Siemens wins Thameslink Rolling Stock Contract

[Ameecher]

Barrow-in-deathness.

[JamieLei]

Hmmm - I dunno. Something must have logically worked out economically to make SWT retire its entire fleet of 442s. Apparently they had ridiculously high running costs.

[61653]

Barrow-in-deathness.

143s are only run by FGW & ATW... You must mean 142s, as Northern's 144s don't serve Barrow as they are all NL units. Could understand 143/144s getting mixed up, as they are fairly similar.

[Ameecher]

Barrow-in-deathness.

143s are only run by FGW & ATW... You must mean 142s, as Northern's 144s don't serve Barrow as they are all NL units. Could understand 143/144s getting mixed up, as they are fairly similar.

I'm not the one that lives there, that's just where he lives.

[audigex]

Sorry, I meant 142 - it's not that I get 142s and 143s mixed up, it's that I get the number 2 and the number 3 mixed up

I'm just used to putting 153.

[TheGrew]

Hmmm - I dunno. Something must have logically worked out economically to make SWT retire its entire fleet of 442s. Apparently they had ridiculously high running costs.

It basically comes down to the same reason why SWT swapped some brand new 170s for some older 158s. Which was cutting maintenance costs, I guess because they don't need to store as many spares or as much kit to fix them. Now SWT effectively operates a 4 type fleet on the mainland of:
158/159 Diesel Stock
444/450 Desiro Stock
455 Suburban Stock
458 Juniper Stock (Which they almost got rid of when they were unreliable in early service)

[YukonRob]

Bombardier plans 1,429 U.K. layoffs.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2 ... derby.html

[JamieLei]

Which would have happened anyway in about 2 years once they'd got bored of the Thameslink contract.

Government shouldn't bow to the supply, just because Derby has far too much capacity. The supply should match the demand. Hopefully, Derby will be making more competitive bids

[TheGrew]

My argument is that if Derby exported more it wouldn't need to rely purely on domestic purchases. Though that being said both DB and SCNF both by trains bought in their respective countries what about for example the eastern European market or even the Chinese/Indian?

[Kevo00]

Quite. The Middle East is a seller's market at the moment. I reckon the left are now looking a little foolish after defending St. Bombardier, who would have cut 1,200 jobs anyway.