Why is the industry not making a bigger deal about energy security?

[squizzler]

The argument for a greater modal share by rail is its energy efficiency. This always seems to be framed in terms of carbon emissions, but unfortunately the current governemnt does not seem to care about that.

With the sanctions against Russian oil, and the Middle East a tinderbox, I think rail should make energy security front and centre, both in terms of modal share and also the case for electrification. Every briefing to the press should mention national security benefits of reducing dependance on foreign oil. "Hard" geopolitical matters seem to be more fashionable at the moment than the (really much more existential) threat of climate change, but rail could destroy the motoring and lorry sectors in any debate over which offers the most national security.

I think rail industry should take the and play its ace card within the current zeitgeist. What do you guys think?

 

[The Planner]

The argument for a greater modal share by rail is its energy efficiency. This always seems to be framed in terms of carbon emissions, but unfortunately the current governemnt does not seem to care about that.

With the sanctions against Russian oil, and the Middle East a tinderbox, I think rail should make energy security front and centre, both in terms of modal share and also the case for electrification. Every briefing to the press should mention national security benefits of reducing dependance on foreign oil. "Hard" geopolitical matters seem to be more fashionable at the moment than the (really much more existential) threat of climate change, but rail could destroy the motoring and lorry sectors in any debate over which offers the most national security.

What do you guys think?

There is only so much modal share the railway can absorb though.

 

[squizzler]

Yeah, well I meant in pitching for investment, both expansion you note is needed and electrification.

Alstom, for instance, should articulate the national security implications of giving Derby some orders, both in terms of UK industrial base, but also make strongly my argument that the trains are less dependant on foreign oil than other powered mobility such as planes and cars.

 

[HSTEd]

The "railways use less oil" argument is becoming less powerful as the fraction of electrically powered vehicles on the road continues to increase.

As it is, the railways don't really provide a large fraction of required mobility and thus the oil use by them is already inconsequential.

But's lets say you wanted to treble or quadrouple the modal share of the railway..... would it involve substantial investment in the existing industry?
It'd be such enormous growth that you'd have to build self-contained high capacity Shinkansen from scratch.

 

[AndrewE]

The "railways use less oil" argument is becoming less powerful as the fraction of electrically powered vehicles on the road continues to increase.

As it is, the railways don't really provide a large fraction of required mobility and thus the oil use by them is already inconsequential.

But's lets say you wanted to treble or quadrouple the modal share of the railway..... would it involve substantial investment in the existing industry?
It'd be such enormous growth that you'd have to build self-contained high capacity Shinkansen from scratch.

You could double or triple capacity on lots of routes by just running longer trains, as has been pointed out repeatedly. Junction capacity is irrelevant when XC are running 4-coach trains on lines which are intended for 12-coach expresses, or (LNR) 4 coach trains between Liverpool and Brum which are supposed to be 8...
I'm not sure it is a good strategy to keep trying to accomodate infinitely increasing demand in London and the SE, just rebalance the economy.

 

[HSTEd]

You could double or triple capacity on lots of routes by just running longer trains, as has been pointed out repeatedly

Junction capacity is irrelevant when XC are running 4-coach trains on lines which are intended for 12-coach expresses, or (LNR) 4 coach trains between Liverpool and Brum which are supposed to be 8...

But those routes don't move a large fraction of the traffic, so doubling traffic there has little impact on the modal share of the railway. CrossCountry handles about 4% of passenger kilometres.
You can't realistically double or treble traffic on any of the heavily trafficked main lines without building new ones.
In order to double or treble traffic using operators like XC/Northern/TPE et al, you'd be looking at alocal traffic growth of an order of magnitude, unless you double traffic on the high capacity operators.

I'm not sure it is a good strategy to keep trying to accomodate infinitely increasing demand in London and the SE, just rebalance the economy.

I'm not sure I see why it isn't a good strategy. Economic agglomeration effects are real, cities are enormous economic engines and as far as we can tell, the larger they are the better.
But that is rather off topic!

