Future of the GWR electrification

[MarkyT]

Except the leasing and maintenance terms of a bimode fleet will have engine hours as a component of the ongoing costs.

So I would almost expect the opposite - fewer engine hours means less profit. A problem Rolls Royce had in spades during COVID.

So the operator customer can save money on the lease by incurring fewer engine hours over a given mileage? If so, I agree that would destroy any case for the lessor to lobby for and contribute to more wiring, but it would likely incentivise the lessee operator to do so. Once infrastructure and service are more integrated under GBR then these kinds of tradeoffs may be easier to realise.

 

[HSTEd]

The railway is going to get maintenance (and fuel) for an enormous number of engine hours for the cost of electrification necessary to eliminate them.

 

[MatthewHutton]

The railway is going to get maintenance (and fuel) for an enormous number of engine hours for the cost of electrification necessary to eliminate them.

The transit costs project believes the benefits beat the costs for hourly service.

A Dutch analysis from the late 2000s found that on a lifecycle basis, the cost of procuring and maintaining an EMU is half as high as that of maintaining a Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU). Electric trains are more reliable, so they do not require emergency repairs as frequently as diesels. They are also cheaper to buy; outside of the United States the market is thicker and more competitive, especially for high-performance products, since railroads that want high performance almost universally electrify.

Working from the difference in operating expenses between the MBTA and all-electric SEPTA, it looks like pure operating costs would fall by perhaps a quarter to a third simply by transitioning to EMUs; we believe further cuts in costs are possible from other projects under the Regional Rail umbrella, as higher off-peak frequency would spread fixed costs across more service.

In such an environment, the return on investment is around $20,000 per mile times the number of cars per peak hour; an 8-car train per hour is enough to generate a 3.5 to 8% financial ROI from electrification, not counting improvements in speed.

There are reliability improvements from electrification as well.

EMUs easily outperform diesel locomotives when it comes to reliability, the factor that perhaps more than any translates directly into an improved rider experience. The main metric used to measure reliability in the rail industry is called Mean Distance Between Failures (MDBF). The MBTA's older diesel locomotives have an MDBF of 5,000 miles. Even the newer diesels, introduced into MBTA service in 2014, only manage about 25,000 miles. New EMUs outperform the newer diesels by a factor of 5 to 20, with an MDBF deep into the 6 figures; the range in the examples we have found is about 150,000 to 450,000 miles.

 

[The exile]

The railway is going to get maintenance (and fuel) for an enormous number of engine hours for the cost of electrification necessary to eliminate them.

Maybe - but it’s far from being the sole benefit derived from electrification.

 

[JamesT]

The transit costs project believes the benefits beat the costs for hourly service.

It may do for the US, which that report is focused on arguing the case for. But as that report notes, the UK has issues that don’t apply there, mostly around our tiny loading gauge. It notes figures of $10m/mile for GWML and $7.2m/mile for MML, but then picks $4.5m/mile as the rate for the UK in their table.

 

[John R]

The railway is going to get maintenance (and fuel) for an enormous number of engine hours for the cost of electrification necessary to eliminate them.

Agree, I was simply rebutting the theory that it would be in the interest of lessors to promote electrification as they would gain windfall profits from the reduction in engine hours whilst their income remained unchanged.

 

[HSTEd]

The transit costs project believes the benefits beat the costs for hourly service.



There are reliability improvements from electrification as well.

$20,000 per mile per year per vehicle of peak hour train length is going to take a very long time to pay back given the costs of electrification are £2.5-4m per track kilometre.

 

[zwk500]

$20,000 per mile prt peak hour train length vehicle is going to take a very long time to pay back given the costs of electrification are £2.5-4m per track kilometre.

Electrification is also usually part of service uplift and journey time improvements, as well as other benefits such as air pollution reduction in cities, decreased track maintenance, no need for fuel handling environmental controls, etc...

 

[HSTEd]

Electrification is also usually part of service uplift and journey time improvements, as well as other benefits such as air pollution reduction in cities, decreased track maintenance, no need for fuel handling environmental controls, etc...

The journey time improvements that have traditionally occurred are much less prominent now, given the radicals improvement in DMU performance seen in recent decades.

Isn't electrification justified by air pollution in cities is more or less complete already?
How many more miles of electrification would be required to completely eliminate it, now electrodiesels or battery trains are widely available?

I don't think it is very many.

 

[zwk500]

The journey time improvements that have traditionally occurred are much less prominent now, given the radicals improvements in DMU performance seen in recent decades.

Still notable the difference in performance by 80Xs, as somebody who does Bristol-Cardiff quite a lot!

And electrification justified by air pollution in cities is more or less complete already.

