For a variety of economic and environmental reasons, these may well be the last-ever short-haul DMUs to join Britain's rail network.
Built by Bombardier, they were delivered late -- very late -- and with a major system fault that turned out, er, not to exist. Inside, they are vastly better designed than the slightly older electric multiple units that have taken over the rest of London Overground.
But that's because of the crap economics: this stretch of line is likely to be electrified at some point not too far away, when these units will then need to be re-leased (er... released) to some other train operator. Hence the internal layout needed to be suitable for every possible leasing opportunity. This has nothing to do with matching the interior design to the needs of the passengers on the route, and all about enhancing the residual capital values of the equipment to provide the maximum cash flow...
Elsewhere on the Overground the photographer has captured some of the Bombardier emus. Bombardier, you'll recall, is the Canadian company that lost the bid to build a fleet of new trains for the cross-London Thameslink line to Siemens, a German company. Apparently the loss of the Bombardier assembly line in Derby is some major failing of British industrial policy.
British industrial policy has almost totally failed, actually, and deliberately: for thirty years governments have wanted to move Britain to being a post-industrial economy, and now their wishes are being fulfilled. No-one yet has a plan for ensuring that the vast pool of ill-educated and unskilled or semiskilled labour can be economically active rather than becoming unemployable and benefit-dependent, but I guess for the politicians that is a second-order issue.
All of which has taken us a long way from the successes of London Overground, so dramatically rebuilt that it is almost a completely new railway. The final "missing link" to complete the London circle will open next year. Hugely impressive stuff.
5 comments:
Nice to see the have proper seats, although the brown/orange/grey 1970's style upholstery is a bit dubious.
I worry for the future of this country. And the world.
The trains are what I shall miss the most when you stop the Blog.
Fred in Florida
What about all the diesel operated lines all over the country? The present stock won't last for ever. As for those Pacer-type horrors up in the north they should have been scrapped on leaving the factory: it would have made work for the uneducated and unskilled to whom you've made reference and I concur with all you say on that topic
Interesting question about replacement DMUs: the latest thinking appears to be that the slow extension of electrification will release sufficient quantities of DMUs to enable refurbishment and replacement of older types (eg, all the Networker/Thames Turbos will be available from c.2017 to replace Pacers and some of the Sprinters -- although I think the DaFT has forgotten that many of these were built to the bigger loading gauge of the GWML so are unlikely to go around the bends in, say, West Country branch lines...).
Equally, the economics of brand-new DMUs just don't work on our stupid privatised railway. The ROSCOs ("ROlling Stock Leasing COmpanies") need to see revenue streams for 30 or so years into the future, and they don't believe those streams will exist for short-haul DMUs -- because of that creeping electrification; because the old DMUs can be made to soldier on for yonks yet with tiny, tiny leasing costs since the capital was long-since written-off; and because ever-tighter diesel engine regulations will make any new DMUs unusable without constant (expensive) re-engineering, while the lines on which they operate will be increasingly marginal in terms of revenue as, say, expensive Thames Turbos (which are still cheaper than new DMUs) end up shuttling down Devon branches (assuming they fit).
In any case, British trains need to be specially built, if not from scratch then certainly at least half their parts would have no commonality with the off-the-shelf units manufactured for Europe. So there's a mass of development costs and relatively little return for the small numbers we'd need -- so there's little incentive for the manufacturers.
The bottom line: nope, there are no new short-haul DMUs coming onstream for the foreseeable future, after the current lot hits the rails before the end of this calendar year.
Methinks that before very long we'll have some very posh and extravagant diesel train-sets performing some very menial duties - always provided that train-sets can be found which meet the varying 'restrictions' applying on the numerous lines involved. It would be fun to ride on a 125 bound for Fowey, Blaenau Ffestiniog or Stourbridge Town!
bg
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