northwichcat
Veteran Member
Regarding phasing out diesel it wasn't that long ago the government made an incorrect estimate about when we would run out of diesel. I think they predicted 40-60 years sooner than it is now predicted to happen
Looking at a map of European railways showing electrified lines, it is astonishing how few routes are still to be electrified.
And those that are still operated by diesels are being electrified more and more.
And yet, in the UK we cant even make a case for electrifying what would pass for being an important main line in Europe.
Someone said Hull is too far from anywhere to make it worthwhile!
Too far away, for crying out loud!
It's a city of 300000 plus people, 50 miles from a concentration of large towns and cities and some people think it is out in the desert somewhere.
The line should have ben electrified 50 years ago.
It is amazing that when virtually every developed Nation has mainly electrified lines we can always find some excuse not to do it!
This time it's bi-modes.
Because we cant even deliver the paltry schemes already approved without huge delay and cost, we're having to order hundreds of antediluvian monstrosities that will be trundling around our system, spewing out fumes and noise for the next 30 years.
As a concept to allow through running to a few bits of unelectrified track, they may have a roll: but ours are going to be running on odd bits of electrification with much of the mileage done on diesel.
Well we are certainly cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world in more ways than one!
Indeed he did not. However he's declared global warming to be a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese, vowed not to ratify the Paris accords, promised to repeal clean air legislation that 'hinder' American manufacturers and promised to revive the American coal industry.I didn't follow the US election as closely as some, there has been test cricket on after all, but I'm pretty sure Drumpf never mentioned Selby.
Nonsense
This UK Government in promoting HS2 is clearly promoting a project that will extend beyond the next UK General Election.
Yes an incoming Government in 2020 could wreck it at vast cost!
You clearly stated that no Government commits to infrastructure projects that extend beyond the life of that Government.
Hinkley Point C must be a figment of my imagination therefore.
Looks to me like the government has lost faith in network rail and its underperforming contractors.
There's a certain amount of uninformed speculation on this thread suggesting that the Hull electrification project had no business case, so let's put the record straight. The DfT looked at this and found that the scheme would have a benefit:cost ratio on the local economy of between 4:1 and 5:1, which falls into the 'very high' end by their appraisal.
I don't think anybody is complaining that the Hull Line can't be electrified this very moment, people are more worried by the explanations given and that the government is suggesting that diesel powered trains can provide the same benefits as electric ones. This sets a frightening precedent, not only for Hull, but for the whole electrification programme in the UK.
Lets look at the Hull line. I assume the BCR doesn't take into account the 2nd Leeds train each hour which has been committed to by Northern, so there's an immediate boost. People complain BCR is flawed until the cows come home, it's currently the way infrastructure decisions are made, so electrifying Hull makes sense from this point of view.
Now to the stock that could be replaced by electrification. There's a firm commitment to 802's on the London service but no such commitment for them on the Manchester service. Therefore it can be assumed that 3 trains per hour will be pure diesel, Manchester, Leeds and York. So lets say 5 DMU's are needed for Manchester, 3 for Leeds and 3 for York and add in one spare for York / Leeds and one for Manchester. From my 'bag of a fag packet' I make that 13 DMU's saved. That's a sizeable number for what is effectively 30 miles of simple double track to be electified with very little possibility of seeing cost overruns.
So once the Transpennine route is done, Hull really seems to be a no brainer to me.
I don't think anybody is complaining that the Hull Line can't be electrified this very moment, people are more worried by the explanations given and that the government is suggesting that diesel powered trains can provide the same benefits as electric ones. This sets a frightening precedent, not only for Hull, but for the whole electrification programme in the UK.
Lets look at the Hull line. I assume the BCR doesn't take into account the 2nd Leeds train each hour which has been committed to by Northern, so there's an immediate boost. People complain BCR is flawed until the cows come home, it's currently the way infrastructure decisions are made, so electrifying Hull makes sense from this point of view.
Now to the stock that could be replaced by electrification. There's a firm commitment to 802's on the London service but no such commitment for them on the Manchester service. Therefore it can be assumed that 3 trains per hour will be pure diesel, Manchester, Leeds and York. So lets say 5 DMU's are needed for Manchester, 3 for Leeds and 3 for York and add in one spare for York / Leeds and one for Manchester. From my 'bag of a fag packet' I make that 13 DMU's saved. That's a sizeable number for what is effectively 30 miles of simple double track to be electified with very little possibility of seeing cost overruns.
So once the Transpennine route is done, Hull really seems to be a no brainer to me.
I suggest you look at the Rail North Electrification Task Force report posted earlier by jcollins, which included DMU replacement as one of key factors when calculating electrification priorities. If Selby-Hull is a "no-brainer", then what of the six higher scoring lines?
Isn't the new Leeds service a through service from Bridlington?
AFAIK the future of the Manchester service is TBD after Leeds-Manchester electrification.
I suggest you look at the Rail North Electrification Task Force report posted earlier by jcollins, which included DMU replacement as one of key factors when calculating electrification priorities. If Selby-Hull is a "no-brainer", then what of the six higher scoring lines?
I think the Task Force did a very good job, its selection criteria were far more advanced than Network Rail's usual reliance on internal operational considerations.I get the impression some people want to pretend that list doesn't exist. While most people will accept Calder Valley and the Warrington Central line as being lines with a good business case for electrification, some don't want to accept that their local line is lower on the list than the Southport-Atherton-Salford, Mid-Cheshire, Harrogate and Northallerton-Middlesbrough which all appeared much higher in the list than expected. I recall at the time it was published some people were moaning that Harrogate only finished sixth due to Andrew Jones' position.
