Flying Scotsman

Given that Darlington will be the focus of Rail200 I wouldn't bet on the non-participation of Flying Scotsman

 

Darlington has far more of a connection to 60103 compared with Derby.

 

For the correct way of working Steam/vac/air braking see video on the Clan Line thread. The same system is used on SNG, Tangmere, Blue Peter and others. It seems to me that the NRM has messed up big time with Scotsman and are in danger of ending up with an engine, TOC but no stock or tour operator. Riley & Son are proven first class engineers, look how reliable the trio of Black Fives have been over the last twelve months despite excessive workload. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it should have applied.

 

Yes it will only be a few miles away at Shildon in August

 

I think that's what I said so I find it odd that the NRM didn't stick with them. When I said excessive I meant the way 44871 kept the WCR and RTC tour programme running virtually on its own while the other two did the Jacobite and the Scottish Polar Expresses all with 100% relaibility. It wasn't meant as a crticism of Rileys, quite the opposite

 

I seem to remember 33207 on the back of 70013 on a 2017 Sherborne trip where we shall say it was "cool" as the steam heat was not working very well and the 33 could not help.

 

A more commercially liberal organisation may have had the opportunity to, but the requirements of Public Procurement Policies often force things down different routes.

 

They may have had to put it out to tender but there was nothing to stop them selecting the one with a proven track record

 

To be fair, do we even know if they submitted a bid? Without access to the tender documents, we don't know - unless Riley & Sons have somewhere else put it on the record that they did bid and lost out?

I have no idea which or how many organisations put in a bid, what the selection criteria were, what the relative weighting were between price and quality, or what each bidder's document actually said. But I suspect that almost no-one else on here knows any of that either, and certainly not for all the bidders. Unless you know the selection criteria and what was in each bidder's tender, you can't second guess why one supplier won and another didn't.

For anyone of a nerdish tendency who really feels the need to know, since the Science Museum is a public body, an FoI request may get you some of the way. But I suspect that you'd be able to get the tender document and scoring matrix out using an FoI; you'd almost certainly be able to get the headline contract value and payments made to the winner by FoI; but I suspect the details of the losing bidders (both who they were and what their bid said) would probably be deemed commercially sensitive and therefore not releasable.

Tom

 

Or, if it's working OK, leave the bl**dy thing alone. I often wonder if more trouble is caused by mollycoddling things in the glorious name of "inspection". 60163, anyone?

 

Am confused by the reference to air brakes as FS has long had air brakes?

 

The contract was fixed term - so when it ran out, NRM had to go to a proper tender

 

Yes, something that many on here are seemingly failing to understand (& also David Smith for that matter too*).
The tender had to happen if it was on a fixed term. The tender was open market, so anyone could bid. The NRM would have evaluated the bids under the terms of the tender - so if the winning bidder met the terms of the criteria of the tender, then they would have had no choice but to award to that successful bidder. They legally could not discount a winning bidder and award to a second or third place, without proving that the winning bid was invalid.
Now if it is true that a contract still hasn't been signed, then that does leave the door open to other bidders if the winner can not deliver what they are promising - but they must be given opportunity to show they can deliver. The ability to deliver mainline running may well be one of those red lines and could be the reason a contract still isn't signed.
Terminating a public contract once signed is exceptionally difficult and not something that can be achieved easily or quickly.

Interestingly, I have just had a similar experience in my line of work with a local authority. We received several bids for a project, the winning one which we knew was vastly under priced. Despite several clarifications to the contractor, they maintained they stood by their bid right up to the point just before award - when fortunately they saw sense.
Had they not withdrawn their bid, we would have had no choice to award and attempt to work with them, even though we knew they would make a substantial loss and/or cause significant disruption to the project. In this case they pulled out just in time and we were able to award to the second placed bidder without needing to rerun the tender exercise.
I hope the NRM is similarly at this stage of pre-contract, but the winner has to be given opportunity to deliver.

*or is DS playing a double bluff here by deliberately making it more difficult for the winning bidder by refusing to operate FS?

 

Sorry John that's incorrect. In public bodies, when a tender is put out the criteria for award is clearly stated in the tender documents as to how a bid will be evaluated and scored. This maybe just best price, or a mixture of experience and price (with a % weighting on each). I would be very surprised with such a high profile contract if experience didn't have a significant weighting in the overall score.
When we evaluate in local authority, the experience element is scored first (against set criteria) before the pricing document is opened. That is then scored and both commercial and experience scores are then added together (utilising that preset weighting) to come up with a winner.
That can mean on occasion, (if say experience is set to say 60% of overall score) that the cheapest bid may not always win, but we do not know what the weighting on this tender was set at. We can be certain though that it would have been transparent from the start and the NRM would have had their hands tied regards award.
It is done this way to ensure fairness to all & ensure public money isn't just handed to those with close ties to the tenderer. Put simply, the NRM couldn't just hand it to someone because they did a good job last time.

 

There’s an irony that these fine capitalists are complaining that a public sector organisation is required to seek best value for the taxpayer through periodic competitive tender, instead arguing for indefinite length contracts with a favoured supplier. Funny also that they’re surprised that private sector suppliers may be less than ‘fault free’, or even ‘economical with the actualité’, in their proposals and costing…

Simon

 

I expect the selection criteria used by the Railway Museum for the Flying Scotsman custodian would be as much concerned with up to date public body requirements for: accessibility to the greatest number of people, compliance with Diversity, Equality and Inclusiveness rules etc. Than for the new custodian to have a relationship with mainline TOCs and a proven track record of maintenance and operation.

 

But how do you assure accessibility to the greatest number of people? Is that partly by main line running? If it is, then this is where the loss of the DB/Riviera/UKRT channel comes home to roost.
Do we know how the NRM views its mission re FS?

 

Offhand, no. But that's where the questions about tender criteria are relevant.