Trivia: Rebuilt/refurbished rolling stock subsequently unused

[43096]

I don't know the answer because I've been over my 67 experience for a long time now, thankfully, but even if they are 110mph limited surely there must be a 125mph case for the Colas pair or are you including them in 'testing'?

Why would the Colas ones be 125mph? Other than the NMT, does any of the test train stock have clearance above 100/110mph?

 

[Strathclyder]

Going by the visible vehicle number, that is the same unit. However it is wrongly tagged with its post-refurb set number in that photo. Oddly the set numbers weren't always displayed on the as-built units, but when in green and cream colours that would have been 141003. Confusing I know!

Interesting, cheers for that.

 

[Helvellyn]

Although the 455s' lives will be shorter than was expected when the retractioning was decided on, the fact that SWR considered it would be cost effective to convert the 442s for use only until 2024, suggests that the 455s' conversion will have covered its cost by the time of their withdrawal. Of course, had the 701s been introduced on schedule the cost recovery period would have been shorter, but possibly still sufficient.

How the costs and benefits have been shared between TOC and ROSCO would be interesting to know, but is probably not in the public domain.

Exactly. In short for those not aware retractioning of the 91 455 units was part of SWT's HLOS programme and enabled a big increase in capacity (including a lot of 10-car inner suburban running) without having to build a new depot. Whilst stabling changes happened across the network the main improvement was that Wimbledon could take on:
- 30 5-car 707s
- 6 5-car 458/5s
- 30 extra trailers to extend the existing 458s;
- 24 2-car 456s

Or put another way an additional 258 vehicles on top of its existing allocation of 484 vehicles (91 4-car 455s and 30 4-car 458s).

Retractioning was effectiveky cheaper than building a new depot.