On Apr 9, 10:46 pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
4.2 The Department and Network Rail wish to work with Bidders to establish
a set of weight targets which can be set in the ITT. The Department is
aiming at a target of 256 tonnes (tare) per 162m train or 384 tonnes
(tare) per 243m train which is believed to be achievable.

A 162 metre train made of 20 metre cars is an 8 car train, and an 8 car
train which weights 256 tonnes has 32 tonne cars. If the supplier goes for
26 metre cars, six per train, they could weigh 42 tonnes. I have no idea
if there are reasons 26 metre cars can't be used; i believe the Southern
network has curves which preclude their use, but don't know if Thameslink
will use those.

The central Thameslink route has trouble with stock longer than 20m, I
think. There's another bit in the document where DfT suggests that
it'd be happy to think about longer trains as long as the manufacturer
thinks about ways of making them fit [presumably along the lines of
'we'll add GBP15m of extra value if you do GBP10m of widening'].

To achieve the two required total lengths, 20m trains would need to be
4-car units and 26m trains 3-car units.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org