The recent divvying up of Network Rail's NDS contract got me thinking. This contract is worth somewhere in the region of £120m per year and is profitable enough for some of the TOC's to go and purchase new locomotives for it, suggesting financially there is some meat on the bone so to speak. As much of the work is regular scheduled services between quarries and NR's depots and also inter-yard transfers there is a known amount of traction required so requirements and manning are known somewhere in advance. On top of that modern traction seems to not required a plethora of MPD's t keep it going so can be outposted fairly easily.
So my question is this. Back in the day the engineers department had its own allocated locomotives as well as the rolling stock. Could NR not do this and make considerable savings? There is no cultural inhibition to them owning locomotives as they have small fleets in play already. Why not expand this and at least cover the scheduled services and much of the weekend engineering work so leaving the FOC's to provide cover when demand exceeds capacity.
So my question is this. Back in the day the engineers department had its own allocated locomotives as well as the rolling stock. Could NR not do this and make considerable savings? There is no cultural inhibition to them owning locomotives as they have small fleets in play already. Why not expand this and at least cover the scheduled services and much of the weekend engineering work so leaving the FOC's to provide cover when demand exceeds capacity.