Hitachi Factory - First Group order 14 new trains with options for 13 more

[HSTEd]

Have you included freight in this, as decarbonisation will demand more diesels be replaced with at least hybrid locos? After that perhaps we should consider having a bigger export market.

I don't know when the last fleet service locomotive was built in the UK (excluding stuff like Tornado or handfuls of industrial locomotives etc).

The Class 92?
In any case a few hundred locomotives will not meaningfully change the industry picture.

If freight decarbonisation occurs, the locomotives will be purchased from abroad, where established businesses have already captured the vast majority of the market.

There's a very good argument the existing fleet is too small.

To economically support our current manufacturing infrastructure we'd need a fleet double or treble what we have now!

500 vehicles out of around 15-16000 probably makes a significant allowance for service expansion after all.

EDIT:
It is apparently less than 16,000, about 15,100.

We should also be looking to expand light rail systems which will these manufacturing facilities could supply.

I am very skeptical the UK will ever have light rail systems that would total to even the order of magnitude of the number of vehicles seen in the National Rail system.
Even the Manchester Metrolink system amounts to only ~150 trams.

They are, ultimately, a rounding error.

Of course, if we take a joined up view, GB train manufacturing need not manufacture solely for the GB network. Train manufacturers could follow an Airbus approach and distribute component manufacturing to best utilise a local skill set, or simply compete for orders overseas. Or a UK-based factory could compete for European purchase tenders.

Lots of countries will railways are trying to protect their domestic trainbuilding system, consequently there will be little market for export to those places.
That leaves us fighting for the minor nation scraps, against people with vastly more recent industrial experience and established market share.

Expecting export orders to bail out the domestic industry will end the same way it ended for nuclear - total failure.

 

[zwk500]

I don't know when the last fleet service locomotive was built in the UK (excluding stuff like Tornado or handfuls of industrial locomotives etc).

The Class 92?
In any case a few hundred locomotives will not meaningfully change the industry picture.

The Class 66 fleet numbers some 600 examples alone.

If freight decarbonisation occurs, the locomotives will be purchased from abroad, where established businesses have already captured the vast majority of the market.

Although they may be designed abroad, there's nothing stopping them being built here. Especially if e.g. Siemens win the contract.

To economically support our current manufacturing infrastructure we'd need a fleet double or treble what we have now!

Doubling the fleet sounds quite good to me, as a regular experiencer of GWR's chronic lack of stock.

500 vehicles out of around 15-16000 probably makes a significant allowance for service expansion after all.

So a few hundred locos (the Class 66 numbers 600+ on it's own) won't change the industry picture, but 500 vehicles is sufficient?

EDIT:
It is apparently less than 16,000, about 15,100.

I am very skeptical the UK will ever have light rail systems that would total to even the order of magnitude of the number of vehicles seen in the National Rail system.
Even the Manchester Metrolink system amounts to only ~150 trams.

They are, ultimately, a rounding error.

In an industry like rail vehicles, you want a solid base load but also enough smaller jobs that all add up. I am not suggesting light rail and light rail alone would be the saviour of the plant, but as they will need to be built if the UK is able to offer a capability to build them it is all part of the package.

Lots of countries will railways are trying to protect their domestic trainbuilding system, consequently there will be little market for export to those places.
That leaves us fighting for the minor nation scraps, against people with vastly more recent industrial experience and established market share.

Expecting export orders to bail out the domestic industry will end the same way it ended for nuclear - total failure.

I do not propose an export-only or even export-primary model. I am pointing out that UK train building does not need to be completely insular in it's focus on the mainline heavy rail network.

It should be possible to sustain a manufacturing base in the UK between the domestic mainline market (replacement and fleet enlargement), other metro/light rail systems (with sensible expansion), component manufacture for other assembly, and some export jobs.

 

[HSTEd]

The Class 66 fleet numbers some 600 examples alone.

And represent the vast majority of the operational locomotive fleet.
The freight market is also saturated with locomotives and the freight operators will not part with them easily.

Also are there actually 600 operational in the UK? A lot of Class 66s operate in Europe after all.

Although they may be designed abroad, there's nothing stopping them being built here. Especially if e.g. Siemens win the contract.

They will only build them here if we spend lots of public money propping up a plant for years in the hope that Siemens wins a contract in the future, so that they can be.
This does not appear to be a good use of public money.

So a few hundred locos (the Class 66 numbers 600+ on it's own) won't change the industry picture, but 500 vehicles is sufficient?

500 vehicles each and every year.

The demand for freight locomotives in any given year will be a couple dozen, especially given that FOCs will not give up their class 66s easily.

I do not propose an export-only or even export-primary model. I am pointing out that UK train building does not need to be completely insular in it's focus on the mainline heavy rail network.

I think it is fanciful to expect that enough export orders can be obtained reliably to materially impact the economics of the plants.
If they manage to win a few, great, but if the railway vehicle manufacturing industry cannot be supported by domestic orders, it is bad for the railway and bad for Britain.

