Is that a movement on the "up to 35 cars" previously mentioned? I just wonder whether procuring 1 (essentially) 220 vehicle for the purpose of inserting it into a 221 formation is going to be financially viable, given the further costs which would surely be incurred?
Correct. Sequence of events went something like this;
- Govt and ROSCOs confirmed they were interested in Thor concept, Govt to appease Derby after Bombardier had called curtains on it, and ROSCO to attempt to do its job properly.
- Bombardier quoted silly money assuming it had a monopoly on it and after probing it came out they would be sending the work to Europe.
- Job dead in water after Govt releases Bombardier were out to shaft them.
- Alstom piped up that they were still willing to do the work for a normal price, Bombardier agrees. eVoyager emerges.
For the purposes of the project, the 4 car 221 XC has will be stripped of all 'Super' cabability and downgraded to just Voyager. Bogies, tilt equipment and electronics, the lot. All XC fleet are now uniform 5 cars.
It has not proved possible to extend the concept to the 221s for two reasons;
a) the transformer car is to be unpowered; you can't fit powered bogies beneath, and cross feed them from ajoining cars without serious re-engineering and a complete lack of space besides. One transformer car can just about cope with the 4 cars. As soon as you add an extra car, the transformer car can't cope. So you either extend the 220s by 1 car to 5 cars, or by several cars to 8+. The economics just fall over at current.
b) assuming that the transformer capacity wasn't an issue, and you wanted to lengthen the 221s to 6-car or 5-car, you can't anyway. There is not enough space to fit the electro gubbins beneath the transformer car, fit tilting bogies, tilt controls and associated guff. It's just not feasible - there is simply not enough room underneath.
So that's the compromise. All 220s become 5 car and the 1 4-car 221 XC have. Virgin and the remaining 221s get diddly.
Until either they all return to XC (may happen in 2016) and get de-tilted, the XC network is fully AC and then it makes sense to lengthen to 8+... And like hell is that going to happen!