Hull Trains 802: Construction updates

[St. Paddy]

802305 seen heading north through Finsbury Park 35 minutes ago

 

[3973EXL]

6X80/X81
0330 Dollands Moor - North Pole Jn - Merchant Park
66783 802305

 

[St. Paddy]

Strange it’s not heading straight to Eastleigh like the other four

 

[Chris125]

Strange it’s not heading straight to Eastleigh like the other four

Apparently needs finishing off?

 

[Peter Bonner]

Strange it’s not heading straight to Eastleigh like the other four

Hull Trains are reportedly losing loads of money atm. Only 2 802s needed for service. Maybe 305 is in effect stored?

 

[Clarence Yard]

305 has been sent to Newton Aycliffe for finishing off. Even before current events, Hitachi were struggling to finish it off in Italy (because of material supply issues) and it was decided to do it in the UK.

Newton Aycliffe is currently on stop while Hitachi revise their production methods for in factory "distance working".

All other HT units are in service and are being changed over regularly for cleaning purposes.

 

[Brissle Girl]

Hull Trains are reportedly losing loads of money atm. Only 2 802s needed for service. Maybe 305 is in effect stored?

Who isn’t, other than those in the food supply chain and health industries. (Awaits response pointing out some others.)

They will of course be eligible for the 80% employee rebate, (though I guess they are still on the hook for leasing costs of their shiny new trains, which I’m guessing is more than they were paying for the clapped out 180s). And their marginal costs will be much reduced too.

But grim for those operators not able to take advantage of the management contract offer.

First Group might look at it in totality though. They have been absolved, at least temporarily , of the huge losses on its share of TPE and SWR, which will more than compensate.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Don't confuse "Huge Losses" with "Onerous Contract Provisions" in the Accounts. An OCP is usually a one time hit on the P&L to cover the expected lifetime losses of a contract. You put the money aside in your balance sheet to cover those future losses.

If a franchise Contract is taken over by Government for a period during the time the OCP is meant to cover, there may be an opportunity to reverse some of that back out to the benefit of the P&L.

It is perhaps a very good thing that OA operators are not big entities, thereby reducing the financial exposure to their Owning Groups.

 

[Brissle Girl]

I get that. The OCP capitalises the future losses, but they still exist, just on the balance sheet. If those losses will no longer emerge, at least for the next few months, then as you say the provision can be reduced.

I’d have thought First Group will end up better off in terms of their rail businesses, and I suspect it means that at least for SWR they will end up running a longer term management contract, as opposed to the OLR taking over, which appeared quite likely.