Query: Cancelled Class 172 order for Northern Rail/TPE/FGW

[507021]

Good evening,

I was on Wikipedia last night doing some research for my rail database and I noticed something about an order for 200 Class 172 carriages to be delivered to Northern Rail, TransPennine Express and First Great Western. Out of interest, I was wondering if anybody knows how many units were expected to be built for their respective recipients before they were cancelled in favour of electrification?

I'd also be interested in knowing where the proposed new 172s for Northern would have operated if they weren't cancelled, if anyone knows of course!

Regards to all.

 

[swt_passenger]

I think it was 202 vehicles to be exact.

I don't think they ever got to the stage of an order, so it is pretty much impossible to claim they would have been 172s. Probability is high, but it's not a fact.

It'll be a DfT paper archived somewhere, there were certainly tables showing the allocations, but the 2010 change of government resulted in this sort of information being taken down from DfT's website.

Deja Vu moment found last discussion:

Electrification Cancelling DMU orders

...and here's the document directly:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.....dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/diesel/invitation.pdf

 

[507021]

I think it was 202vehicles to be exact.

I don't think they ever got to the stage of an order, so it is pretty much impossible to claim they would have been 172s. Probability is high, but it's not a fact.

It'll be a DfT paper archived somewhere, there were certainly tables showing the allocations, but the 2010 change of government resulted in this sort of information being taken down from DfT's website.

Deja Vu moment found last discussion:

Electrification Cancelling DMU orders

...and here's the document directly:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.....dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/diesel/invitation.pdf

Brilliant, many thanks.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

In terms of DfT missteps over the years of railway privatisation, this has to be one of the biggest ones. Just think what an injection of 202 DMU vehicles would have done for the rolling stock market. The Cardiff-Portsmouth route in particular would be a different world to the overcrowded mess that it is today.

 

[3141]

My recollection is that the ITT was related to an attempt to stimulate British manufacturing at the time of the financial crash. I think four firms put in bids: Bombardier, CAF, Hitachi (I think) and one I can’t remember. Only one of these could have made much of an impact in support of British jobs.

The ROSCOs were reluctant to take ownership of new DMUs because they weren’t sure that they’d actually remain in use for 35 years or so. It may sound as if they were cleverly foreseeing the situation that exists in 2017, but actually they were thinking that future electrification might reduce the demand for DMUs. The DfT therefore issued a specification for a new company to acquire and lease the new DMUs; that document may also exist somewhere on the DfT’s website. This occurred around the time when the DfT had failed to persuade the ROSCOs to reduce their leasing charges, so it was probably enjoying the idea of setting up a competitor.

I cannot remember the precise chronology and the relationship of the DMU ITT with electrification proposals, but I think it was the decision by Andrew Adonis, when he was Secretary of State for Transport, to proceed with a number of electrification schemes that led to the DfT deciding to cancel the purchase of new DMUs. The expectation was that the electrifications would proceed to a much faster timescale so it would be only a few years until a considerable number of existing DMUs would be released for the routes that needed them. The DfT was definitely not cleverly foreseeing the situation that exists in 2017….

I do not know which of the bidders made the most competitive bid, but cancelling the order helped the DfT to avoid the embarrassment it would have faced if buying new DMUs had benefited another country’s manufacturing industry and not ours.

 

[Alfie1014]

In terms of DfT missteps over the years of railway privatisation, this has to be one of the biggest ones. Just think what an injection of 202 DMU vehicles would have done for the rolling stock market. The Cardiff-Portsmouth route in particular would be a different world to the overcrowded ****fest that it is today.

As someone who was working in the Department and involved in the debate at the time some of the issues were;

* at the time (2007-9) none of the traditional manufacturers or financiers for UK trains were interested in new build diesels as the mood music at long last was begining to move towards worthwhile electrification;
* the likes of CAF and Stadler, with full order books at the time regarded the UK market as too difficult and expensive to enter for relatively small builds;
* as a stop gap the DfT initated a procurement for diesels for the HLOS disels growth build, however the electrification band wagon was well under way and the the prospect of large numbers of mid-life EMUs coming up for grabs in the same timescale as the wiring programmes brought out the possibilities of cascades to us BR 'old lags' looking at the issue.
* As the momentum on electrification increased and little real interest was being shown by the market a movement to freeing up diesels by cascade and electrification became more attractive.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and at the time we didn't conceive that the electrification programme would go so off the rails as it has done. Harder times have fell on the likes of CAF and Stadler for a time, not helped by the financial crisis and cut backs on orders for their traditional markets, with them deciding to enter the UK market after all.

 

[swt_passenger]

I cannot remember the precise chronology and the relationship of the DMU ITT with electrification proposals, but I think it was the decision by Andrew Adonis, when he was Secretary of State for Transport, to proceed with a number of electrification schemes that led to the DfT deciding to cancel the purchase of new DMUs.

