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Arthur Figgis · July 15th 08, 06:29 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

wrote:
On Jul 14, 5:38 pm, John B wrote:
Yes in the short term. In the long term, it's likely to be more cost
effective to not give a single manufacturer a monopoly in the supply
of UK suburban rolling stock (and Siemens would've been justifiably
****ed off, given that a batch of dual-voltage 350s would be pretty
much equivalent to a batch of 37xes).

Who has copyright of the designs of these trains? Is it retained by
the manufacturer or is it owned by the DfT? If the latter couldn't
they just farm the work out to a number of seperate builders as has
been done in the past on BR and LUL?

Generally the manufacturer, but the customer might own frilly bits like
a fancy nose. Voyager noses have been mentioned in the past - Meridians
are a bit different. AIUI the South Africans own the right to the nose
of their Electrostars.

Presumably farming it out might make maintenance-inclusive packages more
tricky.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK