Possible electrification schemes in the pipeline?

[richard_S]

Are there any more electrification projects in the pipeline after the MML and TPU are done?

 

[brad465]

Potentially parts of E-WR, as part of the "discontinuous electrification" ambition. But this isn't officially confirmed from what I've seen.

 

[Mag_seven]

Are there any more electrification projects in the pipeline after the MML and TPU are done?

Aren't there schemes in Scotland?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Aren't there schemes in Scotland?

Yes. At least one in progress and at least one Grid Feeder ordered.

 

[anthony263]

Plus potentially Cardiff to Swansea and Filton to Bristol TM with a extension to Weston-super-Mare according to their local MP

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Poplars link is in progress too.

 

[waverley47]

Yes. At least one in progress and at least one Grid Feeder ordered.

Grid feeders for Tweedbank and Thornton are both in the pipeline, at some stage of delivery, due for September next year.

The Thornton feeder in particular is an enormous piece of kit.

 

[td97]

Presumably the OP is referring to "brand new" electrification rather than renewals or local enhancements e.g. Darlington, Bradford FS P0 or Manchester Oxford Rd remodeling.

Ones to watch out for are:
CLC, Manchester to Rochdale, Oxford corridor, Leeds to Bradford Interchange

Potentially parts of E-WR, as part of the "discontinuous electrification" ambition. But this isn't officially confirmed from what I've seen.

It's part of the 2024 Non Statutory Consultation plans, so yes it is proposed. Clearly dependent on the scheme as a whole receiving DCO consent.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Yes. At least one in progress and ---------

I did of course mean to say that project (in Scotland) is Haymarket to Dalmeny which is in progress with boots on the ground. Grid Feeders in Scotland is as above.

 

[WAO]

We don't find press releases announcing electrification, like we did in the 80's and early 90's. Instead, we hear reports of "de-vegetation" i.e serious weeding, or letters to neighbours apologising for overnight pile driving noise or advertising road closures for bridge work.

There is a lot of work taking place to increase capacity and speeds on existing systems such as increasing power supplies and replacing headspans with portals, re-tensioning etc, non of which is cheap. An important instance IMV is Marshall Meadows a notorious low spot for OLE power. When this is rectified, both XC and TPE could work electrically from York (or even Leeds) to Edinburgh, as well as LNER. There is also the progression of technology so that the Static Frequency Converter may make the Autotransformer system obsolete.

We can also read more tea leaves in that pegs/paint are appearing at mast/stanchion sites North of Wigston South, all the way to Derby, it seems. This suggests that more than just desk top work is in progress, albeit with stop stages allowed at intervals in the project.

Finally, battery EMU's will need charging sections, so will precipitate some wiring (and power supplies), and not just in terminal bays.

WAO

 

[GRALISTAIR]

We don't find press releases announcing electrification, like we did in the 80's and early 90's.

Politicians/DfT don't like getting embarrassed and have learned their lesson regarding this. They just seem to quietly get on with it rather than the big fanfare with dates and then project being late and over budget.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Are there any more electrification projects in the pipeline after the MML and TPU are done?

HS2 (not viable without it).
Core Valley Lines in South Wales (discontinuous) are not yet finished, nor is East Kilbride (Clydeside).
MML is not fully funded beyond Wigston yet.
Oxford and Chippenham-Bristol TM-Filton (original GW project) are still "paused".

 

[MarkyT]

We don't find press releases announcing electrification, like we did in the 80's and early 90's. Instead, we hear reports of "de-vegetation" i.e serious weeding, or letters to neighbours apologising for overnight pile driving noise or advertising road closures for bridge work.

There is a lot of work taking place to increase capacity and speeds on existing systems such as increasing power supplies and replacing headspans with portals, re-tensioning etc, non of which is cheap. An important instance IMV is Marshall Meadows a notorious low spot for OLE power. When this is rectified, both XC and TPE could work electrically from York (or even Leeds) to Edinburgh, as well as LNER. There is also the progression of technology so that the Static Frequency Converter may make the Autotransformer system obsolete.

We can also read more tea leaves in that pegs/paint are appearing at mast/stanchion sites North of Wigston South, all the way to Derby, it seems. This suggests that more than just desk top work is in progress, albeit with stop stages allowed at intervals in the project.

Finally, battery EMU's will need charging sections, so will precipitate some wiring (and power supplies), and not just in terminal bays.

WAO

Politicians/DfT don't like getting embarrassed and have learned their lesson regarding this. They just seem to quietly get on with it rather than the big fanfare with dates and then project being late and over budget.

There was a time in the industry, particularly the Railtrack era, when every tiny maintenance job anywhere on rail infrastructure seemed to be heavily publicised as a major investment, announced by multiple press releases, with corporate hoardings emblazoned with positive messages and logos of partners etc. Doing things more quietly in the background suits much activity on the railway. Bimodes, batteries and new types of supply points give engineers far more freedom to reschedule stages of electrification work according to realtime resource availability and other constraints, allowing activity to proceed almost piecemeal as convenient but within overall program goals and financial plans. Signalling has also gone this way to an extent, where new systems can be preinstalled and run in parallel shadow mode with existing methods for months even years while bugs are ironed out, and the operations function gets everyone trained and certified on the new kit. The actual commissioning changeover dates and extents are no longer, at least technically, a major dependency and can be shuffled as expedient, unless they have to coincide with major track remodelling perhaps.

