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.
Doesn't the iLint mean that it is a proven technology, at least for passenger trains in mainland Europe? Freight and/or UK-gauge passenger stock is of course another matter entirely.
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.
The engine rafts might be easily removed, but cascading class 800s to XC (to replace Voyagers that burn diesel under the wires) would be a better solution in my view. XC will still need diesel for parts of their network for many years to come, but it seems crazy to me to build new diesel engines for XC while scrapping engines from GWR class 800s. You could remove the generator rafts from GWR sets and install them on new XC sets (which would be built without engines) I suppose, but would it be easier to build new EMU vehicles for GWR and cascade the diesel-equiped motor cars from GWR to XC?
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.
While I feel that privatisation was a mistake, I don't think it made much difference to the electrification suituation. Electrification in the UK has been 'boom & bust' since the late 1950s and even in BR days there was a need to get the government to authorise (and presumably pay for) electrification. In 1981 BR wanted a major rolling programme of electrification (the
report is available on Railways Archive). Had the full programme been approved, we would not be arguing if it was worth electrifying beyond Plymouth,
the line would have already been wired to Penzance by 2003 (or even 1997 in the fast option!). The last element of the programme, Edinburgh - Aberdeen, would have been completed by 2010 at the latest (2001 under the faster option). Interestingly Manchester - Bolton - Preston - Blackpool North was included as part of the baseline as assumed to be electrified regardless of the programme (along with Bedford - St. Pancras and the GEML to Norwich, which obviously did get done). Looking at the various options for smaller electrification programmes included in the report, it is also interesting to note that Birmingham - Derby, Leeds - York and the Midland Main Line (including Sheffield - Leeds) were prioritised above the ECML north of Newcastle.
Decarbonisation will come one way or another, even if the answer is electric buses
That is what I'm afraid of regarding TfW's decsion to order a large number of diesel-only class 197s. At least if they'd ordered bi-modes you could part-electrify routes to cut diesel use down to the sections; which when you factor in the embedded carbon of battery manufacture probably wouldn't look too bad on the carbon balance sheet. A 5-car class 197 lashup burning diesel all the way from Swansea to Manchester on the other hand could put the carbon balance sheet firmly 'in the red', particularly when you factor in increased car use from passengers avoiding the 'interogation centre seats' (Fainsa Sophias) on the 197s.
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.
There are two kinds of energy density. There is energy/mass and energy/volume - I seem to recall seeing a chart somewhere comparing batteries and hydrogen on both these measures but cannot find it now. If I recall correctly, on one of the two energy density measures, one of the two low-carbon options (hydrogen and batteries, I forget which) wasn't far off the energy density of diesel, but neither came close on the other energy density measure.
I'd say finish the gwml electrification to Swansea as well as the Maesteg and Ebbw vale branches and to Bristol tm and Oxford. After that do the Midland followed by infills etc
Aren't there seperate teams doing the GWML and MML? If so, they could both carry on. I'd have the GWML team finish the Oxford and Bristol wires first (to Bristol via both Bristol Parkway and Bath), then do Ebbw Vale, Cardiff-Penarth/Barry Island/Barry-Bridgend and Oxford - Bletchley (the latter while it is closed for east-west rail works), Reading-Basingstoke and Thames Valley branches. Meanwhile, the Welsh Government need to look at speed and massive capacity improvements on the GWML between Cardiff and Bridgend before locking the current inadequate infrustructure in stone by wiring it up. Once the capacity issues between Cardiff and Bridgend are sorted, then electrify Cardiff-Swansea/Maesteg. You could probably leave that for now and come back and do when passing by with Birmingham - Bristol - Plymouth (which, now that we have bi-modes on GWR, is probably higher up the list than Castle Cary-Taunton).