No it isn't, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Edinburgh, Bristol, Sheffield, Cardiff, Newcastle, Nottingham, etc all have significant commuter services unelectrified.

How many more miles of electrification would be required to completely eliminate it, now electrodiesels or battery trains are widely available?

Given a BEMU has an assumed 50-80 mile range and would need charging, still quite a bit. I think the time is coming pretty quickly (say 5-10 years) when any internal combustion mode for trains will not be permitted to be ordered, and the existing BMMU fleet will need to be used judiciously to cover the gaps in BEMU coverage until wiring or battery tech extends far enough to allow them to be replaced.

 

[WAO]

The railway is going to get maintenance (and fuel) for an enormous number of engine hours for the cost of electrification necessary to eliminate them.

If Diesel traction really was cheaper overall we would not be seeing the widespread creeping extension of electrification and upgrading of existing systems, rather there would be de-wiring schemes aplenty.

New wiring however does have to be used intensively to be justified. It needs frequent (electrically hauled) trains, accelerating or climbing (or re-generating), or running at high speed. The Capital has to be found - not a problem for a valid investment with a pay-back but a real problem for a Government PSBR, where borrowing also funds revenue expenditure.

The strongest case must be for the Christian Malford - Bathampton section with its high speed, frequent fast trains and grueling gradient through the tunnels. The Chippenham footbridge is trivial. Westwards through Bath, speeds are lower and gradients gentle so there is less need for electric traction. Also the cost of wiring TM has to be faced sometime. The line between TM and Parkway has presently, a weak wiring case because it would not see much electrically hauled traffic. Oxford also has a strong case as it is half complete already and would be used by 387's, IET's and BEMU's? from East - West. It just needs the Botley Road disaster fixing.

WAO

 

[Trainbike46]

Given a BEMU has an assumed 50-80 mile range and would need charging, still quite a bit. I think the time is coming pretty quickly (say 5-10 years) when any internal combustion mode for trains will not be permitted to be ordered, and the existing BMMU fleet will need to be used judiciously to cover the gaps in BEMU coverage until wiring or battery tech extends far enough to allow them to be replaced.

In my view, that point has already passed. Assuming a 35-year lifespan for DMUs, to fully decarbonise the railway by 2050 (which is too late, as rail is a sector that should be ahead of the wider economy), the last DMUs should have entered service in ~2015. Of course, that didn't happen, but we shouldn't make the upcoming conversion or early retirement problem worse by ordering more DMUs. Electrification, EMUs, and cascading existing DMUs should be able to cover the railways' need for diesel traction. There are many routes* that could be run by BEMUs today if they were ordered, and that would free up DMUs to retire the oldest/worst state current DMUs. And then there is a bunch of routes where electrification is ongoing as well.

For the southwest, electrification around Bristol would likely enable the Bristol commuter service to go to (B)EMUs, and would replace a lot of DMUs.

*Across the country, including the southern diesel islands, certain East and West Midlands services, certain northern services, certain Scotrail services, certain TfW services, etc.

 

[Topological]

IF common sense prevailed and Bristol to Cardiff went electric with 350/2s (or other available EMU) then you could drive substantive benefits. Perhaps not the sort that enter the analysis, but making train travel more convenient and more comfortable (less overcrowding by redeploying the current mix of 80x, 158s and 165/6 elsewhere) would be potentially revolutionary to drive rail usage in the areas that benefitted.

At a more tenouous level, Cardiff to Swansea becoming an EMU and extending the Bristol EMUs to Swansea would also make a huge difference to capacity. West Wales terminating in Swansea would be a negative, but again the benefits of having more regular service at the Swanline stations could drive many benefits.

Oxford would be before Cardiff to Swansea though. Swindon to Bristol a marginal 4th.

 

[Transilien]

IF common sense prevailed and Bristol to Cardiff went electric with 350/2s (or other available EMU) then you could drive substantive benefits. Perhaps not the sort that enter the analysis, but making train travel more convenient and more comfortable (less overcrowding by redeploying the current mix of 80x, 158s and 165/6 elsewhere) would be potentially revolutionary to drive rail usage in the areas that benefitted.

At a more tenouous level, Cardiff to Swansea becoming an EMU and extending the Bristol EMUs to Swansea would also make a huge difference to capacity. West Wales terminating in Swansea would be a negative, but again the benefits of having more regular service at the Swanline stations could drive many benefits.

Would Cardiff-Penzance be curtailed to Bristol then?

 

[Trainbike46]

Would Cardiff-Penzance be curtailed to Bristol then?

Isn't there a proposed new TfW Cardiff-Bristol service planned, on top of existing GWR services?

