UK- IEP/Hitachi Rail latest news

[bikkuri bahn]

Hitachi stands by Newton Aycliffe train deal despite delays

by William Green, The JournalMar 14 2012

 

JAPANESE train builder Hitachi remains committed to building a new plant in County Durham despite delays in the final sign-off of a £4.5bn contract with the Government.

 

The company is planning to build a train factory at Newton Aycliffe – creating hundreds of jobs and pumping millions of pounds into the local economy.

 

And it yesterday moved to reassure the region after it emerged the final closure of a deal to build a new fleet of intercity trains has been delayed until May.

 

http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2012/03/14/hitachi-stands-by-newton-aycliffe-train-deal-despite-delays-61634-30527424/

 

*is that fellow holding a Hornby model?

[Nick_Burman]

Hitachi stands by Newton Aycliffe train deal despite delays

by William Green, The JournalMar 14 2012

 

JAPANESE train builder Hitachi remains committed to building a new plant in County Durham despite delays in the final sign-off of a £4.5bn contract with the Government.

 

The company is planning to build a train factory at Newton Aycliffe – creating hundreds of jobs and pumping millions of pounds into the local economy.

 

And it yesterday moved to reassure the region after it emerged the final closure of a deal to build a new fleet of intercity trains has been delayed until May.

 

http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2012/03/14/hitachi-stands-by-newton-aycliffe-train-deal-despite-delays-61634-30527424/

 

*is that fellow holding a Hornby model?

 

Yes, a Hitachi Javelin.

 

Cheers NB

[bikkuri bahn]

IEP order may be confirmed within days

 

SPECULATION is growing that the Department for Transport is poised to announce a contract for the first tranche of Intercity Express trains this week.

 

The order, if it is confirmed, will have come only after well over three years of debate and reassessments by the Department, after it named Hitachi as preferred bidder for the Intercity Express Programme in February 2009.

 

The earlier vision for IEP included a fleet of up to 1,500 vehicles, which would become the new standard for intercity trains in Britain. Now, it is thought that the order will be for 500 vehicles intended for the Great Western Main Line, replacing most of the route's existing InterCity 125 HSTs by 2017.

 

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2012/07/24-iep-order-may-be-confirmed.html

 

From the Financial Times:

Agility Trains, a consortium led by Hitachi, is expected to receive an order for the first 330 carriages as part of the InterCity Express programme.

 

The trains will go into service on the Great Western line between London and Wales and the south-west of England from 2016.

 

The deal is expected to be followed next year with an order of up to 270 carriages for the East Coast mainline.

 

The size of the final order is still fluid with many in the industry expecting it to be capped at 500 carriages. This is a large reduction from the original programme for as many as 1,400 when Agility Trains was first given preferred bidder status in February 2009 as part of a £7.5bn deal.

 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b949d9c8-d4f2-11e1-9444-00144feabdc0.html#axzz21axDcUI9

[bikkuri bahn]

It's official:

£4.5 billion investment in new trains creates new jobs

More than 900 jobs will be created and thousands more secured after Transport Secretary Justine Greening approved a £4.5bn contract to supply Britain with the next generation of intercity trains.

 

In a major boost to the UK’s manufacturing industry, 596 railway carriages will be built at a brand new train factory in the north east of England.

 

Agility Trains, a consortium made up of Hitachi and John Laing, has been awarded the contract to build and maintain the trains under the Intercity Express Programme (IEP), the project to replace Britain’s Intercity 125 trains with new higher capacity modern trains.

 

Hitachi will assemble an intercity fleet of 92 complete trains at a new purpose-built factory in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, in the process creating 730 skilled jobs with a further 200 jobs during construction of the factory itself and securing thousands more in the UK supply chain. The company will also locate its European rail research and development capabilities on the site which will further enhance the factory’s ability to win rail contracts across Europe.

 

As well as building the new state-of-the-art assembly facility, Hitachi will construct maintenance depots in Bristol, Swansea, west London and Doncaster, and will upgrade existing maintenance depots throughout Britain.

 

http://www.dft.gov.uk/news/press-releases/dft-press-20120725a

[bikkuri bahn]

Some info on formations on pg. 3:

http://www.hitachirail-eu.com/medialibrary/2012/07/25/a69090fb/20120725-Hitachi_announces_financial_close_of_IEP_FINAL.pdf

[Davo Dentetsu]

The next lot of stock cascades could be very interesting with the HST MkIIIs also getting an upgrade and refresh.

