David Shirres article on Electrification July Modern Railways

[GRALISTAIR]

Anyone seen this article - fabulous read? Of course it is all speculation until the DafT speak and publish.

Not easy to post quotes but Politics trumps Physics was a good one.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Out in print today too. Mentions how Grayling mislead parliament and other stuff. Would post the map but I think that maybe copywriter infringement.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

Anyone seen this article - fabulous read? Of course it is all speculation until the DafT speak and publish.

Not easy to post quotes but Politics trumps Physics was a good one.

I have just read the article thought it was excellent. The only quibble is that one or two of the lines on the map that were listed as unlikely to be electrified but not specified for battery operation (e.g. Coventry to Nuneaton) would lead to odd non-electrified lines in a sea of electrification. It also didn't specify what should operate these services saying that bimodes were not suitable a net 0 railway and hydrogen would require significant investment in infrastructure for trains to only operate on just one line.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It's actually an article on de-carbonising the railway, rather than electrification per se.
But there is an electrification map - colour-coloured for Definite, Possible, Unlikely, Battery Trains and Never.
I haven't read the whole thing, but I'd say overall it's too optimistic.
I wouldn't argue too much with the Definites (mainly conurbations and main axes), but the Possibles seem too much to me (North Wales/Marches, S&C, G&SW?).

PS It's worse than I thought, having checked the colour coding again.
S&C and G&SW are both "Definites", and so is the Highland (Perth-Inverness).
I wouldn't argue with Stirling-Perth-Dundee-Aberdeen with Edinburgh-Dundee.

In the same MR issue, it seems NR will present its proposals to DfT in July.
So it will be a while after that before anything pops out in the "approved" tray.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Also he has Calder Valley plus Copy Pit route to Preston in light blue not dark blue. In the Northern Sparks report that group of MPs had it as their number 1 priority.

 

[37424]

Also he has Calder Valley plus Copy Pit route to Preston in light blue not dark blue. In the Northern Sparks report that group of MPs had it as their number 1 priority.

I think you would have to question the validity of any report that puts the S&C before the Calder Valley it might have some validity if NPR got the go ahead, but I think vast numbers of lines you would do before the S&C, plus on the S&C your likely to get objections of an aesthetic nature. I suspect the report will end up in a special place called the fantasy bin. If we get the North Transpennine core route done, some of the missing of the GWML electrification, plus such as East Kilbride and extension to Perth done in Scotland and maybe one other big project line, over the next 10 years that will be about as good as it gets.

 

[Ianno87]

Out in print today too. Mentions how Grayling mislead parliament and other stuff. Would post the map but I think that maybe copywriter infringement.

See this Tweet: https://twitter.com/25kV/status/1276614860529373184?s=20

Good map. Assume Orange = Relatively low priority? If so, Coventry-Nuneaton seems quite far down the pecking order, but otherwise the map appears at a glance to be quite a logical proposal.

 

[The Planner]

See this Tweet: https://twitter.com/25kV/status/1276614860529373184?s=20

Good map. Assume Orange = Relatively low priority? If so, Coventry-Nuneaton seems quite far down the pecking order, but otherwise the map appears at a glance to be quite a logical proposal.

Yes agree that seems odd, unless he isn't putting freight as a significant priority. At the other end of the scale I'm sure Bescot to Stourbridge is on that map! (The Chase line is missing too, but granted its only a high level map)

 

[StewLane]

A& C together with the G&SW are presumably primarily for freight as is Felixstowe to Peterborough. This is not just about electrification of passenger lines.

 

[30907]

Bear in mind also that the author says it is a "reasonable overview" rather than a definitive programme.
For example, the Calder Valley would probably score higher on (perceived?) passenger benefit. On the other hand, it might score lower on complexity (and therefore cost). And then again, you might make a case for electrifying the Blackburn group of lines as part of the package....
It depends on the factors you take into consideration.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

S&C together with the G&SW are presumably primarily for freight as is Felixstowe to Peterborough. This is not just about electrification of passenger lines.

But there isn't any significant freight on those routes now that coal has gone, and no passenger business case.
The predicted growth in WCML freight, which might at some point need a separate route north of Preston, has so far failed to materialise.
High-speed passenger bypasses on the WCML are more likely, linked to HS2.

 

[37424]

Bear in mind also that the author says it is a "reasonable overview" rather than a definitive programme.
For example, the Calder Valley would probably score higher on (perceived?) passenger benefit. On the other hand, it might score lower on complexity (and therefore cost). And then again, you might make a case for electrifying the Blackburn group of lines as part of the package....
It depends on the factors you take into consideration.