 

[Topological]

Would Cardiff-Penzance be curtailed to Bristol then?

Yes, and the Portsmouth Harbour.

Should a battery solution be found then through services could resume, but to maximise capacity from the diesel stock there would be short-term sacrifices.

Isn't there a proposed new TfW Cardiff-Bristol service planned, on top of existing GWR services?

This is an aspiration I believe.

If the end result was a train between Bristol and Cardiff every 15 minutes then the splitting of some of the shorter long distance trains would be more palletable*

* I think the proposed TfW might be the plan to serve some of the Cardiff-Newport new stations. If so it may be more like a fast and a slow every 30 minutes rather than a true 15 minute service.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Electrification is also usually part of service uplift and journey time improvements, as well as other benefits such as air pollution reduction in cities, decreased track maintenance, no need for fuel handling environmental controls, etc...

"The Sparks effect" ?

 

[The exile]

* I think the proposed TfW might be the plan to serve some of the Cardiff-Newport new stations. If so it may be more like a fast and a slow every 30 minutes rather than a true 15 minute service.

And of course “slow” (=stopping) trains benefit more from electrification than fast ones.

 

[mrmartin]

I suspect all trains will become battery trains in the next few decades, even just for backup purposes for 10km range say in the event of power failure. It would make life a lot easier to recover from this if they all were.

The key thing is that the cost of batteries is plummeting year on year. And electrification is skyrocketing in cost. So the easier thing to do is just use batteries. Unless there is some radical drop in construction costs then I can't see this not happening, save for things like high speed lines.

I suspect we will even see battery trains being run on electrified lines with the pantograph down. Because it will be much easier to order a fleet of battery electric trains than strengthening the grid in places.

 

[Benjwri]

Because it will be much easier to order a fleet of battery electric trains than strengthening the grid in places.

This is one thing I definitely disagree with. It just becomes a game of where you strengthen the grid then. Battery trains use more power, quite a lot more, because of the significant weight of the batteries and the inefficiencies in storage. They still have to charge somewhere. You can say oh Paddington has a lot of capacity, but when suddenly every train sat there is sitting drawing as much power as it can to charge, suddenly it doesn’t.

Battery trains can be a solution for some areas, but they aren’t the golden answer. Electrification is better where possible, and battery trains still need a significant amount of it. Even if the issues with battery capacity is overcome, you’re limited by the amount of time on OHLE to actually charge that capacity.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Battery trains can be a solution for some areas, but they aren’t the golden answer. Electrification is better where possible, and battery trains still need a significant amount of it. Even if the issues with battery capacity is overcome, you’re limited by the amount of time on OHLE to actually charge that capacity.

This is key. Just reminds me of only a couple of years back where H was the golden answer! It wasn't!

 

[Snow1964]

Because it will be much easier to order a fleet of battery electric trains than strengthening the grid in places.

You have to remember the battery trains need to charge on the electrified section, so sections with battery trains that also go off the wires, will impose higher loads on the electrified sections (because they will be charging whilst slowing, and stationary at platforms).

So some sections where there is currently lower amps drawn (downhill, approaching speed restrictions and approaching stations) will get more power drawn. Might need to update these sections.

At some locations (junctions away from stations) might need to extend the wires about half mile down the branch, doing power changeovers on a busy line whilst trying to accelerate to clear busy junction might not be good idea, safer (reliability wise) to change whilst coasting on branch towards a speed restricted junction

 

[Nottingham59]

You can say oh Paddington has a lot of capacity, but when suddenly every train sat there is sitting drawing as much power as it can to charge, suddenly it doesn’t.

It would be pretty easy to programme the BEMU charge management system to avoid that situation. Even without SCADA comms, trains can detect overhead line voltage, and how that voltage drops when it starts to take charging current.

Just using made up numbers to illustrate, one charging protocol could be:

1. If OHLE line voltage is 25kV, then recharge from the wires at the maximum economic rate until the battery is full.
2. If the voltage drops below 22kV* then progressively curtail the charging rate, down to zero at 17kV*.
3. Set the charging curtailment depending on: state of charge; how many minutes before the train is due to depart, how many minutes before is it timetabled to come off the wires; how much energy will be needed to get to the next section of OHLE after that. All of this data should be in the train management system.

* The 22kV and 17kV points will vary by location and depend on the characteristics of the OHLE power supply.

 

[Benjwri]

It would be pretty easy to programme the BEMU charge management system to avoid that situation. Even without SCADA comms, trains can detect overhead line voltage, and how that voltage drops when it starts to take charging current.