 

[physics34]

The boom-bust of train purchasing is the bigger problem here partly it seems because it is left to the last minute to replace fleets.

Exactly a strategy is needed. Hundreds of 2nd generation DMUs will need replacing in the next 5-10 years.... orders could be made NOW! I guess there is the issue with having to tender everytime... is that an EU rule?

 

[LYuen]

Exactly a strategy is needed. Hundreds of 2nd generation DMUs will need replacing in the next 5-10 years.... orders could be made NOW! I guess there is the issue with having to tender everytime... is that an EU rule?

GBR should be tasked to set a rolling stock order target and towards that.
Rolling stock in the UK alone is a big enough market to keep a few permanent train building plants locally.

 

[Kite159]

Good news with First Group ordering some extra coaches from Hitachi for their open access operators. Usage of Lumo must have increased since LNER included their pilot removal of off-peak fares making Lumo a lot cheaper.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Remember that mad dash to get plenty of 80x units when Hitachi first came to the UK. We ordered so many that a plant in Europe had to help out. Now we are wondering what we can do with this formerly overrun plant. Fools rushed in - instead we could have held off on such big orders and instead get the stuff now.

But no we go for boom and bust. We did it with replacing steam too late and too fast which led to a big demand later to replace all the first generation DMUs. We even held off replacing them thus shortening and heightening the peak. We will never learn and perhaps it would be better if we stuffed European manufacturers instead of creating our own problems.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Exactly a strategy is needed. Hundreds of 2nd generation DMUs will need replacing in the next 5-10 years.... orders could be made NOW! I guess there is the issue with having to tender everytime... is that an EU rule?

GBR should be tasked to set a rolling stock order target and towards that.
Rolling stock in the UK alone is a big enough market to keep a few permanent train building plants locally.

That's not how public procurement works, and it's not the job of government to keep private sector factories in business.
Competitive tendering is not an EU rule but wider trade agreements mean that railway contracts go out to private tender.
GBR, like BR, will eventually have to produce business cases for new trains, against a limited annual budget.
On top of which the TOCs don't really know what they want long term, and technology is changing fast.
GBR might improve that but it won't be easy.

Eurostar procured its e320s without going to open tender, so there are other routes.
I think the new TfW fleets, and Merseyrail's 777s, were also procured differently (using local government procurement).

 

[Wolfie]

Well it is still a problem, because we have too little demand to sustain the multiple train manufacturing complexes we now have.

Even leaving aside the tube associated plant at Goole, we now have plants for Hitachi, CAF and Alstom.
The entire UK passenger rail vehicle market is under 500 vehicles per year, even assuming a continuous replacement programme. (The fleet is ~16000 vehicles).

We probably have enough work for one reasonably sized train plant, not three. We end up paying over the odds to have badly utilised factories sit around to avoid negative headlines.

Harsh and sad reality. Calling them rail manufacturing complexes over-eggs the pudding in most cases too. Final assembly plants is probably more accurate.

But we do want the trains. XC, GC, Scotrail all need more modern trains and they may as well be Hitatchi as the class 800 family is becoming the modern standard fleet

They were very vocal in the campaign. Very.

There are multiple good reasons, some economic - monopoly supplier - and others practical e.g. the cracking issues that the 800s have had, why putting all of our eggs in one basket in that way is an extremely bad idea.

 

[JonathanH]

Usage of Lumo must have increased since LNER included their pilot removal of off-peak fares making Lumo a lot cheaper.

Lumo have been able to increase their fares as well as a result.

 

[Wolfie]

Have you included freight in this, as decarbonisation will demand more diesels be replaced with at least hybrid locos? After that perhaps we should consider having a bigger export market.

The UK loading gauge, not to mention our relatively small home market and high costs, makes significant exports highly unlikely.

Of course, if we take a joined up view, GB train manufacturing need not manufacture solely for the GB network. Train manufacturers could follow an Airbus approach and distribute component manufacturing to best utilise a local skill set, or simply compete for orders overseas. Or a UK-based factory could compete for European purchase tenders.

BREXIT killed that stone dead. Not to mention the fact that no UK rail manufacturer has the range of fairly unique capabilities that BAe had with respect to aircraft wings

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It was apparently the Japanese Chair of Hitachi who said the Newton Aycliffe plant was still vulnerable if the government did not reinstate the HS2 Phase 2 plans within one year.

Hitachi’s £500m train deal secures hundreds of jobs at UK factory

Contract for 14 new trains from FirstGroup will help give County Durham site a future

www.theguardian.com

Despite the boost to the UK plant, the chair of the Japanese manufacturing group, Toshiaki Higashihara, warned that it remained at risk unless the government revived the northern leg of HS2 or developed other plans requiring trains.
Higashihara told the Financial Times that jobs could not be guaranteed unless demand increased. He said that if the wider HS2 plan, scrapped last year by Rishi Sunak, “stays cancelled, then the volume of work at Newton Aycliffe goes down”, adding: “If the Labour government doesn’t re-examine plans within one year, it’s going to be a problem.”

