Great Western Coffee Shop

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7978364.stm

How can London Midland afford to lose 17 350 "Desiro"s?

It's the Class 321's they are losing, which have been replaced by the new Desiro build.

This order surprises me slightly. With the imminent cascade of the LM321 fleet, and the arrival by 2012 of a fleet of Thameslink trains, (let along Crossrail stock a few years later), I would have thought there would be an excessive number of emus by the time the Olympics has been and gone. The 319 fleet will only be 25 years old, which for electric stock is well short of life expiry.

Of course, if they electrify the GWML and MML that would soak a few up.

   

But they won't. This is the disjointed fragmented British railway network we're talking about, so we'll end up with a situation where they are scrapping electric trains with many years of life left in them, while the majority of the network suffers from a desperate shortage of diesels.

Perhaps Coffee Shop should hold a sweep on what will be the first Class of 25KV sliding door units to be scrapped and when scapping will commence.

I think I'd go for the 315s in May 2013 they will be 30 years old and it's after the Olympics and there is as yet no replacement on order. So as Bemmy says we'll scrap perfectly usable stock to remain short of stock. All because we won't electrify.

It is all about remaining life, and whether it is cost effective to give units such as 313s a further upgrade. It is assumed that Thameslink NGEMU will release all the 319s, and a good proportion of FCC's GN fleet - 365s, 317s etc.

Units such as 365s, and probably 319s at 25ish yrs old by then would justify major internal overhauls for a further 10-15 years service around the country. However the oldest 313s and 315s etc are a good 10 years older, built 74-75 ish, so much older even than the few 150s that have been overhauled quite successfully. 

In fact the 313s are somewhat older than the Merseyside 507/8 fleet which, as recently published in their local RUS, is to be replaced by 2014 as life expired, and few would argue they should be cascaded to the DC area, even though they have had one of the better quality interior upgrades.

So a 313 is not really the sort of train you'd be wanting to 'improve' your local line with electrification, but an overhauled 365 or similar would be fine for a good few years, eg on electrified LTV services vice Turbos.

I suppose in summary what I'm saying is that there are some very old AC electrics in the SE fleet that are by sheer coincidence approaching life expiry at just the right time...
 
Paul