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Who should procure stock and manage cascades?

Who should procure stock and manage cascades?

  • It should be centralised (government?) ONLY

    Votes: 25 48.1%
  • Leave it to TOCs and ROSCOs ONLY

    Votes: 16 30.8%
  • As-is (miss-mash mix of both)

    Votes: 4 7.7%
  • Either 1 or 2, but definately not 3

    Votes: 7 13.5%

  • Total voters
    52
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Rhydgaled

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As the title asks. The DfT has specified and procured trains for Thameslink, ICEC and ICGW, rather than leaving it to the TOCs, but now they say they are leaving organisation of where to cascade the older stock to the TOCs. Personally, I think that's a recipe for waste, either it should be centrally managed or it shouldn't, the mix we have makes no sense.
 
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NSEFAN

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On principle I feel that the government should oversee long-term aspects such as rolling stock procurement. In reality, the IEP fiasco leaves me somewhat sceptical of their ability to do this properly.
 

Yew

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Hmm, if it where left to ROSCOS, they would deliberately never have enough stock, to keep leasing costs up.
 

GrimsbyPacer

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It should be a political decision so someone is accountable for the rolling stock. If people aren't happy they can vote.
It shouldn't be Westminster though as they care little for the North/Southwest.
 

AM9

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It should be a political decision so someone is accountable for the rolling stock. If people aren't happy they can vote.
It shouldn't be Westminster though as they care little for the North/Southwest.

So you want a referendum on how rolling stock is procured? How many of the electorate will even understand the question let alone have any interest in the matter?
 

GrimsbyPacer

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So you want a referendum on how rolling stock is procured? How many of the electorate will even understand the question let alone have any interest in the matter?

I think the public could be more informed on such matters. But what happens if Virgin East Coast decide in 2015 that they want to use a 153 sprinter on all services, what can you do?? If it's politicians making the silly choices you can pressure them to change things for the better.
Currently many in South Yorks would have trains with higher leasing costs if it wasn't packed at Rotherham everday. But the decision is made for them by companies wanting profit.
 

tbtc

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The DfT has specified and procured trains for Thameslink, ICEC and ICGW, rather than leaving it to the TOCs, but now they say they are leaving organisation of where to cascade the older stock to the TOCs

I think that the current set up makes sense (and that ordering new stock is very different to fighting over spare stock for cascades).

For something as groundbreaking as IEP is supposed to be, it makes sense to have one big order of trains with common features - so that future infrastructure improvements can be based around this new 26m "standard" for new coaches.

If we leave procurement of new stock to individual TOCs/ ROSCOs then we run the risk of being lumbered with diddy orders of non-standard stock (e.g. First and the 175s, First and the 180s) which may be okay for the first few years of operation but can't be easily cascaded elsewhere due to the limited numbers. We could end up with more stock being built that can't work with similar stock elsewhere (e.g. Voyagers and Meridians) rather than one big fleet of similar units.

If individual TOCs want to argue the toss over what happens to "freed up" 170s/319s (etc) then fair enough, and I don't think that the Civil Service should be worrying about the small scale stuff - but at least we can have some kind of central control over new builds (and ensuring no corners are cut, that we get stock that is capable of working with other stock, that it's easier for follow on orders).

As far as the cascades go, I don't think that there's a huge difference between a newly electrified line getting a 317 or a 319 or a 321 - they are essentially different flavours of the same thing - and I think that the civil service has better things to worry about.

So, yeah, leaving it up to individual TOCs/ROSCOS to procure stock leaves the danger of (re)making mistakes of the past with small classes (180s) or classes that can't work together (220/221s and 222s)...

...but making the Government decide on cascades is either going to create lots of extra bureaucracy (worrying about which route gets which trains) or will be subject to lots of political argument.

(I should say that BR had its faults in this respect too - e.g. did we really need 141s and 142s and 143s and 144s? One megafleet of identically manufactured Pacers would have been better - albeit with some getting a middle coach)
 

NSEFAN

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GrimsbyPacer said:
I think the public could be more informed on such matters. But what happens if Virgin East Coast decide in 2015 that they want to use a 153 sprinter on all services, what can you do?? If it's politicians making the silly choices you can pressure them to change things for the better.
Currently many in South Yorks would have trains with higher leasing costs if it wasn't packed at Rotherham everday. But the decision is made for them by companies wanting profit.
A lot of information about how the railways run is already in the public domain, but the majority of the public don't bother to read it until a newspaper publishes an article about a particular issue. A franchisee can't just decide to use any old rolling stock and run any old service, as all that is basically specified by the DfT. The public of course aren't aware of this, and assume that trains change with the franchise owner. This lead to some fears that First Group running the west coast franchise would lead to Pendolinos being taken away. :roll:
 

