Eighties-vintageValleys trains on track for another 10 years
Valley Lines trains which are already 30 years old may have to receive a £10m upgrade and soldier on for another decade, experts are suggesting.
Margaret Thatcher had not yet launched her poll tax and Boy George topped the charts when Sprinter trains came into service up and down the Valleys in 1987. They are now also used on other Welsh lines, including Wrexham to Shotton and Merseyside.
The Sprinters are due to be replaced by new trains, possibly including trams, after the next rail franchise begins next year.
However, no new trains can be introduced until years after the deadline – January 1, 2020 – when every passenger train must comply with improved accessibility standards.
Almost three in four of the trains now operated by Arriva Trains Wales do not comply because they lack facilities such as wheelchair-access toilets and modern information systems.
Porterbrook Leasing, which bought the Sprinters from British Rail and leases them to ATW, has told the National Assembly for Wales that converting the trains to comply with the standards would cost approximately £10m.
It is unwilling to spend that money on such old trains unless it is guaranteed that they will continue to be leased for long enough after 2019 for Porterbrook to recover its investment.
One industry source said the length of time the 36 Sprinter units would have to continue running would depend on how much the regular leasing charge increased to reflect the investment.
“My guess is about 10 years,” he said.
Porterbrook also owns many of the Pacer trains used in the Valleys. It told an Assembly committee that it had “no intention to invest in them to make them compliant” with the accessibility standards.
This potentially leaves a big hole in the Welsh train fleet come 2020. The Welsh Government has said all bidders for the next franchise must provide compliant trains.
However, Stephen McGurk, Porterbrook’s legal and procurement director, told the committee last week this would probably be too late to meet the 2020 deadline because of the timing of the franchise, which does not start until October 2018.
Olivier André, Porterbrook’s commercial director, said: “If you start doing any work when the franchise starts, it is too late. Decisions have to be taken now, not wait until the franchise starts.”
One potential solution is to fit diesel engines to surplus electric trains from the London area. Porterbrook will trial this in northern England next year.
However, the industry source said that those trains in the proposed configuration would not be powerful enough to replace Sprinter and Pacer trains on the Valley Lines.
The tracks are steep in places and the speed of acceleration after the frequent station calls is critical. The infrastructure is closely tailored to the current journey times, which largely rules out having a temporary period when journeys are slower.
Welsh Government deputy permanent secretary James Price told the Assembly committee that the Government had sought to buy new diesel trains in 2011, but was told by Department for Transport officials in London not to be “silly” because nobody in the UK would buy diesel trains ever again.
At the time, the UK Government had promised to electrify many more lines and it was widely assumed that this would release enough diesel trains for the non-electrified lines. However, the electrification programme has suffered delays, cost increases and cutbacks, and many new diesel trains are now being built for English lines.
Back in 2013 an Assembly committee took evidence from Porterbrook and others in the rail industry on how Wales should prepare for the 2020 accessibility deadline.
The committee advised the Government to “publish a rolling stock strategy as a matter of urgency”, to ensure decisions were taken in good time on accessibility legislation and “avoid the increased cost and disruption associated with delay”.
The Government rejected the advice. It said: “The Welsh Government is not the franchising authority for the Wales and Borders franchise at present. The Welsh Government agrees that it will be important that the rolling stock expectations for the next franchise are clearly defined.”