Well it would certainly be interesting to see all the criteria used because my first reaction to that map was to laugh and then think is that its done by someone who hasn't got a clue, but then maybe I'm completely wrong

I'm struggling to see what colour Leeds-Harrogate is, a definate? but then Harrogate-York is a maybe, given half the trains go beyond Harrogate not sure that makes a lot of sense, your resorting to Battery Bi-mode I suppose for the Harrogate-York section.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Trust me David Shirres is very well respected. I tweeted Lilian Greenwood and she agreed.

 

[si404]

I'm struggling to see what colour Leeds-Harrogate is, a definate?

Purple. Probably battery or bi-mode, judging by the other lines that colour, which are:

• Windermere - Oxenholme
• Barrow - Carnforth
• Heysham - Lancaster
• Bishop Auckland - Doncaster
• Middlesbrough - Saltburn
• Helsby - Ellesmere Port
• Newark - Lincoln
• Sudbury - Marks Tey
• Worcester - Hereford

 

[GRALISTAIR]

His methodology and spreadsheet construction are explained in the article

 

[37424]

Purple. Probably battery or bi-mode, judging by the other lines that colour, which are:

• Windermere - Oxenholme
• Barrow - Carnforth
• Heysham - Lancaster
• Bishop Auckland - Doncaster
• Middlesbrough - Saltburn
• Helsby - Ellesmere Port
• Newark - Lincoln
• Sudbury - Marks Tey
• Worcester - Hereford

So a 4 trains an hour route is in the same category Heysham to Lancaster?

 

[MidlandMainlie]

Purple. Probably battery or bi-mode, judging by the other lines that colour, which are:

• Windermere - Oxenholme
• Barrow - Carnforth
• Heysham - Lancaster
• Bishop Auckland - Doncaster
• Middlesbrough - Saltburn
• Helsby - Ellesmere Port
• Newark - Lincoln
• Sudbury - Marks Tey
• Worcester - Hereford

Yes Purple is battery operation, although I am struggling to understand why Nottingham - Newark is light blue (probable electrification) but Newark to Lincoln is to be battery operated meaning that LNER and East Midlands franchises would have to maintain a sub fleet battery trains for Lincoln services from London and Nottingham respectively. Newark - Lincoln as battery trains is even more odd given that Lincoln - Doncaster/Sheffield is listed as probable for electrification so Lincoln station would be electrified.

Also the article mentions that the Windermere branch is probable for electrification, even though is is shown as battery operated.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Trust me David Shirres is very well respected. I tweeted Lilian Greenwood and she agreed.

https://twitter.com/LilianGreenwood/status/1276608918412832775?ref_src=twsrc

 

[ainsworth74]

I must admit I'm perplexed by the idea that Harrogate to Leeds with it's significant passenger services and the Tees Valley with passenger and freight usage are slated for battery operation whilst the S&C is getting electrified (it's in the "Definite" category). The gentleman might be well respected and I certainly agree with the general thrust but some of the details are a bit, shall we say, strange...

 

[class26]

Yes Purple is battery operation, although I am struggling to understand why Nottingham - Newark is light blue (probable electrification) but Newark to Lincoln is to be battery operated meaning that LNER and East Midlands franchises would have to maintain a sub fleet battery trains for Lincoln services from London and Nottingham respectively. Newark - Lincoln as battery trains is even more odd given that Lincoln - Doncaster/Sheffield is listed as probable for electrification so Lincoln station would be electrified.

Also the article mentions that the Windermere branch is probable for electrification, even though is is shown as battery operated.

also why Doncaster - Lincoln is light blue but Lincoln to Peterborough via Spalding is orange. This is a major freight rote and would need electrifying throughout - wouldn`t it ?

 

[37424]

I must admit I'm perplexed by the idea that Harrogate to Leeds with it's significant passenger services and the Tees Valley with passenger and freight usage are slated for battery operation whilst the S&C is getting electrified (it's in the "Definite" category). The gentleman might be well respected and I certainly agree with the general thrust but some of the details are a bit, shall we say, strange...

Having just read the article I would also make the same conclusions. Somewhat amused to find in a different article in the magazine although this article does make reference to it, is that Northern OLR in their 100 day report have no enthusiasm for a limited fleet of Battery EMU's to Windermere and think electrification should be looked at again.

The idea that we are going to get rid of Diesel anytime soon I think is optimistic and even with fairly extensive electrification we are still pinning a lot on essentially unproven technologies for UK railways.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

I must admit I'm perplexed by the idea that Harrogate to Leeds with it's significant passenger services and the Tees Valley with passenger and freight usage are slated for battery operation whilst the S&C is getting electrified (it's in the "Definite" category). The gentleman might be well respected and I certainly agree with the general thrust but some of the details are a bit, shall we say, strange...

also why Doncaster - Lincoln is light blue but Lincoln to Peterborough via Spalding is orange. This is a major freight rote and would need electrifying throughout - wouldn`t it ?

