Snow1964
Established Member
GWR are making a business case with the DfT for additional rolling stock / replacement of the final HSTs which if approved will go to the market for procurement. The fleet likely to be the strongest candidates are the 175s but there’s a lot of hoops for GWR to jump through first!
It is also worth noting GWR lost a lot of rolling stock that was in the plan 5 years ago (some of the short HSTs, the 769s, three 387s etc). Obviously covid and changed travel patterns played a part.
It is also known (from recent ORR passenger figures) that GWR has seen growth in last year or two. And although numbers overall are nearer 80% of 5 years ago, average journey length has increased by something like 13%, however vehicle km has not kept up with passenger km (which means trains are on average busier)
The business case is therefore on paper stronger than when the IETs were ordered (from a demand led basis, passenger km vs vehicle km, or in plain English, point where more capacity is needed). What GWR are having to do is convince DfT that there is need in 2024 that meets DfT economic thresholds. The ORR data has already shown that capacity is squeezed compared to when new or extra GWR trains were last approved.