Re: EL's for QR

[mauried@commslab.gov.au (Maurie Daly)]

In article <3702cb52.0@news.highway1.com.au> "David & Jan Winter" <winterdspamtrap@spamless-icenet.com.au> writes:
>From: "David & Jan Winter" <winterdspamtrap@spamless-icenet.com.au>
>Subject: Re: EL's for QR
>Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 09:29:32 +0800


>Maurie Daly wrote in message ...
>>If sending fitters is out of the question ,(I cant see why) then a simple
>>contract with NRR or Freightcorp to rescue the dead EL and haul it back to
>>Queensland for repairs would be easy to implement.
>>Or why not buy and old loco  , eg an 80 or 48 just for rescuing other
>locos.
>>
>>MD
>>


>I think Maurie, it might not be a question of practicality but of economics
>and risk analysis.

>DW


Yes , its the economics that troubles me .
The ELs were bought by their new owners of the old AN rump for around $600 to 
$800K each.
An NR costs $3.5 million.
Unless NRC are essentially subsidising the rental of their locos , which they 
may be , there is no way that using an NR instead of an EL can be cheaper in 
the long term.

QR indicated that they were looking at buying 2 ELS and since 
they have only one GSPE train you could simply run both of the ELs on the 
train.
What is the probability of both ELs failing at the same time.?
Of course if NRC use BLs or DLs then this would be cheaper than using an NR
as effectively NRC got the BLs and DLs for nothing.

There seems to be this belief that modern diesel locos are going to fail 
frequently and that we must have some contingency plan to cover this.
Whilst locos which are poorly maintained will fail from time to time ,this is 
no reason to paint the lot of them as unreliable.

MD