Rail industry sets out potential requirements for trains and carriages
Posted: 12 February 2013 | | 1 comment
A new rail industry report marks a key step towards a market-led approach for delivering rolling stock…
A new rail industry report marks a key step towards a market-led approach for delivering rolling stock which meets passengers’ needs over the next 30 years. The high level analysis suggests a possible near doubling of the fleet could be needed by 2042.
The report sets out a range of scenarios for the future size and makeup of the national passenger rolling stock fleet needed for the next three decades in the context of growing demand, infrastructure enhancements and greater electrification of the network.
At the heart of this growth is a potential need for between 13,000 to 19,000 new electric vehicles by 2042, compared with around 8,500 electric vehicles in Britain today. That would be equivalent to delivering an average of eight to 12 electric vehicles every week, and would increase the proportion of the fleet made up of electric vehicles from around 68% today to over 90% by 2042.
The need for new non-electric vehicles could be small by comparison, possibly as few as 400 to 800 vehicles over the period.
This is the first time since privatisation that the industry has joined together to outline a long-term, cross-industry strategy on rolling stock.
Paul Plummer, group strategy director, Network Rail:
“This strategy marks the first time that the long-term rolling stock implications of passenger growth and infrastructure upgrades such as electrification and HS2 have been modelled and considered together.
Our investment programme will increase capacity on some of the busiest part of the network, enabling more people than ever before to travel by train. The approach set out in this strategy will ensure the industry works together to deliver a bigger and better value railway for Britain.”
The work was overseen by a group chaired by Richard Brown, Eurostar Chairman, and made up of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), the three main train leasing companies (Angel Trains, Eversholt Rail Group and Porterbrook Leasing), and Network Rail.
Rail industry passenger rolling stock strategy >>
Related organisations
Angel Trains, Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), Network Rail
Excellent news and all to be built in the UK, for an all UK operator network!!!
Only joking of course. We don’t have the political stomach for such outlandishly wayward thinking. Politians with any engineering aspiration? what could we possibly be thinking of, suggesting anything so inappropriate?
I know we pioneered the world in rail engineering, but that was a long long time ago and anyway, we have an obligation to support all our European neighbours and North America, for the supply of all our rail needs and we obviously don’t have the necessary know-how or business acumen in the UK to go it alone.