Just using made up numbers to illustrate, one charging protocol could be:

1. If OHLE line voltage is 25kV, then recharge from the wires at the maximum economic rate until the battery is full.
2. If the voltage drops below 22kV* then progressively curtail the charging rate, down to zero at 17kV*.
3. Set the charging curtailment depending on: state of charge; how many minutes before the train is due to depart, how many minutes before is it timetabled to come off the wires; how much energy will be needed to get to the next section of OHLE after that. All of this data should be in the train management system.

* The 22kV and 17kV points will vary by location and depend on the characteristics of the OHLE power supply.

But my point is it doesn’t matter where you do this, you can programme that kind of as much as you want, but it has to get the power from somewhere. You are just pushing the capacity issue somewhere else maybe a few years down the line. It’s exactly the kind of thinking we’ve had with bi mode that has created a whole host of problems. You might as well just upgrade the capacity now, instead of having to do it in a potentially more tricky area down the line.

 

[Annetts key]

With infrastructure projects, generally speaking, for mature technology, it's less expensive to build it now than keep kicking the can down the road.

Normally every year inflation eats away at the value of the currency, increases the cost of labour and increases the cost of materials. So what is expensive now will be considerably more expensive in the future.

Only where technology is still evolving at a rapid speed will the cost not increase or maybe even reduce. And as I understand it, both third rail and OHL electrification infrastructure is not likely to experience any significant improvements in technology to off-set the rising costs.

Therefore I would suggest the best method is to have a rolling electrification programme and get as many main lines and long branches (used by passenger trains or frequently by freight trains) done as soon as possible.

Especially as in the long term, electrification will result in savings compared to oil burners.

Trains that have a battery may well be the solution for short branches or to cover gaps, but as said above, they do need to recharge somewhere. And charging and discharging a battery is not particularly efficient. Even without taking into account the energy needed just to lug the battery around on the train carrying it.

 

[zwk500]

This is key. Just reminds me of only a couple of years back where H was the golden answer! It wasn't!

Battery is not a golden answer but it's also undeniably part of the solution.

Realistically in not particularly long the railway will need to be all-electric (or very nearly). A 100% electrified network will never be viable, and battery technology is rapidly maturing on rails and off. We absolutely do need a rapid expansion of the OLE and power supply security, but we will also need BEMUs to achieve it.

I also agree with the poster upthread that we will start to see all EMUs become BEMUs, just with some specified for emergency/get-me-home traction power and some specified for full-service traction power

 

[mrmartin]

You have to remember the battery trains need to charge on the electrified section, so sections with battery trains that also go off the wires, will impose higher loads on the electrified sections (because they will be charging whilst slowing, and stationary at platforms).

So some sections where there is currently lower amps drawn (downhill, approaching speed restrictions and approaching stations) will get more power drawn. Might need to update these sections.

At some locations (junctions away from stations) might need to extend the wires about half mile down the branch, doing power changeovers on a busy line whilst trying to accelerate to clear busy junction might not be good idea, safer (reliability wise) to change whilst coasting on branch towards a speed restricted junction

Yes but you could do these charges on areas where there is more grid capacity, eg not in city centre locations. The problem with strengthening the OHLE isn't really the railway side, it's the often decade+ wait for grid upgrades.

 

[GraphitProjekt]

Does it really work like that? It's still the same circuit whether you're near the feeder station or around the terminus, I know that voltage drops over distance but is probably more affected by the number (and current draw) of loads no matter they're location. Even if so, there are a lot of situations of feeder stations situated near to a major station, and said major station as a lot of unelectrified branches in question - consider Sheffield once (if?) MML is wired. Or Norwich where local routes to Sheringham/Lowestoft/Yarmouth could likely be run on battery power, except that the feeder station there is only sufficient for the 2tph on the mainline and a few units on hotel power at the platforms.

it's the often decade+ wait for grid upgrades.

This is what all the SFC hype is about, because they could make grid connections not only easier to obtain, but also provide a way to make much better use of the existing ones.

 

[Benjwri]

Yes but you could do these charges on areas where there is more grid capacity, eg not in city centre locations. The problem with strengthening the OHLE isn't really the railway side, it's the often decade+ wait for grid upgrades.

The rail network doesn’t feed off the same sub stations as the surrounding area. OHLE capacity is based on the capacity of these sub stations, which in turn is dictated by the predicted usage from trains, and how much of an appetite for cost cutting there was at the time the OHLE was put up.

Battery trains are just more cost cutting. You’re using capacity in areas it was built because of a predicted future demand. When that demand does come you left in a sticky situation, and have to upgrade an existing installation, which tends to be more costly than building it in the first place.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Battery is not a golden answer but it's also undeniably part of the solution.

I am a realist as well as an optimist and I fully agree with you.