One of Britain’s busiest commuter rail networks
is set to dump £200 million worth of newly built
train carriages.
On Monday the government announced that First
MTR would take over South West Trains from
August. The company is a consortium of
Scottish bus giant FirstGroup and the state-
owned Hong Kong metro. Now it says it will not
hold on to new Desiro City trains being built in
Germany. The government announced the 150
Siemens-built carriages amid much fanfare in
2014. They are due to arrive from next month.
First/MTR will instead seek other new trains on a
cheaper lease. The company said it would
operate the Siemens carriages “for the first few
years”. But the company wants to introduce “a
homogeneous fleet for suburban routes by 2020”.
First MTR will also return a fleet of newly-
refurbished trains. These are currently being
rolled out on the route from Waterloo to Reading.
“Crazy world”
Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT rail
union, said: “This is a cast-iron example of the
crazy world of rail privatisation in the UK, and
the government should be ordering an urgent
investigation. No one even knows what is going
to happen to the dumped rolling stock and what
the cost of this fiasco is going to be.”
Under Britain’s complex rail franchising system,
trains are typically leased from separate rolling
stock companies. It is not known whether
government, First MTR or the train owners will
suffer any financial losses.
Transport writer Christian Wolmar told i: “This
exemplifies why having a fragmented and
privatised railway is a waste of money and
resources. The railway is a natural integrated
business where it’s best to have same people
running stations, trains, track and infrastructure.”
“Good news”
But Paul Plummer of the Rail Delivery Group,
which represents train operators, said: ” It’s good
news that train companies have a choice of
rolling stock, including leasing new trains at
lower costs.”
Under its franchise agreement, First MTR must
deliver 90 new trains and 750 new carriages by
the end of 2020.
A FirstGroup spokesman said the new franchise
would mean “new and better trains” and “quicker
journey times”.
“As part of our bidding process we explored a
number of rolling stock options and chose a
cost-effective and high-quality new fleet that is
both a good deal for customers, and is also a
good deal for the taxpayer since it allows us to
pay a substantial premium back to government,”
he added.