TransPennine Express

You've come all the way to Middlesbrough from Australia.

And about half of that 25 hours, I think, was spent just outside Thornaby on a TransPennine Express train.

Was that right?

Yes, exactly right.

The reception cuts out.

TransPennine, you're not getting a-

Okay

... any email up there.

Okay.

Now-

... and final question number six, ever seen a badger before?

Likewise, the clock at Hull Paragon is awaiting its routine service.

Transpennine Express says passengers can still benefit from 30 information screens across the station.

So no excuse for missing your train.

There is one advantage to having clocks out of sync.

You mentioned just briefly about technology, Mark.

So you've just done Transpennine, fascinating deal, battery electric, the first big deployment of battery electric, multiple units, it will be in the UK.

Do you have a view or do your investors have a view on technology like that? Or do you just tend to take the view, we'll finance whatever the government decides it wants to buy, I'm not really bothered whether it's batteries or full electrification?

um no we don't uh is the easy answer but um but we listen to our partner you know the part there is the government if they're not up for it they're not for up for making it work you know then there's no go so they've got to first of all say yes we're willing to take this risk of bringing this new technology in and doing everything we need to do to make that technology work so that's that is base case but then we do do all of the reviews and checks technical checks and everything else to make sure that from an investment point of view we can we think we can manage those risks And we do that with the OEM and with the supply chain.

You know, so London's got its Elizabeth line and all the other swishy things that you can travel on down there, but the north has had littl- little, as we all know, little or nothing for a, for an awful long time now.

Hey, they are speeding up the journey t- to Manchester by about three minutes, you know, on the TransPennine route.

Well, it, it kind of...

Yeah, again, you know-

I, I think it, I think it will come later.

You can see this with, um, TransPennine, you can see this with East West Rail.

No full route analysis has been done.

The decision was made politically to not electrify the routes, and then if you're not electrifying it, how best do you remove diesels and where do you put charging? It's a political decision.

Okay.

So really the summary is an awful lot still to be resolved, and, um, we'll need to watch that very closely.

And obviously, you know, if, um, if GBR are going to be able to produce these, um, root level analyses in due course, it'll be fascinating to see what, if anything, it says about things like, um, uh, TransPennine and so on.

But, uh, listen, Noel, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us.

Today, we signed-

It's Chris Jackson, who's MD of TransPennine Express

... a deal with our new partners, Alstom, to bring 29 brand-new trains to the north of England.

They are creating new jobs in maintenance and securing jobs at the factory in Derby, where they will be built.

Chris Jackson there saying things that I couldn't stop him saying, but I think it's fine.

He did-- I, I don't think there was any enough loud music that I'll get a strike.

So, uh, TransPennine have got me with strikes before.

So yeah, they're getting these-- they're getting 29 five-car battery electric Adessias.

name check you.

Now, last week we reported on the order announced by TransPennine Express, TPE, and won by Alstom for a fleet of 29 five-car BEMUs, battery electric multiple units, using Alstom's Odessia Stream platform at Innotrans in Berlin just a few days ago.

Our intrepid reporter, a.k.a. Richard, indeed, for it is he, managed to do some more digging and then found time to record a piece explaining a few more of the technicalities about the train.

It's not the whole story as yet, as you'll hear in a moment, but we think you'll find this quite interesting because we did.

Now, last week on the show, we talked about TransPennine Express's order for battery electric multiple units, the order that Alstom won for its Edesia Stream platform.

And at Innotrans in Berlin recently, I had the opportunity to speak with James O'Sullivan, who is the project director for the Odessia Stream platform at Alstom, to ask him some more questions about this particular battery electric multiple unit.

And I thought it would be useful just to share some of that.

So where does this get us to at this point? I mean, does that mean, from what we now know, that the battery EMU is a better solution? I still think this depends on the lens that you look at these deals through.