UK - Union backlash over 'super express' contract

[John Ashworth]

1. Union backlash over £7.5bn 'super express' train contract

• Consortium to construct first batch of carriages in Japan and keep some manufacturing there
• News comes in wake of wave of recent strikes over use of foreign labour

Dan Milmo and Richard Wray guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 12 February 2009 14.51 GMT

The government sparked a trade union backlash today after awarding a £7.5bn train contract to a Japanese-led consortium and admitting that some of the 12,500 jobs created or safeguarded by the deal will be based outside Britain.

The news came in the wake of a wave of wildcat strikes over the use of foreign labour at oil refineries and power plants. Britain's largest rail trade union, the RMT, added to those protests today after questioning the decision to award the trains contract to a consortium that will construct at least some parts of the first batch of 1,400 carriages in Japan rather than the UK.

Agility Trains – led by Japanese train maker Hitachi, services group John Laing and Barclays's investment bank – will build and maintain a fleet of new "super express" trains that will start running between London and Edinburgh in 2013 before being rolled out across the UK. The Department for Transport said the contract will safeguard 10,000 existing jobs and create a further 2,500, but then admitted that not all the jobs, and not all the value generated by the contract, would be based in Britain.

The RMT union criticised ministers for choosing Agility over the Express Rail Alliance consortium, a group led by Bombardier, the Canadian engineering group that already has a significant train manufacturing base in Derby.

"We have been campaigning long and hard to protect what is left of Britain's train-making capacity and skills base, and if the basic manufacture of these sets is to be undertaken elsewhere, today's announcement will have been a triumph of spin over substance," said Bob Crow, the general secretary of the RMT. "We need to know why the order was not placed with Bombardier, which has established train-building capacity and a skilled workforce in Derby."

Transport minister Lord Adonis admitted that some of the manufacturing jobs created by the £7.5bn contract could be located outside the UK, although he expected the majority to be situated in Britain. "The great majority of the jobs and the value of the contract will reside here in Britain," he said, adding that around 70% of the value of the contract would be generated in the UK.

The chief executive of Agility Trains, Alistair Dormer, said the first 70 carriages would be constructed in Japan, with the bulk of the manufacturing and assembly then transferring to the UK. However, some production on the remaining 1,330 carriages will stay in Japan, including the manufacturing of the carriage shells, which requires a welding technique known as "friction stir welding", with parts of the undercarriages and power plants also constructed outside the UK.

Dormer said an initial 200 manufacturing jobs would be created in the UK, rising to 500 by 2015 at a plant to be based in either Gateshead in the north east, Ashby de la Zouch in the Midlands, or Sheffield in Yorkshire. The remaining UK jobs created by the contract are expected to be based in maintenance depots. Industry sources said maintaining the fleet would require around 1,300 jobs, which would leave around 700 more of the DfT's 2,500 total unaccounted for.

Express Rail Alliance said: "We are extremely disappointed not to have been awarded preferred-bidder status for the Intercity Express programme. We have spent 18 months developing a compliant, competitively priced, innovative and sustainable solution which would have significantly benefited the rail manufacturing economy in the UK and Europe."

Agility plans to create a new manufacturing plant in the UK and new depots in Bristol, Reading, Doncaster, Leeds and west London to build and service the new electric and diesel rolling stock. The new stock will replace the distinctive Intercity 125 diesel and Intercity 225 electric fleets that British Rail bought in the 1970s and 1980s. The trains are expected to remain in service until 2040 and the order is comprised of three different types of train: one type powered by electricity, one by diesel engines, and a further hybrid type that combines both.

Adonis said diesel and hybrid trains were still needed because "substantial" parts of the network will not be electrified when the first batch of trains is introduced on the east coast line, followed by the Great Western route in 2016.

The government also approved plans yesterday for the £750m regeneration of Longbridge, south of Birmingham, in a move that will create an estimated 10,000 new jobs.

The Longbridge Area Action Plan (LAAP), which was passed to government in March last year, includes the construction of at least 1,450 homes on the site of the car plant as more than 350 acres of land are transformed into a new "sustainable community". The plan has been created by a 15-year partnership between Birmingham City and Bromsgrove District councils alongside Advantage West Midlands, Worcestershire County Council and developer St Modwen.

"In my view, the proposals for the future economy of Longbridge are founded on robust and credible evidence and will be effective, flexible and deliverable," government inspector Jill Kingaby said in her report. "Overall, I conclude that the LAAP should enable the economic transformation of Longbridge… developing a range of employment opportunities across the site and establishing a regional investment site which is attractive to high-profile investors."

