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Electrification is the most obvious transport solution, but the government / Whitehall will not commit. They like projects to be in nice 5 year chunks which fit politically and in budgets.
Bimode is the expensive solution which transfers the cost to the operator rather than the infrastructure provider. So in GW land it is better for the government budgets that GW use Bimodes to operate Didcot - Oxford, Cardiff - Swansea and Chippenham - Bristol / Filton - Bristol. It is certainly not better for the environment but the Roscos and Hitachi must be coining it.
they probably would be if the things worked as they were expected to. However I would be surprised if any profit they make hasn’t disappeared down a few cracks…
Scotland (by and large) is a lot closer to 'net-zero' generation than anywhere else in Great Britain! Taking country carbon intensity forecast data from NationalGridESO, you can see that Scotland is consistently lower than either England or Wales, and does run at almost 0 on occasion. This snippet is only from the last week (+ next 2 days forecast) which I think has been comparatively still wind-wise
It is also worth pointing out that Shetland is running a trial producing hydrogen from it's ample renewable generation, at the moment it's locally used but could quite conceivably be shipped over to the mainland in the future (at lower cost than laying cables!)
Scotland in terms of generation does have the benefit of natural renewable sources, but to use it to power nearly all their trains will require an awful lot of capital expenditure on electrification.
they probably would be if the things worked as they were expected to. However I would be surprised if any profit they make hasn’t disappeared down a few cracks…
Hitachi Rail Europe (UK HQ'd) just transferred a very large dividend (9 figures) to the Japanese parent from the sale of their stake in one of the IET RoSCos so potentially some profit extraction there?
Some of it may end up flowing back in the other direction in the future...
Electrification is the most obvious transport solution, but the government / Whitehall will not commit. They like projects to be in nice 5 year chunks which fit politically and in budgets.
Bimode is the expensive solution which transfers the cost to the operator rather than the infrastructure provider. So in GW land it is better for the government budgets that GW use Bimodes to operate Didcot - Oxford, Cardiff - Swansea and Chippenham - Bristol / Filton - Bristol. It is certainly not better for the environment but the Roscos and Hitachi must be coining it.
The problem that Great Western Electrification had was that the cost had already reached 500% of the original budget when it became apparent that the necessary resignalling schemes for Bristol and rebuilding Oxford Station hadn't been included.
If the actual cost had been known the cost benefit would have been so low that electrification would have never been authorised beyond Reading.
It's unreasonable to expect the treasury to sign off blank cheque rail industry projects when the environmental benefits could easily be achieved by running electric coaches and buses and simply converting the railways in to cycle paths.
In Scotland getting rid of diesel very much is official government policy, and in NI it is official Translink policy too. And if you think about it logically, from the UK governments commitments under the climate change act it seems very likely that the, relatively easily avoidable, emissions from diesel on the English & Welsh railways will have to go to zero.
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The problem that Great Western Electrification had was that the cost had already reached 500% of the original budget when it became apparent that the necessary resignalling schemes for Bristol and rebuilding Oxford Station hadn't been included.
If the actual cost had been known the cost benefit would have been so low that electrification would have never been authorised beyond Reading.
It's unreasonable to expect the treasury to sign off blank cheque rail industry projects when the environmental benefits could easily be achieved by running electric coaches and buses and simply converting the railways in to cycle paths.
And that is why people like @Bletchleyite keep suggesting it is essential we work to quickly (and cheaply) electrify as much as possible of the railway, because anything that isn't electrified will be at risk of closure
So perhaps time for a bit of pragmatism, get the majority of routes electrified, and leave the remote long routes (Far North/Kyle, Fort Willliam/Mallaig, Oban and Stranraer) as bi (diesel) mode or pure diesel for the time being.
Relistically unless electrification can be performed more efficently then even the major routes will not be finished by 2035, its only 13 years away. Costs will have to be contained and timescales would have to be adhered to if there is any chance of even meeting half the target routes. Dont waste money on battery electric or hydrogen trains for the remote routes when they contribute very little to emissions from the Scottish network, it will just absorb finance and effort for very little gain. By all means review available technology again in 10 or 15 years time and see if there options available that are not available today.
It's unreasonable to expect the treasury to sign off blank cheque rail industry projects when the environmental benefits could easily be achieved by running electric coaches and buses and simply converting the railways in to cycle paths.
I agree its unreasonable to expect spiralling costs to be accepted, it seems to happen on too many rail projects. I think amongst those managing and running things there is a tendancy to think 'They cant pull the plug now' on major projects which are started, maybe a minister need to upset the apple cart and pull the plug on something.