Both very good points re freight routes.

Looking at the grey lines which are never going to be electrified

Scotland
West Highland Line
Far North
Kyle of Lochalsh

Wales
Cambrian Mainline
Cambrian Coast
Heart of Wales


The article talks about the infrastructure needed to provide hydrogen trains being a large capital investment it would need to be a large enough fleet so how many hydrogen units would be needed to provide services along those lines assuming the hydrogen fueling infrastructure could be provided at Inverness and Shrewsbury and the units to make a round trip before having to refuel, (otherwise hydrogen refuelling will need to be provided at the ends of those routes too).

 

[tbtc]

I really wish they didn't try to come up with this kind of thing - we can only cope five years into the future at best - crayoning in 95% of the network in various colours seems to unrealistically raise hopes (and will then cause disappointment).

We've already got a backlog of lines from previous grand announcements (I say this as a resident on the MML - but also Bristol/ Oxford etc) - we've also got a lot of relatively short infill projects (e.g. once you've wired to Sheffield then it's not far to Doncaster/ Moorthorpe... ) plus a number of routes which have a frequent "core" even if you have bi-mode trains for the different branches (e.g. Snow Hill) or routes where we could wire the majority whilst leaving tricky infrastructure for bi-modes (Forth Bridge, various routes with tricky tunnels).

But instead of having modest goals and focussing on delivering them, we've got a wishlist of pretty much everything - in fact it's so "optimistic" that I'm beginning to wonder why routes like Aberystwyth with its hourly frequency has been missed off when places like Fishguard are highlighted.

Is this a bit like the way that any sensible approach to re-opening abandoned lines requires us to have a long-list of crazy projects just to tick a box in various counties so that nobody feels forgotten about (before we go ahead with the biggest priorities)? So maybe we need to look at this map in the context of "if we just focus on a few hundred miles then there'll be complaints from other corners of the country that they are being forgotten about?

Don't get me wrong, I like electrification - it's frustrating that we have so many mid-life EMUs coming off lease whilst we struggle to find sufficient DMUs (even if you ignore the "green" benefits of electrification). However I think that the "freight" angle gets massively over-played on such arguments - we might have to electrify long distances just for the sake of a handful of freight trains per week which seems a luxury when we have a number of lines with frequent passenger services that ought to be looked at first (and that's assuming that the freight flow will still exist by the time you've finished electrifying, and that the FOC uses electric traction rather than just focussing on a big fleet of 66s). Nice if you can get freight run electrically, sure, but it'd be a nice bonus rather than something I'd prioritise.

That said, this is the first time I've seen a map with East-West and Ashington on it, so that's progress I guess.

 

[edwin_m]

I think it's trying to focus a few minds on the amount that needs doing if the railway is to be decarbonized. This may be leading either to a rolling programme of electrification, or to government deciding it's better to keep some diesels and achieve an equivalent CO2 reduction elsewhere.

 

[HSTEd]

In dealing with people in industry (as someone in the climate change science field) we have had a lot of trouble saying that they will just mitigate.
When we had 80% reductions as a target, everyone woudl look and see that their industry had less than 20% of total CO2 emissions credited to it, adn just say they would be in the 20%

When everyone claims this, you have a serious problem.

 

[si404]

This may be leading <snip> to government deciding it's better to keep some diesels and achieve an equivalent CO2 reduction elsewhere.

Indeed - grand visions are often rather daunting and thus off-putting.

The other option of rolling programme seems far better, but on that front we have enough to be getting on with with the ongoing schemes, especially if we include the shelved parts of them (Bristol, Manchester-Huddersfield, Oxford, Market Harborough-Sheffield, Windermere, etc), and so have a bit of time to work out the next tranche - but we still need starting the formal planning process in 18 months or so for CP7 schemes. It would have been nice if Shirres with, his methodology and spreadsheet, gave a top 10 priority schemes or most useful ~500 route kms or something about how to proceed rather than an end state map (that isn't very good)!

 

[edwin_m]

In dealing with people in industry (as someone in the climate change science field) we have had a lot of trouble saying that they will just mitigate.
When we had 80% reductions as a target, everyone woudl look and see that their industry had less than 20% of total CO2 emissions credited to it, adn just say they would be in the 20%

When everyone claims this, you have a serious problem.

That may well be true, but there is also an argument that when carrying a reasonable number of passenger or amount of freight, a diesel train is reducing CO2 compared with what would happen if the same was transported by road.

 

[tbtc]

It would have been nice if Shirres with, his methodology and spreadsheet, gave a top 10 priority schemes or most useful ~500 route kms or something about how to proceed rather than an end state map (that isn't very good)!

You put it better than I did!

