Project Churchward - future regional fleet for the West, new rolling stock to replace DMUs

[whole diary]

[Oxonhutch]

Freight locomotives will I suspect move to hydrogen in place of diesel.  Also it should not be underestimated the use that batteries could be used to maintain even the heaviest of trains once on the move

I haven't done the maths, but I suspect that the energy density of a modern battery system (notwithstanding future improvement), is still greater than that of a comparable hydrogen power system.

And my current job encompasses looking for natural hydrogen resources ...

[John D]

This thread has been a live for over 3 years, and it has been all talk, not even a PIN (prior Information Notice) ahead of a tender.   Zero on ordering or assembling new trains.

Wonder how much time has been incurred, or money spent on consultants, to be basically same place as were over 3 years ago.   

Of course there is a difference to 3 years ago, lots of European railways have placed orders for hundreds of vehicles (examples Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Berlin etc).  So most (or all) the train components factories now have good order books and presumably long lead times.   So any new train is probably 2-4 years away before construction can start after order placed, or nearer 5-7 years before fleet will be available for service.   

Don't think Treasury understands consequences of not placing orders for long lead time components, vs the tens/hundreds of millions cost of patching up old trains whose expensive parts need replacing