More Hitachi Crap

I am clearly much too stupid to understand the subtle complexities of Government policy-making, so let's see if posting it here will enable someone to explain it to me.

The glorious British Rail High Speed Train, the InterCity 125, was introduced in the late 1970s and is still pounding the express rails, providing the world's fastest diesel train services. Extremely comfortable and popular with passengers, the entire fleet has recently been re-engined.

However, everyone agrees that the wonderful HST is approaching the end of its working life. It is simply impossible to upgrade or refurbish it to make it last a further ten or twenty years.

So the Government launched a project to develop a replacement train from which has emerged the Hitachi Super-Crap Express Train. This consists of an electric multiple unit (most of the lines on which HSTs run are either already, or are about to be, electrified for most of the route), under almost every carriage of which there will be a, er, throbbing diesel engine.

Hitachi still refuses to issue detailed specifications despite numerous commentators questioning whether the Super-Crap Express Train has sufficient power to even maintain the current HST schedules rather than actually being slower.

Government has listened to the chorus of complaints and has decided that the Super-Crap Express Train will not, now, operate to Devon and Cornwall, the most challenging part of the Great Western Mainline (and that part of the GWML which will not be electrified). Instead -- and this is the bit I need your help with -- a number of HSTs will go through a programme of, er, upgrading and refurbishment to enable them to continue to serve these destinations for many years to come.

Um...

So why are we spending hundreds of millions of pounds (actually it will be billions once whole-life costs are taken into account) to procure the Super-Crap Express Train if HSTs can, in fact, be upgraded and refurbished to extend their lives?

It turns out that just two routes will now be operated by all-electric Super-Crap Express Trains rather then the diesel/electric multiple units: London-Bristol and -- wait for it -- London-Cambridge-King's Lynn.

I would say the introduction of Super-Crap Express Trains would actually be a positive result for Lynn which is currently served by Class 365 EMUs (which must be the longest-distance, fastest-running stock that also lacks air-conditioning). The interiors of 365s are more suitable for outer suburban services than what was an InterCity route which, even today, takes more than an hour and a half.

Meanwhile, Government is persisting with the insanity of fixed-sets for its Super-Crap Express Trains which means that most routes will be operated by two 5-car units coupled together, but with no through access between the two sets. Which means you need two guards on every train instead of one, and two sets of catering staff with two sets of supplies on the long-distance routes being operated.

Or you could just abandon catering in one of the two sets and that 50% of passengers can just do without (which will reduce catering sales, too, meaning the remaining catering services are "uneconomic" and have to be withdrawn. Yeah, actually I can see where this is going).

Who'd have thought that the HST, a train introduced as a short-term stop-gap while BR worked on the introduction of the tilting Advanced Passenger Train, would prove so durable and so difficult to replace?