800 series problems: A rolling stock company of last resort?

[rebmcr]

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/entire-800-801-802-fleet-stood-down-for-safety-checks.217119/

If the costs of defect remediation turns out to be substantial, I wonder what the DfT has in place to guard against Agility thinking it's not worth their while to do the work, and declaring bankruptcy.

Spin up a "ROSCO of Last Resort", take possession of the fleet, and dry-lease them to the (by then) Concession Operators, at no cost.

Such a scenario would make the Intercity Express Programme an unprecedentedly good value for the taxpayer!

 

[robbeech]

Such a scenario would make the Intercity Express Programme an unprecedentedly good value for the taxpayer!

Well that option is out then

 

[Ianno87]

Spin up a "ROSCO of Last Resort", take possession of the fleet, and dry-lease them to the (by then) Concession Operators, at no cost.

Such a scenario would make the Intercity Express Programme an unprecedentedly good value for the taxpayer!

It's fanciful wibble** that Hitachi would deliberately let Agility trains go bust by it "not being worth their while" to repair the trains.

Their reputation as a train builder would be trashed for starters.

(**And, let's be honest, outright insulting/disrespectful to the staff at North Pole, Stoke Gifford etc investigating this right now)

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Spin up a "ROSCO of Last Resort", take possession of the fleet, and dry-lease them to the (by then) Concession Operators, at no cost.
Such a scenario would make the Intercity Express Programme an unprecedentedly good value for the taxpayer!

That would cost an eye-watering sum to expropriate two fleets of nearly-new trains from their owners.
It would also destroy confidence in the UK as a business partner which honours commercial contracts (which have 25-odd years to run).
HMG does not use such tactics in peacetime.
Agility Trains also has two significant UK shareholders, John Laing and Barclays Bank - the latter having funded the whole deal.

 

[43096]

That would cost an eye-watering sum to expropriate two fleets of nearly-new trains from their owners.
It would also destroy confidence in the UK as a business partner which honours commercial contracts (which have 25-odd years to run).
HMG does not use such tactics in peacetime.
Agility Trains also has two significant UK shareholders, John Laing and Barclays Bank - the latter having funded the whole deal.

It rather depends if Agility are willing and able to carry on swallowing the loss of revenue for non-delivery of daily diagrams. This must already be somewhere over £500k per day.

 

[35B]

That would cost an eye-watering sum to expropriate two fleets of nearly-new trains from their owners.
It would also destroy confidence in the UK as a business partner which honours commercial contracts (which have 25-odd years to run).
HMG does not use such tactics in peacetime.
Agility Trains also has two significant UK shareholders, John Laing and Barclays Bank - the latter having funded the whole deal.

It rather depends on the terms of the contract, and what termination rights the government have if the supplier is failing to provide a material part of the service contracted. It would be hard to have overmuch sympathy for a company that insists on supporting the trains it builds if their failure of design and/or build led to termination of the support contract.

The (IT services) contract structures I'm familiar with would put suppliers in a pretty damn weak legal position if the systems they'd built something that then had to be pulled for an open ended period.

 

[SynthD]

Is there a specific protocol for the bankruptcy of ROSCOs? If not, it's probably the usual case of administrators sell assets to whoever pays the highest price. The gov would ask another ROSCO to buy.

 

[Energy]

The IEP contract will likely contain something on what happens should Agility Trains be folded but this fix is extremely unlikely to cost so much it wouldn't be worthwhile to Agility.

 

[43096]

The IEP contract will likely contain something on what happens should Agility Trains be folded but this fix is extremely unlikely to cost so much it wouldn't be worthwhile to Agility.

Agility will be haemorrhaging cash currently. Likely over £750k/day of lost revenue currently with the same costs and the fix yet to be paid for. Couldn't happen to a nicer, less customer focused business.