 

[John R]

Plus potentially Cardiff to Swansea and Filton to Bristol TM with a extension to Weston-super-Mare according to their local MP

Those (especially the WSM extension) are still very speculative, and I don't think come anywhere near being "in the pipeline" as I understood the OP's question.

 

[Hellzapoppin]

And if course the WSM extension will need resignalling.

 

[Legolash2o]

Hopefully my map is fully up-to-date with the proposals.

https://gbrailwaydata.co.uk/Public/ElectrificationMap

 

[TheWalrus]

I did of course mean to say that project (in Scotland) is Haymarket to Dalmeny which is in progress with boots on the ground. Grid Feeders in Scotland is as above.

Will Scotrail have suitable rolling stock (i.e. bi-modes) to take advantage of the wires as far as Dalmeny by the time the electrification is complete? Or is there a plan for service changes when the wires go live?

 

[John R]

I did of course mean to say that project (in Scotland) is Haymarket to Dalmeny which is in progress with boots on the ground. Grid Feeders in Scotland is as above.

Don’t forget East Kilbride, so two in progress.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

So in the March 2025 edition of Modern Railways, they are saying that the Scottish Programme of electrification is "intact". They are keeping the electrification teams intact and thus gaining efficiencies. Masts in place on the Levenmouth branch and feeders already connected.

In addition, they refer to the Edinburgh to Fife electrification as "STEALTH ELECTRIFICATION". This means masts are going in while formal approval is awaited.

 

[anthony263]

So in the March 2025 edition of Modern Railways, they are saying that the Scottish Programme of electrification is "intact". They are keeping the electrification teams intact and thus gaining efficiencies. Masts in place on the Levenmouth branch and feederes already connected.

In addition, they refer to the Edinburgh to Fife electrification as "STEALTH ELECTRIFICATION". This means masts are going in while formal approval is awaited.


View attachment 175445

Any news of gwr new rolling stock program or additional gwr electrification

 

[Mikey C]

Electrification of the Uckfield Line has been spoken about too

 

[GraphitProjekt]

An important instance IMV is Marshall Meadows a notorious low spot for OLE power. When this is rectified, both XC and TPE could work electrically from York (or even Leeds) to Edinburgh, as well as LNER.

Marshall Meadows seems to have been cancelled mid construction! Any change on this - feels like a terrible decision with all those 80Xs running on diesel.

There is also the progression of technology so that the Static Frequency Converter may make the Autotransformer system obsolete.

The Autotransformer system was touted as allowing for fewer feeder stations, which is true. But the developments of GWML seem to show that new ATFSs have to be built for resilience purposes (namely the whole bramley gsp/holly cross atfs/reading independent feeder situation) because the loss of one feeder is a significantly bigger problem. So in the end, you don't really end up building that many fewer FSs unless you have a much more favourable context (like with HS1 i guess)

Furthermore, SFS could be blended with an AT system maybe?? A 132kV connection could feed a 2x25kV system via an SFC.

We can also read more tea leaves in that pegs/paint are appearing at mast/stanchion sites North of Wigston South, all the way to Derby, it seems. This suggests that more than just desk top work is in progress, albeit with stop stages allowed at intervals in the project.

Still makes me remember about oxford and Chippenham being cancelled with masts constructed. The wooden pegs definitely show intent but I try not to get too hopeful about them

 

[Trainbike46]

Will Scotrail have suitable rolling stock (i.e. bi-modes) to take advantage of the wires as far as Dalmeny by the time the electrification is complete? Or is there a plan for service changes when the wires go live?

The LNER services will use it from day one, and Scotrail is/was planning to order a BEMU fleet that will make use of it as well when introduced, but no such order has been placed at present (or if it has, it is not public information), and therefore we don't have a planned delivery date but it seems unlikely Scotrail will have trains to use that particular piece of electrification on day 1, so only LNER will use it at the beginning.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Mar 2025 ==

So in the March 2025 edition of Modern Railways, they are saying that the Scottish Programme of electrification is "intact". They are keeping the electrification teams intact and thus gaining efficiencies. Masts in place on the Levenmouth branch and feederes already connected.

In addition, they refer to the Edinburgh to Fife electrification as "STEALTH ELECTRIFICATION". This means masts are going in while formal approval is awaited.


View attachment 175445

I'm glad to hear they're still committed to electrification, even if timescales have changed a bit!

 

[WAO]

Furthermore, SFS could be blended with an AT system maybe?? A 132kV connection could feed a 2x25kV system via an SFC.

There's not much point as both systems have the object of maintaining the contact wire voltage. The AT system does it by topping up at the AT sites; the SFC does it by increasing current delivered (electronically) to deliver 27.5kV, the top end of the spec, increasing current with demand. This has the virtuous circle effect of reducing traction current demand and hence losses as pantographs see a generally higher voltage at the contact wire. The PWI presentation explains this more fully.

