COVID CHAOS 2020 UPDATE
DESPITE the uncertainty surrounding the future structure of Britain’s rail network, new passenger trains worth billions of pounds continue to roll off production lines destined for UK train operators.
Factories in England, Wales, Spain, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Poland and Hungary are busily engaged in assembling new trains for the UK, using components sourced from many locations in Europe and further afield.
The complexity of this international effort has been brought into sharp focus by the global Covid-19 pandemic, which has introduced further pressures into delivery schedules already disrupted by production and supply problems, software issues, reliability ‘teething troubles’, and a shortage of specialist engineers to test and commission new fleets.
The sudden and unexpected collapse of passenger numbers since March 2020 has thrown the plans (financial and operational) of train companies into chaos.
Instead of celebrating the introduction of new train fleets, and the extra seats and new features they deliver, operators now have to figure out whether their carefully crafted rolling stock plans are still relevant to the ‘new normal’.
Since our last update in 2018, hundreds of new trains have entered service with GWR, LNER, Northern, TransPennine Express (TPE), Hull Trains, ScotRail, Thameslink, Great Northern, Greater Anglia, and London Overground.
Hig-profile
Significantly, the largest and most high-profile new train order of the last decade – the Government’s £5.7billion InterCity Express Programme (IEP) – was completed in September with the delivery of the last of 122 Hitachi IET sets (866 vehicles) for GWR and LNER. The final set to be accepted by LNER was pre-production No. 801201, although as this issue went to press Nos. 801212/218 were still to
