Porterbrook Raises £250m Of New Green Private Placements
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
This is the sub-heading.
Porterbrook, the UK’s leading rolling stock financier and asset management company, is delighted to announce the successful closing of its £250m Private Placement.
These are the first two paragraphs.
The transaction, which includes existing and new investors, has enabled the company to extend its debt maturity profile at attractive pricing and further diversify its investor base of US, UK and Swiss institutions.
Porterbrook owns a quarter of the national passenger rail fleet, and in recent years has significantly diversified its portfolio including taking ownership of the Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre in Warwickshire, confirming a 49% stake in Brodie Engineering in Kilmarnock, and financing the redevelopment of Bletchley Depot for West Midland Trains.
We must be doing something right on the railways, if US, UK and Swiss institutions are prepared to back them financially.
But then Aviva, who were formerly Norwich Union, backed Greater Anglia’s new Swiss trains.
Conclusion
Despite what some might think, it would appear that green investments aren’t all bad.
UK Diesel-Battery Hybrid Locomotive Lease Fleet Ordered
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
This is a visualisation of the CBD90 from Clayton Equipment.
It certainly looks purposeful!
This is the introductory paragraph.
Beacon Rail Leasing has awarded Clayton Equipment a contract to supply 15 diesel-battery locomotives, with options for more to be ordered over three years.
These points are made.
- The locomotive is mainly for industrial shunting applications.
- These are the largest locomotives built in the UK for twenty years.
- It has an onboard diesel to charge the batteries.
- Batteries can also be charged directly from a three-phase supply.
Beacon’s CEO is quoted as saying
It was seeing increased demand for lower emissions, new technology, more capacity and cost-effective assets in a fast-changing environment.
It looks like Beacon Rail Leasing and Clayton Equipment have come up with a product that suits a lot of customers.
- Some will surely be used in mines, quarries, refineries, chemical works and steel works.
- Will some be used in large rolling stock depots, where they can provide an environmentally-friendly method of moving trains?
- Some shunting locomotives in the UK, like the Class 08 locomotive, were built in the 1950s.
- Some train operating companies have a small fleet, of these veterans.
- In Battery-Powered Shunter Ready To Begin Testing, I described how one Class 08 locomotive was being converted to diesel-electric hybrid power.
- As Beacon has interests in Europe, could some of these powerful shunting locomotive could be going for export?
- Could some end up in the large mines of Africa, Australia and the Americas?
From this article on Railway Gazette, which is entitled Steelworks Locomotive Order, it appears five CBD90 locomotives have already been ordered by Tata Steel for their steelworks at Port Talbot.
This video shows one of the locomotives under test.
I shall be interested to see, where the new shunting locomotives end up.
The Leasing Model
When we started Metier Management Systems in the 1970s and developed Artemis, which was the world’s first small and powerful project management system, we used to lease systems to our customers. These were often large engineering or other companies for whom the leasing model was very convenient.
It certainly did us well!
The Anonymous Widower 