INFORMED SOURCES January 2010
January is our rolling stock issue so you get, in effect, two Informed Sources in one month – the regular column and the Golden Spanner review ‘Informed Sources Special’.
Bombardier out of new Piccadilly trains bidding
Thameslink - coming down to earth
National Express keeps its shirt
East Coast premium analysis
IEP still defying Newton
At the Golden Spanners Awards on 27 November the word was that Bombardier had been eliminated from the bidding for the new fleet of Tube trains for the Piccadilly Line. This was subsequently confirmed by the ever-helpful Tube Lines press office, which added that this was the result of the bid ‘not being compliant with the requirements of the tender documents’.
Since Bombardier was bidding a variant of its Victoria Line Tube Stock it is likely that the non-compliance centred on the delivery schedule rather than the technical specification.
Current contracts at Derby cover 47 eight car 2009 Tube Stock trains for the Victoria Line modernisation programme plus 1395 S stock vehicles for the Sub-Service Lines replacement fleet. That is a lot of vehicles and Informed Sources suggest that Bombardier was unable to commit with confidence to Tube Lines’ ‘aggressive’ delivery schedule in what was already a crowded factory, even without the possibility of winning the Thameslink contract.
With Bombardier out, CAF and Alstom are left in the frame. CAF has large fleets of metro cars on the Madrid, Brussels and Hong Kong systems, but given Alstom’s long term Underground experience, plus the fact that the Company is offering an update of a proven and successful modern design, you would have to be barking to go for what would be a new design from a company with no experience of London Underground infrastructure and operating conditions.
But as I’m writing this the
Even worse, the Rolling Stock Plan will not now appear until some time next year. Lord Adonis has given an update on what’s happening to the 1300 (sic) vehicles and the next this is to try and turn this stream of consciousness into a plan.
Here’s the URL if you would like to join in:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/press/speechesstatements/statements/railwaymodernisation
Thameslink slimmed
Back in the April Informed sources I asked rhetorically
‘What price a 20 trains/h [Thameslink] service in 2015?’. And it looks as though the crystal ball was tuned-in for once.
All sources agree that the original aspiration for 24 trains/h through the central core is dead. The new specification is 20 train/h, the maximum frequency compatible with a PPM of 93% under manual driving.
There are two explanations for the reduction. DfT Rail claims that Network Rail has said it can’t provide the Automatic Train Operation needed to achieve 24 trains/h. Network Rail counters that it can provide
However train frequency is the least of the emerging problems. ORR has just flagged up Thameslink as a potential problems warning ‘there are areas where projected costs exceed budget’.
Civils
Informed Sources agree that the Thameslink infrastructure is already over-budget. How much depends on the Source. But the figure is between £500-750 million.
While there are cost issues with Blackfriars Station development, it looks as though the real concerns are emerging as the civil engineers get into London Bridge. This is still only at GRIP Stage 3 (GRIP – Guide to Railway Investment Projects. Network Rail's staged process for evaluating financial viability of projects). Stage 3 is ‘Option Selection’.
So you could argue that talking about cost over-runs is a bit premature because the cost won’t be known until the GRIP process has completed Stage 4 – ‘Single option development’ and Stage 5 ‘Detailed design’.
Trains
Do I need to warn readers not expect an early announcement of a preferred bidder for the new Thameslink fleet, despite Alstom’s elimination? A deadline of March 25 2010 has been set for financial close and negotiations are continuing as DfT Rail tries to pull together comparable commercial terms from the Bombardier and Siemens banking teams to fund the deal.
NEG stabilised?
In the end, instead of ‘stripping’ National Express Group (NEG) of its two remaining franchises as punishment for ‘walking away’ from National Express East Coast (NXEC) Transport Secretary Lord Adonis will simply terminate the National Express East Anglia(NXEA) franchise at the 2011 break point.
Meanwhile NXEA Managing Director Andrew Chivers is playing a long game, looking towards a time when the capitalist-bashing Lord has moved on. At the ‘Shaping Norfolk’s Future’ conference back in November Andrew presented three main aspirations for the route to be delivered during the next control Period: a 90 min London-Norwich headline journey time, new inter-city trains and track and signalling improvements.
Which makes me wonder whether it is really sensible to write a new franchise specification before the High Level Output Specification, due in July 2012, has decided what is to be done? I would not rule out a mini extension of the NXEA franchise to after the 2012 Olympics
Meanwhile, NEG has had its rights issue approved and has secured Dean Finch, now Chief Executive of embattled Tube Lines as its new MD. I can’t see Dean tolerating continuing NEG bashing from Lord A.
