Transpennine Route Upgrade and Electrification updates

[AndrewE]

The thing is though the current costs are way & beyond anything paid by our neighbouring countries, suggesting that there is something seriously wrong with the cost of recent wiring projects (which I think we can all agree on). Unless of course there is something completely unique about wiring in the UK that is not an issue elsewhere, which honestly I doubt.

I think The Miller put his finger on it in post #1918. Basically the state of the railway we are trying to wire: neglected.

 

[Bantamzen]

I think The Miller put his finger on it in post #1918. Basically the state of the railway we are trying to wire: neglected.

And indeed it is, but that I'm afraid is not an excuse. The general maintenance & upgrade works need doing, and the lines either side of the Grayling Gap will be wired so sooner or later the wiring issue will need revisiting. Far better to just bite the bullet, fund all the works & get it done in one fell swoop. Otherwise the overall cost if split up will likely be even more.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

If we go back a bit, the original TP scheme was (apparently) costed just for the wiring of the as-is line, nothing else, no upgrades, resignalling etc.
So DfT (pre-Grayling) "paused" the scheme when it realised there would be no journey time improvements, and asked for a range of upgrade options.
By the time NR had done this, the electrification budget had been broken by GW anyway, so it stayed paused and even Vic-Stalybridge was severely cut back.
Now we are talking about a £2.9 billion budget for a full scheme (route upgrade with partial wiring).
It's clear this that figure is from the Northern Powerhouse pipeline and won't change, so the task is to get the best result for that money.
Once again it's not how to start a major project, any more than it was for the GW scheme (or HS2!).
But it's where we are. If NR can reduce full wiring costs (or other project scope) so that it can be delivered within the budget, then it will be done.
Otherwise, bi-modes win the day.

If you read Roger's piece, it's not about suppliers cutting margins, it's about design standards (clearances, piling strategy etc).

 

[Bantamzen]

If we go back a bit, the original TP scheme was (apparently) costed just for the wiring of the as-is line, nothing else, no upgrades, resignalling etc.
So DfT (pre-Grayling) "paused" the scheme when it realised there would be no journey time improvements, and asked for a range of upgrade options.
By the time NR had done this, the electrification budget had been broken by GW anyway, so it stayed paused and even Vic-Stalybridge was severely cut back.
Now we are talking about a £2.9 billion budget for a full scheme (route upgrade with partial wiring).
It's clear this that figure is from the Northern Powerhouse pipeline and won't change, so the task is to get the best result for that money.
Once again it's not how to start a major project, any more than it was for the GW scheme (or HS2!).
But it's where we are. If NR can reduce full wiring costs (or other project scope) so that it can be delivered within the budget, then it will be done.
Otherwise, bi-modes win the day.

If you read Roger's piece, it's not about suppliers cutting margins, it's about design standards (clearances, piling strategy etc).

(My embolding)

And this sentence for me sums up what is wrong with both this project, a series of delays, changes of design, more delays, temporary solutions that eventually add cost anyway, then deliver about two thirds of what could have been delivered several years ago. It should have just gone ahead, and the longer it gets stretched out the more it costs. And let's be blunt here, this is NPR in its entirety. A new alignment through the Pennines from Manchester to Leeds via Bradford isn't going to happen, even a direct Manchester-Leeds one isn't going to see the light of day. This promise of a "high speed" new alignment is just political noise to keep local stakeholders happy, and a useful excuse not to undertake all the work required on the North TP.

If the DfT is looking for shortcuts, then the Standedge section may not be only victim of the cost cutting. Once you start to allow this kind of creeping in, it spreads like an infection. So from a fully wired, re-laid, re-signalled Manchester-Leeds-York route we could end up with one or more gaps in the wires, and only partial alignment / signalling completed. I hope I'm wrong, but I can here the excuses for further project cutbacks now:

"Well you got new units." & "We'll deliver NPR eventually, just not in this government's lifetime, or the next, or the one after...".