AM9

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(I should say that BR had its faults in this respect too - e.g. did we really need 141s and 142s and 143s and 144s? One megafleet of identically manufactured Pacers would have been better - albeit with some getting a middle coach)

Or more ridiculous, the 165 & 166 decision. Who could have decided that an extra five inches width was a big selling point with Thames Valley and Chiltern passengers? Unless it was a BR/Whitehall person who lived in one of those areas.

Perfectly good units that could be deployed anywhere like 168s if they weren't maxed out to the GC/GWR loading gauge.
 

pemma

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If we leave procurement of new stock to individual TOCs/ ROSCOs then we run the risk of being lumbered with diddy orders of non-standard stock (e.g. First and the 175s, First and the 180s) which may be okay for the first few years of operation but can't be easily cascaded elsewhere due to the limited numbers. We could end up with more stock being built that can't work with similar stock elsewhere (e.g. Voyagers and Meridians) rather than one big fleet of similar units.

First were going to order more 180s but Virgin got competition protection so their proposed 180 operated London to North West services didn't go ahead.

The initial poor reliability didn't help Alstom get more orders. Although, apparently Arriva would have ordered a class 180 variant if they'd have been awarded TPE. If that had happened there would be an ideal solution for TPE taking over Scottish services in 2007 - to use the 180s that FGW didn't want (at the time) and keep the other services as they were and still release Voyagers off Manchester-Scotland.
 

Rhydgaled

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For something as groundbreaking as IEP is supposed to be, it makes sense to have one big order of trains with common features - so that future infrastructure improvements can be based around this new 26m "standard" for new coaches.

If we leave procurement of new stock to individual TOCs/ ROSCOs then we run the risk of being lumbered with diddy orders of non-standard stock (e.g. First and the 175s, First and the 180s) which may be okay for the first few years of operation but can't be easily cascaded elsewhere due to the limited numbers. We could end up with more stock being built that can't work with similar stock elsewhere (e.g. Voyagers and Meridians) rather than one big fleet of similar units.
I agree, it makes sense to centralise procurement to avoid the sort of thing you mention. With IEP, it is just a shame some of the details are a bit faulty (the miscalculation of fleet size for GWML and decision to use the expensive PFI mechinism), but it was probably right to centralise procurement of IC125 replacement.

As far as the cascades go, I don't think that there's a huge difference between a newly electrified line getting a 317 or a 319 or a 321 - they are essentially different flavours of the same thing - and I think that the civil service has better things to worry about.

...

...but making the Government decide on cascades is either going to create lots of extra bureaucracy (worrying about which route gets which trains) or will be subject to lots of political argument.
You make a good point there as well actually. Indeed, a choice of 317/319/321 probably doesn't really matter, although you could miss opertunities to tidy up micro-fleets.

However, going back to IEP and the issue which prompted me to start this topic, I think a more-holistic view was needed. The DfT spout that the future of the IC225 fleet is being left to TOCs and ROSCOs. But one of the options, that the IC225s stay on the ECML and the IEPs work the MML, is blocked by the DfT's plan to have an all-IEP fleet for East Coast.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
apparently Arriva would have ordered a class 180 variant if they'd have been awarded TPE.
Interesting, would they have been 5-car 125mph units or something more akin to the class 175s (100mph non-streamlined cabs, but with the 180's more-powerfull engines for the hills perhaps)?
 

pemma

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Interesting, would they have been 5-car 125mph units or something more akin to the class 175s (100mph non-streamlined cabs, but with the 180's more-powerfull engines for the hills perhaps)?

They would have been basically an updated version of the 180 with 4 carriages instead of 5. Probably with a much smaller First Class area and a trolley service with no buffet/shop.

Manchester Airport to Blackpool would have been interesting using 125mph Intercity trains but then it was a last minute addition to the TPE franchise. First TPE had proposed 56 x 185s, the SRA proposed to cut that to 46 x 185s and for some existing DMUs (170s) to be included in the TPE fleet. However, Siemens said the price per train would be higher if the order is cut to below 50 x 185s, so the SRA agreed to 51 on condition Manchester Airport to Blackpool was added to the TPE franchise.
 
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