Now the question is whethe4 NEG will seek to pre-qualify when the next round of franchise bidding starts? Clearly the default will count against it, but will the success of c2c and NXEA balance the scales?
Costing the NXEC collapse
Something I’ve been developing is a model which takes the revenue shortfall of a
I used the model to see whether Cap & Collar would have saved NXEC. The answer is that it would have kept the company going through 2009, but that the £40 million subordinated loan would still have run out in 2010.
And this is what you would expect, since, as explained in last year’s report on franchising by the National Audit Office, DfT Rail’s franchising process includes a review of plans put forward by bidders to cope with a, typically, 10% shortfall in revenue. This review ‘tests the level of parent company financial support and sets it at an appropriate level’. So DfT Rail officials clearly do not expect franchise owners to sign up to an open ended commitment after the reserve has been exhausted.
East Coast
Meanwhile, the premium payments which the publicly owned Intercity East Coast franchise will make to government over the two years while the franchise is being re-let are published in this month’s column.
This gives me another chance to test my Cap & Collar ready reckoner. It puts the revenue shortfall in 2010 at £143m assuming 1% growth. This is pretty close to the £133 million difference between the former NXEC premium for 2010-11 and the new East Coast payment. In other words the taxpayer has lost £133 million
IEP revisited
Congratulations to Liberal Democrat Transport shadow Norman Baker for a pre Christmas GOTCHA! to delight all those who think the InterCity Express Programme is the railway’s prime sacrificial candidate in the post election austerity. Norman asked a series of technical questions including one on the relative energy consumption of the train under electric and diesel traction.
Then Mr Baker laid the trap, ‘What percentage of the fuel consumed when running under the wires is attributable to the conveying of the diesel engine itself’ he asked. And the trap was duly sprung. ‘The diesel engine is switched off and therefore will not consume any fuel under the wires’ was the reply.
Since the IEP bi-mode would have a 2MW electric traction package at one end and a 2MW diesel power car at the other, under electric power alone it would have, in old money, just over 6hp/tonne or 60% of that universal yardstick for traction puissance a Deltic plus 8.
So, unless we are in a parallel universe where the young Isaac Newton became a hair-dresser, that answer is beyond wrong. And as you will have read earlier in 2009, when my chums at Hitachi briefed me on their design they were clear that the diesel engine would be on power quite a lot of the time under the East Coast wires.
Given that DfT Rail has now spent £21 million on IEP procurement consultancy, you would think that they would get such a basic answer right. And, no, that isn’t a misprint: £21 million.
Roger’s blog
Well, the Golden Spanners Awards go from strength to strength, with numbers attending up again at the November 2009 fourth Friday Club meeting. You can read who won what in this month’s Informed Sources Special.
The following week, the Office of Rail Regulation held a briefing on the latest Network Rail Bulletin. These briefings can get lively, well, I can, when, for example, ORR seemed to be quite relaxed about Network Rail’s on-going uncertainty of the precise gauge available on its routes.
After the briefing the new Chairman Anna Walker said she’d like to meet me in the New Year. It will be interesting to see whether this turns into an invitation.
A corrupted Word file cost me a day or so which meant I had to pull out of the Rail Freight Group Lunch the following week. This is one of the high spots of the railway year and the chance to catch up with freight Informed Sources face-to-face, so I was sorry to miss it for once.
In the week just past it has been carols and mince pies with everything. First came the carol service at my local country church, then I was invited to read a lesson at the Transport Benevolent Fund’s Rail staff carol service in London and yesterday it was my own church’s crib service.
Last Thursday was the Modern Railways staff dinner, except that we had lunch on a First Great Western IC125 ‘Pullman’ between Exeter and Paddington. It was totally retro-1980s both ways – the Mark 3 coaches creamed along, with nary a wet spot to disturb the ride, the sun shone, Dawlish Warren was extra scenic, the on board service attentive and the food and wine excellent. All that was missing was the late and lamented
Not a lot in my new 2010 diary yet, currently being personalised by Mrs Ford so that I can find it among the papers on my desk. But I am sure it will fill up fast.
On 22 January the fourth Friday Club in January will incorporate the first Golden Whistles awards for operating performance. Tony Miles will preside.
All that leaves is for me to wish all e-Preview readers a happy Christmas. I’m not so sure about the New Year, but I am sure it will be interesting!
Roger