 

[61653 HTAFC]

While the L&Y lines towards Wakefield never had anything serving Ravensthorpe, but that's not to say the L&Y didn't serve Ravensthorpe, as it had a station at Northorpe on the route to Heckmondwike, which is probably about as far from the centre of Ravensthorpe as the current Ravensthorpe station, and they also had their own Ravensthorpe station on the Spen Valley line near Huddersfield Road, which isn't much further away and would also serve the Scout Hill and Westtown areas of Dewsbury. Looking at those two, having another station at the current Ravensthorpe site would have been a bit over the top, even by the standards of the day.

The surprise isn't that the Wakefield line never got platforms... it's that the ones on the Dewsbury line survived Beeching! Especially considering that Slaithwaite was closed despite a higher population nearer to the station.

Presumably when the power station was there, the workforce arrived by train.

 

[modernrail]

The thing is though the current costs are way & beyond anything paid by our neighbouring countries, suggesting that there is something seriously wrong with the cost of recent wiring projects (which I think we can all agree on). Unless of course there is something completely unique about wiring in the UK that is not an issue elsewhere, which honestly I doubt.

So why is it the case that wiring in the UK could potentially cost more than double than it would in Europe, what factors are driving these seemingly crazy additional costs? This is what needs to be challenged because on current costings projects are falling by the wayside with monotonous regularity. The problem is that all too often in the public sector that there simply isn't the will to challenge these figures, with the usual approach of delaying or cancelling as a result. And this is not just limited to the railway infrastructure, believe me. Projects all over the place are constantly being kicked down the road in the hope that they will either go away or become a SEP (Someone Else's Problem).

Potentially speaking, had these challenges been made a lot sooner, not only would the TPE wiring be under way in it's entirety, but other projects now gathering dust at the DfT & Minister's Office would be in their final stages of planning.



Then that being the case, the cost of upgrades will need to be handled anyway so surely the maintenance, alignment & signalling improvements can be done hand in hand with the wiring? Yes the overall project cost goes up as a result, but this would be because of a multi-faceted approach meaning that all works are done at once rather than pieces of it kicked down the road. Bi-modes or not, a lot of this work still needs doing on the North TP so the DfT need to be a bit more transparent & say that the costs are not just for electrification, but for all the works they've been holding back on over the years. It cannot be beyond the bounds of possibility to plan for both alignment & signalling improvements alongside planning for wiring. If it where so difficult, HS2 would need to start out with bi-modes and/or DMU units until someone figured out how to throw up the wires.

If I worked in the DfT my first challenge to NR would be to explain in very fine detail why our schemes cost more than the EU average, in a line by line basis. It is entirely normal for infrastructure funders/sponsors to rely on benchmarks for an indication of what something should cost. Any variance then has to be justified on a line by line basis. The variance is then interrogated to establish whether the gap can be closed without adversely affecting whole life costs.

In public, NR and many commentators always just refer to a bucket of types of problems apparently unique to our not that unique railway. The more detailed analysis might be taken place in the background but I am not convinced.

Any competent funder/sponsor should also be undertaking this exercise when a project goes outside the tramlines. I very much hope this happened with GW electrification but I fear not. We are in an era of extremely passive and often badly educated project sponsors, particularly on the public side. Government loves to say, 'that's not us, it's down to the experts like NR'. If you are procuring something, especially using public money, your procurement team needs to have sufficient in-house expertise to interrogate absolutely everything. The other tendency is to use external advisors to do this but that doesn't work either as they will never be sufficiently motivated. They also struggle to advise properly where the sponsor's internal project development team does not contain sufficient internal expertise.

 

[Joseph_Locke]

If I worked in the DfT my first challenge to NR would be to explain in very fine detail why our schemes cost more than the EU average, in a line by line basis. It is entirely normal for infrastructure funders/sponsors to rely on benchmarks for an indication of what something should cost. Any variance then has to be justified on a line by line basis. The variance is then interrogated to establish whether the gap can be closed without adversely affecting whole life costs.

In public, NR and many commentators always just refer to a bucket of types of problems apparently unique to our not that unique railway. The more detailed analysis might be taken place in the background but I am not convinced.

