Stagecoach Holdings PLC

Stagecoach signs £1 billion order for South West Trains
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date 24 April 2001
source Stagecoach Holdings PLC
type Press release

Stagecoach Group announces that it has signed a £1 billion order for 785 new vehicles for South West Trains, the biggest order for new trains in Britain.

The new trains, to be built by Siemens with financing by Angel Trains, will begin to be delivered by the end of next year, and will enable slam-door trains to be eliminated from South West Trains’ network by the end of 2004.

The £1 billion order, including maintenance, forms part of Stagecoach Group’s commitment to £1.7 billion investment in new trains and infrastructure. The train order was a key part of the group’s proposals which resulted in Stagecoach being announced as preferred bidder for the South West Trains franchise by the Strategic Rail Authority earlier this month.

Keith Cochrane, Stagecoach Group chief executive, said that the new trains were crucial to improvements promised for South West Trains. "We at Stagecoach, together with our partners Siemens and Angel Trains, have signed this deal at the earliest possible opportunity as a first step to deliver a better service to our passengers in the new South West Trains franchise. "These state-of-the-art trains will boost peak capacity by about 25 per cent, and reduce overcrowding on most suburban routes. "We will now work closely with the Strategic Rail Authority, our passengers and our staff to build a new railway for the 21st century."

Railhub Archive ::: 2001-04-24 STG-001