EDIT:

To summarise, half the passenger-km are on five operators:

1. GTR
2. LNER
3. GWR
4. Avanti/ICWC
5. SWR

 

[AndrewE]

But those routes don't move a large fraction of the traffic, so doubling traffic there has little impact on the modal share of the railway. CrossCountry handles about 4% of passenger kilometres.
You can't realistically double or treble traffic on any of the heavily trafficked main lines without building new ones.
In order to double or treble traffic using operators like XC/Northern/TPE et al, you'd be looking at alocal traffic growth of an order of magnitude, unless you double traffic on the high capacity operators.

To summarise, half the passenger-km are on five operators:

1. GTR
2. LNER
3. GWR
4. Avanti/ICWC
5. SWR

Yes, because the first few of those have had most of the UK's rail investment. What is cause and what is effect?
GWR could have more bums on seats if it could reliably provide longer trains (if what we read here is to be believed), ICWC should be getting more (track) capacity if the politicians allow it - but even that will be wasted if there isn't any more rolling stock, apart from the gains from quicker journeys/faster turnrounds.

The rest of the country - you know, all the people who don't need or want to go into or around London on any day of the week - would love their existing trains to be longer or maybe even a bit more frequent. More rolling stock (e.g. on XC) would give immediate gains with no staffing implications apart from a few more cleaners.

Hopefully we are now at the end of a period of managed decline and rationalisation (apart from the favoured few lines, see above) and (track) capacity will be restored where needed.
There are lots of threads discussing where the lack of passing loops on singled lines or long sections on double prevents services being improved, and these sorts of local improvements would allow much more useable railway - although you would need more staff to run more trains. Places like Merseyside where the service is already quite good would benefit from longer platforms and longer trains - a chicken and egg situation which we have also been told prevents capacity increases.
If there was the will in Westminster to allow the rest of the country to have what the SE has then I don't doubt that rail (and other public transport) could double its traffic.

 

[HSTEd]

The rest of the country - you know, all the people who don't need or want to go into or around London on any day of the week - would love their existing trains to be longer or maybe even a bit more frequent. More rolling stock (e.g. on XC) would give immediate gains with no staffing implications apart from a few more cleaners.

And maintenance staff, it would also cause various problems in platforming.
If the train suddenly doubles in length it won't fit everywhere it fits now, in platforms, in sidings etc.

And even if CrossCountry traffic doubled it would barely move the needle on rail's modal share!
In order for CrossCountry or other minor operator traffic growth to matter at all it would have to grow by an enormous quantity, to the point where the existing infrastructure cannot cope.

Again, if you want meaningful changes in rail's modal share you will have to grow traffic so much that the large parts of the existing system has to be replaced by new construction. New construction would allow us to escape the fundamental limitations of our Victorian infrastructure.

Hopefully we are now at the end of a period of managed decline and rationalisation (apart from the favoured few lines, see above) and (track) capacity will be restored where needed.

But rationalisation is essential to the success of the South East and long distance sectors, which are the most succesful parts of the railway.
The London-centred commuter system was still losing termini into the 1980s, indeed it lost the Thameslink side of Moorgate in the 2000s!

If you want a succesful railway you can't cling to the vestiges of the Victorian or Edwardian eras.

There are lots of threads discussing where the lack of passing loops on singled lines or long sections on double prevents services being improved, and these sorts of local improvements would allow much more useable railway - although you would need more staff to run more trains.

But again, that wouldn't move the needle on modal share.
Making rail use go up a fraction of a percent won't solve anything in terms of energy security or decarbonisation, which is the premise of this thread.
And as you say, it would require major staff increases with the attendant costs.

Places like Merseyside where the service is already quite good would benefit from longer platforms and longer trains - a chicken and egg situation which we have also been told prevents capacity increases.

On the other hand, Merseyrail is so backward-looking that they are desperate to prevent the rise of e-ticketing to avoid a conversation over the future of ticket offices!

