DfT Launches Acceleration Unit

[LNW-GW Joint]

Grant Shapps has today announced a new DfT Acceleration Unit to expedite delivery of transport infrastructure, including rail projects.
It will be run by Darren Shirley of the Campaign for Better Transport and formerly of Which?

Also announced in funding for the design phase of several infrastructure projects including several for North Wales.
One of them, which seems a complete surprise, is an upgrade of the ETCS signalling for the Cambrian, and faster journeys on several Welsh main lines.

Transport Secretary launches new Acceleration Unit to speed up transport infrastructure projects and build back better from COVID-19

New unit will boost the delivery times of major transport projects as new funding is announced.

www.gov.uk

Multi-million boost from UK government for Welsh railways to level up infrastructure and improve journeys for passengers

Passenger journeys in Wales set to improve thanks to new funding.

www.gov.uk

This includes kickstarting design work on plans to upgrade Cardiff Central station and funding to develop plans for upgraded cutting-edge digital signalling on the 241-kilometre Cambrian line from Shrewsbury Sutton Bridge Junction to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli, and proposals to speed up journeys between Cardiff and Swansea, Chester and Llandudno Junction, and the Severn Tunnel and Cardiff.

Also announced:

• £1.1 million investment for Network Rail to develop short-term plans to relieve overcrowding at London Liverpool Street station
• funding to complete the £6.4 million scheme to build a new second footbridge serving all 4 platforms at St Albans City station, easing congestion and addressing safety issues at an increasingly busy station with work due to start early 2021 and be complete by January 2022
• £4 million to develop the design phase for gauge enhancement and track improvements for freight trains on Great Western, Midland Main Lines and at Darlington to allow longer intermodal freight trains to operate from Teesport to Yorkshire, with the Darlington scheme delivered by October 2020
• £9.74 million for signalling and infrastructure enhancements delivered on the Wessex route at Twickenham, Bracknell and Virginia Water as part of the Feltham and Wokingham Signalling Renewal Programme, which will help improve the reliability and flexibility of services starting from Easter 2021

Seemingly this is what would normally have been in NR's CP6 enhancement plans, now drip-fed by the DfT.

Meanwhile...
In his rambling interview on R4 this morning, Shapps more or less confirmed the concession business model will replace franchises.
The example he chose to illustrate the improvement was that bird strikes would not in the future result in a fight between NR and the TOCs as to who was responsible (citing the "pheasant" theory as the dividing line).
Presumably NR will get the whole job.
Private involvement in the operation of concessions was part of the story, so no full "nationalisation" is in prospect, merely a "single guiding mind".

In other news today, Crossrail has been put back to 2022 with another £450 million needed.

 

[The Planner]

Project Speed no less I assume.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Seriously? Removing the ETCS and replacing with something more basic with portable units would be better. I understand why that line was used as a testbed, but it really causes a huge issue in terms of lack of flexibility of units being used there.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

No MML electrification sadly. Mind you speed is not the thing. Its about 30 years overdue anyway.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I suspect, from the Welsh version of the story, that the Class 197 fitment of ETCS for the Cambrian requires an upgrade to the decade-old original trackside installation.
So maybe more of a compatibility upgrade than an enhancement.
At least it should mean class 80x will also be able to run on the Cambrian (and anything else converted for the GN project, including some more loco classes).
Avanti 805s perhaps, running through from Euston?

 

[Mollman]

No MML electrification sadly. Mind you speed is not the thing. Its about 30 years overdue anyway.

Hopefully that will come as part of the Acceleration Unit, from understanding of the announcement the projects cited aren't actually part of the unit's brief.

 

[Ianno87]

Seriously? Removing the ETCS and replacing with something more basic with portable units would be better. I understand why that line was used as a testbed, but it really causes a huge issue in terms of lack of flexibility of units being used there.

Although if wider ETCS rollout would mean more units needing to be fitted long-term anyway....

Alternatively TfW coud consider re-diagramming the Cambrian to avoid the current cross-formation with the Chester/Holyhead service if lack of fitted units were such a major problem...

 

[CW2]

This Unit the DfT are launching: Is it Metric or Imperial? I think we should be told.

 

[rower40]

This Unit the DfT are launching: Is it Metric or Imperial? I think we should be told.

Empirical.

 

[furnessvale]

Call me cynical, but I believe this unit will mainly be accelerating road schemes.

 

[Domh245]

The unit will actually be a bi-mode, as it allows them to get away with introducing all sorts of new things without doing the sort of work they should have!

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I'm obviously missing something in this: "and at Darlington to allow longer intermodal freight trains to operate from Teesport to Yorkshire, with the Darlington scheme delivered by October 2020."

Why would any such trains go through Darlington? Would they not go via Northallerton to Yorkshire?

 

[ExRes]

I have to say that this sounds an awful lot better than the usual, with Darren Shirley and Chris Taylor involved there must be more/some chance of progress

 

[class 9]

I'm obviously missing something in this: "and at Darlington to allow longer intermodal freight trains to operate from Teesport to Yorkshire, with the Darlington scheme delivered by October 2020."