2. Spin claims over £7.5bn train contract given to Japan

Dan Milmo, transport correspondent
The Guardian, Friday 13 February 2009

The government was accused by trade union leaders yesterday of failing to safeguard UK jobs after awarding a £7.5bn trains contract to a Japanese-led consortium.

Ministers said 12,500 jobs would be created and safeguarded by the construction of a new fleet of intercity trains, but later admitted that not all the jobs would be based in the UK. The furore follows weeks of wildcat strikes at British oil refineries in protest at the hiring of foreign labour.

A consortium led by Japan's Hitachi was awarded the lucrative train contract despite competition from Canadian engineering group Bombardier, which has an established factory in Derby employing 2,200 people. Hitachi admitted that the first batch of trains would be built in Japan, while parts will continue to be manufactured abroad even after assembly plants are moved to the UK.

Britain's biggest rail trade unions said the contract award threatened to undermine the Derby plant. Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT union, said: "If Japan can manage to ensure the high-speed fleet that operates on its own railways are manufactured at home, there is no earthly reason why Britain cannot either."

Bob Laxton, Labour MP for Derby North, said the decision would have a "huge impact" on the local community. "This is a crass decision. I don't believe for one moment the figure of 12,500 jobs because work will be brought into the UK from overseas. I simply cannot understand why the DfT [Department for Transport] has taken this decision. It's naff."

Gerry Doherty, leader of the TSSA rail union, said: "We do not want to see jobs simply being transferred from long established plants to new plants which may be built in areas with lower labour costs. Genuine new jobs are welcome but we must ensure that they do not come at the expense of existing skilled workers."

The Conservatives accused Labour of spin in claiming the creation of 2,500 jobs when only 500 would be directly related to manufacturing, although a further 1,300 posts will be created by maintaining the trains once in service after 2013.

[John Ashworth]

Official press release (link):

Latest news provided by the News Distribution Services.


Thursday 12 February 2009 07:25
Department for Transport (National)

Passengers and economy to benefit from biggest investment in trains for a generation


Passengers on some of the country's busiest rail routes will benefit from the single biggest investment in Intercity trains for a generation, Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon announced today.

Agility Trains has been selected as the preferred bidder for a £7.5bn contract to build and maintain a fleet of new Super Express trains for the Great Western and East Coast main lines. These will replace existing high speed trains which are 20-30 years old.

Agility - a British-led consortium comprising of John Laing, Hitachi and Barclays - will make a significant inward investment as part of this contract. They will build a new train manufacturing plant in the UK, as well as depots in Bristol, Reading, Doncaster, Leeds and west London with upgrades to existing depots throughout Great Britain. This will create or safeguard some 12,500 manufacturing jobs in these regions.

Geoff Hoon also announced that the Department is in advanced negotiations with National Express East Anglia to provide 120 new carriages for the Stansted Express service from London Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport. The preferred bidder for this order is Bombardier Transportation, who plan to build them in Derby and therefore safeguard jobs there.

Geoff Hoon said: "This announcement demonstrates that this Government is prepared to invest, even in difficult economic times, by improving our national infrastructure. It is good news for the British Economy that over 12,500 jobs will be created and safeguarded; good news for the regions that the Government is supporting significant inward investment; and good news for passengers that we are taking the steps necessary to improve their rail journeys."

The first of the new trains will enter service on the East Coast mainline in 2013. Trains will enter full service from 2015, linking London with Cambridge, Leeds, Hull, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh and linking London with the Thames Valley, Bristol and South Wales.

Government rail experts working alongside the rail industry have created a new specification for these trains that will offer more seats, more reliable services and reduced journey times.

Professor Andrew McNaughton, Network Rail's Chief Engineer, said:

"Network Rail has been delighted to support DfT from the very start on the development of this project. This will be the first train for many years which has been developed as part of a system together with the GB rail infrastructure.

"We have worked with DfT to optimise the design of both train and infrastructure to give the best capacity and passenger experience and the best whole life costs. This is a big train, but it will tread softly and so reduce the amount of maintenance and network down-time needed."

Alec McTavish, Association of Train Operating Companies' (ATOC's) Director of Policy and Operations, said:

"This announcement is good news for the rail industry and passengers. The fleet will provide long distance operators with the trains they need to meet the needs of a growing market and passengers with an attractive, cost effective travel choice, which is essential if rail's potential to reduce the UK's carbon footprint and transport congestion is to be realised.

"ATOC and its members have been working closely on the development of the trains' specification and will now work with the Department and Network Rail to bring them into service."

Notes to Editors

1. The Super Express trains are part of the overall Intercity Express Programme (IEP), which includes a package of other investments to improve the capacity and capability of the routes. This has been led by the Department for Transport, with assistance from across the rail industry, since November 2005.

