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Abellio Greater Mk3 shortages due to withdrawal of stock when overhauls are required

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trebor79

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745's can wait a while,the 90's+mk3's are mosly going off lease,so transfer deadlines not as critical as is the case with DMU's.
type approval should be concentrated on the regional sets.

Issue with the Mk3s is GA have let the maintenance slip (probably in the expectation they'd be gone by now) so they don't have enough serviceable.
 
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F Great Eastern

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Issue with the Mk3s is GA have let the maintenance slip (probably in the expectation they'd be gone by now) so they don't have enough serviceable.

They've let the maintenance slip on pretty much everything of the legacy fleet from my own experience with seemingly only essential maintenance for the short term being carried out, the EMU fleet is not exactly in the best condition of it's life and the DMU fleet hasn't exactly seemed great recently either from my experience.

Again it all comes back to the bid and the lack of margin for any kind of delays and they probably didn't budget in having to maintain such fleets for a number of months and by this point they'd be gone so by doing short term maintenance, by the time that starts to show they'd be on the verges of going or already gone anyway.

If they had a balance between operational staff, and financial people in senior management and the bidding team and an engineering director at the start of the franchise experienced in new rolling stock projects rather than one who never worked in railways before it might be different as they would know that projects like these rarely run smoothly and on time and would allow for that with the maintenance programmes and rolling stock plan.

It's not Greater Anglia's fault that Stadler and Bombardier are running late and that Network Rail haven't done everything they have supposed to, but it is their fault that they put together a proposal that didn't have sufficient margin to absorb more of the effects of these things. No doubt those responsible have already left having got their payday for winning the contract rather than being around to see the poor souls in operations who are probably working overtime to avoid cancelling more services than the already too large number.
 
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168001

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As the mk3 coaches are due C4/6 they are being taken out of service hence the shortfall.
 

F Great Eastern

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As the mk3 coaches are due C4/6 they are being taken out of service hence the shortfall.

Not just that, some of them are with toilets locked out of use, issues with lighting, no air conditioning and always one coach down and a fair few 321 sub-ins. Cant' remember last time I saw a fully formed one and getting one with a buffet is very hit and miss.
 

trebor79

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As the mk3 coaches are due C4/6 they are being taken out of service hence the shortfall.
Is that fact or supposition?
It is the conclusion I had come to having watched the number of short forms increase to the point every train is short formed. Now the buffets are starting to disappear and increasingly declassified first class carriages in the middle of standard. So they are scraping the barrel.
Still better than being squashed into a renatus 321 for a couple of hours...
So what are they going to do if the 745s are further delayed?
 

EE Andy b1

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Perhaps they should get back the ex Virgin, ex Greater Anglia Pretendolino Mk3s from Crewe and use them again to help make up short formations or perhaps they have sat around unused and wasted for too long now though.
 

Southern Dvr

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None of these out of use mark 3s have left the area though have they? That is the shocking thing. If the stock had been carted off for scrap or store that would be one thing but they are (I presume) sitting at crown point whilst the service is appalling and reliant on 321s.

Yet another example of today’s ‘can’t do attitude’ so prevalent on the railways.
 

DarloRich

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If they had a balance between operational staff, and financial people in senior management and the bidding team and an engineering director at the start of the franchise experienced in new rolling stock projects rather than one who never worked in railways before it might be different as they would know that projects like these rarely run smoothly and on time and would allow for that with the maintenance programmes and rolling stock plan.

any business is going to run down spend on old assets about to be replaced. Your balance on the board wont change that.
 

306024

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With Crown Point becoming a Stadler Depot in future, you wonder what percentage of the former GA maintenance staff have already transferred to Stadler to introduce that fleet. A financial decision to stop spending money on MkIII stock is one thing, but still having trained staff to carry out the MkIII maintenance helps too.
 

306024

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Perhaps they should get back the ex Virgin, ex Greater Anglia Pretendolino Mk3s from Crewe and use them again to help make up short formations or perhaps they have sat around unused and wasted for too long now though.

Perhaps not. By the time that set could be made ready Global Warming will have flooded the GEML.
 

hexagon789

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Perhaps they should get back the ex Virgin, ex Greater Anglia Pretendolino Mk3s from Crewe and use them again to help make up short formations or perhaps they have sat around unused and wasted for too long now though.

Are they in any better state than the ones GA are using though? Can they be put in traffic as is?
 

F Great Eastern

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any business is going to run down spend on old assets about to be replaced. Your balance on the board wont change that.

Yes but the problem with Greater Anglia is that it seems everything was based on the assumpion that Stadler's first ever UK rolling stock would bed down on time and Bombardier would deliver on time, and they probably felt that the legacy stock would have been replaced before they got to this position. You need a mixture of both operational and financial/bid management staff.
 

trebor79

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What I can't understand is that even to an outside observer it's clear that the 755s and 745s are many months behind the schedule for full introduction. Why then has the policy of running down the Mk3 fleet not been halted or reversed before we've reached the point of every train being short-formed from a motley collection of carriages with broken toilets etc?
 

