BUS and rail company FirstGroup yesterday announced a #105m order for rolling stock for its Great Western Trains and North Western Trains passenger franchises.
The order has been placed with Anglo-French partnership GEC Alsthom Metro-Cammell, based in Birmingham.
FirstGroup acquired the franchises two months ago, when it bought the 75.5% of the equity of their Great Western Holdings parent which it did not already own.
The acquisition proved highly controversial - partly because of Great Western Trains' poor performance and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott becoming involved personally.
FirstGroup said that the order for 110 diesel train carriages announced yesterday satisfied the undertakings given by the management-led consortium which took over the franchises.
Its director of corporate communications, Michael Mitchell, added that FirstGroup had committed itself at the time of its takeover of Great Western Trains to purchase another 32 carriages. This order has yet to be placed.
The trains ordered for North Western will be in service by May 31, 2000. The 40 carriages for Great Western will be delivered by June 2001, with the other 32 to be in service one year later.
Mitchell said FirstGroup had not yet decided whether to finance the order from its balance sheet.
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