I am going to take the last part of the comment with a pinch of salt, apart from those with no choice people will not switch from rail to bus/coach, particularly over the longer inter city routes, lots of reasons, time, unless 60mph limit for coaches is raised substantially, quantity, a loaded 9 coach 80x is probably 10 or more large road coaches.
So perhaps time for a bit of pragmatism, get the majority of routes electrified, and leave the remote long routes (Far North/Kyle, Fort Willliam/Mallaig, Oban and Stranraer) as bi (diesel) mode or pure diesel for the time being.
You may not have noticed, but in Scotland the focus is very much on the busier lines right now, with the electrification of East Kilbride/Barrhead, Fife circle, Dunblane-Aberdeen and the borders railway currently worked on. The Far North/kyle/west highland lines are not currently being worked on at all, because they are much later in the priority list (and probably won't get looked at until the stock needs replacing shortly before 2035).
Relistically unless electrification can be performed more efficently then even the major routes will not be finished by 2035, its only 13 years away. Costs will have to be contained and timescales would have to be adhered to if there is any chance of even meeting half the target routes. Dont waste money on battery electric or hydrogen trains for the remote routes when they contribute very little to emissions from the Scottish network, it will just absorb finance and effort for very little gain. By all means review available technology again in 10 or 15 years time and see if there options available that are not available today.
In Scotland, 2035 seems possible given how much has already been done. In England, the goal never was 2035 (I've seen 2040 float around). In NI, the goal is 2040 for the railways.
I agree its unreasonable to expect spiralling costs to be accepted, it seems to happen on too many rail projects. I think amongst those managing and running things there is a tendancy to think 'They cant pull the plug now' on major projects which are started, maybe a minister need to upset the apple cart and pull the plug on something.
Isn't "pulling the plug" literally what they did with GWR electrification (and various electrification projects in Northern England and the midlands)? And, on many of Boris's stupid bridge ideas (garden bridge, NI bridge etc.). I don't get the impression the government is unwilling to pull the plug on major projects at any stage
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Net zero is slightly different, planting enough trees to offset Diesel the West Highland, Kyle and Far North Lines is probably realistic given the low number of trains on the lines. Batteries make sense for short 'difficult' sections such as the Forth Bridge.
Compensating emissions with carbon removals (such as treeplanting) is clearly an option, but it is important to remember that the capacity for that across the entire economy is limited (due to space limitations), and it seems likely the government will prioritise that limited capacity to sectors that are harder to fully decarbonise than the rail industry
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The Johnson Government never paid much attention to "law", 2040 was just an ambition!.
The expensive "HOPS" factory train working overnight on the GWR electrification was to have saved a lot of money installing the gantries and wires, but trackside surveys did not show underground obstacles and wiring so took longer than expected, so adding delay and costs.
HS2 is new track so the gantries and wires do not need to be installed at a rush overnight.
There was a thread on the "HOPS" factory trains, but is unclear what happened to them if they will be reused (with better pre piling surveys), or scrapped?
Using part battery power on trains, rather than making expensive changes to bridges or tunnels will also save costs on electrification of lines.
In Scotland, 2035 seems possible given how much has already been done. In England, the goal never was 2035 (I've seen 2040 float around). In NI, the goal is 2040 for the railways.
I am going to take the last part of the comment with a pinch of salt, apart from those with no choice people will not switch from rail to bus/coach, particularly over the longer inter city routes, lots of reasons, time, unless 60mph limit for coaches is raised substantially, quantity, a loaded 9 coach 80x is probably 10 or more large road coaches.
I doubt the 9 car 80x to Cornwall would be at risk, but branch lines and the West Highland/Far North absolutely would be. Essentially anything with a short 1980s DMU.
No, they reduced the scope of the project when it became apparent that it was going to cost in excess of 500% of network rails original budget and that some ancillary tasks hadn't even been costed in.
As long as HS2 continues to be built, Scotland gets Barnett consequentials from it, which can fund its domestic decarbonisation programme.
It still has a long way to go to build up speed to meet its published target. At present only about 47 single track km of electrification is actually happening on the ground (Glasgow to Barrhead and Haymarked to Dalmeny), but according to the 2020 action plan it needs to complete 130 stk each year. I doubt it will achieve that but it can still put England to shame.
According to this recent document, already discussed in the infrastructure forum, hydrogen trains will first appear on the Far North line around 2028 and will take over all the remote lines by 2035.