Why would any such trains go through Darlington? Would they not go via Northallerton to Yorkshire?

Yarm tunnel.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Yarm tunnel.

Ah! It's not big enough?

 

[edwin_m]

I'm obviously missing something in this: "and at Darlington to allow longer intermodal freight trains to operate from Teesport to Yorkshire, with the Darlington scheme delivered by October 2020."

Why would any such trains go through Darlington? Would they not go via Northallerton to Yorkshire?

Ah! It's not big enough?

I believe not. But the quote says "longer" and a tunnel wouldn't affect length. My guess is that the trains in question run via Darlington already and the modification will be moving a set or two of points so a longer train can run round there. Or "spin" as some people call that maneuver, which also seems to describe quite well the subject of this thread...

 

[Joseph_Locke]

DfT Acceleration Unit? So its first job is to remove DfT from the development process then?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

DfT Acceleration Unit? So its first job is to remove DfT from the development process then?

My thoughts exactly sir - and to steal a tweet from somebody else “acceleration from zero ? “

 

[Grumpy]

If I was looking for someone to take charge of a body to accelerate the development of major railway projects, I would be looking for a hard bitten cynic who had lots of experience of the development and control of major railway projects, or at least similar experience in a relevant industry.
The last person I would be appointing is someone whose career seems to be largely as a lobbyist with no obvious large project control (or indeed other) management experience

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Putting an organisation's sternest critic/prime customer in charge is a well-known management tactic.
The two other appointments (Chris Taylor/Mark Reynolds) do look to be successful project deliverers, though not in rail.
Darren Shirley reports directly to Grant Shapps (maybe such a unit was a Treasury condition of forking out the investment).
We'll have to see what executive authority he can exert over Network Rail and the TOCs.
Then there's the previously-announced Northern Acceleration Unit, to "level up" the north's infrastructure.

Any of these people might turn out to be the "single guiding mind" Shapps claims to be creating for the railway.

 

[pdeaves]

DfT Acceleration Unit? So its first job is to remove DfT from the development process then?

Please, please, please also take Network Rail out of the equation, too!

 

[a_c_skinner]

I know by the pure physics definition is wrong but acceleration implies speeding up something that is already on the move. I suppose a taking the parked brake off unit doesn't have the same ring.

 

[Speed43125]

I know by the pure physics definition is wrong but acceleration implies speeding up something that is already on the move. I suppose a taking the parked brake off unit doesn't have the same ring.

I'm not sure it does actually, certainly 'Acceleration from rest' is a common enough expression. But I agree your comparison is perhaps more accurate.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I know by the pure physics definition is wrong but acceleration implies speeding up something that is already on the move. I suppose a taking the parked brake off unit doesn't have the same ring.

Yes acceleration is the rate of change of velocity. However, initial velocity can be zero

 

[Llandudno]

My thoughts exactly sir - and to steal a tweet from somebody else “acceleration from zero ? “

Yep, 100% increase on zero, is err. zero!

 

[edwin_m]

Yep, 100% increase on zero, is err. zero!

To continue the pedantry, acceleration isn't a percentage, it's the amount by which speed changes in time. You add it to the existing speed rather than multiplying.

 

[a_c_skinner]

acceleration isn't a percentage

I wasn't seeking to discuss physics merely to observe that progress on rail projects seems glacial so a kick start rather than acceleration seems more in order. This unit won't manage anything, it is a political announcement because politicians need to make announcements. It will take a few civil servants from existing jobs, they will largely take their existing tasks with them, and the deeply ingrained culture of doing as little as possible as slowly as possible dressed up as proper scrutiny will do the rest.

 

[Grumpy]

Putting an organisation's sternest critic/prime customer in charge is a well-known management tactic.

Perhaps. But not a good predictor of ability to deliver. Rather like replacing a football manager by whoever could shout loudest in the crowd

 

[edwin_m]

I wasn't seeking to discuss physics merely to observe that progress on rail projects seems glacial so a kick start rather than acceleration seems more in order. This unit won't manage anything, it is a political announcement because politicians need to make announcements. It will take a few civil servants from existing jobs, they will largely take their existing tasks with them, and the deeply ingrained culture of doing as little as possible as slowly as possible dressed up as proper scrutiny will do the rest.

There are plenty of projects "started" with a high-profile announcement that then disappear into the long grass, and the current Government with it "reversing Beeching" ideas is as guilty as any other and probably more so than most. The problem is not finding and initiating projects it's seeing them through to starting work on the ground. Often development stops for a long time while agreement and funding is found to move forward. By then something has often changed that invalidates the previous work so it has to be done again sometimes with a different answer. Or the people that did the previous work have moved on to something else, and the new people have to re-learn all the same lessons.

In my view what is needed is a commitment when it is first announced to keep the project moving through the various stages of design and business case, unless further work shows that a set of pre-defined limits on cost and benefit are no longer attainable.

 

[Bald Rick]

Project Speed no less I assume.

No, this is different. But they are linked.

Please, please, please also take Network Rail out of the equation, too!

Hmm. How many other organisations have experience of delivering projects on the national rail network in the last 20 years?