2. The Programme seeks to replace the distinctive "Intercity 125" High Speed Train (HST) diesel fleet and "Intercity 225" electric fleet procured by British Rail during the 1970s and 1980s with a new, higher capacity, more environmentally friendly train.

3. The new trains will operate on the East Coast and Great Western Main Lines, with options for deployment on London commuter services on the West Coast Main Line and on services between London and the West of England (Penzance and Exeter).

4. The Intercity Express Programme is independent of "High Speed Two", which was recently set up to explore options for a new rail relief line along the Intercity West Coast corridor.

5. The Invitation To Tender, Train Technical Specification and associated procurement documents can be found on the Department for Transport's website, http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/iep/.

6. The secondary bidder was Express Rail Alliance (a consortium comprising Bombardier Transportation, Siemens, Angel Trains and Babcock & Brown). Express Rail Alliance has been asked to maintain their status as reserve bidder in the case of DfT not being able to reach satisfactory terms with the preferred bidder. Both bids were deliverable and substantially compliant, and so comprehensively evaluating and choosing between them was a lengthy process.

7. The contract structure passes the responsibility for constructing depots and maintaining trains to the successful bidder. The Train Operating Company will pay the successful bidder "Set Availability Payments" for each train that reports for duty each day and remains reliable during the operational period.

8. The fleet will comprise an electric, self-powered (diesel), and a bi-mode variant, the latter being able to make use of an electric or a diesel power source at the end of the train. This is the first time in recent history that a bi-mode train has been earmarked for the UK rail network. Bi-mode trains are common on some mainland European national rail systems.

9. The Super Express trains will be cleaner, greener and generate less noise than the trains that they will replace. Despite being larger, the new trains will be up to 17% lighter than their counterparts, meaning that they will be more energy efficient and faster at accelerating.

10. The electric and bi-mode versions of these trains will include regenerative braking, a system whereby electricity is re-cycled back through the overhead wires when the driver applies the brakes. The diesel and bi-mode versions will benefit from the latest hybrid power technology which will reduce fuel consumption by up to 15%.

11. The 125 mph (200kph) Super Express trains will reduce overcrowding as they will be longer, the new carriages will be 26m in length as opposed to the 23m in Intercity vehicles currently in use. This will mean that they will carry up to 21% more passengers per train than current rolling stock. The faster journey times will also allow operators to run more frequent services.

12. A typical journey between London and Leeds will shorten by around 10 mins, between London and Edinburgh by 12 mins, between London and Bristol by 10 mins and between London and Cardiff by 15 mins.

13. This represents the largest ever procurement of rolling stock. Top five rolling stock procurements since privatisation are:


Rank Route Name Order Size Date
1st Intercity Super Express Up to1,400 Current
2nd Various DfT High Level 1,300* Current
Output Specification
3rd South West Desiro 665 Apr 2001
4th West Coast Pendolino 477 Feb 1999
5th South Central Electrostar 460 Mar 2002

* Note that this total reflects several separate orders

14. Key facts: an existing IC225 train compared to a new Super Express train:


British Rail IC225 Super Express
Top speed in service 125mph 125mph
Typical journey time London - 4hrs 23mins 4hrs 11mins
Edinburgh
Train length 247m 260m
Train weight 498t 412t
Number of Seats 536 649
Energy consumption per seat km 0.035kwh 0.030kwh

15. A computer simulation of the Agility Trains bid can be found here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/passenge ... lation.zip

COI ref 170556P

[M. Hardy-Randall]

As a regular user of the IC125 from London to Aberdeen and back I find the seating arrangements of the train to be tolerable for the 7.5 hour journey. However, one phrase in the video for the new trains does give me cause for concern, "Increasing passenger capacity"! We all know what that means it is called Virgin Voyager.
I suppose it means I am still yearning for the era of the real comfort of the old LMS and LNER coaches that were built for long journeys.

Does this new train proposal mean that HS2 is now dead in the water or is it just delayed?

Malcolm

[John Ashworth]

As I understand it the status of HS2 hasn't changed (what is its status at the moment, one might ask?!) but there has been a plan to build IC125 replacements for some time and this is it.

I agree with you about the passenger capacity. On my last few trips to UK I travelled in IC125s, East Coast 225s, Voyagers and Pendolinos. The first two are "real" railway coaches, the latter two are more like aircraft cabins. Another complaint is the windows. I think Richard Branson decided that rail passengers are like air passengers and don't need windows, so the windows are too small and don't always match the seats.

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Poor show in my opinion.

I hope the strike causes chaos......