If there was the will in Westminster to allow the rest of the country to have what the SE has then I don't doubt that rail (and other public transport) could double its traffic.

Yes, but modernisation of existing lines would not be a big part of it at all.
It would be 2000-3000km of new lines split between high-speed Shinkansen and automated metros.
It would also cost tens to hundreds of billions.

 

[Irascible]

It would be 2000-3000km of new lines split between high-speed Shinkansen and automated metros.
It would also cost tens to hundreds of billions.

Given the cost of HS2, I think tens to hundreds of billions is a massive underestimate for that much however at least increasing share with ways we can more easily do it would show that it's worth considering investing more heavily. Also perhaps working out a better way of tracking journeys than considering a single ticket to be an end to end might give us a better idea of what people are using to go from A to B ( or, yknow, a better system of tickets so you don't have to pfaff with splitting them ).

"Modal share" is far too imprecise anyway - you're not going to get people out of cars for 10 mile trips unless they're in a conurbation, so how about looking at and working on modal share over say, 50 miles/80km as a broad target?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I would love to at least see a start made. It could happen under a Labour Government. Felixstowe to the Midlands electrified and then Southampton on what would have been the electric spine. There are other infills that have been pointed out elsewhere to really improve railfreight and make a start on modal share.

 

[Bald Rick]

With the sanctions against Russian oil, and the Middle East a tinderbox, I think rail should make energy security front and centre, both in terms of modal share and also the case for electrification.

Because there are far, far bigger problems for the economy if ‘the oil’ runs out (or, say, quadruples in price) than can be solved with electrifying the railway.

 

[6Gman]

You could double or triple capacity on lots of routes by just running longer trains, as has been pointed out repeatedly. Junction capacity is irrelevant when XC are running 4-coach trains on lines which are intended for 12-coach expresses, or (LNR) 4 coach trains between Liverpool and Brum which are supposed to be 8...
I'm not sure it is a good strategy to keep trying to accomodate infinitely increasing demand in London and the SE, just rebalance the economy.

"Are supposed to be 8" according to whom?

 

[HSTEd]

Given the cost of HS2, I think tens to hundreds of billions is a massive underestimate for that much

Well that depends on whether the project is managed with a similar degree of skill to HS2 or not, I guess.

however at least increasing share with ways we can more easily do it would show that it's worth considering investing more heavily. Also perhaps working out a better way of tracking journeys than considering a single ticket to be an end to end might give us a better idea of what people are using to go from A to B ( or, yknow, a better system of tickets so you don't have to pfaff with splitting them ).

Not really sure how feasible it is to do that, how would collect that information?
And would it truly give the results we would want to justify investment?

"Modal share" is far too imprecise anyway - you're not going to get people out of cars for 10 mile trips unless they're in a conurbation, so how about looking at and working on modal share over say, 50 miles/80km as a broad target?

Well a very large fraction of the population lives in urban areas. Truly rural areas are quite rare, certainly in England, and few people live in them.
A lot of cities in the UK could be considered for the like of automated metros based on examples of people on the continent.

Rennes manages to have two automated metro lines on a city population of only ~230,000.

 

[Chester1]

Yeah, well I meant in pitching for investment, both expansion you note is needed and electrification.

Alstom, for instance, should articulate the national security implications of giving Derby some orders, both in terms of UK industrial base, but also make strongly my argument that the trains are less dependant on foreign oil than other powered mobility such as planes and cars.

The scale of resources required to have true national security is beyond those available to the UK. As time passes the requirements keep rising e.g rare earth metals in recent years. Some people complained when Tata announced conversion of Port Talbot to electric furnance that we wouldn't have the capability to build ships in a war. I bet those people grew up in the 50s and 60s watching too many WW2 films. If we go to war against Russia we will all be dead in a nuclear exchange long before steal making is a problem.

We are a "middle power" not a great power but its still a very comfortable place in the world. There are a lot of things that are eye wateringly expensive for an island of our size to support and we will just have to have the US or EU do for us. Even the EU is reliant on the US as emergency oil and gas supplier (as demonstrated in last two years). We should specialise in what we are better at and largely keep out of the big geopolitical fights.

