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ScotRail HST Introduction - Updates & Discussion

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CJSwan

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Does anyone know when the 5 coach sets will appear or has this been quietly shelved?
Shame Scotrail didn't keep all the 170s released by EGIP to strengthen most if not all the GLA/EDI - ADB/INV services to double 170s as a stop gap before ordering new units (802s?)
Once all 26 sets have been delivered as 4+2, only then will the 5th coach get slotted into the 17 sets that are planned to become 5+2. So in answer to your question nobody really knows when that’ll happen.
 
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Speed43125

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Once all 26 sets have been delivered as 4+2, only then will the 5th coach get slotted into the 17 sets that are planned to become 5+2. So in answer to your question nobody really knows when that’ll happen.
I was also under the impression that they were going to extend all to 5 car now?
 

43096

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How many?
No idea, as I haven’t seen a full list of what has gone in to Kilmarnock, when.

But from the incomplete information I have, some have emerged and taken to Doncaster to be inserted in their sets. Which rather disproves your point about Wabtec’s intentions.
 

Highland37

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No idea, as I haven’t seen a full list of what has gone in to Kilmarnock, when.

But from the incomplete information I have, some have emerged and taken to Doncaster to be inserted in their sets. Which rather disproves your point about Wabtec’s intentions.

Eh? My point is that Wabtec are a joke. They are the reason the programme is so late and are now shutting the location they said would allow them to speed up. Is it two years now they are behind schedule?

Apart from that, I am annoyed that they are shutting a Scottish location.
 

InOban

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Wabtec were a joke. Sets were delivered very occasionally and were not fit for use, spending long periods in Haymarket with Wabtec engineers being sent to sort them.
I don't know what changed at Doncaster, but since December they were being delivered every three weeks or so and were entering service almost at once. Obviously work will have stopped for the foreseeable future.
 

43096

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Eh? My point is that Wabtec are a joke. They are the reason the programme is so late and are now shutting the location they said would allow them to speed up. Is it two years now they are behind schedule?

Apart from that, I am annoyed that they are shutting a Scottish location.
They are not the sole reason the programme is late, as you well know but continue to ignore because it doesn't suit your prejudices and agenda. Before you start off again, note that I am not absolving them of any blame.

Wabtec were a joke. Sets were delivered very occasionally and were not fit for use, spending long periods in Haymarket with Wabtec engineers being sent to sort them.
I don't know what changed at Doncaster, but since December they were being delivered every three weeks or so and were entering service almost at once. Obviously work will have stopped for the foreseeable future.
What was done was some serious management changes were made.
 

Highland37

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Aye? So what other reasons have prevented Scotrail having the refurbished HSTs when they became available for refurbishment?
 

nat67

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Definitely a shame!

Let's hope they told their employees before it reached the media - I only found out John Lewis was shutting from friends seeing it in the media!
Same for McDonalds. Why should the media be the first to be told!
 

Speed43125

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I have seen this mentioned on social media and on here. The general reaction seems to be "so what?" or "what do you expect?". When everything is for sale, as someone else said, people and factories are just tradable commodities.
This country* and to be honest good chunks of the anglosphere in general, have lost the respect for engineers and work of that sort that surely existed a century ago. Dirty heavy work is not looked up to by most people nowadays. The notion that stuff isn't profitable seems to be enough for most people to just shrug it off. People just don't matter that much, economics is king. That, I understand is what privatisation was all about.

Wabtec seem to handle refurbishment without the site, though that in and of itself, is likely not enough to convince the Scottish Government to just let it disappear.

At this point, most of the really hopeless workshops are gone, so I'm working on the assumption that they are capable of doing stuff properly, and not the 1970s style of "that'll do" that made absolute rubbish.

*Take that to be Scotland or the UK, either interpretation is probably pretty accurate, even with both having a big emphasis on engineering, at least traditionally.
 
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InOban

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More than a century. Being in trade has been looked down upon for much longer. The contrast with the respect shown to engineers in Germany was remarked on at the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851.
 

43096

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I have seen this mentioned on social media and on here. The general reaction seems to be "so what?" or "what do you expect?". When everything is for sale, as someone else said, people and factories are just tradable commodities.
So what do you expect Wabtec to do? All very well people sitting there fuming about it, but it's a commercial business. Unless there are profits and positive cashflow there, there's only one outcome.
 

