Grand Central taken over by DB

[whole diary]

[paul7575]

Closing Grand Central would give DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about)/Arriva a nice little pool of rolling stock to use elsewhere. They've done it once before......

Not necessarily, GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line) now lease all their stock in the normal manner.  (They originally owned their HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)), but sold them to a normal Rosco to fund the new engines.)

Paul

[JayMac]

But surely DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about)/Arriva are now the lessee. If they decided to cease the GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line) services would they not be free to deploy the stock elsewhere?

I can't see Angel Trains preventing the lessee from deploying them elsewhere, if the lessee wanted to. There may be contractual small print to overcome, but Angel Trains are in the business of leasing trains, not seeing them in store.

[paul7575]

If Angel got a whisper that the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) were no longer needed they might prefer to lease them to the East Coast operator, who also seems to need more HSTs at least at the moment. 

All I'm saying is that they wouldn't automatically be able to transfer them within Arriva or DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about), it would be down to the Rosco to agree.

[readytostart]

It sure is a possibility, though less likely I'd have thought as it really would be awful publicity for Arriva/DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about) if they were to do the same thing twice, and the two Grand Central routes have much more potential.

Don't think the locals around Arriva head office in Sunderland would be too happy if their London link were to be removed, plus the directors now have a free first class direct service to their meetings in London. (Not that I'm a cynic)