Bonhoeffer Rail

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
A confused indifference pricing expert writes.

Lease rentals for the MOLA fleet were set (by DafT and its consultants/bankers/advisers/leasing experts) so that TOCs would be 'indifferent' financially as to whether they leased new stock or kept their MOLA fleet trains.

The laudable aim was to ensure that sparkling new trains were not priced out of the market by cheapo second hand trains.

As the CoCo provisional findings show, DafT has already 'up-buggered' (technical term - Ed) the leasing market so that new trains are now significantly more expensive than the MOLA fleet.

So now DafT wants to make MOLA fleet rentals even cheaper. Making new trains even more unaffordable.

Still it's one way of getting out of that commitment to 1300 additional vehicles that the previous Transport Secretary was so keen on.

Not that the ROSCOs are likely to be keen to fund them if they face the prospect of retrospective DafT demands for mid lease rental cuts.

How does it go?

First they came for the slam door stock, then they came for the MOLA fleet...