How much do trains cost to buy?

[Vulcan]

This is just something thats puzzling me.

How much are new trains worth?

for example, how much would it cost to buy a new 66, 70, 185, pendolino, etc, etc.

I realise its not as simple as buying a car with an 'on the road' price, as most are built especially to the customer's requirements and theres development costs and tooling costs and whatnot, but forget that for now and assume they come ready to run, like a full sized hornby product.

 

[bengley]

Well I heard from a driver I know that a set of the new S Stock trains on the Underground will be about £4-5m each.

 

[Vulcan]

Blimy, and theyre only small.

I have a copy of the sales leaflet for a 2' gauge Muir Hill loco, powered by a Fordson tractor. (see www.abbeylightrailway.webs.com and look at our Number 9, because it is one) New in the 1920s the complete loco was £342.

 

[royaloak]

Each DMU/ EMU coach costs about 1 1/4 million pounds.

 

[GB]

The cost of a class 66 used to be £1.5m, not sure of the costs these days though.

 

[Metroland]

Yep, about £1-1.5 million per loco/MU coach. But they last 40/50 years and millions of miles.

 

[eos]

and a 'scrap' value of £20,000 ... Thats assuming there is a lot less of scrap value in todays construction compared to say a class 47.
More than £20,000 is simply that there may be some residual use for either a preserved railway or Harry Needle etc, so a slightly higher price.
I doubt if a truly scrap coach of say a voyager is £20K though..

 

[Metroland]

Well there has been cases of people buying Mark 1 coaches for £1000 or less.

 

[route:oxford]

Yep, about £1-1.5 million per loco/MU coach. But they last 40/50 years and millions of miles.

Going by newspaper articles about £X million pound order for rail fleets, that sounds about right.

Every manufacturer will give a discount depending on volume though...

Also rail vehicles will need regular standard and periodical deep servicing - a manufacturer may offer an up-front discount if a long term servicing package is agreed.

Few franchise holders own their own stock (FGW is a notable exception with a handful HST sets) and merely lease from a ROSCO.

 

[Vulcan]

I realise it isn't as straightforward as simply paying money, taking it out of the box and putting it on the rails (after putting the extra buffer beam details on). I was just wondering how much they cost to buy.

 

[91101]

There is only HEX, 5 HST sets by FGW and the 421's that SWT use(d) on the Lyimington Line that are owned by the TOC rather than a ROSCO.

GC's HST's are owned by Soverign Trains, which is a ROSCO to GC, but both of which are owned by Sula TOC.

 

[route:oxford]

There is only HEX, 5 HST sets by FGW and the 421's that SWT use(d) on the Lyimington Line that are owned by the TOC rather than a ROSCO.

GC's HST's are owned by Soverign Trains, which is a ROSCO to GC, but both of which are owned by Sula TOC.

Which ROSCO owns Chiltern 121020?

 

[theblackwatch]

There is only HEX, 5 HST sets by FGW and the 421's that SWT use(d) on the Lyimington Line that are owned by the TOC rather than a ROSCO.

GC's HST's are owned by Soverign Trains, which is a ROSCO to GC, but both of which are owned by Sula TOC.

The 5 HSTs operated by FGW are owned by First Group, not FGW. Major difference!

 

[devon_metro]

The 5 HSTs operated by FGW are owned by First Group, not FGW. Major difference!

And are likely to be major bargaining tools when the GW franchise comes up for renewal...

 

[theblackwatch]

And are likely to be major bargaining tools when the GW franchise comes up for renewal...

Exactly - ownership would not be handed over to any new franchisee with the franchise!

 

[Pumbaa]

I suspect there will be heavy political leaning to get either First to sell on the HSTs reasonably, by either blocking the moving of them to another franchise or the DfT will make arrangements for replacements by either getting the incoming franchise to lease them directly from First, or other stock.

 

[royaloak]

These 5 HST sets are nothing to do with the DFT, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.
Just say First lost the Great Western franchise, there is nothing stopping them leasing them to, lets say Northern at very favourable terms.

 

[Drsatan]

The five 483s (also known as 1938 standard stock) in use on the Island Line were bought by SWT in February 2007 when the franchise was renewed and amalgamated with SWT for the nominal sum of £1. It's much cheaper than paying a million pounds a year to lease units whose construction cost has been written off countless times.

 

[djw1981]

These 5 HST sets are nothing to do with the DFT, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.
Just say First lost the Great Western franchise, there is nothing stopping them leasing them to, lets say Northern at very favourable terms.

Or switch them to HT and take 1780 off lease. Instant reduction in costs.

 

[Kingfisher200262]

GC's HST's are owned by Soverign Trains, which is a ROSCO to GC, but both of which are owned by Sula TOC.

This is not quite right. GC is owned by Sula TOC, but Sovereign is owned by Sula ROSCO.

A small, but important difference.