Any competent funder/sponsor should also be undertaking this exercise when a project goes outside the tramlines. I very much hope this happened with GW electrification but I fear not. We are in an era of extremely passive and often badly educated project sponsors, particularly on the public side. Government loves to say, 'that's not us, it's down to the experts like NR'. If you are procuring something, especially using public money, your procurement team needs to have sufficient in-house expertise to interrogate absolutely everything. The other tendency is to use external advisors to do this but that doesn't work either as they will never be sufficiently motivated. They also struggle to advise properly where the sponsor's internal project development team does not contain sufficient internal expertise.

But it is precisely because the (now) wholly economist - led DfT keeps demanding masses of detailed explanations, which it then doesn't understand, queries, demands more explanations, then tinkers a bit, then gets irate when projects get behind, leading to acceleration, mistakes, rework and de-prioritisation of basic (but time consuming) surveys that we end up with a higher unit rate. Before you gainsay this, how meetings were you in with them this week?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

ORR is supposed to vet NR work, to judge if it is "efficient".
They also use European benchmarks.
However it all seems to be consultant-led (our consultants are better than your consultants!).
They also seem to lose the big picture.
What is baffling is that several respected European electrification firms have been involved with the NR projects.

 

[Joseph_Locke]

ORR is supposed to vet NR work, to judge if it is "efficient".
They also use European benchmarks.
However it all seems to be consultant-led (our consultants are better than your consultants!).
They also seem to lose the big picture.
What is baffling is that several respected European electrification firms have been involved with the NR projects.

And the only constant? Britgov Plc. Every single time.

 

[modernrail]

But it is precisely because the (now) wholly economist - led DfT keeps demanding masses of detailed explanations, which it then doesn't understand, queries, demands more explanations, then tinkers a bit, then gets irate when projects get behind, leading to acceleration, mistakes, rework and de-prioritisation of basic (but time consuming) surveys that we end up with a higher unit rate. Before you gainsay this, how meetings were you in with them this week?

I didn't say the process should be economist led. In fact my point is the opposite, they are shy of technical and techno-economic capability.

In terms of infrastructure meetings with both national and local civil servants, frequently.

 

[modernrail]

ORR is supposed to vet NR work, to judge if it is "efficient".
They also use European benchmarks.
However it all seems to be consultant-led (our consultants are better than your consultants!).
They also seem to lose the big picture.
What is baffling is that several respected European electrification firms have been involved with the NR projects.

The ORR is the regulator. In my book it should be the sponsor/funder that takes primary responsibility for project based oversight. The parallel is the utilities. The regulator might assess what a fair price might be for proposed capital works, but it is the funder of the works that will make sure the utility delivers for the envelope permitted by the regulator.

It is actually a very interesting point. Utilities are effectively self policing because they fund works directly from their investor base and so answer to them and they are very harsh task masters. NR simply does not have that pressure or oversight. Whatever you think of privatised utilities, I am not sure we hear much around cost overruns in that sector. I am not saying privatised utilities don't have downsides though.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/17453966.mirfield-to-get-new-station/

Rail campaigners calling for improvements in Mirfield have been promised a new station.

It follows a meeting between passengers, rail bosses and Richard George, who was commissioned by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to review issues around last year’s chaotic timetable changes.

The changes, which affected about 90% of Northern Rail’s 2,600 daily services, resulted in mass cancellations and delays.

The debacle led directly to the meeting, hosted by Mirfield councillor Martyn Bolt.

Among those present were senior executives of Network Rail, Northern Rail, TransPennine Express and Grand Central.

Clr Bolt challenged Network Rail to clarify what its £3bn TransPennine Route Upgrade (TPU) would mean for Mirfield.

Works to the line between York and Manchester route are due to start in spring this year.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime engineering project, which will massively impact on our station and line structure,” he said.

“We don’t want the end result to be faster train speeds through Mirfield and the station getting only a tickle in passing.”

He was told that Mirfield was in line for a new station and certainly would not be left with “just a tickle”.

Speaking after the meeting Clr Bolt said: “It was unique to have all parts of the rail industry together and to be able to have a full and frank exchange of views.

“Mr George had no axe to grind so was able to give an unbiased appraisal and view.

