Eversholt Rail Group

Eversholt Rail Group
PredecessorBritish Rail
FoundedApril 1994 (1994-04)
Headquarters
London
,
England[1]
Area served
United Kingdom
Key people
Mary Kenny (Chief Executive)
ProductsRolling stock leasing
ParentBeacon Rail
Websitewww.eversholtrail.co.uk

Eversholt Rail Group was a British rolling stock company that, along with Angel Trains and Porterbrook, was one of the firms created from the privatisation of British Rail. Formed in March 1994, the firm was privatized the following year via a £580 million management buyout.

Sold to Midland Bank and renamed twice (Forward Trust and HSBC Rail), it operated primarily in the UK market, although the latter was active in the European leasing market in the 2000s, after the UK business had been split off and sold. Subsequently, the European leasing business was sold to rival leasing Beacon Rail and what had been the UK part was then also ultimately also purchased by Beacon Rail, later - effectively re-merging the operations.

Involved in supplying 28 British Rail Class 395 high speed train sets under a £250 million contract, HSBC Rail also submitted an unsolicited and dismissed response to the Intercity Express Programme. During the 2010s, it focused on either selling or retrofitting aging elements of its rolling stock fleet.

After being rebranded back to Eversholt Rail Group in 2010 and being sold to private financial companies, it was acquired five years later by CK Hutchison Holdings and Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings.

On January 26, 2026, ERG was acquired by Beacon Rail.[2] It was then made a part of Beacon.[3]

History

Eversholt Rail Group was established on 21 March 1994 as a subsidiary of British Rail in preparation for the privatisation of British Rail.[1][4] It was named after Eversholt Street in London near Euston station in which British Rail's offices were located.[5] During November 1995, British Rail sold its subsidiary via a management buyout in exchange for £580 million; this price was subsequently criticised for being undervalued.[6][7][8]

Reported in February 1997 at a cost of £726.5 million, Midland Bank acquired Eversholt, whose portfolio consisted of 4,000 electric locomotives and passenger multiple units.[8][9] After being renamed Forward Trust a year later,[10] it was renamed again in November 1999, this time to HSBC Rail, as part of a rebranding by its parent company HSBC.[11]

In 2000, HSBC Rail leased its first rolling stock outside of the United Kingdom via a financing arrangement on two EMD JT42CWRs for Swedish freight operator TGOJ Trafik.[12] However, during 2009, the company ultimately opted to entirely withdraw from the European market; to this end, it sold its fleet of twenty EMD JT42CWR locomotives to Beacon Rail.[13]

During June 2005, a contract valued at £250 million was signed with Hitachi Europe to supply 28 British Rail Class 395 high speed train sets, with HSBC Rail acting as the financier.[14] This contract was also the first ever British order for a Japanese train; Hitachi reportedly viewed the deal as a key opportunity to establish itself in the UK market.[15][16]

HSBC Rail also involved itself in a consortium providing maintenance services, referred to as 'DEPCO', to the fleet; other members were Fitzpatrick Contractors Ltd (construction), RPS Burks Green (architects/civil engineers), EMCOR UK (mechanical and electrical plant) and GrantRail (trackwork).[17][18]

After being rebranded again to Eversholt Rail Group in January 2010,[19][20] it was sold to a consortium formed by 3i, Morgan Stanley and Star Capital Partners in November.[21]

During the early 2010s, in response to the Intercity Express Programme led by Britain's Department for Transport, Eversholt issued its own counter-proposal for the renewal of rolling stock on the East Coast Main Line; this option, which would have reportedly consisted of new locomotives and carriages, was to be considerably cheaper than the Class 800, a Hitachi-built high speed multiple unit train. However, Eversholt was ultimately unable to convince the DfT to pursue their solution.

In addition to the acquisition of new rolling stock, Eversholt has been a keen advocate of upgrading existing units as well. Its fleet of Class 321 electric multiple units has been subject to numerous extensive alterations and retrofits; in December 2013, it rebuilt one as a demonstrator for a proposed upgrade.[22] In May 2018, plans were announced to convert some Class 321s with Alstom hydrogen cells, using the acronym HMU (hydrogen multiple unit) and re-designated Class 600.[23][24]

A number of this class of train will be converted to hydrogen power and operational by 2024.[23][25] The first concept of this conversion, dubbed "Breeze", was revealed by Alstom and Eversholt Rail in January 2019.[26] In March 2021, Eversholt announced the conversion of one for use as a parcels train.[27]

In January 2015, Eversholt was purchased by a consortium of CK Hutchison Holdings and Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings in exchange for a reported £2 billion.[28] At this time, it controlled roughly 28 percent of passenger trains within the UK market, thus the deal was subject to review by the European Commission.[29] In March 2015, Eversholt announced the sale of its 920 wagon fleet to NACCO Industries.[30]

While responsibility for the Class 365 EMUs was transferred to Eversholt during the privatisation process,[4] due to the British Railways Board having leased rather than purchased these units, via a clause in the original procurement contract, ownership of the remaining 40 sets passed to the Department for Transport subsidiary Train Fleet (2019) Limited in July 2019,[31] after it was obliged to pay out the leases to the Royal Bank of Scotland in the event that the trains were not wanted.[32][33] In July 2021, all were sold back to Eversholt after the termination of their leases with Govia Thameslink Railway was agreed.[34]

By May 2022, Eversholt Rail Group owned 3,246 vehicles, of which 2,721 are electric-powered.[35]

In January 2026, Eversholt was acquired and subsumed by Beacon Rail.[2][3]