I doubt the 9 car 80x to Cornwall would be at risk, but branch lines and the West Highland/Far North absolutely would be. Essentially anything with a short 1980s DMU.
Currently the competing bus services on the West Highland and Far North lines offer far shorter journey times despite stopping at almost every stop along the way. In England A Settle (Giggleswick) to Penrith via Appleby bus could offer a competitive journey time to the Settle and Carlisle line with the added bonus of serving places like Hawes and giving Appleby the largest settlement better connections to the Intercity network.
If we go for full decarbonisation I wouldn't be surprised if some of the lower frequency routes and branch lines end up with BMUs and rapid static charging at certain stations. Not sure on the exact costs but I imagine the infrastructure would work out a lot cheaper than partial or full OLE, and they can potentially charge much faster statically than under OLE. Also avoids a lot of the faff with APCO etc but on the downside you have to drag around tons of batteries and the you get the additional costs associated with a BMU, limited range and potential issues with power supply at stations. It'd be interesting to see how the costs work out.
If you take 1.5 MW as the benchmark for a 4 car EMU what sort of current do you need for rapid charging of the batteries?
Id have though there's a good chance it would exceed the electricity capacity available in the vicinity of most of those stations especially with the move to electric for motor vehicles and heating.
If you take 1.5 MW as the benchmark for a 4 car EMU what sort of current do you need for rapid charging of the batteries?
Id have though there's a good chance it would exceed the electricity capacity available in the vicinity of most of those stations especially with the move to electric for motor vehicles and heating.
The rapid charger is fed by a large stationary battery which is trickle charged by the mains.
In the Greenford experiment being introduced by GWR and Vivarail, the train batteries lose more in a typical trip than there is time to regain during a typical turnround at West Ealing. The main recharging takes place at night with only a partial top-up during the turnround time.
Currently the competing bus services on the West Highland and Far North lines offer far shorter journey times despite stopping at almost every stop along the way. In England A Settle (Giggleswick) to Penrith via Appleby bus could offer a competitive journey time to the Settle and Carlisle line with the added bonus of serving places like Hawes and giving Appleby the largest settlement better connections to the Intercity network.
rain is 56 minutes. Google maps reckons it takes 1hr 25 unless you cheat and use the M6.
A bus would be slower. And if it were to serve Hawes it would have to loop round the 1 way bit. And would it serve the creamery?
What about Dent.
I accept you could serve Horton, Ribblehead,Garsdale and Kirkby Stephen better on the road, mind.
And its quite slow between Ais Gill and Kirkby Stephen. Especially for a bus. Some bits a car and a bus would have to slow right down to pass.
And where would the buses come from? There are no bus companies in Settle or Kirkby Stephen.
Currently the competing bus services on the West Highland and Far North lines offer far shorter journey times despite stopping at almost every stop along the way. In England A Settle (Giggleswick) to Penrith via Appleby bus could offer a competitive journey time to the Settle and Carlisle line with the added bonus of serving places like Hawes and giving Appleby the largest settlement better connections to the Intercity network.
Hitachi Rail Europe (UK HQ'd) just transferred a very large dividend (9 figures) to the Japanese parent from the sale of their stake in one of the IET RoSCos so potentially some profit extraction there?
Some of it may end up flowing back in the other direction in the future...
This looks interesting. Could you please give some more detail or possibly a link to a financial report somewhere? Which ROSCOs would that be? I can't find any reference to dividend payments on the Hitachi Rail website.
As long as HS2 continues to be built, Scotland gets Barnett consequentials from it, which can fund its domestic decarbonisation programme.
It still has a long way to go to build up speed to meet its published target. At present only about 47 single track km of electrification is actually happening on the ground (Glasgow to Barrhead and Haymarked to Dalmeny), but according to the 2020 action plan it needs to complete 130 stk each year. I doubt it will achieve that but it can still put England to shame.
According to this recent document, already discussed in the infrastructure forum, hydrogen trains will first appear on the Far North line around 2028 and will take over all the remote lines by 2035.
I'm not sure it actually says that was decided, though it does seem likely based on that document. While all scenarios include hydrogen for the Far North line in 2028, for the Kyle line in 2029 and for the west highland line in 2030, it keeps calling these assumptions. For Stranraer the decision is less fixed, some scenarios go for Hydrogen, others for Battery
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I'm also having some problems finding that thread in the infrastructure forum, could you give me a link?
It turns out there was less discussion of that particular document than I thought I remembered - just the first 3 posts in the "Decarbonising Scotland's Railways" thread.