The map feels a bit like circling three quarters of the toys in the Argos catalogue and passing it to your parents in the hope that they'll commit to buying you them in the medium/long term (yes, showing my age here!), rather than coming up with a simple list of what we could deliver in the next two years, what we could deliver in the next five years, what the subsequent five years should be after that.

I just don't know who this colourful map is intended to impress (i.e. who doesn't realise that there are thousands of miles of unnelectrified railway lines in the UK already).

 

[edwin_m]

Indeed - grand visions are often rather daunting and thus off-putting.

The other option of rolling programme seems far better, but on that front we have enough to be getting on with with the ongoing schemes, especially if we include the shelved parts of them (Bristol, Manchester-Huddersfield, Oxford, Market Harborough-Sheffield, Windermere, etc), and so have a bit of time to work out the next tranche - but we still need starting the formal planning process in 18 months or so for CP7 schemes. It would have been nice if Shirres with, his methodology and spreadsheet, gave a top 10 priority schemes or most useful ~500 route kms or something about how to proceed rather than an end state map (that isn't very good)!

I haven't seen the article yet but if it's like the similar one in Rail Engineer a couple of months back (Shirres writes for them too) it's second-guessing what an official NR study will say, and claims to comes up with a very similar total route mileage. I guess the official NR study may give some priorities, but in the meantime the 2009 study may give some guidance as it attempted to rank individual schemes based on diesel route-miles saved. The MML came out top on this basis, but there is the caveat that all costs have changed (but perhaps not so much relative to each other) and bi-modes have changed some of the benefits.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

You put it better than I did!

The map feels a bit like circling three quarters of the toys in the Argos catalogue and passing it to your parents in the hope that they'll commit to buying you them in the medium/long term (yes, showing my age here!), rather than coming up with a simple list of what we could deliver in the next two years, what we could deliver in the next five years, what the subsequent five years should be after that.

I just don't know who this colourful map is intended to impress (i.e. who doesn't realise that there are thousands of miles of unnelectrified railway lines in the UK already).

I really wish they didn't try to come up with this kind of thing - we can only cope five years into the future at best - crayoning in 95% of the network in various colours seems to unrealistically raise hopes (and will then cause disappointment).

We've already got a backlog of lines from previous grand announcements (I say this as a resident on the MML - but also Bristol/ Oxford etc) - we've also got a lot of relatively short infill projects (e.g. once you've wired to Sheffield then it's not far to Doncaster/ Moorthorpe... ) plus a number of routes which have a frequent "core" even if you have bi-mode trains for the different branches (e.g. Snow Hill) or routes where we could wire the majority whilst leaving tricky infrastructure for bi-modes (Forth Bridge, various routes with tricky tunnels).

But instead of having modest goals and focussing on delivering them, we've got a wishlist of pretty much everything - in fact it's so "optimistic" that I'm beginning to wonder why routes like Aberystwyth with its hourly frequency has been missed off when places like Fishguard are highlighted.

Is this a bit like the way that any sensible approach to re-opening abandoned lines requires us to have a long-list of crazy projects just to tick a box in various counties so that nobody feels forgotten about (before we go ahead with the biggest priorities)? So maybe we need to look at this map in the context of "if we just focus on a few hundred miles then there'll be complaints from other corners of the country that they are being forgotten about?

Don't get me wrong, I like electrification - it's frustrating that we have so many mid-life EMUs coming off lease whilst we struggle to find sufficient DMUs (even if you ignore the "green" benefits of electrification). However I think that the "freight" angle gets massively over-played on such arguments - we might have to electrify long distances just for the sake of a handful of freight trains per week which seems a luxury when we have a number of lines with frequent passenger services that ought to be looked at first (and that's assuming that the freight flow will still exist by the time you've finished electrifying, and that the FOC uses electric traction rather than just focussing on a big fleet of 66s). Nice if you can get freight run electrically, sure, but it'd be a nice bonus rather than something I'd prioritise.

That said, this is the first time I've seen a map with East-West and Ashington on it, so that's progress I guess.

Hopefuly the government will commit to completing the Midland Mainline from Market Harbrough to Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield and onto Doncaster/Moorthorpe plus completing the outstanding bits of the GW to Oxford and Bristol and Transpennine line.

After that most Intercity services will be electric or bimode (EMR new bimodes could be cascaded to Cross Country to replace 22x and replaced with straight electrics on the MML). If you want to remove Deisel traction from city centres then it would make sense to me to start electrifying commuter service into cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, so routes like the Snow Hill lines, Liverpool to Manchester via Warrington, Manchester to Wigan via Atherton and Wigan to Southport and others. This would remove stop start deisel services and allow improvements from the quicker acceleration of EMU's.

That should take us to the 2030's then we can think about what next