Flying Scotsman

Have they got enough dining saloons ? because you can be sure someone will say if we create more dining room we can make more profit that way

 

Surprised it took so long to announce, can't imagine there was much of a decision to make.

 

it took so long because the NRM, as a government body has to tender everything out to tender before reaching a decision obviously rileys are the best people , and at least we don't have the same mistakes being made as were made historically, where people have seen Flying Scotsman as a way of making them money and ended up being bankrupted by it.

 

I thought Riley's already had a contract to operate and maintain FS for some period of years.

 

It was a fixed term contract when the loco first returned to service, which was then re-tendered. (Discussed quite extensively upthread - starting at about post 6685 on page 335).

Tom

 

i'm assuming the tender has to be awarded to overlap the previous tender so that theres not a situation where the loco has no maintenance contract in place if the NRM are unable to maintain it in house with its own enginering staff .

 

Great news ☺

 

Fully aware of the necessity to tender. The point I was making is that it must have been a formality because Rileys overhauled the loco, its performed faultlessly since and they have a close working relationship with the main steam TOC. All of those facts must provide a reasonable advantage, particularly the latter because probably nobody else could offer the same level of confidence in being able to operate mainline, especially given the present state of flux.....

 

In my experience of these matters that's a pretty big assumption. It's by no means unknown for a tender process to come up with a winner the customers have low confidence in . And the people responsible for monitoring such things tend to take a very dim views of tenders that are difficult for any but the incumbent to win. And goodness knows there have been enough dubious incidents in the past in other industries to justify such an attitude.

 

Excellent news! The only sensible decision really, based on the competence and comprehensiveness of the work carried out on the Locomotive by Mr. Riley and his team. Congratulations!

Richard.

 

Do not disagree and the best outcome has been acheived. This market, though. Is almost so specialsed normal tender rules cannot be applied. Consider, for example, if another bidder had been preferred but then agreement between a TOC and the preferred bidder could not be reached? In effect it narrows the field to who can guarantee maximum mainline access ie very very few tenders could be considered credible.

 

Normal tender rules always apply: its the law.
Any special requirements have to be written into the tender documents, and may have to be justified to auditors or whatever. Writing the first tender for something new is a nightmare job.In the IT game a lot of companies reckon to make their profits by charging through the nose for all the things that should have been included in the contract but weren't.

 

I think FS ought to have a GNR pattern, with coal rails .

 

Are you here all week?

 

In the abstract though, in this scenario, unless a firm has the support of a suitable TOC they would effectively be ruled out of bidding for the operational and maintenance contract? Given the currently small number of steam TOCs that presents a massive influence on the process, surely? How is a tender process structured to ensure a suitably level playing field in such circumstances?
Its accademic because a totally credible outcome has been reached but must be tricky to draft as you allude.

 

Remarks like that could well earn you a tender behind

 

You jest; but how awesome would it look when matched with a single chimney? It wouldn't be accurate for her period in service but, well, it'd be fun.

 

Must take them to mainline ticket expiry on boiler???