VT - Whistling Ghost - DH 7F's on WSR - 18/06/16

Ah! You have rather naughtily forgotten to mention that there is a very significant difference Between a GWR mark 3 vestibule and a charter stock one. Quite some time ago There were a whole rash of incidents with mark 3's on the West Coast main line where passengers started falling out of vestibules in various locations in Warwickshire for some reason. A lot of thought went into why, and eventually the answer was to fit (IIRC) the whole fleet of mark 3's with long tongue door locks and eventually this was backed up by the 1999 safety regulations requiring secondary door lock systems to be fitted. Now I am led to believe that at around that time you were looking at around £25k per vehicle for supply and fit of secondary door lock systems such as those which secure FGW HST doors. With the HMRI's usual pragmatism and common sense, aided by the number of stewards to be usually found on a charter train, it was deemed that a far more simple and cost effective system would suffice to meet the risk existing on charter trains, and the risk was further mitigated by the requirement to reduce congregations in vestibules and people leaning out of windows. Hoping not to tempt fate, it is apparent that, thus far, this simple system has worked.

Now this week's exam questions for those of the nay sayers who did maffs at school are:
1) How much do you think that the price of the HST system has escalated over the last 15 years or so?
2) Using the answer from question 1, have a go at working out what the cost of fitting a 12 coach charter set would be. As an aid to assessing whether your answer is correct, it should be something heading towards half a million pounds or so.
3) Who do you think is going to end up paying for it?

Finally I was rather disappointed by the lack of answers from some of the sages on here to last week's test questions.

Regards
Bob