That comes at a cost - the IEP project will require infrastructure work on the routes where it will operate, i cant remember the cost off-hand but its not insignificant.
I didn't think DaFT had ever released the cost of that aspect, when I e-mailed them they didn't seem to know. I've just been trying to work things out from elsewhere. One Network Rail press release about the GW upgrade included £150m for IEP. Now, my guess is that can't be the rolling stock order, as that wouldn't be funded through Network Rail.
Also, an IEP coach is supposedly (so I gather from Modern Railways) £2.6m to buy, plus £250,000 for each of the diesel engines. That means the £150m would not quite buy you 11 5-car bi-mode units. Therefore, the £150m figure does seem to be something else, and I'm guessing it is the cost of clearing the routes for 26 metre carriges. You could buy quite a few miles of wires for £150m, and add a £250k saving from each diesel engine (as a wild guess, probablly around £60,000,000 total).
Some work will have to be done west Cardiff and I wonder if the IEP's will be able to pass each other on that curve just after you leave Neath heading to Swansea.
Personally I think IEP clearance should stop at Cardiff (and Oxford, Newbury/Westbury and Weston-Super Mare). That leaves Swansea and the south-west inaccessible to their new IEPs, sending that asspect of the IEP fleet to East Coast in exchange for some stock that shouldn't need guage clearance works (Intercity 225s) and retaining IC125s on the south-west services should see to that.
I as many others will agree see this IEP heading for disaster especially if some operators say they don't want them and have a much cheaper alternative such as a class 180 style EMU which can be hauled by a diesel loco away from the wires
As others have said above, Hitachi probablly have this one (IEP) in the bag now. I think the best we can hope for (and DfT will still take some pursuading) is to order IEP without all the diesel engines, ie. just a pure EMU.
An intermediate vehicle on a Pendolino is 23.9m with the driving cars 25.1m.
So a Pendolinio would not work on GWML without guage clearance either?