Chiltern Railways has invited proposals from established rolling stock owners for the lease and maintenance of between 25 and 70 existing vehicles to operate inter-city and regional services on the Chiltern Main Line between London Marylebone and Birmingham.
The operator is seeking either ‘self-powered’ multiple units or locomotive-hauled coaches, which can operate at 160 km/h in fixed formations of five or six passenger vehicles.
RAIL notes that on December 9 last year, TransPennine Express ended its use of Class 68s and its new CAF Mk. 5 coaches, with the 52 standard carriages and 14 driving trailers built by Spanish manufacturer CAF between 2017 and 2019 facing an uncertain future.
Reports suggest that the lease on the vehicles, including the locomotives, which are hired from Direct Rail Services, will continue until May despite the vehicles not being used. The 13 five-car sets (including Driving Trailers) will not be replaced.
TPE’s fleet of Class 185 diesel units will therefore be worked harder to cover for the shortfall, with short-formed trains of three cars instead of five and six cars on some routes inevitable.
Chiltern's view
Though it declined to comment on whether it has received an offer from Direct Rail Services, Tim Sayer, Engineering and Safety Director at Chiltern Railways, said: "ORR figures show that we have the oldest trains by average age in the country, and as part of our Right Route 2030 Vision, we know that we need to modernise and provide the capacity boost that our customers want and deserve as demand for our services increases."
"As such, we are currently scoping the market for existing rolling stock that can boost our capacity in the short to medium term. As our fleet ages, the communities we serve continue to grow, highlighting the need for a strategic plan to deliver more capacity to the network."
Contract scope
Requests to participate in Chiltern's contract are required by February 2, with driver training planned for 2024, and entry to passenger service for early 2025. The stock would be leased for between three and 12 years.
Image: In Chiltern Railways livery, 68010 passes Hatton Bank on August 19, 2015.
Jonathan Roberts - 06/01/2024 23:59
Chiltern are supposed to be taking these on to replace the aging mark3 sets, although I doubt they ( the mark 5's ) will be as comfortable as the mark3's they look more like the older mark2D,E,F series, no under tray between the bogies to hide underbody equipment, seems odd, they are shorter I believe than a mark3 , perhaps it might be possible for Hitachi to use the design for the coaches that make a class 80X set into loco hauled vehicles , and call them Mark5?. But much work on comfort would be needed , I only suggest this as EMT listened to focus groups and have designed superior seats interiors albeit again shorter vehicles , so maybe to keep Hitachi going and create new Intercity fleet's especially as there's the class 88, 93 and 99 Tri mode locos all capable of pulling passenger trains . Some operators prefer loco hauled , the beauty of loco hauled is being easier to shorten or lengthen a ' train set ' according to demand , clearly loco hauled are loved by the public , this was proven when LSL ran scheduled services with the swallow livery mark3 sets hauled by class 90's like the old GA Intercity fleet . Of course there are many serviceable mark 4 sets that have seen many major returns , and potentially have at least another decade of life , so which do you choose ?. And why did TPE choose 3 different designs , all only 5 cars , hence loco hauled is flexible as I said above . Anyway the TPE units are set to goto Chiltern who don't seem to have any issues with their class 68's so maybe too much nimbyism from people who ought to have been used to noisy trains , after all it's not so many years since loco hauled were still on regular use . I hope Chiltern do use them , and who knows maybe they will work out better and they could order more , especially as the east west rail can link so many places , by the number of mainlines it crosses , no way can they rely on short dmu's borrowed from wmt , which are CAF built units anyway . The only other possible use I read was new open access operator grand Union starting services from Stirling to London and London to Camarthen, they said they'd order new trains but these sets may negate that need at least for one of these routes , although again extra coaches may be needed . Either way questions need to be answered about who's running TPE they wasted a tonne of money with a mixed fleet , and only the 397's are being sought by LNER who just placed a new order with CAF to replace the excellent 91/Mark4 sets , and in order to preserve jobs at UK train builders hopefully caf can choose a UK factory like Alstom for example or the one building the Hitachi units , or split between the two, giving time for Scotrail and northern time to place their orders for the total.fleet replacements they announced. Either way something needs to be done to save those jobs and also not waste perfectly good new trains . HS2 is a disaster , crossrail was shortened and now faces expensive extensions showing how badly out rail industry is run . And that is not all a government fault , more so as a final thought we need more reopened lines , more capacity and HS2 resurrected and linked to HS1 , if we are to take freight and people from over crowded roads that widening only solves congestion for a few years . And as more electric vehicles appear with shorter range , we will need another way to move around , for which the railway is the best hope for that .