“We’re now in a position where the rail users can form a united group to share their knowledge and strengthen our campaigns for improvements.”

Announcing the £3bn investment last year, Mr Grayling said he was committed to improving journeys on the route with state-of-the-art trains, longer carriages and more frequent services.

He said the £3bn earmarked to upgrade the key route between Manchester, Leeds and York represented a third of his department’s total budget for rail improvements between 2019 and 2024.

There are plans for a new station at Mirfield as part of the £3BN upgrade to the TransPennine Route

 

[Monkeyhead]

My grandparents lived in Mirfield when I was a boy, and the station then (late 70's, early 80's) was lovely from my memory - as you came up the steps, you came into the ticket office, and behind was a nice waiting room with an open fire. Years later when I passed and it had been destroyed, I was particularly sad - while there might well need to be a "new" station, they had a perfectly decent one there before.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

My grandparents lived in Mirfield when I was a boy, and the station then (late 70's, early 80's) was lovely from my memory - as you came up the steps, you came into the ticket office, and behind was a nice waiting room with an open fire. Years later when I passed and it had been destroyed, I was particularly sad - while there might well need to be a "new" station, they had a perfectly decent one there before.

They do not state where it is or whether they are talking about rebuilding the existing one.

 

[Tim_UK]

They do not state where it is or whether they are talking about rebuilding the existing one.

If they 4 track (rather than the current 3) then they will need a new platform or 2. The current 2 west bound platforms are a bit of a distance apart. If you add lifts and such, might look like a total rebuild.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

If they 4 track (rather than the current 3) then they will need a new platform or 2. The current 2 west bound platforms are a bit of a distance apart. If you add lifts and such, might look like a total rebuild.

I know Four-Tracking is part of the upgrade but cannot say where though. If they do it would be nice for a four platformed interchange as I can see Mirfield becoming a major interchange point.

 

[hwl]

ORR is supposed to vet NR work, to judge if it is "efficient".
They also use European benchmarks.
However it all seems to be consultant-led (our consultants are better than your consultants!).
They also seem to lose the big picture.
What is baffling is that several respected European electrification firms have been involved with the NR projects.

Some of the benchmarking is dubious and results in Apple vs Orange (or even Apple vs bacon sarnie) type comparisons.
ORR have even disagreed with NR cost estimates when the "estimates" were actually the cheapest response to the tender for the work. They had of course blindly applied an efficiency saving factor on top for NR to find. They type of work involved was already been done efficiently with little room for innovation.

My recent favourite example on inappropriate benchmarking was when the Dutch rail infra operator pointed out to ORR that there was no point in using Switzerland (lowest by a clear margin) for benchmarking for rail suicide rates due to the high level of firearm ownership in Switzerland. The Dutch though the Netherlands and UK were actually doing quite well given similarly limited firearms access, ORR had different thoughts because of being blindly driven by the numbers.

 

[hwl]

But it is precisely because the (now) wholly economist - led DfT keeps demanding masses of detailed explanations, which it then doesn't understand, queries, demands more explanations, then tinkers a bit, then gets irate when projects get behind, leading to acceleration, mistakes, rework and de-prioritisation of basic (but time consuming) surveys that we end up with a higher unit rate. Before you gainsay this, how meetings were you in with them this week?

There are still 10-15% above a certain level who really know what they are doing on technical level, the rest are clueless and I spend sometime having to attempt to educate some of them (they can look mind blown when the penny drops on simple technical stuff) at which point you discover they didn't speak to the people on the next bank of desks so you end up running another education session.
(No DfT meetings or calls this or last week so I'm happy)

 

[Spartacus]

https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/17453966.mirfield-to-get-new-station/



There are plans for a new station at Mirfield as part of the £3BN upgrade to the TransPennine Route

To be more specific there are plans coming from Kirklees Council to close the existing Ravensthorpe and Mirfield stations and build a new one between the two to serve a massive new housing development on green belt land, only accessible by a narrow road that regularly floods. The station would ultimately serve neither Mirfield or Ravensthorpe.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

To be more specific there are plans coming from Kirklees Council to close the existing Ravensthorpe and Mirfield stations and build a new one between the two to serve a massive new housing development on green belt land, only accessible by a narrow road that regularly floods. The station would ultimately serve neither Mirfield or Ravensthorpe.

