Opportunity Cost of Poor BR decisions.

[BlueLeanie]

A thread concerning the export of over-ordered Sleeper units in the 1980s got me wondering what the opportunity cost to the business was.

Just over 200 Sleeper coaches were delivered, but this was way more than ever needed. A quick calculation suggests closer to 175 coaches would have been adequate, so around 30 too many Mk3 sleepers.

At around the same time as these were being built, BR was economising by building 48 Class 143/144 Pacer sets.

If BR had built 30 fewer MK3 sleepers, could they have built 50 Class 156s instead of the final tranche of Pacers and how would that have affected the operational business of the railway?

 

[Clarence Yard]

No, each business case would have to stand on its own merits - there was no overall BR investment budget for rolling stock so all that would have happened is that the Treasury would have signed off a smaller amount for the sleeper build and pocketed the difference.

The sleeper authorisation predated the pacers by some years and was originally for 266 vehicles at a cost of £43m (at 1979 prices), being later cut back to 210 vehicles.

 

[Helvellyn]

The sleeper authorisation predated the pacers by some years and was originally for 266 vehicles at a cost of £43m (at 1979 prices), being later cut back to 210 vehicles.

Based on the number ranges I assume that the order was split 146 Sleeping Cars with Pantry (SLEPs) and 120 Sleeping Cars (SLEs):

• SLEPs 10500-10619 (120) built; 10620-10645 (26) cancelled.
• SLEs 10646-10733 (88) built; 10734-10735 (2) converted to Royal Train Sleeping cars 2914-2915 before completion; 10736-10765 (30) cancelled.

 

[jimm]

A thread concerning the export of over-ordered Sleeper units in the 1980s got me wondering what the opportunity cost to the business was.

Just over 200 Sleeper coaches were delivered, but this was way more than ever needed. A quick calculation suggests closer to 175 coaches would have been adequate, so around 30 too many Mk3 sleepers.

At around the same time as these were being built, BR was economising by building 48 Class 143/144 Pacer sets.

If BR had built 30 fewer MK3 sleepers, could they have built 50 Class 156s instead of the final tranche of Pacers and how would that have affected the operational business of the railway?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

The order for Mk3 sleepers was placed in 1979, when there were a lot more overnight trains operating.

The Timetable World site has the 1982-1983 Great Britain Timetable available, in which the section listing stations where you could use a sleeper service runs to nine pages (Nos 24-32), including the likes of Barrow-in-Furness, Holyhead and Milford Haven, two sleeper services each way on weekday nights in the summer between Euston and Inverness (I have a vague recollection that the Royal Highlander was pretty much an all-sleeping car formation for that period), services between London and Scotland via Birmingham and sleeper services running on Saturday nights.

Link https://timetableworld.com/timetables.php

In that context, the order, even after being revised down, does not look unreasonable.

But the loss of newspaper traffic in the mid-1980s and the Royal Mail starting to cut back its use of trains around the same time, with the consequent loss of a lot of income for BR, made the landscape for overnight train services look very different, very quickly.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Worth mentioning Motorail. There were quite a few ‘car sleepers’ that didn’t show in the main timetables but still used sleeping cars (even if only on a seasonal basis).

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Worth mentioning Motorail. There were quite a few ‘car sleepers’ that didn’t show in the main timetables but still used sleeping cars (even if only on a seasonal basis).

The Motorail to Stirling iirc?

 

[BlueLeanie]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Absolutely, it gives purpose to a speculative discussion forum.