go on trains, though it's unclear how often the King himself will use them. Prince William...

Civil servants move around; I wouldn't be surprised if many from the IEP era are no longer in the DfT. Since TOCs have been under DfT instruction, we've seen the EMR 170 refurbishment, LNER CAF order, and XC 170 & (CGI currently) Voyager refurbishments; all of these have been reasonably good...

Is there any reasoning behind this aside from a personal dislike of open access? I've noticed a seemingly personal dislike of open access from a few posters. The only reasoning I can think of is that privately owned = bad. I don't think open access is perfect, but if it didn't exist, LNER...

The TPE is asking for 29x at least 5-car 200km/h (124mph) trains with an option for another 26. They intend that all services are full-length units, and the units will be multimode to avoid procuring several fleets. [source] The 350/2s don't really fit this criteria.

I haven't heard about it since, though the 350/2s have been busy with LNWR till recently. SWR seem to be far more serious about battery 450s. I think battery/Scotrail/Northern predictions are unlikely. I reckon they'll go to GWR, and their 387s will go to another Southern/SouthEastern cascade.

Yes. Porterbrook announced it under BatteryFlex.

Surprised I wasn't already aware of this, rather strange! Happy (late) Birthday, RailUKForums!

TBF, the original Wixams plan was engineered well to keep costs down, with only 1 track needing adjustment and a small station building. With double the number of platforms, the platforms are likely bigger, and likely substantially bigger station building, I'm not surprised it'll cost a lot...

Network Rail has existing ones for its purposes, which are mostly 24 or 48-core fibre cables. Neos is deploying 432-core fibre cables, half the capacity is for Network Rail, other half for Neos to use commercially. They were dug up for Fibreway, now part of Sky. Canal and Rivers Trust has a...

701 delays are due to Bombardier's near-complete abandonment of quality control during COVID, outsourcing software to another country, and poor cab design compared to the class 707s that drivers were used to. 810 problems appeared to be linked to unnecessary redesigns of AT300 parts. It's...

Indeed. 4 platforms are expected, with likely a larger station building and sizeable platforms to accommodate the large crowds. I'd expect higher demand for retail units here than at other comparatively sized stations. The market for Universal is going to be more willing to spend than the...

The class 99 is only 75mph. Chiltern has no OHLE so there's no benefits over the 68s. It's expected that the Chiltern 68s will go back to DRS, and the mk5A fitted ex-TPE class 68s will head to Chiltern instead.

Japan relies heavily on imported lithium for its battery industry. The Japanese government has been betting big on hydrogen, but a lot of projects have focused on vehicles and heating, which hydrogen is pretty terrible at. I think there are a few factors: They've heard "hydrogen is the future"...

ex-Avanti voyagers: 12x XC 6x Storage 2x Grand Central (temporary) class 222s: 5x 6 car for Lumo 19x 5car & 3x 6car for Scotrail (not publicly confirmed) From what I understand with some careful timetabling (e.g. 5 car replaces a 4 car service, which then joins another 4 car to be 8 car)...

You said that ROSCOs should be fearful of the DfT due to renationalisation, I’ve tried to explain that if they were nationalised they’d be paid for their assets and why. It’s five trainsets. The government isn’t going to pull out legislation. The DfT will almost certainly instruct EMR to find...