[John Ashworth]

Letters

High-speed train plan goes off the rails

The Guardian, Monday 16 February 2009

There is much more to criticise in the government's rail deal with Hitachi than the fact that it appears to take jobs out of the country (Foreign jobs row erupts after £7.5bn 'super express' deal goes to Japanese-led consortium, 13 February). The whole project is grounded in the same short-termism that has bedevilled rail infrastructure investment for more than 60 years. While it may be that the units will have dual diesel/electric capacity, that has not been confirmed nor does the project come with a parallel deal to electrify the western region lines out of London. Committing to a train design likely to be in service until 2040, powered by oil-burning engines, is economic and environmental madness.

Would it not have been better to consider this project in conjunction with the third Heathrow runway, the building of which cannot be justified on any basis? There is rail potential close to BAE at Filton, near Bristol. The provision of international length runways and facilities at Filton, combined with a state-of-the-art electrified railway giving direct high-speed access (140mph-plus) to Reading for Crossrail and to Birmingham for the north would be expensive. But in the long-term, its advantage to the economy and the environment would prove the decision to have been the right one.
Les Summers
Kidlington, Oxfordshire

Geoff Hoon's presentation of this Japanese order as some kind of fiscal stimulus - "good news for the British economy" - claiming that this £7.5bn government contract is being awarded to "a British-led consortium" and that "over 12,500 jobs will be created and safeguarded" in the UK is erroneous at best, misleading at worst. The winner of the bid was Agility Trains, which boasts Hitachi Japan as its largest shareholder, with minority partners Barclays Private Equity and John Laing, which will play no direct part in the design or fulfilment process of the manufacturing order.

The 12,500 new jobs "created and safeguarded" actually represent at least 10,000 existing jobs at third-party companies that may conceivably benefit over the lifetime of the build contract. Hitachi's design and development work will remain in Japan. Final assembly would take place at a Hitachi facility in the UK - yet to be built. The employment level at the proposed UK base would be about 200. Somewhat less than the 12,500 British jobs Hoon envisaged.

The Dft may well have thought a decision not to award the Intercity contract to Bombardier - the firm with the last remaining rolling stock manufacturing base in the UK - would be a politically sensitive one. But this is no justification for a cynical attempt to spin the Hitachi order as a victory for British business.
Nicholas Hill
Editor-in-chief, Xbriefing

One problem with these high-speed rail schemes is that they won't provide economic stimulus in the current recession because most of the money can't be spent for several years. What we need now are infrastructure projects that can start immediately. In this light, it is strange that the government has reduced its support for the maintenance of the nation's railways by 5%, as was announced last week by the Office of Rail Regulation.

The last thing that we will need if and when the new lines are built is a fatal accident due to poor maintenance of the existing lines. Far better to allow the industry to get ahead with maintenance now, so that it can concentrate on new projects in the future.
Patrick Shaw Stewart
Newbury, Berkshire

When they were new, the electric locomotives currently used with the Intercity 225 trains on the east coast mainline were successfully test-run in routine passenger service as a replacement for one of the diesel engines on the Intercity 125 units. So what ought to be a decreasing demand for hybrid trains to run out on to non-electrified sections of an increasingly electrified network could be met by rearranging existing trains. New build could then be concentrated on proper electric trains, if not on new high-speed mainlines, at least on trains that could, like the Eurostar sets, run through from the UK network to the continent.

Since it was believed that the government had decided to resume electrification, the proposal to build a large new fleet of hybrid trains seems to demonstrate a lack of joined-up thinking within a single government department.
John Hall
Bristol

The news of new trains for the east coast and Great Western mainlines is not quite as good as the travellers on those routes might like to think. The longer 26-metre coaches will have to be narrower than existing stock, since that's the only way they will fit into the present kinematic envelope, exceeding which would involve hitting things on the curves. That means less seat width, in line with the fact that people are getting thinner these days. Or not.

Perhaps the best bit of the minister's speech was the suggestion that it would make Britain a world-class builder of new trains. Try selling 125mph trains to the rest of Europe, where express speeds are nudging 200mph. The Europeans have no need whatsoever for that diesel engine, since all of their main lines are electrified. Ditto most of the rest of the civilised world.

When the railways lost £25m a year they got a plan - even if it was by a man called Beeching. Now they lose £5bn and we appear to have no plan at all.
Owen Jordan
Swansea

At £5.4m per carriage, these are the most expensive trains ever. For the same money, 30,000 high-speed luxury motorway coaches could be acquired, increasing the total size of the UK bus and coach fleet by 50%. Prof Lewis Lesley
Liverpool

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Interesting that we banging on here on the road/rail story. Buses are not really a valid direct comparison to use given all the variables.....