RIA letter on Electrification

Nicholas Lewis · 19 Feb 2020

RIA have coordinated a number industry players to write to Shapps making the point that with GWR electrification complete and MML nearing completion the industry risk a loss of skills if a rolling programme isnt initiated which is required to ensure rail can decarbonise by 2040.

As the Railway Industry Association’s (RIA) Electrification Cost Challenge Report shows, the stop-start nature of electrification is one of the key factors in cost increases. With a long-term rolling programme, that provides visibility and consistency to rail suppliers so they can build up and retain expertise, electrification could be delivered at up to half the cost of past projects. We believe delivery of electrification cannot wait until the next rail funding cycle ‘Control Period 7’, which starts in 2024, and that a ringfenced fund for an electrification programme should be provided immediately to allow work to continue

Shapps is anti diesel but hasnt made any positive vibes around electrification so its not clear whether he still in the Grayling camp that Hydrogen will be the long term answer. Given HS2 will need more funds than planned difficult to see this gaining much traction before the existing teams will end up being demobilised but sensible course of action is to push on with MML

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urbophile · 19 Feb 2020

And Transpennine, and Liverpool-Warrington-Manchester.

GRALISTAIR · 19 Feb 2020

Yes saw that on my twitter feed from CEBR - Campaign to Electrify Britain’s Railways .

Grumpy Git · 19 Feb 2020

Hydrogen trains:

If own experience of relying on as yet unavailable hardware/software (where it is being offered as nearly ready), is anything to go by, forget it.

It really is a complete disgrace that we still have so much un-electrified main line, (never mind branch lines) in the UK. Imagine if some of that North Sea oil revenue from the 1980's had been put to use doing this instead of funding tax cuts for those already wealthy? But then again the PM at the time had no love for railways of any description.

GRALISTAIR · 19 Feb 2020

Hydrogen trains are unproven technology despite what certain companies may say and there is no infrastructure for it. Also tell me how hydrogen can be used to pull a 4000 tonne freight train- won’t happen. Electrification is proven technology and provided it is a nice steady rolling program should get better and better and provide really good skilled jobs. Why oh why will the DfT not see it.

Nicholas Lewis · 19 Feb 2020

GRALISTAIR said:
Hydrogen trains are unproven technology despite what certain companies may say and there is no infrastructure for it. Also tell me how hydrogen can be used to pull a 4000 tone freight train- won’t happen. Electrification is proven technology and provided it is a nice steady rolling program should get better and better and provide really good skilled jobs. Why oh why will the DfT not see it.

The previous tories needed work arounds to keep within treasury spending limits so trotting out visionary stuff played to that need but the current tories seem to want tangible outcomes and are prepared to stick there hand in there pocket for infrastructure works. Remember the coalition did chuck money at electrification only for NR to screw it up so they need to be cautionary how they do it this time. With new NR boss being focused on running the railway i suspect they are working up an alternative approach.

GRALISTAIR · 19 Feb 2020

If it were me I would give them a chance/challenge. Let me give an example.
OK - here you are NR. Electrify Oxenholme to Windermere. Bring it in on time and budget. If they can't does not hold out much hope. If they can then something meatier.
OK NR - finish some bits on GWML and do BPW to Temple Meads and then back through Bath and then onward to Oxford. Bring it in on time and budget - onto the next one. (Give them a real challenge by having MML continue two projects going at the same time.

In other words -PROVE IT. Of course my strategy may not address decarbonization fast enough but at least with these you will have a steady supply chain and skills retained.

Nicholas Lewis · 19 Feb 2020

GRALISTAIR said:
If it were me I would give them a chance/challenge. Let me give an example.
OK - here you are NR. Electrify Oxenholme to Windermere. Bring it in on time and budget. If they cant does not hold out much hope. If they can then something meatier.
OK NR - finish some bits on GWML and do BPW to Temple Meads and then back through Bath and then onward to Oxford. Bring it in on time and budget - onto the next one. (Give them a real challenge by having MML continue two projects going at the same time.

In other words -PROVE IT. Of course my strategy may not address decarbonization fast enough but at least with these you will have a steady supply chain and skills retained.

Great strategy but keep NR out of it (Note they arent on the RIA list of supporters) let the supply chain prove themselves. Shut Windermere for 3-4 months this Autumn and let them show what they can do!

GRALISTAIR · 19 Feb 2020

Nicholas Lewis said:
Shut Windermere for 3-4 months this Autumn and let them show what they can do!

Also good strategy - well out of climbing, tourism etc season but hopefully weather still OK to achieve quite a bit.

Bevan Price · 19 Feb 2020

Nicholas Lewis said:
RIA have coordinated a number industry players to write to Shapps making the point that with GWR electrification complete and MML nearing completion the industry risk a loss of skills if a rolling programme isnt initiated which is required to ensure rail can decarbonise by 2040.

Shapps is anti diesel but hasnt made any positive vibes around electrification so its not clear whether he still in the Grayling camp that Hydrogen will be the long term answer. Given HS2 will need more funds than planned difficult to see this gaining much traction before the existing teams will end up being demobilised but sensible course of action is to push on with MML

The minister may have changed, but he will still be handicapped by having the same top civil servants at DfT.

MarkyT · 19 Feb 2020

Nicholas Lewis said:
Great strategy but keep NR out of it (Note they arent on the RIA list of supporters) let the supply chain prove themselves. Shut Windermere for 3-4 months this Autumn and let them show what they can do!

NR must be involved for engineering approval and coordinating planning of possessions etc, and at least some of the capital will come through them for associated renewals of other assets that have to be done to enable wiring, but I acknowledge they needn't necessarily be the project managers or indeed the lead client for the electrification deliverables. Better project management will be key to obtaining better value. At least with bi-modes in service already on GWR, and shortly to be so on the MML, there will no longer be the pressure of a rolling stock replacement deadline so work can be planned more realistically and there would be more scope to reschedule tasks as expedient. At least some of the bi-modes might eventually be 'de-engined' in the future, once sufficient wiring is in place; the AT300s are designed with easily removable diesel generator rafts that could allow this.

CdBrux · 19 Feb 2020

I like the thrust of ideas in the above. To be a bit difficult, to which budget and timeline? The one previously announced or a new one the 'supply chain' propose themselves?

Nicholas Lewis · 19 Feb 2020

CdBrux said:
I like the thrust of ideas in the above. To be a bit difficult, to which budget and timeline? The one previously announced or a new one the 'supply chain' propose themselves?

The supply chain should be invited to make a proposal free of NR hindrance but compliant with relevant standards

Chris 76 · 19 Feb 2020

Grumpy Git said:
Imagine if some of that North Sea oil revenue from the 1980's had been put to use doing this instead of funding tax cuts for those already wealthy? But then again the PM at the time had no love for railways of any description.

I get the emotion behind your comment but it's factually inaccurate. In the 1980s British Rail carried on doing what it had been doing since the 1950s: electrifying major commuter routes and the west and east coast main lines. In the 80s the wires extended out from Essex to the rest of East Anglia, to Norwich and Cambridge. The East Coast main line electrification was approved and started. And please no 'it was on the cheap, headspans useless in the wind etc' comments, we know that and it's been done to death in other forums. Then there was St Pancras to Bedford, and third rail electrification of the core remaining southern diesel routes (Hastings, East Grinstead, Weymouth). And the Ayrshire coast electrification, extending Glasgow's electric network far beyond the Clydeside conurbation.
Imagine if there'd been no BR privatisation and Railtrack in the 1990s. BR would have continued electrifying, perhaps Great Western or Midland main line in the 1990s, the other of those two in the 2000s, Transpennine too, perhaps cross country would have been done by now. We'd be arguing if it was worth electrifying beyond Plymouth rather than beyond Bristol.

GRALISTAIR · 19 Feb 2020

Chris 76 said:
I get the emotion behind your comment but it's factually inaccurate. In the 1980s British Rail carried on doing what it had been doing since the 1950s: electrifying major commuter routes and the west and east coast main lines. In the 80s the wires extended out from Essex to the rest of East Anglia, to Norwich and Cambridge. The East Coast main line electrification was approved and started.

Correct. The biggest issue was privatization. If that had not happened, electrification would have in all probability continued at the massive rate or reduced that was done in the 1980s.

158756 · 19 Feb 2020

Nicholas Lewis said:
The previous tories needed work arounds to keep within treasury spending limits so trotting out visionary stuff played to that need but the current tories seem to want tangible outcomes and are prepared to stick there hand in there pocket for infrastructure works. Remember the coalition did chuck money at electrification only for NR to screw it up so they need to be cautionary how they do it this time. With new NR boss being focused on running the railway i suspect they are working up an alternative approach.

This is the key issue. If Network Rail had delivered the GWML and North West schemes anywhere close to on time and on budget, nothing would have been cancelled or deferred and we'd soon be looking at electric cross country services and many of the remaining unelectrified suburban routes being done in the next few years. They had their chance and they blew it.

As it is it is difficult to make a business case for any further electrification. Going back to the RIA letter, there is no value in retaining the workforce if there is no work they can do which offers value for money to the Treasury. Decarbonisation will come one way or another, even if the answer is electric buses, heavy rail electrification at current prices will never make sense for most regional routes.

