At this point they've had effectively zero spent on rebrands, just a few stickers on the side. Any train is going to need repainting eventually and Will be budgeted in.The Mk4 sets and locos seem to need a huge amount of technical attention and it seems never-ending with set upgrades and rebranding etc.
Would the same number of 5-car 197 sets need anything like the same level of technical support?
I should think the costs of LHCS operation far exceeds that of the unit equivalent.
Yes they have money spent on Upgrades but they were a tiny proportion of the purchase costs of a 197, the whole fleet costing less than the cost of 1 3 car 197, granted they won't last nearly as long.
The 197s are hardly a shining example of not needing technical support, they've had to have fleet wide checks twice now to keep them in service and have constant onboard issues which seem to be getting worse not better. Even now there's units out of service for weeks and months at a time with faults and still aren't even able to run 5 cars on the route they were really intended to run 5 coaches on!