 

[Wolfie]

There's a very good argument the existing fleet is too small. We should also be looking to expand light rail systems which will these manufacturing facilities could supply.

Firstly light rail technology is rather different to the mainline and secondly given how congested the network already is the most that could be done in many areas is probably lengthening services subject obviously to demand.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

Yes as per post 37

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

So Starmer wanting to be associated with this effectively underwrites Open Access operators in new world GBR. They will cream off a lot of the profitable traffic from state operator and now lead to sub optimal timetables potentially. So basically replacing the income they've lost on running the TOCs.

 

[Verulamius]

So Starmer wanting to be associated with this effectively underwrites Open Access operators in new world GBR. They will cream off a lot of the profitable traffic from state operator and now lead to sub optimal timetables potentially. So basically replacing the income they've lost on running the TOCs.

This does suggest that Labour will be more favourable towards Open Access operators than the previous government?

 

[JonathanH]

This does suggest that Labour will be more favourable towards Open Access operators than the previous government?

To what end? It isn't really their place to be more favourable. What seems to have happened is that the DfT have dropped the ball and left space in timetables for open access operators to come forward with ideas to fill gaps.

 

[Mikey C]

This does suggest that Labour will be more favourable towards Open Access operators than the previous government?

Surely it's just that the private rail franchise holders have more interest in them now, now that they are losing their franchises. First, for example, wouldn't run Open Access trains to compete against itself (GWR, SWR and Avanti), but now that these franchises are going, this a tempting new income stream.

 

[Wolfie]

Surely it's just that the private rail franchise holders have more interest in them now, now that they are losing their franchises. First, for example, wouldn't run Open Access trains to compete against itself (GWR, SWR and Avanti), but now that these franchises are going, this a tempting new income stream.

It's an interesting question just how much abstraction is permitted before the primary legislation is changed.

 

[Russel]

As good as this is to see, I do fear it is just kicking the can down the road, yes there is the HS2 order, but split over two factories, that won't last forever, then what?

 

[rg177]

As others have said, Lumo services in particular could do with being lengthened as they've proven to be incredibly popular. They aren't quite the bargain bucket operator they originally set out to be (with £19.90 advances all the way down the ECML) but the price differential and lack of stops en-route has been enough to drive significant growth.

The IETs are certainly not everyone's first choice but more capacity can only be a good thing.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

It's an interesting question just how much abstraction is permitted before the primary legislation is changed.

I find First's new found concern for Paignton rather touching - currently there are only three through semi-fast services Paddington to Paignton and v.v. and in the past it has been worst than that. Clearly the target market is Bristol to Paddington and very abstractive - by adding Paignton it has more chance of approval.

 

[Clarence Yard]

No, Bristol-London is not the target market - the yields there are too low to base a business plan on. Further south west is the target market.

 

[Mikey C]

As others have said, Lumo services in particular could do with being lengthened as they've proven to be incredibly popular. They aren't quite the bargain bucket operator they originally set out to be (with £19.90 advances all the way down the ECML) but the price differential and lack of stops en-route has been enough to drive significant growth.

Plus better seats...

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

To what end? It isn't really their place to be more favourable. What seems to have happened is that the DfT have dropped the ball and left space in timetables for open access operators to come forward with ideas to fill gaps.

It was never Labour policy to end open access, going back to the Corbyn years.
Labour can't be seen as anti-business if it wants growth in the economy.

 

[nwales58]

Since when did a civil servant have the imagination to come up with ideas to fill gaps?

Quite often, from some of the invitations to tender I saw over 30+ years.

Imagination, too much of, can be the problem when excellent Oxford-trained minds, non-science of course, have brilliant ideas at odds with transport realities

 

[py_megapixel]

I don't love First Group, and I'd certainly rather have more stock for one of the several DfT TOCs that are currently crying out for it.

That said, more rail capacity in general can only be a good thing, and if that is what this means then I welcome it.

 

[43096]

I don't know when the last fleet service locomotive was built in the UK (excluding stuff like Tornado or handfuls of industrial locomotives etc).

The Class 92?

After 92046 there were the extra batches of locos for Eurotunnel. Those would be the last.

 

[WAB]

I find First's new found concern for Paignton rather touching - currently there are only three through semi-fast services Paddington to Paignton and v.v. and in the past it has been worst than that. Clearly the target market is Bristol to Paddington and very abstractive - by adding Paignton it has more chance of approval.

Similarly with the service to Carmarthen - I'm not sure Gowerton etc. will be contributing much...

 

[mrcheek]

Similarly with the service to Carmarthen - I'm not sure Gowerton etc. will be contributing much...

I think on these applications they often look for a potentially friendly MP, and add their town to the list. Always helps if you have a campaigning MP on your side!