Re: How many NR locos are now written of?

["Michael Walker" <walker@hotkey.net.au>]

>Its interesting that in the early stages of the formation of NR they
>estimated that only 80 new locos would be needed, but later on increased
the
>order to 120 , and at the same time the existing interstate Rail freight
>market was approx 14 million tonnes total , its now around 10 million
>tonnes.
>Given that NR knew that they would inherit a substantial number of existing
>locos from the old AN, PTC and SRA as the shareholders agreement required
>its difficult to see why so many new ones were needed to handle the current
>freight task , even if one assumes that NR retained its monopoly on
>Interstate freight , which was never guaranteed.
>
I thought it was more because the locos they received from the shareholders
were by no means the best locos in the shareholders fleets (why give the
future competition an even break...especially when you they skim off some of
your most profitable services to start with) and were apparently pretty
unreliable, especially the NSW 80 class. Hence the need for more new locos -
this way they get cheaper to run, standardised (hence simpler maintenance
arrangements than 10 different classes of loco from different manufacturers
amongst other benefits) loco fleet, even if it costs a lot up front. I'm
sure I read that with the introduction of the new locos, their fuel bill
dropped significantly - can't remember where I read it but probably an old
Network (must be an old edition, I haven't bought it or its descendants for
a while)

I hardly think 80 class or C class locos are much to build your fleet on -
except for maybe Austrac...8^)