Talk:Agility Trains

Need for a separate article?

Agility Trains are a consortium of several companies to meet the requirements of the Intercity Express Programme, and haven't expressed intent to bid for any other projects; for that matter, most rolling stock purchases don't require the involvement of a bank. Do they really have any notability independently of the programme? It seems to me that merging this back into the main article would avoid redundancy and give a clearer overview of the entire project. In the event that they do start pursuing other contracts as a unit, the article can always be re-created. David Arthur (talk) 20:15, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we need for Agility Trains to bid for other contracts to make it appropriate to have a separate article. As it stands it seems that the notability is established in my opinion and it is likely that Intercity Express Programme will eventually be renamed to the name of the train which is the product of the programme with the current content reformatted into a history and at that point it will become more inappropriate to cover the manufacturer in any great deal. I'm not sure why you say that "rolling stock purchases don't require the involvement of a bank". This is almost always the case. My understanding is that pretty much all passenger rolling stock in the UK is owned by a bank subsidiary and so a bank is usually involved. Adambro (talk) 21:33, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

In most cases the purchaser is a ROSCO (and yes, these are normally owned by banks), but for this purchase, the ROSCOs are being left out; as far as I know, this is the only time things have been arranged so that the seller needs to anyone more than a train builder.

Every substantive detail of this article is as much about the train as about the consortium, and I don't really see how that will change. If these three companies, whose businesses are quite separate under normal circumstances, have come together for the sole purpose of building and financing the Super Express, what notability does the consortium have independently of that project?

For a somewhat comparable example, see Canada Line – this project involves fixed infrastructure, but the public-private partnership arrangements are similar. The line itself has an article, as do the long-established corporations who form the consortium that designed, are building, and will operate the line. That consortium, however, does not itself have an article separate from the one about the line. David Arthur (talk) 22:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)