I imagine that NR will want to digest the performance and cost of the initial Hambleton site before making further technical committments (I would). This may mean a delay in say the MML Ratcliffe FS decision.

WAO

 

[GraphitProjekt]

There's not much point as both systems have the object of maintaining the contact wire voltage. The AT system does it by topping up at the AT sites; the SFC does it by increasing current delivered (electronically) to deliver 27.5kV, the top end of the spec, increasing current with demand. This has the virtuous circle effect of reducing traction current demand and hence losses as pantographs see a generally higher voltage at the contact wire. The PWI presentation explains this more fully.

So does an SFC FS have an equivalent power output to an ATFS, or is somewhere between ATFS and classic FS but good enough for the applications that AT was offered for? Because I thought SFCs were all about efficiency and reducing disbalance on the supply side.

This may mean a delay in say the MML Ratcliffe FS decision.

Maybe they should delay the Chesterfield FS instead lol. Wasn't MML descoped from AT to Classic, presumably without changing any grid supply locations? I suppose this suggests MML didn't actually need the AT system, except maybe to feed more trains in its sections (probably freight trains).

That being said, some of the rough mileages suggest it's a bit too much of a stretch to use the classic system (especially for 125mph and maybe even some freight one day?). Apparently the average distance between grid supply points on at AT system is 80km (~50 miles) while the classic system tops out at 60km(~37 miles). If you apply this to the GSPs on MML you get , Borehamwood to Long Meadow Farm (21 miles), Long Meadow Farm to Braybrook (45 miles), Braybrook to Ratcliffe (36miles), Ratcliffe to Chesterfield (27 miles). Those first two areas are currently being supplied in classic mode albeit without the full electric timetable.

If you break it down to Feeder Station to Mid-point mileages (which is maybe more indicative tbh) the longest sections are Braybrook Sharnbrook and Ratcliffe to Wigston both at around 25 miles. There are some BR era classic feeder stations which do those distances but not on a 4 track 125mph busy line!

 

[WAO]

So does an SFC FS have an equivalent power output to an ATFS, or is somewhere between ATFS and classic FS but good enough for the applications that AT was offered for? Because I thought SFCs were all about efficiency and reducing disbalance on the supply side.

The latest SFC is modular, sharing common modules with other applications, so you can choose your rating.
Hambleton has two SFC's, each of 80MVA, so twice the 2 x 40MVA of Patford Bridge ATFS.
A disadvantage is that you can't overload it for very long (two seconds at Doncaster's 1 x 30MVA Potteric Carr site!), whereas you can overload a transformer for some time.

The PWI video explains this all properly.

WAO

 

[HSTEd]

In the very long term, combining autotransformer feeding with static frequency converters is likely to be desirable.

The ultimate SFC system would be one in which the entire 25kV system is fed by converters and operates in parallel. Auto transformer feeding would allow feeder capacity to be shared as required over much longer distances.

 

[GraphitProjekt]

The ultimate SFC system would be one in which the entire 25kV system is fed by converters and operates in parallel.

Is it favourable to have a nation spanning power transmission system run entirely off power electronics. I don't know much about this, but I recall some Swedish engineers commenting about maintaining a mix of rotary converter and solid state machinery to run the 16.7hz system because it's a good backup to have real physical things spinning around. Hence the National Grid interest in building flywheel storage as more renewable generation is added.

Auto transformer feeding would allow feeder capacity to be shared as required over much longer distances.

Well I guess you could say the autotransformer system has the transmission characteristics of 50kV. But that still isn't that high for being able to usefully spread power around the country. Either you have a lot more grid connections/feeder stations that is necessary for day-to-day operation which sit around on standby, or a single phase HV backbone system, like they have in Germany, to get a useful amount of alternative feeding connections.

The thing with sending power up and down the OLE at great distances, is that it's probably a problem with the OLE which is what you're trying to get around. I think what you would need, is new connections between railway substations which aren't OLE and which don't follow the paths of railways, that actually would offer the ability to move power around in a useful way. Like say, in northeast London, you could connect Bury Street Jnc MPTSC (where the Enfield Town branch diverges) to Wood Lane FS on the ECML - and share power between the Lea Valley lines and ECML in a way that is basically impracticable through the OLE. Or maybe between Shenfield FS on GEML and West Horndon FS on the LTS mainline. None of those distances are very long.

However, you are just copying what the electricity grid is doing so at that point and with a much lower voltage.

 

[Adam Evans]

I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be any plans in the pipeline to electrify the CLC Line between Liverpool and Manchester or more precisely between South Parkway and Manchester United Football Ground given that that's just as busy if not busier than the Chat Moss Line.

I would've thought electrification of the CLC would allow for a more reliable and consistent service across all the stations rather than the skip-stopping of some stations on the local services. Plus also increased capacity with longer trains etc.

 

[Tetragon213]

Did anything ever come about with the rumblings of discontinuous extensions of Third Rail down to Exeter via Salisbury? Or was that just another hyper-speculative pipedream?