[bikkuri bahn]

Hitachi Rail Europe selects MTU to power IEP trains.

 

RJ at InnoTrans 2012:

HITACHI today announced it has selected MTU as its preferred supplier for the contract to supply and maintain 250 700kW diesel powerpacks for Britain's Intercity Express Programme (IEP).

 

MTU will supply a specially-designed powerpack built around its 12V 1600 R80L engine, with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), induction generator, and Capos starting system.

 

The contract is worth more than €200m, which includes maintenance for the full 27.5-year term of the train service provision agreement signed in July between the Agility Trains consortium of John Laing and Hitachi and Britain's Department for Transport(DfT).

 

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/rolling-stock/hitachi-selects-mtu-for-iep-engine-contract.html?channel=529#.UFsiPa4mw-0

 

another source:

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/mtu-to-supply-diesel-powerpacks-for-intercity-express-programme/archiv/2012/september.html

 

Interesting in that it's a V12 configuration in an underfloor arrangement, much like a heavy truck or bus installation.  Picture of the power pack on this site:

http://www.tognum.com/press/press-releases/presse-detail/news/tognum_is_preferred_supplier_for_hitachi_super_express_train/news_smode/images/cHash/d80e54016f174fbb726c9d6b2a33061f/

[bikkuri bahn]

Some recent developments:

Nine-car Intercity Express Programme 801001 reached 137.5mph during on October 28. The speeds were reached at the Rail Innovation and Development Centre (RIDC) at - See more at: http://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/2015/10/30/iep-hits-new-speed-record#sthash.ZfwOZn44.dpuf

 

 

The third pre-series InterCity Express Programme (IEP) train, T2, was moved to Hitachi’s North Pole Train Maintenance Centre in West London over the weekend.

The train is one of 12 pre-series units being shipped to the UK from the company’s Kasado Works in Japan, where they were built. It will now take part in the commissioning of the depot over the next six weeks.

 

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/third-pre-series-iep-class-800-arrives-in-hitachis-london-depot-from-japan?dorewrite=false

[katoftw]

If you read the peanut gallery at the bottom of the articles.  It seems the British aren't happy to have outdated Japanese technology.

[bikkuri bahn]

Alot of British railway enthusiasts think that the railway should be stuck in 1988 or thereabouts, and anything other than loco-hauled is "rubbish".  They display a woeful ignorance of the realities of running a modern railway as well as the nuts and bolts of train operation and performance. 

[katoftw]

There is always the puriests that don't want things to change.  But life evolves, but they like their own personal glory eras.  Hey we all will get old one day.  Just very surprized to here someone suggest Japanese technology is behind the times.

[Davo Dentetsu]

If you read the peanut gallery at the bottom of the articles.  It seems the British aren't happy to have outdated Japanese technology.

I don't think anyone who has the name "Captain Deltic" should really be taken seriously about claims of rubbish technology.  Impressive as his rose tinted view on the Deltic would be, it's fair to say that they weren't exactly the greatest train on the planet.

 

Even I, the one who has a fondness for blue and grey era stuff, is pretty excited to see the new times roll.

[railsquid]

I just wish Japanese companies would take over maintenance and operation of the entire railway... Though I must admit to being chuffed in a bemused kind of way to see a rake of blue/grey mark 3s being propelled into Marylebone station by an actual locomotive (albeit a weird one I'd never seen before) ;).

[bikkuri bahn]

Loco-hauled into Marylebone.  Shades of the GC in steam days.  Wish I was old enough to have seen that!

[bikkuri bahn]

Related to the Class 800's:

The first overhead wires of the Great Western Main Line electrification project have gone up near Reading.

Network Rail engineers began the installation on November 12 between Pangbourne and Tilehurst – the section which will be used by Hitachi to test its Class 800 Intercity Express trains.

A mile of earth wire was installed, becoming the first section of OLE to go up beyond the existing catenary at Airport Junction in Stockley, London.

 

http://www.globalrailnews.com/2015/11/13/wires-start-to-go-up-on-great-western-main-line/