InOban

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The only possible source of work would be a major refurbishment order for the 380. The older emus would probably be replaced.
 

scotraildriver

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It was the same with Glasgow works. Everyone "fuming" including the unions but the reality was years of sub standard output and no further orders. The quality that came out of there was an utter disgrace. (Class 156/158 refurb comes to mind)
 

Highland37

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So what do you expect Wabtec to do? All very well people sitting there fuming about it, but it's a commercial business. Unless there are profits and positive cashflow there, there's only one outcome.

I expect them to close the facility and everyone to lose their jobs as is the norm for this country. I also expect people to adhere to the "everything is for sale" mentality and to accept the loss of industrial capacity and remain in a nostalgia-focused outlook, stuck in the past. I expect the majority on this forum will get a warm feeling from seeing HSTs and discussing them and to forget about Kilmarnock and what it represents as looking at the continual decline is much harder than looking back.
 

Brissle Girl

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I think we're discovering that in a time of crisis, globalisation (eg buying things where they can make them cheaper, offshoring, companies being sold to foreign entities who then close down the local operation) isn't necessarily helpful in terms of business continuity for the country as a whole. Starting with face masks for dentists that were in short supply as they all originate from China to discovering that "we can't do many COVID-19 tests as we don't have the same technical capacity as Germany has".

Seriously off topic for this thread, and in isolation the closure of one more bit of railway engineering capacity in the country may not count for much (unless you happen to be one of the employees of course), but it's symptomatic of a general malaise which the UK in particular seems to be particularly expert at.
 

43096

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Well said. Now back to HSTs....
Indeed. Five TGS vehicles (and an off lease TS) were moved from Ely to Wabtec Doncaster a few days ago. Not entirely clear yet, but maybe a change of plan on the fifth vehicles has been agreed?
 

mr-magoo

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Indeed. Five TGS vehicles (and an off lease TS) were moved from Ely to Wabtec Doncaster a few days ago. Not entirely clear yet, but maybe a change of plan on the fifth vehicles has been agreed?
I understand they are being used by Wabtec to strip for spares to support the refubishment programme.
 

DirtyJohn

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So it's not related to the virus but due to decreased workload. I thought the HST project was getting shared put with Kilmarnock to speed things up, I don't quite understand if this proposed closure would affect the HST delivery schedule or not.

Presumably that would depend on when closure would be if it went ahead.
It was getting shared, but the quality of work on the refurb side at kilmarnock was not upto scratch.
 

Stathern Jc

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It's always sad to hear of another railway factory in Britain about to close. But in the context of this thread:
Am I being simplistic in wondering whether, if there was some duplication in tooling and / or training specific to the refurbishment work which gave rise to the difference in quality alluded to, Kilmarnock could have made a useful contribution to the overall project by doing the stripping out and initial bodywork etc on the coaches to be refurbished which could then have been delivered (admittedly by road) for fitting out at Doncaster.
For all I know, it may have been considered a couple of years ago when it could have made a difference, and there may well be significant reasons why not, but it has made me think.
 

hexagon789

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It was getting shared, but the quality of work on the refurb side at kilmarnock was not upto scratch.

I knew the idea was to speed up delivery by having Kilmarnock do some of the trailers, but if remedial work was then having to be done afterwards it rather undoes some of that intention
 

hexagon789

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It's always sad to hear of another railway factory in Britain about to close. But in the context of this thread:
Am I being simplistic in wondering whether, if there was some duplication in tooling and / or training specific to the refurbishment work which gave rise to the difference in quality alluded to, Kilmarnock could have made a useful contribution to the overall project by doing the stripping out and initial bodywork etc on the coaches to be refurbished which could then have been delivered (admittedly by road) for fitting out at Doncaster.
For all I know, it may have been considered a couple of years ago when it could have made a difference, and there may well be significant reasons why not, but it has made me think.

They could perhaps have done that instead, Kilmarnock given all the work for stripping the trailers and Doncaster the fitting-out.

That might have been quicker overall bar the delivery by road as each would've been concentrating on a specific part of the refurbishment rather than the whole thing
 

47271

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Plenty of refurbs running on the Highland Main Line today.
 
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