That's exactly what happened. Only about 4 months after "Diesel Trains Ltd" was set up, in March 2009, the DfT electrification white paper in Jul 2009 stopped the 202 vehicle ITT process.

Announcement about Diesel Trains Ltd from March 2009:

However, given the urgent nature of the procurement, the nature of the rolling stock and the current problems in the financing markets, DfT has taken the lead. At the behest of DfT, a procurement notice for the 202 DMU vehicles was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 1 December 2008. An Invitation to Tender was issued by DfT on 22 December 2008 to four bidders, seeking bids by 16 February 2009, with a view to contracts being signed in April 2009. The target date for these additional vehicles entering service is 2011 - 2012.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives....ttp://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/purchase.pdf

Electrification White Paper, from July 2009, para 27 page 11:

This electrification programme radically affects the requirements for rolling stock over the next decade. There will be far less need for diesel trains and a greater requirement for electric trains. In particular, the previously-planned procurement by the Government of new diesel trains has now been superseded. We will accordingly publish a new rolling stock plan in the autumn, taking account of the changed circumstances.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives....t.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/rail-electrification.pdf

I'm not even sure if the DMU competition ever had a result publicly announced, hence my original reply that there was no real justification for then being 172s in wiki...

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

As someone who was working in the Department and involved in the debate at the time some of the issues were;

* at the time (2007-9) none of the traditional manufacturers or financiers for UK trains were interested in new build diesels as the mood music at long last was begining to move towards worthwhile electrification;
* the likes of CAF and Stadler, with full order books at the time regarded the UK market as too difficult and expensive to enter for relatively small builds;
* as a stop gap the DfT initated a procurement for diesels for the HLOS disels growth build, however the electrification band wagon was well under way and the the prospect of large numbers of mid-life EMUs coming up for grabs in the same timescale as the wiring programmes brought out the possibilities of cascades to us BR 'old lags' looking at the issue.
* As the momentum on electrification increased and little real interest was being shown by the market a movement to freeing up diesels by cascade and electrification became more attractive.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and at the time we didn't conceive that the electrification programme would go so off the rails as it has done. Harder times have fell on the likes of CAF and Stadler for a time, not helped by the financial crisis and cut backs on orders for their traditional markets, with them deciding to enter the UK market after all.

Thanks for offering an interesting reply. In terms of the market interest, can you recall whether at that time the Persons of Reduced Mobility 31st Dec 2019 deadline had been imposed yet? I can't help looking at the situation today and thinking how deployment of even the planned cascades of DMU stock is being artificially constrained by the enforced removal of non-compliant trains from the market (for instance 143s from the Exeter area) rather than redeployed elsewhere in a manner that would suit their design (for instance Cardiff Valleys in 4-car formations, if electrification falls through) even as stop gaps into the 2020s.

And that's even before taking into account previous Prime Ministerial promises (withdraw all Pacers!) simply made to buy Northern votes without properly assessing the impact on the market and whether there was any further usefulness of said trains.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Despite the failure of some of the electrification schemes, the policy has worked to the extent that the class 319 fleet is being redeployed on electrified lines in the north-west, and the majority of the GWR Turbo fleet is being redeployed in the Bristol area.
This plan was key to the electrification schemes being authorised with an acceptable BCR, even if this was not achieved in practice.
If 200 DMU vehicles had been ordered it would have been an excuse for not progressing with electrification at all (except maybe in Scotland).
We would then face the need to order another large tranche of DMUs.

 

[edwin_m]

I think the DMUs were also supposed to be ordered ahead of one of the Euro deadlines for reduced engine emissions. There was concern at the time that this would require significant extra equipment to deal with emissions outside the engine, and that this might take up passenger space as well as increasing costs. The press might have had a bit of a field day with stories suggesting the government was getting round regulations designed to protect the population from pollution...

Since then, CAF seems to have found a way of fitting everything under the floor in a conventional 23m unit with doors spaced at thirds, and Vivarail has done it in a shorter vehicle, but the Stadler solution does take up passenger space. Hitachi have had to raise the floor to accommodate a diesel on the 80x fleets (albeit with a more powerful engine), which only works if the doors are at the ends.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Hitachi setup would work with the doors anywhere, as the raised floor includes the vestibule area. The ramp down is only into the corridor connection. On the coaches with engines there is a step up of maybe 6 to 8in above the stepboard *just* inside the door, on the end coaches the floor is level with the stepboard.

I think the CAF units are 24m, the extra metre may well help for more equipment underfloor. Stadler's solution does indeed require what is basically a mini locomotive, though this has other benefits - less noise, and a lower floor potentially allowing level boarding (as the design is an adaptation of a fully low floor design developed for SBB which is intended to have no equipment under the floor at all).