Wednesday, 21 May 2014

French face red faces over trains that are ‘too wide’

The French train operator SNCF has discovered that 2,000 new trains it ordered at a cost of 15bn euros ($20.5bn; £12.1bn) are too wide for many regional platforms.

The embarrassing blunder has so far cost the rail operator over 50m euros ($68.4m; £40.6m).

How can such an obvious blunder have been made, who was in charge of providing the specifications of the trains size, Mr Bean!

Surely if you’re spending £12bn on 2,000 trains making sure they are the right size for the tracks you plan to use them on should be one of, if not the highest priority.


I could understand if when the trains were delivered SNCF weren’t happy with the design or there was a technical issue that meant that they needed to go back to the manufacturer and be repaired, but not bungling the width so your shiny new trains don’t fit the track. 

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