hink that you'll find that we decided to retire the R1 on 31 March 2011 well before this government got into power. For once we can't blame SDSR for this hole.
At least there is a replacement inbound which will probably arrive on time, cost what we agreed to pay for it and do what any other RJ does.
I believe the original OSD was 2012 and there was a briefing where people were told that it was agreed to be extended to 2016. One month later the same person briefed that the OSD was now 2011.
Rumour has it the decision to retire the R1 on that date was due to an offer that was made along the lines of "well if you retire it then you could use the money you save by not having to support it to get the RJs delivered a bit earlier". Pure speculation of course.
As to 'delivering to cost' I'm sure they included the cost of infrastructure changes to Waddington when they considered the deal. ....