I see tables are described as extras that any purchaser will have to pay extra for, but Vivarail blatantly show tables in most of their recent literature as if this was the normal basic interior package.
To be fair it's pretty much standard for any product these days to showcase the top of the line model, complete with pops bells and whistles. It's only when you get all excited about it that they tell you that those tables are optional extras, and you want toilets, <sucks air through teeth>, that's going to cost you. But hey there's always the bolt on coffee bar....
Seriously though, two things strike me here. Firstly from the full website, the 360 rendering and the email, the interior changes each time. Surely by now they will have settled on the configuration and design? A small point but an important one, if they can't get simple details consistent what can they?
But far, far more importantly they are saying it will be the summer before a prototype even hits the rails. So real data that ROSCOs and TOCs can actually analyse won't be available until much later in the year right? But the Northern franchise bids, which Vivarail have more than hinted might be a big customer, and many on here have said that these would be useful for have to be by the end of June. Long before the first unit is expected to even get a test. So the question begs, and I have asked it before, is any bidder really going to stake their bid on a completely untested unit in the hope that it turns out to be suitable for them, or is it more likely that they would talk to other train builders in order to secure a quote for units that they know will be suitable?
OK there may be scope in other franchises for smaller orders of these D-stockers, but this might be patchy at best and would it make the whole project viable? I'll confess that I have been cynical about this at best, but given the current circumstances is this something that anybody should be staking any real interest in? After all if the optional extras are going to add to the cost per unit which has gone from 1/3 of the cost of a new unit to 2/3 the cost, is this really the great deal that has excited some? Just because the ex-boss of a TOC has bought some nearly 3 decades old stock and promises to make them a bit shinier with new engines strapped underneath, do we really have to hail them as the answer to our diesel stock problem? Personally I think not.
. No one bothered to correct her (shtum lads) and of course it can always be converted to a road tunnel like the smaller centre bore right ?.