5 higher scoring lines as in that report the Harrogate Line scores exactly the same. Northallerton to Middlesborough has 1 train per hour currently. This could be quite easily converted to bi mode. The Hull transpennine could also be transferred to bi mode but there would be a higher percentage of the journey not under the wires compared to Middlesborough therefore the business case for bi-modes will be worse.
The Calder Valley Line will be incredibly hard to electrify. Certain areas are very remote and I imagine a lot of work will have to be done during the day as I can't see night shifts being safe. Also nearly every major destination on the Calder Valley (Leeds, Huddersdfield, Bradford, Manchester, Preston, Blackpool) already has planned electrification works.
I agree entierly with the Warrington Line and Southport line, not so sure about the Stockport to Chester line though but I can't say I know much about the line. I don't see why one electrification team can't be in West doing those lines and another in the east doing the Hull and Harrogate lines. As for the Bridlington service this could carry on running to Sheffield or Doncaster, its hardly a barrier to electrification.
..... some don't want to accept that their local line is lower on the list than .....
Northallerton to Middlesborough has 1 train per hour currently. This could be quite easily converted to bi mode. The Hull transpennine could also be transferred to bi mode but there would be a higher percentage of the journey not under the wires compared to Middlesborough therefore the business case for bi-modes will be worse.
not so sure about the Stockport to Chester line though but I can't say I know much about the line.
I don't see why one electrification team can't be in West doing those lines and another in the east doing the Hull and Harrogate lines.
And while my local Calder Valley line did come top, it certainly would drop down a few places if the exercise were repeated after the new franchise award and the introduction of 195s and longer trains - but I'd still argue its the right way to do things.
I'm afraid that hardly presents a coherent approach to the problem.
The TPE bi-modes are being acquired so that capacity improvements happen pre-electrification and so there's something to be able to run through trains to Middlesbrough and Scarborough post-electrification. Freeing up Middlesbrough bi-modes doesn't mean they have go on to Hull services if the business case is poor for using them on those services.
So what is a coherent approach to the problem?
I think you miss understood what I meant. I don't think Northallerton to Middlesborough should be electrified for the sake of one 1tph when the route could be run by class 88's.
As for the Bridlington service this could carry on running to Sheffield or Doncaster, its hardly a barrier to electrification.
- One that doesn't rely on the sole, horribly inward looking metric of diesels per hour replaced, I suggest you read p7-8 of the report and the reasoning behind the scoring used. This (in my view totally correctly) relegated diesels per hour replaced to only 20% of the score. With the likes of the Northern Hub / HS2 / HS3 you'll see far more emphasis on the the economic benefits of agglomeration effects and other similar criteria.
- One that doesn't rule out a well-scoring line for totally spurious reasons (the Calder Valley remote and unsafe at night:roll::roll::roll:, coming from someone from Grimsby - miles from any centres of population - thats a bit rich) and then blows the governments budget by suggesting that all other lines in the list down to the one personally favoured are electrified simultaneously.
A coherent approach would be to develop more detailed business cases for all the higher-scoring lines and see what the results are. The methodology used by the Task Force was by necessity rough and ready.
Given recent political developments on the other side of the Atlantic... The way I see it what's the point bailing out the water when there's someone else running around making larger holes?
Nobody believes those BCRs now (if they did then), and bi-mode operation kills it off.
How many DMUs will be replaced if it was wired (assuming HT and TPE are running bi-modes)?
Time to look at it again when the TP wires reach Selby.
Oh no, we shouldn't believe experts should we, silly me I forgot. :roll:.
I don't rule the Calder Valley Line out completely at all. I'm simply saying given that it is a duplicate of another electric line (Transpennine) and NR are currently having difficulty electrifying lines which is causing cost overruns , it would make more sense to electrify lines that are unlikely to pose much of an engineering challenge.
Not being able to electrify at night is hardly a spurious reason. Neither are weather conditions on the route. They all lead to uncertainty in costs and time which increases the risk of the project. Do you really think that the electrification programme needs more risk given what has happened over the last month. The next projects committed to, should be simple to engineer therefore showing politicians and the public that lines can be electrified on time and on budget. Whether this is the Hull line or another line, I'm not fussy but I can't say I know of line that would be simpler to electrify.
I know. I'm just incredibly disheartened by the rejection of common sense and basic human dignity by such a large minority of the US electorate.One way or the other we made commitments we ought not now go back on, which only takes us down to the level of the populists. However, there was at least some doubt about how we were going to make them anyway and transport is only a portion of our energy consumption. We can still do better, we must do better and we will do better.
More spurious rubbish. I can assure you that Network Rail carry out extensive works at night on the Calder Valley line, including a couple of years ago keeping the whole town of Hebden Bridge awake with loud engineering work for three consecutive nights.
There are both ongoing and planned upgrades to the line - line speed improvements, capacity improvements (including platform lengthening) and resignalling. I've never heard anyone claim that the alleged "remoteness" of the line :roll: or weather conditions :roll: or an alleged inability to work at night increases the risk or cost of any engineering work on the line. The exact opposite in fact, costings I've seen have been based on the time-honoured principle of taking actual costs of similar projects elsewhere.
With so many unknowns in this process, I don't think it worthwhile to speculate on the results.