A rolling stock crisis
CHRIS Milner’s article in the February issue discussed a number of seemingly unsettling issues regarding current and future rolling stock issues on Britain’s railways. However, I would suggest that there are at least seven further issues which may contribute further to the current problems.
1. The incredible varieties of different trains, often built in relatively small numbers, supplied by various manufacturers and sometimes tied into maintenance contracts and/or requiring specially configured depots. This, particularly where leased fleets are concerned, may severely restrict the ability to transfer trains to different areas or operators, especially at short notice.
The worst case must be TransPennine Express with three small, completely different and incompatible fleets obtained from a mixture of suppliers. No wonder they got into trouble. I am sure that most operators and engineers would have predicted the problems long before they occurred. Also look at the recent (Government run) LNER order for ten new tri-mode train sets. No doubt these will be fine trains, but also probably incompatible with any existing trains in the fleet, and requiring another long and extensive accreditation, commissioning and driver training programme. Was this considered?
The trend to tailor trains to specific routes or areas, such as in the number of cars, luggage space and seating layouts (think TPE again). This often reduces the attractiveness of displaced fleets for use elsewhere. While a‘one size fits all’approach is not necessarily