 

[squizzler]

(snip) We should specialise in what we are better at and largely keep out of the big geopolitical fights.

Exactly. And what better way to avoid being drawn into a fight than to be less dependent of resources that everyone else is going to be fighting over?

I don't especially like all this braggado about national security and all the rest anymore than you, but it is soo in fashion this year, darling. By contrast talking about carbon emissions is last season (despite it being the bigger deal, and we all know it). Rail advocates quite rightly hang their hat exclusively on the latter, but could make more hay from the former.

 

[HSTEd]

The scale of resources required to have true national security is beyond those available to the UK. As time passes the requirements keep rising e.g rare earth metals in recent years. Some people complained when Tata announced conversion of Port Talbot to electric furnance that we wouldn't have the capability to build ships in a war. I bet those people grew up in the 50s and 60s watching too many WW2 films. If we go to war against Russia we will all be dead in a nuclear exchange long before steal making is a problem.

The best way to avoid an escalation to nuclear weapons is to ensure a capability to fight without resort to them.

If no ability to resist conventionally exists the only responses to Russian aggression will be armageddon or surrender. And I don't really fancy either of those options.

Beyond this, there is the question of what happens in the "hot peace" that comes before the war.
But in any case, I don't think the energy security argument is really the winner for the railway that it once was.

The electric road vehicle revolution will destroy this card in the medium term. If its going to be played at all it has to be played now.

 

[Chester1]

Because there are far, far bigger problems for the economy if ‘the oil’ runs out (or, say, quadruples in price) than can be solved with electrifying the railway.

Exactly. And what better way to avoid being drawn into a fight than to be less dependent of resources that everyone else is going to be fighting over?

I don't especially like all this braggado about national security and all the rest anymore than you, but it is soo in fashion this year, darling. By contrast talking about carbon emissions is last season (despite it being the bigger deal, and we all know it). Rail advocates quite rightly hang their hat exclusively on the latter, but could make more hay from the former.

The best way to avoid an escalation to nuclear weapons is to ensure a capability to fight without resort to them.

If no ability to resist conventionally exists the only responses to Russian aggression will be armageddon or surrender. And I don't really fancy either of those options.

Beyond this, there is the question of what happens in the "hot peace" that comes before the war.
But in any case, I don't think the energy security argument is really the winner for the railway that it once was.

The electric road vehicle revolution will destroy this card in the medium term. If its going to be played at all it has to be played now.

We aren't going to be critical to any war with a major power. That is the reality of our place in the world. We have essentially two options in the long term. We can be part of continent wide economy and defence or we can step back and act like non European middle powers do. Canada doesn't have everything critical done within its borders and would be foolish to try. Essentially going all in Europe in some form means that it wouldn't matter if we lack a capability as long as collectively the alliance does. Being an independent middle power would mean accepting that we will be reliant on major countries for some important stuff but the financial burden would be lower. Its broadly speaking being a California or a Canada. For instance California doesn't need a train manufacturer if the US as a whole makes the trains it needs. Canada might end up reliant on the US for train manufacture but it spends about half on defence (relative to GDP), essentially freeloading off its more powerful neighbours security umbrella, saving money that is used across the economy and government.

We are increasingly reliant on interconnectors with our neighbours to balance out peaks and troughs with our renewable electricity production. If oil and gas supply to Europe were cut off then electricity in UK will be rationed and then it doesn’t matter much what the power source of a vehicle has because it will all be in short supply. Its an example of the futility of the UK trying to keep independence across the economy. Real national economic security in 21st century requires a country covering a vast swathe of land, a big population and the technology to make use of both. In 2024 that is just the US and China. The EU could join them if it keeps intergrating, Russia failed to keep up with technology to exploit its resources, India and Brazil haven't developed enough yet. Canada and Australia both have the technology and raw materials but don't have enough people.