Initial fleet

The fleet Eversholt Rail Group inherited from British Rail in 1994 comprised:[4]

Class Number of items
of rolling stock
86 51
91 31
302 104
304 25
310 192
313 192
315 224
318 63
320 66
321 456
322 20
365 164
421 220
423 308
455 184
465 388
483 16
Mark 1 19
Mark 2A 48
Mark 2D/E/F 509
Mark 4 314

Pre-Series Revolution VLR

In December 2023 Eversholt Rail ordered three Pre-Series Revolution VLR (RVLR) battery-only vehicles, with lineside fast charging, from TDI, for passenger trials and service. They will be built from 2024 and are expected to be ready for passenger operation in 2026. They will be based on the RVLR Demonstrator tested at Ironbridge.[36][37] A report says they will be 18.9 m (62 ft) long, formed with composite carbon fibre and aluminium panels and have 56 seats and a maximum speed of 104 km/h (65 mph),[38] which is the same as the demonstrator car, which had a steel ladder chassis, was 2.8 m (9 ft 2 in) wide, 3.8 m (12 ft) high and had four single leaf sliding plug doors.[39]

References

  1. ^ a b "HSBC Rail UK Ltd". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  2. ^ a b "Beacon complete the acquisition of Eversholt Rail". Beacon Rail. Retrieved 23 January 2026.
  3. ^ a b "Eversholt Rail is part of Beacon. We proudly operate under the Beacon brand as part of a stronger pan-European rail leasing platform". Retrieved 21 March 2026.
  4. ^ a b c "25 Years of ROSCOs". Rail Express. No. 281. October 2019. pp. 18–21.
  5. ^ "Why Angel Trains?". Entrain. No. 113. May 2005. p. 25.
  6. ^ "ROSCOs sold for £1,699.5m". Rail Privatisation News. No. 18. 16 November 1995. p. 16.
  7. ^ "BR's passenger trains fleet sold-off for £1.8 billion". Rail Magazine. No. 266. 22 November 1995. p. 6.
  8. ^ a b "Exposed: Who gets what from Eversholt's great gravy train". The Independent. 20 February 1997. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020.
  9. ^ "Forward Trust acquires Eversholt". Rail Privatisation News. No. 49. 6 March 1997. p. 1.
  10. ^ "Eversholt Leasing is renamed Forward Rail Trust". The Railway Magazine. No. 1162. February 1998. p. 55.
  11. ^ "Forward Trust Rail Renamed". Entrain. No. 47. November 1999. p. 9.
  12. ^ "HSBC bankrolls Class 66s for Sweden". The Railway Magazine. No. 1192. August 2000. p. 10.
  13. ^ "HSBC Rail pulls out of Europe". Today's Railways Europe. No. 161. May 2009. p. 10.
  14. ^ Sources:
  15. ^ Clinnick, Richard (12 August 2009). "Javelin set to hit its targets". Rail Magazine.
  16. ^ "High-speed trains, driven by superior Japanese technologies, run in the U.K., the birthplace of railways". social-innovation.hitachi. June 2017.
  17. ^ "Hitachi Class 395 – an update". railwaypeople.com. 15 August 2008.
  18. ^ Sources:
  19. ^ "ROSCO renamed". Rail Express. No. 165. February 2010. p. 8.
  20. ^ "Name changes for rolling stock leasing companies". The Railway Magazine. No. 1307. March 2010. p. 8.
  21. ^ "News in Brief". Railway Gazette International. December 2010. p. 21.
  22. ^ "Class 321 Demonstrator launched on the Abellio Greater Anglia Network". Eversholt Rail.
  23. ^ a b "Alstom Breeze hydrogen train designated Class 600". Railway Gazette International. Archived from the original on 8 January 2021. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  24. ^ "Alstom and Eversholt plan fuel cell EMUs". Railway Gazette International. 15 May 2018. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
  25. ^ "Eversholt Rail and Alstom to invest £1m in hydrogen trains". International Railway Journal. 22 July 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  26. ^ "Alstom and Eversholt Rail unveil Breeze hydrogen train for Britain". International Railway Journal. 7 January 2019. Archived from the original on 8 January 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  27. ^ "321334 to be converted into swift express freight train". eversholtrail.com. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  28. ^ "Eversholt Leasing sold for 2 billion". The Railway Magazine. No. 1367. February 2015. p. 9.
  29. ^ "Eversholt sold". Today's Railways UK. No. 159. March 2015. p. 14.
  30. ^ "Eversholt Rail sells wagon fleet to CIT Group". Railway Gazette International. 3 March 2015. Archived from the original on 5 October 2015.
  31. ^ "Forty Class 365s now owned by Government". Rail Magazine. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  32. ^ "Government takes ownership of Class 365". The Railway Magazine. No. 1422. September 2019. p. 105.
  33. ^ "DfT takes ownership of Class 365 fleet". Today's Railways UK. No. 214. October 2019. p. 69.
  34. ^ "Eversholt Rail regains Class 365 ownership". Railways Illustrated. No. September 2021. p. 13.
  35. ^ "Fleet". Eversholt Rail Group. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  36. ^ May, Tiana (12 December 2023). "UK: Eversholt Rail Funds New Revolution Very Light Rail Vehicles". Railway-News. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
  37. ^ "Three new battery-only Revolution Very Light Rail vehicles". eversholtrail.co.uk. 7 December 2023. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
  38. ^ BATRAK, OLEKSANDR (8 December 2023). "An order has been placed for the Revolution Very Light Rail rolling stock". Railway Supply. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
  39. ^ "Demonstrator Vehicle". Revolution VLR. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.