RMT exposes another massive flaw in Thameslink contract

4 August Rail union RMT today repeated the call for the Government to halt the Thameslink fleet contract award after it revealed that preferred bidder Siemens don't have a tried, tested and compliant set of bogies (the framework carrying the wheels) in production.

Siemens only have on paper an as yet unproduced bogie. RMT has warned that this could result in the sets being delivered without a compliant bogie, sets being overweight, having performance issues, requiring bogies to be replaced within as little as five years, as well as having no assessment of the environmental impact issues and the potential for damage to the track and points.

RMT revealed that Deutsche Bahn have instructed that the Bombardier bogies be used on their ICX fleet of high speed trains, due to them being reliable, compliant, and having more than a billion miles of operation to date on the clock. The Bombardier B5000 is currently used on East Midland's Trains Meridians, Virgin's Voyagers and Super Voyagers, and Southern's Turbostar's. These companies have commended the quality of the Bombardier engineering.

The Bombardier bogies took 10 years to develop and construct and are now seen as the world�s leading bogie frame and has proven reliability as opposed to the undeveloped and untested Siemens bogie.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

�It is extraordinary that the Government have ignored the most basic piece of engineering in their awarding of the Thameslink contract to Siemens and it proves conclusively that this process has been wholly botched and needs to be called to a halt.

�If the Government, under heavy pressure from the EU, can�t get the basics right it shows just how flawed this tendering exercise has been from start to finish and we are demanding that the Siemens decision be reversed right now to protect the jobs in Derby and the future of train building in the UK.