UGL Unipart, a 70:30 joint venture between UGL, a member of CIMIC Group, and Unipart Rail, has been awarded a two-year extension to its contract with Sydney Trains for the delivery of maintenance and logistics services for a section of Sydney’s metropolitan passenger rail fleet.
The two-year extension will be effective from July 2019 and provide heavy maintenance and supply chain services to more than 1,050 passenger rail cars in Sydney’s metropolitan rail fleet and is worth AU$395 million to the joint venture.
The partnership draws upon UGL’s asset management and maintenance capability, together with its intimate knowledge of Sydney’s metropolitan passenger rail fleet, and Unipart Rail’s expertise in inventory, purchasing and logistics management. The joint venture’s maintenance services, supply chain and value engineering initiatives are designed to increase safety, reliability and availability of Sydney’s rail fleet.
Unipart’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Glen Everett, said: “When we commenced the joint venture seven years ago, we knew that the combination of UGL’s heavy maintenance skills and Unipart’s deep supply chain and lean expertise – using our Unipart Way tools and systems – would deliver world-class service to Sydney Trains.
“We are extremely pleased that the successes of the last seven years have led to this significant extension.”
Still hoping that HS2 will truly complement the rail network by having sensible connectivity with the historic lines. However the very short sighted ‘grandiose’ Terminus in Birmingham does not promise to improve connectivity at all ,on the contrary it will incorporate passenger inconvenience as a design intention! Why on earth there there will not be interchange platforms with the West Coast main line right adjacent is beyond comprehension or indeed the provision of a direct connection Westwards from it, not least because the first tranche of rolling stock have been stated as being ‘classic compatible’!.On top of this the proposed Toton station will be hugely inconvenient for both Derby and Nottingham, this design flaw you just couldn’t make it up!