F Great Eastern

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What I can't understand is that even to an outside observer it's clear that the 755s and 745s are many months behind the schedule for full introduction. Why then has the policy of running down the Mk3 fleet not been halted or reversed before we've reached the point of every train being short-formed from a motley collection of carriages with broken toilets etc?

Crown Point doesn't have the space it used to have to look after the legacy fleet with the new Stadler fleet taking up room and resources at the depot and apparently they're shorter on staff as well as some have transfered over to work on the new fleet.

Basically it seems GA made optimistic assumptions about the entry into service of two unproven fleets.
 

HLE

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It doesn't have the space or I would imagine the staff levels at crown point to cope with the additional trains they're having to maintain. Things won't balance off until after the last of the legacy fleet has gone.
 

DarloRich

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Yes but the problem with Greater Anglia is that it seems everything was based on the assumpion that Stadler's first ever UK rolling stock would bed down on time and Bombardier would deliver on time, and they probably felt that the legacy stock would have been replaced before they got to this position. You need a mixture of both operational and financial/bid management staff.

I am going to repeat myself: Any company would take a similar decision. You MIGHT give yourself a bit more contingency by retaining some of the old resource a bit longer but not a great deal longer and not if vast spend is needed. If you have a big spend item coming up like an overhaul those vehicles are not going to get money spent on them. They simply aren't.

Why would you? You have a contract with a deliverer for a new product, a fixed timescale and, i assume, liquidated damages for failure, so why spend more than you have to.

Your finance/business/ops mix of decision makers wont change that calculus. But it is easy just to blame "finance" and the "bean counters"
 
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trebor79

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I am going to repeat myself: Any company would take a similar decision. You MIGHT give yourself a bit more contingency by retaining some of the old resource a bit longer but not a great deal longer and not if vast spend is needed. If you have a big spend item coming up like an overhaul those vehicles are not going to get money spent on them. They simply aren't.

Why would you? You have a contract with a deliverer for a new product, a fixed timescale and, i assume, liquidated damages for failure, so why spend more than you have to.
Surely the cost of putting the legacy fleet through overhauls due to the non-delivery of replacement stock would be part of any claim for liquidated damages? It remains very puzzling that they have simply taken coaches out of service. What's next, Norwich-London sets going down to 7 coaches each?
 

DarloRich

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Surely the cost of putting the legacy fleet through overhauls due to the non-delivery of replacement stock would be part of any claim for liquidated damages? It remains very puzzling that they have simply taken coaches out of service. What's next, Norwich-London sets going down to 7 coaches each?

Potentially, yes. I have no idea what the contract says.

That does, however, assume that capacity to undertake such work exisits in the market
 

ChrisHogan

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Surely the cost of putting the legacy fleet through overhauls due to the non-delivery of replacement stock would be part of any claim for liquidated damages? It remains very puzzling that they have simply taken coaches out of service. What's next, Norwich-London sets going down to 7 coaches each?

Overhauls are the ROSCOs' responsibility not the TOCs.
 

F Great Eastern

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I am going to repeat myself: Any company would take a similar decision. You MIGHT give yourself a bit more contingency by retaining some of the old resource a bit longer but not a great deal longer and not if vast spend is needed. If you have a big spend item coming up like an overhaul those vehicles are not going to get money spent on them. They simply aren't.

The simple fact is that Greater Anglia underestimated the challenges that introducing two new unproven fleets. The probably thought that the cutting back of non essential maintenance wouldn't really impact them as by the time it started to take effect they'd be either no longer required or would be in their last weeks of service so they wouldn't have to take a hit.

Why would you? You have a contract with a deliverer for a new product, a fixed timescale and, i assume, liquidated damages for failure, so why spend more than you have to.

Because people who are experienced with these things and have done them before would know that the chances of Bombardier and Stadler delivering two unproven fleets bang on time was very low indeed and would have worked on the assumption of that being the case. It's not like GA are introducing a well tested and established platform that has been bedded in with other UK operators for years.

People in the industry as well as several on this forum believed that it was a very ambitious timeframe and required a heraclean effort and everything to go right in order to pull this all off and we've also had confirmation from a number of people on here that basically the operations side of the business had no say in the plans and everything was decided but people who know the theory of these projects but have no experience in actually delivering them.

Your finance/business/ops mix of decision makers wont change that calculus. But it is easy just to blame "finance" and the "bean counters"

If you are going to be implementing a major project, do you not agree that it is sensible to have a team that is experienced in delivering such projects being involved in the decision making alongside the finance and bid managers?

Do you think it is sensible that Greater Anglia decided to replace a well regarded, experienced engineering director for the new franchise with someone who had never worked in the railway before and then ask them to be involved as the engineering lead of delivering 1000 carriages of unproven rolling stock?

