Friday 1 October 2010

Look across the Channel and weep

Compare and contrast:

This from the FT:

The French authorities have been accused of trying to block the first-ever order by an affiliate of SNCF, France’s national train operator, for non-French high-speed trains, after Eurostar named Germany’s Siemens preferred bidder for a new train fleet.

With this from Rail Business Intelligence...

Bombardier insiders continue to express their frustration at the lack of progress in developing a bi-mode version of the Class 22X DEMU... According to Bombardier, the company has held numerous meetings over the past three years with DfT...

So in France you can have whatever you want, as long as it is built by Alstom. Whilst in the UK you just can't.