I guess it does! It was an interesting project. I wonder how cost effective it would have been compared to buying new trains? If a large build had gone ahead, it almost certainly would have needed retractioning sooner or later.
If it had gone ahead, that retractioning could have been a follow-on to the SW 455 AC conversion... only for the 455s, 456s and additionally these 424s to then be dumped by the next franchisee!
At a time when financing for new stock was looking uncertain, it was a sensible move to develop the project. It could easily have gone ahead.I’ve been trying to forget I ever saw that thing for nearly 25 years!
Actually, it was an interesting idea and you need to remember that in 1997 the under frames of the last VEPs weren’t much over 20 years old so there was some logic to reusing them. Something that looked like an Electrostar but sounded like a VEP would have been rather strange!
Apparently they were designed for a life of fifteen years, but given that many underframes on the EPBs were 60+ years old by the time they were scrapped, retractioning and new bogies almost certainly would have been viable.
