29.01.16
McLoughlin happy with Pacer replacement deal, and “busy” British order books
Following last week’s announcement by Arriva that CAF is to build 281 new carriages for the new Northern franchise to replace the Pacer trains, there was much noise made about “Why didn’t we go for a British manufacturer?”
The transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin MP has, however, said he is happy with the deal, and the reason behind not going British is because order books are already “busy”.
Speaking in Parliament, he said: “It would have been a bigger betrayal to the people of the north had we not said that we need new rolling stock to replace the Pacers. I am pleased that the government will replace the Pacers.
“The very fact that our train builders in this country—Bombardier and Hitachi—are busy is because of the record investment the government are putting into the railways.”
And he is right, to a degree, with Bombardier in the process of building Crossrail’s new Aventra fleet, winning the £260m contract for London Overground’s new fleet and delivering 80 Class 387 Electrostar vehicles for Porterbrook, to name but a few.
With regards to Hitachi, it is in the process of building the Class 800/801 vehicles for WCML and ECML, it is to provide a fleet of AT300s for the new FGW franchise, and is working to supply of 70 new electric trains for ScotRail. Again, to name nut a few.
So, is everyone happy like McLoughlin? Probably not. But at least there will be 98 new trains on the network by the end of 2019.