Nicholas Lewis · 19 Feb 2020

GRALISTAIR said:
Correct. The biggest issue was privatization. If that had not happened, electrification would have in all probability continued at the massive rate or reduced that was done in the 1980s.

Also in the case of the Southern 3rd rail extensions everyone of them except Bournemouth-Weymouth didnt require one new train(even they recycled the REP traction equipment) to run the service so it was a double win.

Grumpy Git · 19 Feb 2020

Comments taken on board, thank you. I still cannot for the life of me fathom why Manchester - Liverpool CLC is not wired though?

Its like having only three new tyres on your car when all four are worn-out.

WatcherZero · 19 Feb 2020

We still have the Transpennine electrification to come, which according to rumours since Christmas they have backed away from the budget discontinuous electrification in favour of the more expensive through electrification. (wiser heads and the freight industry prevailing?)

Nicholas Lewis · 19 Feb 2020

158756 said:
This is the key issue. If Network Rail had delivered the GWML and North West schemes anywhere close to on time and on budget, nothing would have been cancelled or deferred and we'd soon be looking at electric cross country services and many of the remaining unelectrified suburban routes being done in the next few years. They had their chance and they blew it.

As it is it is difficult to make a business case for any further electrification. Going back to the RIA letter, there is no value in retaining the workforce if there is no work they can do which offers value for money to the Treasury. Decarbonisation will come one way or another, even if the answer is electric buses, heavy rail electrification at current prices will never make sense for most regional routes.

How did we end up here after all the great BR successes of the 1980s

Grumpy Git · 19 Feb 2020

Nicholas Lewis said:
How did we end up here after all the great BR successes of the 1980s

Privatisation.

GRALISTAIR · 19 Feb 2020

Grumpy Git said:
Comments taken on board, thank you. I still cannot for the life of me fathom why Manchester - Liverpool CLC is not wired though?

Its like having only three new tyres on your car when all four are worn-out.

Totally agree. However, in the all party northern sparks report of Circa 2015, it was not the highest priority as far as the north was concerned. Calder Valley in its entirety so through to Blackburn and Preston from Leeds as well as to Man Vic was seen as highest priority.

Andrew*Debbie · 19 Feb 2020

Hydrogen fuel cells are terribly inefficient compared to overhead wires. The only reason it keeps getting put forward is that most H2 is made from natural gas.

A combination of batteries and overhead wires is a much better solution. Batteries are useful for bridging short hops (perhaps 20-30-40 miles) where eletricfication is not economic.

edwin_m · 19 Feb 2020

The outturn costs of MML electrification ought to be providing some good evidence of whether the RIA's cost predictions are accurate.

Sceptre · 19 Feb 2020

Hydrogen is just the late-2010s version of bionic duckweed.

Also, there does come a point where BCR model needs to be given less weighting because the intangibles (and some tangibles) are such that not doing anything would be worse in the long run; see also, Pacer replacement.

WAO · 20 Feb 2020

I would be more impressed by the RIA's plea for more electrification (right though it is) had the various participants not made hay out of the previous confusion. Once it was clear that chaos reigned, they should have offered to stop or put the project management into competent hands. That could have saved their future business.

WAO

themiller · 20 Feb 2020

What commentators seem to forget is that project costs will always increase until definition is achieved. The better defined a project, the less the final out-turn cost increase. The big problem with waiting until the project is absolutely defined is that modifications to the scope will continue ad infinitum. This means that someone must make a decision to actually start a project and fill in the gaps in design as it progresses - not too early leading to huge cost rises and not too late leading to the project coming in too late to solve the problems it was initiated to solve.

najaB · 21 Feb 2020

GRALISTAIR said:
Also tell me how hydrogen can be used to pull a 4000 tone freight train- won’t happen.

If diesel can do it, so can hydrogen. It's just a different way to store energy.

themiller · 21 Feb 2020

najaB said:
If diesel can do it, so can hydrogen. It's just a different way to store energy.

The difference being energy density. To carry enough hydrogen to give the same range as a tank of diesel fuel would require an extra vehicle to store it. Also the infrastructure isn’t in place at the moment for fuelling hydrogen as it is for diesel fuel so that cost would need to be taken into account.

The Ham · 21 Feb 2020

Nicholas Lewis said:
Great strategy but keep NR out of it (Note they arent on the RIA list of supporters) let the supply chain prove themselves. Shut Windermere for 3-4 months this Autumn and let them show what they can do!

Tell them that they are responsible for the bus replacement costs, provide them with the funding and the minimum service provision and if they complete ahead of the timeframe they get to keep any extra money, however if they overrun then they have to provide the extra money to cover the costs.

RIA letter on Electrification

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