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Westbahn Cutting Back, Selling Fleet

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LNW-GW Joint

LNW-GW Joint

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It seems Westbahn is having a tough time competing with ÖBB on its Vienna-Salzburg route.
It's planning to cut one of its routes via Vienna Hbf to the city centre, and concentrate on the route to Westbahnhof.
It is also selling its current Stadler Kiss fleet to DB, and buying a smaller fleet of new Kiss 3 stock from Stadler.
DB will use them on a new Dresden-Berlin-Rostock IC service.
https://www.railwaygazette.com/news...le-view/view/db-buys-westbahns-kiss-emus.html
Westbahn said it had been struggling against discrimination in the Austrian rail market, with policy decisions, delays, cost increases and ‘endless procedures’ hindering its development.
It said the eight years since it launched its Wien – Salzburg service in December 2011 had brought high losses, with a constant need for fresh capital. While its shareholders had provided the necessary funding, they ultimately demanded a ‘stop-loss strategy’ as it was not possible to wait indefinitely for the market liberalisation it sought
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Alfonso

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duesselmartin said:
I don't get it. For Westbahn it is cheaper to sell sind buy new. Why does DB not do that? Where are the Chinese? In China?
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Article says they can sell their current fleet and order new ones quickly without the need for public sector procurement. They may well have got a better finance deal, too
 
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Alfonso said:
Article says they can sell their current fleet and order new ones quickly without the need for public sector procurement. They may well have got a better finance deal, too
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The article does mention that. Perhaps it's not dissimilar to the 350/2s which are leaving LNR not because of there being anything wrong with them but because the finance deal is too expensive.
 
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dutchflyer

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Circles all tell that either DB or OeBB would buy their old stock at all prices to simply not have another new competitor (which is mostly FLIX) access to readily available and ride-able stock. Which seems a bit overzealous if the Chinese can deliver that quick.
 
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Bletchleyite

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dutchflyer said:
Circles all tell that either DB or OeBB would buy their old stock at all prices to simply not have another new competitor (which is mostly FLIX) access to readily available and ride-able stock. Which seems a bit overzealous if the Chinese can deliver that quick.
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They aren't buying from the Chinese, they are buying from Stadler.

Thinking on, they are going for single 5 or 6-car sets (I forget which) instead of doubling up 3s and 4s. Could this save on staffing costs?
 
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Bletchleyite

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dutchflyer said:
Circles all tell that either DB or OeBB would buy their old stock at all prices to simply not have another new competitor (which is mostly FLIX) access to readily available and ride-able stock. Which seems a bit overzealous if the Chinese can deliver that quick.
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I'm not sure why they are that worried about Flix on the rails. They seem just to be doing single train pairs - yes, it creams the bottom off the market, but that's the kind of bottom of the market that are just using Quer-Durchs-Land-Tickets and the likes to go long distances on a string of regional trains who probably barely make DB etc any money at all.

They're not a threat in the same way as the hourly LNR Trent Valley service appears to be becoming to VTWC.
 
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