Is there any hyperlinks to the proposal?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

To be more specific there are plans coming from Kirklees Council to close the existing Ravensthorpe and Mirfield stations and build a new one between the two to serve a massive new housing development on green belt land, only accessible by a narrow road that regularly floods. The station would ultimately serve neither Mirfield or Ravensthorpe.

Network Rail would do well to keep Kirklees Council staff as far from any decision making as they possibly can, given the massive over-runs (and additional expense) of re-doing the square outside Huddersfield.

As for Mirfield, whilst it would be possible to upgrade the existing structures for the route upgrade, the limitations of the current platforms would likely restrict what was possible trackwork-wise. The current alignment of the up fast has quite a jolt as it curves into alignment with platform 2, so you can always spot those standing passengers unfamiliar with the route!

I'd retain Ravensthorpe to serve as a substitute whilst Mirfield is rebuilt, then close* it once the work is done.

*= or mothball it, with a view to reopen if development in the surrounding area makes it worthwhile.

 

[modernrail]

There are still 10-15% above a certain level who really know what they are doing on technical level, the rest are clueless and I spend sometime having to attempt to educate some of them (they can look mind blown when the penny drops on simple technical stuff) at which point you discover they didn't speak to the people on the next bank of desks so you end up running another education session.
(No DfT meetings or calls this or last week so I'm happy)

I am starting to hear the phrase 'educated client' used as a new concept. Whilst glad there is the hint of a swing back to this being important, it really should be the norm and not some trendy new thing. I had a call with a private sector sector client involving another infrastructure type today and they sort of summed it up in two sentences... 'We are not expert in this infrastructure type and so need to bolster our client side team. Otherwise how can we properly interrogate scope, costs and delivery.'

I love the benchmarking example above! To be fair that statistic is always going to be highly context specific, to the point that any benchmark is of very limited use. Equally you wouldn't want to be running at say double the European average. I hope interrogation of a bill of quantities could be undertaken in a slightly more instructive manner.

 

[modernrail]

I know Four-Tracking is part of the upgrade but cannot say where though. If they do it would be nice for a four platformed interchange as I can see Mirfield becoming a major interchange point.

Do we know how many paths there are remaining on the Huddersfield to Leeds section (if any) and how many the proposed works should add? There might be a case/opportunity for a number of additional stations and increased frequency if the paths are available without slowing express services. That said, the route is a bit of a bugger for being a bit too far from useful places.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Do we know how many paths there are remaining on the Huddersfield to Leeds section (if any) and how many the proposed works should add? There might be a case/opportunity for a number of additional stations and increased frequency if the paths are available without slowing express services. That said, the route is a bit of a bugger for being a bit too far from useful places.

I do know that the plan is to allow 6 fast services per hour and 6 stopping trains per hour. The plans is to also replace the two-track railway with four tracks to allow this to happen.

 

[Glenn1969]

I know they are doing platform capacity work at Leeds. Are they still building a new platform at Huddersfield?

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

I know they are doing platform capacity work at Leeds. Are they still building a new platform at Huddersfield?

Never heard that they were/are going to be building a new platform at Huddersfield? Leeds (Platform 0) is planned for completion in 2021 I think.

 

[modernrail]

I do know that the plan is to allow 6 fast services per hour and 6 stopping trains per hour. The plans is to also replace the two-track railway with four tracks to allow this to happen.

Interesting. I do find it very odd that this is all being developed in seemingly splendid isolation from NPR. I am not sure how that can be at all sensible, unless I am missing the bit that is joining it up.

 

[Glenn1969]

That would be because the capacity is needed now and NPR is still unfunded and may be 20 years from completion unless you know different

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

That would be because the capacity is needed now and NPR is still unfunded and may be 20 years from completion unless you know different

That is the plan. The upgrade is for the short and medium term and the NPR plan is long term

 

[Glenn1969]

The original Northern Hub scheme included a Platform 9 at Huddersfield station. I guess this has now been abandoned