On Tue, 15 Jun 2010, Paul Corfield wrote:

It might be that the programme to do the civils work is done to the
original schedule and then you phase the fit out and commissioning more
slowly. This may also allow any rolling stock procurement to be put back
so that co-ordination with Thameslink (common fleet) can be achieved and
the supplier has a long production run but the cost is spread /
financing made easier.

Are the requirements for the trains for TL and CR similar enough for a
common fleet to be possible? Apart from the whole dual-power thing, which
i assume would be easy enough to leave off the CR trains (maybe except a
few, so there's a reserve that could be used for TL at short notice). What
about seating plan? That could be varied between batches, S-stock style,
if necessary. What about the engines and suspension? What about
signalling? TL isn't using ERTMS, right?

Essentially, are the lines similar enough in the services they will run
and the infrastructure they will run over that they can actually share
stock?

tom

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