The last of the current AGR sites still has a few years left of operation and then it’ll take several years after to fully defuel them. That takes us well into the 2030s, long enough for sites not even approved at present to have been built and operational
Realistically we don’t know what nuclear power plants will be operational in 2040, nor what requirements they will or won’t have for nuclear flask traffic. Hinkley Point and the long closed Trawsfynydd may have on site storage for medium level nuclear waste but not every site will.
None of the reactors currently approved or undergoing approval under the Generic Design Assessment process are likely to require significant flask traffic.
Current policy is for onsite storage of all but low level waste, which will be shipped regularly to Drigg.
However, low level waste is likely to be in quantities too small to justify a rail connection and will probably be under road shipment throughout.
And in order to be operational by 2040 it is likely that a reactor would have to start GDA in the very near future, if it has not done so already. Although maybe a miracle will occur and we will actually be able to build a power station in five years rather than ten to fifteen.
Spent AGR fuel isn’t the only material that is transported in Nuclear flasks, there’s also the MOD traffic which whilst limited will continue indefinitely and some commercial sites (Hartlepool definitely, possibly also Heysham and Torness) will need intermediate level waste removing for storage elsewhere too.
With the closure of HMS Vulcan and the development of whole-life submarine cores, I am not sure there will really be much future MoD traffic. We would not expect any nuclear submarine refueling from now on and the impasse over defueling of earlier submarines is probably not going to be resolved any itme soon.
DRS is owned by the NDA (which is state owned) and new locos were required for the work as the 20s, 37s and 47s previously doing it were life expired. Nuclear flask workings isn’t a market, it’s a company moving its own material by rail using its own fleet of locomotives.
The 68s are also iirc designed so that they can be converted to 25kV AC locos in the future if the work they were procured for dried up before the end of the locos economic life.
So no, the procurement of the 68s absolutely was justified.
Conversion into four-axle electric mixed traffic locomotives, one of the few markets that is even more overserved than the four-axle diesel market!
A four axle Class 68 conversion is likely to have little to recommend it over a Class 92, let alone something more modern like a Class 99.
Forgive me if I am even more cynical than usual about the prospect for conversion.
Given the tiny size of most flask workings, they probably would have been better served buying something that more closely resembles an MPV than a conventional freight locomotive.
You have far too much confidence in all of the AGR sites closing in the advertised timescales. There’s a history of extending the lifespan of these plants in the UK repeatedly for as long as it’s safe to do so. I can see further extensions happening to the working lives of the remaining AGR sites into the 2030s. Obviously there comes a point where they have to be shut down, and I gather that Torness isn’t far off that point and might not even make it to its planned closure date, but for as long as it’s safe to keep running them the likelihood is that they’ll stay open indefinitely.
The problem is that the previous closure dates were a result of accounting assumptions, but we have now reached the hard graphite neutron fluence limit. The cores are literally (simultaneously) dissolving and crumbling into powder, they will no longer be able to withstand the design basis earthquake within the next couple of years. At that time, whatever the Treasury wants, it will be the end.
We will likely not see any further life extensions for any of the AGR reactors, and as you say, I would be surprised if Torness and Heysham 2 actually make it to 2028.
