UK: New trains not allowed to pass each other

[John Ashworth]

From The Railway Magazine, April 2012, p9

New trains not allowed to pass each other

A bizarre and almost certainly unprecedented situation has affected the brand new 'Pendolino' trains on the West Coast Main Line.

Sets 390054 and 390055 are having to be kept apart by operator Virgin Trains so that there is absolutely no risk of them every crashing into each other. They are not allowed to pass or even enter the same station at the same time.

This has resulted in one being used on London-Manchester diagrams via the Trent Valley and Stoke, while the other is kept on Birmingham-Glasgow duties.

The reason for this extraordinary operating procedure is that the new sets are worth GBP 30 million each and insurance companies don't wish to underwrite the GBP 60 million cost of two being written off at the same time. The situation does not apply if a new Class 390 were to collide with an older member of the fleet as the original sets have depreciated substantially in value over the last decade or so.

The complicated diagramming will cease after April when the existing insurance policy is replaced by a new one.

The situation does not apply in depots as that is covered by a different insurance policy.