Английский язык. Никитина С.Я. - 27 стр.

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27
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M
ANUFACTURERS TAKE OVER TRAIN MAINTENANCE
(1) A quiet revolution is taking place in train maintenance as major
manufacturers increasingly take over the lifetime care of the vehicles they build. The
result should be better and more reliable trains.
(2) There was a time when a train manufacturer’s responsibility for his product
ended after a two- or three-year guarantee period. Trains were produced to detailed
technical specifications written by the operators
1
, and manufacturers were not expected
to show any initiative regarding the period after the expiry of the guarantee.
Maintenance became the exclusive preserve
2
of the operator.
(3) There is a story of a light rail vehicle manufacturer admitting privately at a
conference that if he had to maintain the vehicles he was supplying he would have to go
back to the drawing board and start again if he was to make money.
(4) Railway practice shows that initial purchase price was just a fraction of the
costs incurred
3
during a 30-year vehicle life. After that came privatization with new
operators wanting to concentrate on their core skills and outsource most technical and
many non-technical functions. Indeed, technology is now so advanced and complex
that operators are not easily able to maintain their new vehicles.
(5) The changing nature of the global market, with rolling stock sales expected to
remain flat for the next few years, has also influenced major companies, such as
Alstom, Bombardier, and Adtranz, all of which have been searching for new income
streams.
(6) Nowhere has the impact of these changes been more strongly felt than in
Britain where all the major manufacturers are involved in serious long-term care of the
trains they are now building, and in some cases trains built by other manufacturers.
What is more, maintenance experts have become part of the design process so that cost-
effective maintainability and reliability is incorporated into the initial design.
Manufacturers should be responsible for service and maintenance because it improves
the product. The outcome should be more operator-friendly, passenger-friendly, and
reliable trains.
(7) Taking a look at train maintenance in Britain today is to take a look at
tomorrow’s railway. Manufacturers are building new multi-million pound maintenance
facilities to maintain new fleets of trains they are constructing for operators, or
pumping millions into existing building to bring both the fabric and the equipment up
to modern standards.
(8) Alstom, for example, no longer has depots for its maintenance tasks; it has
Traincare Centre instead. And it no longer just maintains trains; it is involved in Total
Trainlife Management. Bombardier’s ₤30 million state-of-the-art Central Rivers facility
between Derby and Birmingham, which is nearing completion, is designed specifically
to maintain the new fleet of trains being built by Bombardier for Virgin Trains’
CrossCountry services. Only 30% of the staff will be former railway employees and

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