I also don't like the use of the word 'bean counters' because finance people have an important part to play in any company, so would appreciate it if you did not use diminishing words such as those to describe people who have probably trained for years as accountants. My issue was not that there shouldn't be finance people, more that there should be a better balance between experienced bid managers and experienced operational people.
 

reddragon

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Nothing changes. When the Class 321s arrived under BR the old stock was in a dire state. 302s down to 3 cars, locked out doors, missing lights, no aircon (joking), toilets long abandoned and a hotch potch of units some barely able to work. You never knew what assortment would turn up on any day. You even got 315s on express turns!

Why would you waste resources due for scrap on things and tied to a DDA / PRM deadline?
 

HLE

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Tell you what without 'bean counters', a lot of companies would go bust very quickly.

I can't see it being an easy job in the rail industry, fine profit margins, thousands on the payroll. Cashflow must be very tight.

But no company is going to spend big on soon to be replaced assets. But it's well known on here that GA ops had sod all input into the bid and knew it was going to kick Abellio straight in the backside further down the line.

@Firstgreateastern in my experience, the training counts for little in industry (including mine back in day), it's the experience that is near everything. I wouldn't employ a freshly qualified accountant without solid experience to back it up, unless it was for a junior role. Probably the opposite occurs in practice which I avoided like the plague!
 

James James

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Because people who are experienced with these things and have done them before would know that the chances of Bombardier and Stadler delivering two unproven fleets bang on time was very low indeed and would have worked on the assumption of that being the case. It's not like GA are introducing a well tested and established platform that has been bedded in with other UK operators for years.
But to be fair to them, at the time they ordered, surely they could have assumed that the Aventra would be proven in regular service with TFL/Crossrail/etc. by now? And Stadler have enough of a record with other units (the UK ones aren't really that different, given that they've made one-off adjustments for other countries in the past)? Looks like a combination of bad luck with a bit too much optimism on the side if you ask me.
 

F Great Eastern

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Tell you what without 'bean counters', a lot of companies would go bust very quickly.

Indeed, I've seen this myself in my job where we have some great people with great ideas but they don't have any sense of the numbers or cost or what needs to be taken into account. This is also quite common on Dragons Den. I've always believed you need a good blend if you are to achieve highly.

@Firstgreateastern in my experience, the training counts for little in industry (including mine back in day), it's the experience that is near everything. I wouldn't employ a freshly qualified accountant without solid experience to back it up, unless it was for a junior role. Probably the opposite occurs in practice which I avoided like the plague!

Oh of course experience is vital in any position, my point was that 'bean counters' is quite demeaning for professional people who have studied hard and worked hard to get where they are. Some people often treat so called 'bean counters' as if they are poorly educated or stupid, which couldn't be further from the truth.

But to be fair to them, at the time they ordered, surely they could have assumed that the Aventra would be proven in regular service with TFL/Crossrail/etc. by now? And Stadler have enough of a record with other units (the UK ones aren't really that different, given that they've made one-off adjustments for other countries in the past)?

Looks like a combination of bad luck with a bit too much optimism on the side if you ask me.

But any adequate major project plan shouldn't and doesn't make assumptions and hope that they go right or else just put it down to bad luck or something that is not their fault. Part of planning a project like this is identifying risk factors and the effect that they may have on the business and putting in plans of what you will do should that situation occur.

Making assumptions that because other people have ordered something it must be okay is a sheep mentality thing to do and saying that someone does something somewhere else, on another gauge, with different kind of tracks and different rules and regulations so it will be alright is an amateur mistake because things are nowhere near as straightforward in practice as Greater Anglia have found out with some of the issues being very much UK specific.

The lack of timely delivery of rolling stock of unproven fleets was identified as an issue by people in the industry and people on the forums from day one. Perhaps if the Greater Anglia bid team had spoke to their operations team more rather than ploughing their own furrow and putting their fingers in their ears they might have realised this, since well connected people on this forum, such as HLE have stated that these people knew there were problems coming down the track.

Assumptions are very dangerous things in the world of project planning, especially when they are later excused by excuses such as bad luck. If you are assuming something, then you shouldn't be relying on it as being a certainty and should have a plan of what happens if your assumption is wrong.
 

LAX54

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The we had all the armchair experts here saying that the Stadler brand were exceptional, and quoting various European versions, and they would work out of the box ! well seems that was wrong :) in fact the 755's seem to very flimsy indeed, and I think, they will last nowhere near as long as a 150 /153 / Cl90 / 321 etc !
 

43096

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The we had all the armchair experts here saying that the Stadler brand were exceptional, and quoting various European versions, and they would work out of the box ! well seems that was wrong :) in fact the 755's seem to very flimsy indeed, and I think, they will last nowhere near as long as a 150 /153 / Cl90 / 321 etc !
So having had a pop at “armchair experts” you then tell us after less than 6 months service that the FLIRTs won’t last. Do please enlighten us as to your expertise that confirms that, or else we’ll draw the conclusion that you are also an “armchair expert”.
 
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