Noticed these ‘Rail Demand Assumptions’ on pages 123-125 of the Zero Emission Energy for Transport Report published last month: 2023 Electrification Complete: Glasgow Central to Barrhead 2024 Electrification Complete: Glasgow Central to East Kilbride Service Introductions and Rolling...
The rapid charger is fed by a large stationary battery which is trickle charged by the mains.
In the Greenford experiment being introduced by GWR and Vivarail, the train batteries lose more in a typical trip than there is time to regain during a typical turnround at West Ealing. The main recharging takes place at night with only a partial top-up during the turnround time.
The Greenford Branch (3 miles) I can see but upscaling that to the West Highland or Far North line is way beyond the limits of current technology as I see it. You'd need batteries capable of rapidly recharging a 1MW train with 50 miles of range every 2 hours during the day they'd be massive and the system very inefficient.
The Greenford Branch (3 miles) I can see but upscaling that to the West Highland or Far North line is way beyond the limits of current technology as I see it. You'd need batteries capable of rapidly recharging a 1MW train with 50 miles of range every 2 hours during the day they'd be massive and the system very inefficient.
If you take 1.5 MW as the benchmark for a 4 car EMU what sort of current do you need for rapid charging of the batteries?
Id have though there's a good chance it would exceed the electricity capacity available in the vicinity of most of those stations especially with the move to electric for motor vehicles and heating.
A 1.2MW 4 car EMU on a typical branch line cycle (say 80mph max speed, stopping every 3-5 miles or so, will use about 300-400kwh per hour, net of regen, and depending on the length of station dwells, eg if a terminus turn back is in that circuit or not.
depending what is meant by ‘rapid’, but delivering that much charge in say 10 mins equates to up to 2.4MW.
Hydrogen still requires electricity to be produced, so unless that is renewable or nuclear its still contributing emissions.
Battery power comes with its own set of problems, particularly surrounding life span and availability of the ingredients to make batteries.
Hydrogen when evaluated from production through to turning it back into useable energy is no more efficient than diesel the upside is its zero emission.
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they probably would be if the things worked as they were expected to. However I would be surprised if any profit they make hasn’t disappeared down a few cracks…
Hydrogen when evaluated from production through to turning it back into useable energy is no more efficient than diesel the upside is its zero emission.
There are a couple of ancillary benefits to battery units people don't usually pick up on:
Regenerative braking. Normal "on-network" regen needs a unit nearby to be accelerating to be able to accept that energy, otherwise that power is lost. With battery units that power goes back into the batteries instead. Merseyrail saw this as a surprise benefit during trials and it will mean their units are cheaper to run than first expected thanks to less overall electricity usage, so there isnt a real concern with dragging a battery around for miles and miles. A Tesla EV can add 30% extra range thanks to regen, so don't discount how huge it can be even "on-network", never mind extending the operational range off the power.
Battery tech is improving all the time. If a unit has its battery pack replaced after ~7 years, then it may get a much lighter pack for the same KWh, a pack capable of even more storage or a pack with a longer lifespan. Similar with putting new engines into older diesel units to improve efficiency, but in this scenario you can take the batteries out if the project no longer needs them and still have a usable train.
With the above in mind, you can start serving somewhere with battery trains at a low cost, build the demand and make the business case for full electrification much more compelling.
The 777's can do 20+ miles on a 15 minute charge. Not enough to run an entire line, but short hop extensions are incredibly simple, especially to places OHLE or 3rd rail are impossible or exceedingly costly.
Stadler think a 2 minute dwell time at intermediate stations with standard 3rd rail infrastructure is enough to charge the batteries and allow units to run for any distance. In reality this would be 2 stations between Bidston and Wrexham Central, and Wrexham Central itself for a meatier charge during turnarounds.
Idling/noise pollution. They can sit still for hours without making a peep (sans compressor noise) but keep services running. HVAC is a minimal draw compared to traction motors, but they do tend to operate at lower power settings when on battery mode just to save energy. This will make some communities very happy.
They certainly aren't a magic bullet to solve every issue or replace every diesel train, but they're really going to be game-changers when used where the planets align.
I wonder will this mean Merseyrail consider fitting all the 777s with the batteries to allow for the simpler regen? Would also mean a homogeneous fleet, so no trains being cancelled short at Kirkby when a non-battery unit inevitably ends up on a Kirkby diagram, just like the way TfW seem to find it impossible to keep the ETCS 158s on diagram?
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