 

[GNERman]

a class 357 new costs £3million each, the 6 HST power cars bought by Sovereign for GC costs £1.5million altogether but they were all broken and in need of overhaul.

 

[Kingfisher200262]

a class 357 new costs £3million each.

Do you mean a 375? Is that £3M per vehicle, or per 4-car dual voltage unit? If the latter, sounds a bit light, if the former, sounds a bit rich.

 

[GNERman]

Do you mean a 375? Is that £3M per vehicle, or per 4-car dual voltage unit? If the latter, sounds a bit light, if the former, sounds a bit rich.

Per class 357 unit as said when new from Adtranz.

 

[Kingfisher200262]

Per class 357 unit as said when new from Adtranz.

Thanks. That was ten years ago. At that time, my house was worth £150k.... even taking into account the recent slump, it was recently valued at £425k.

By that measure, a four-car unit now should cost £8.5M, or £2.125M per car.

In reality, a current technology EMU vehicle costs about £1.2M and a DMU vehicle about £1.4M (unless it's Chinese of course, in which case each figure can be discounted by about a third i.e. £0.8M / £0.95M).

The real issue is the cost of finance. Three years ago, capital lease costs were running at about 8% p.a. (Rosco to TOC), whereas now the going rate is more than 14%, which is unaffordable and is preventing TOCS from taking on new stock due to their obvious inability to make a credible buisness case for the investment, especially taking into account the short length of franchises.

Until this issue is resolved (maybe by a new Rosco entering the market, offering sensible lease rates), the shortage of new rolling stock will persist.

 

[jon0844]

I don't think the prices of a train are linked to the increase in property values!

If everything was linked to the value of your house, my salary would have increased to about £150,000 per annum!

You also have to consider that while some things go up in price, other things come down (like the cost of the electronic equipment on the train, the information systems etc).

And in a competitive market, a lot of that becomes irrelevant anyway; the cost of a new fleet of trains isn't for the trains, but to keep a company and staff in business.

 

[Kingfisher200262]

I don't think the prices of a train are linked to the increase in property values!

If everything was linked to the value of your house, my salary would have increased to about £150,000 per annum!

Hi Jon.... this is why I continued by saying "In reality....."

And in a competitive market, a lot of that becomes irrelevant anyway; the cost of a new fleet of trains isn't for the trains, but to keep a company and staff in business.

I never thought of it that way. You make Alstom, Bombardier, Siemens and co. sound like charities!

Surely, these multi-national, multi-sector companies entered the train building business (none of them started life as train builders) because they thought that they could make a profit from that activity.

I'm 100% certain that none of them acquired the likes of BREL (nee ABB and ADtranz), Metro-Cammell and all the other ex state owned or privately owned businesses that actually had their roots in building trains, for philanthropic reasons.

 

[jon0844]

When you're in the world of ship, train or plane building you can't just price up a train based on the cost of materials! It's pretty obvious that a train wouldn't cost £1.5m per carriage based on materials alone!

Governments often subsidise these industries because of the sheer number of workers there are.. and fight to win projects to keep plants open. At least that's how many countries did it, now it's a free market economy and companies go bust, get bought by foreign businesses (often for things like patents and approved statuses etc) or just tick over with vastly reduced staff numbers.

They're certainly not charities and in a lot of these types of business, there's the risk of a cartel to keep prices artificially high.

If you look at what local authorities are charged for materials and services (from the smallest things like street furniture), you'll see examples of grossly inflated prices.

Perhaps a new question should be asked alongside the original.

How much do trains cost to BUILD?

 

[Kingfisher200262]

When you're in the world of ship, train or plane building you can't just price up a train based on the cost of materials! It's pretty obvious that a train wouldn't cost £1.5m per carriage based on materials alone!

You are of course quite right and I hope I didn't give the impression that I'm naive enough to think that they could.

They must amortise a large number of items, not least which the initial engineering costs to develop the product (often difficult when you don't know how many you will sell) and make a reasonable provision for warranty / after sales support and product liability.

Perhaps a new question should be asked alongside the original.

How much do trains cost to BUILD?

I remember that when the first Derby-built Toyota Avensis went on sale in the showrooms at a bit over £10500, the "factory gate" price, or actual cost to build was £2835! I suspect that a lesser differential exists in trains, as the tooling costs will not be quite as high, but the same principle applies.

 

[rosscbrown]

So say I had a few million kicking about (for the record, I don't) and bought my train and spend ages getting the staff uniforms and all that other stuff you have to worry about

The what costs do I have? Do I have to pay to use the network? What about 'landing' fees at stations etc?

And if I'm only using my train at weekends, will it need more or less maintenance? Can I rent it out during the week?

 

[RPM]

Which ROSCO owns Chiltern 121020?

Chiltern own it - no ROSCO involved. The same applies to 121034 which is currently being refurbished for main line use. They also own 960014.