I will not comment on the WCML fiasco except to say that it points up the need to look at the way the IEP contract was awarded.
The original specification for the IEP was not met by any of the submissions from the competing tenders. The final specification for the trains that have been ordered is significantly different from that in the original tender.
The train manufacturing companies could reasonably argue that they never had the opportunity to bid on the basis of the final specification. Whether they would be within their rights to ask for a judicial review is a matter for the lawyers, but given that IEP is extraordinarily bad money, as was point out by Foster, suggests that the taxpayers would have an interest in the outcome.
The original specification for the IEP was not met by any of the submissions from the competing tenders. The final specification for the trains that have been ordered is significantly different from that in the original tender.
The train manufacturing companies could reasonably argue that they never had the opportunity to bid on the basis of the final specification. Whether they would be within their rights to ask for a judicial review is a matter for the lawyers, but given that IEP is extraordinarily bad money, as was point out by Foster, suggests that the taxpayers would have an interest in the outcome.
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It could not possibly be the case that either the "can carriers", or the processes, or the software deployed on the WCML were involved in producing the figures for HS2 for IEP? Could it?
in "Thameslink rolling stock procurement: eleventh report of session 2010-12", Vol. 1 (Stationary Office) Ev43 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-L25JN49WjgC
It's possible that Bombardier did not remember correctly, and this statement is simply caused by pique. If not the current situation is bizarre.
To answer your second question in detail would require the services of an engineer and a barrister working together for several weeks to comb through all the relevant documents. However, in short, none of the bids satisfied all the requirements. Hitachi apparently was the nearest and was then given the opportunity to develop its concept into something practicable, though in the meantime the requirements had changed somewhat and there were further changes in response to some of the criticisms in the Foster report. Thus the IEP has been massively re-worked and now resembles the Voyager + pantograph car concept, which surely Bombardier would have offered if a fresh tender had been put out based on the final design for which the contract was awarded?
Whenever modelling is undertaken there is a fair amount of educated guessing and assumptions that have to be made, as such best practice is to be robust in the calculations as HS2 has been with the much lower than the current growth rate, whist the Virgin/first bids should have that robustness built in in other ways.