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Why are there 2 different makes of class 465

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Jturner98

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Hello, question is as the title says really. Why are there 2 different makes of class 465/466. First of all you have the original BREL/ABB followed by the metro cammel ones.
 
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ExRes

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As I remember it, from being told 20+ years ago, the Government wanted BREL to supply all of the order but Metro Cammell made objections, presumably legal objections, so the order was split, oh yes, the MC bodies were built in Italy and Spain, does that mean the EU 'helped' with the decision?
 

superalbs

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As I remember it, from being told 20+ years ago, the Government wanted BREL to supply all of the order but Metro Cammell made objections, presumably legal objections, so the order was split, oh yes, the MC bodies were built in Italy and Spain, does that mean the EU 'helped' with the decision?
Be interested to know which factories they came from?

And also, which ones came from abroad?
 

ExRes

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According to Kent Rail the BREL (ABB by the time of delivery) batch bodies were built at York Works while the MC/GEC/Alsthom batch were built by Societa Italiana Ernesto Breda in Italy and Maquinista of Barcelona


According to the Book of Wiki 465/0 & 465/1 were built in York and 465/2 & 466 abroad
 
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ExRes

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What does the EU have to do with it? Alst(h)om purchased Metro-Cammell.

If the UK government had given the entire contract to BREL would all units have been built in the UK? would BREL have been capable of building the entire contract in the UK? Was the decision to build in Italy & Spain just simply good business or one influenced by being a member of the EU? I have no idea of the answer, it's simply a point of interest
 

MarlowDonkey

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If the UK government had given the entire contract to BREL would all units have been built in the UK?
There were also the diesel versions, the 165s and 166s along with the AC 365s. Perhaps they split the order for capacity reasons and to speed up delivery. It's far from unknown, the build histories of steam locomotives show a mix between in house and third party builders.
 

hexagon789

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I thought it was part of the 'dual sourcing' policy of the time which applied to a number of classes or parts of classes?
 

hwl

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I thought it was part of the 'dual sourcing' policy of the time which applied to a number of classes or parts of classes?
Correct, according to Chris Green (head of NSE) the BR board decided that both competing British manufacturers had to be "winners" in 1987. This was 18months before the GEC Alstom merger.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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I thought it was part of the 'dual sourcing' policy of the time which applied to a number of classes or parts of classes?
I thought so too.
From memory I think they were planned to be built in 2 batches each, but MetCam lost out on the second batch so ABB had the larger share.
Class 156 shells were sourced abroad too, by MetCam.
As of course are many components of cars and aircraft, wherever they are assembled.
 

43096

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From memory I think they were planned to be built in 2 batches each, but MetCam lost out on the second batch so ABB had the larger share.
The original order was 100 units, 50 to each manufacturer. The second round saw 47 4-car sets ordered from ABB, but the 43 2-car sets went to GEC-Alsthom - I recall seeing somewhere that the GEC-Alsthom design made creating 2-car units simpler.

The 365s were a hybrid of the two, having ABB bodyshells/mechanical parts with GEC-Alsthom electricals.
 

edwin_m

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They were built to a specification rather than a design so they weren't absolutely identical. I remember Modern Railways quoting that the two builders had slightly different windscreens, both subcontracted to the same supplier!
 

hwl

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The original order was 100 units, 50 to each manufacturer. The second round saw 47 4-car sets ordered from ABB, but the 43 2-car sets went to GEC-Alsthom - I recall seeing somewhere that the GEC-Alsthom design made creating 2-car units simpler.

The 365s were a hybrid of the two, having ABB bodyshells/mechanical parts with GEC-Alsthom electricals.
The aim before the 1988 stock market crash and following recession was 200x 4car and 21x 2car with the aim of everything in the peaks into Charing Cross or Cannon Street at 12 car (virtually all the platform extension work was completed). Most of what ended up as 2car units were originally meant to be 4car units! there were 3-4 rounds of paring back the order size.
 

Mikey C

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The traction motors as a result were split also

The BREL/ABB 465s have Brush motors
The GEC-Alsthom/Metro-Cammell 465s and 466s have GEC-Alsthom motors

If the UK government had given the entire contract to BREL would all units have been built in the UK? would BREL have been capable of building the entire contract in the UK? Was the decision to build in Italy & Spain just simply good business or one influenced by being a member of the EU? I have no idea of the answer, it's simply a point of interest
Metro-Cammell had stopped producing their own bodies, so bought those in. Other than that they were still made in Birmingham
 

Class 466

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According to Kent Rail the BREL (ABB by the time of delivery) batch bodies were built at York Works while the MC/GEC/Alsthom batch were built by Societa Italiana Ernesto Breda in Italy and Maquinista of Barcelona


According to the Book of Wiki 465/0 & 465/1 were built in York and 465/2 & 466 abroad
This entirely explans why the Met Cam units are in a worse state structurally with some filled with water...
 

hexagon789

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Correct, according to Chris Green (head of NSE) the BR board decided that both competing British manufacturers had to be "winners" in 1987. This was 18months before the GEC Alstom merger.

I thought so too.
From memory I think they were planned to be built in 2 batches each, but MetCam lost out on the second batch so ABB had the larger share.
Class 156 shells were sourced abroad too, by MetCam.
As of course are many components of cars and aircraft, wherever they are assembled.
Seemed a fairly common practice with BR from the 1970s-1990s what with different traction motors on HST power cars, Perkins/Cummins engines on 158s and so on.

I believe they had to do this though rather than wanting to per se
 
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