Suggestions to phase out diesel-only rolling stock if electrification does not progress as quickly as planned

[Energy]

Yes. A new heating system and a re-wire are very common jobs when refurbishing a house that's getting on somewhat.

When people get a new heating system to they replace all the piping?

 

[Bletchleyite]

When people get a new heating system to they replace all the piping?

Depends what they are changing from and to. Switching to a heat pump often needs the radiators to be replaced as the lower water temperature requires larger ones. Switching from a blown-air system to a hot-water system would require a completely new installation. And there are still houses out there (mostly owned by older people) with no central heating at all, so the first thing the new buyer will likely do is fit it from scratch (and those houses also tend to have old electrical systems, so a rewire too).

So in short, it's economical to change more or less anything about a house, provided it's not literally falling down (railway equivalent: rusting to bits).

 

[Greybeard33]

The propulsion system is a much higher proportion of the cost of a multiple unit than the heating system is of a house. Particularly when you include the bogies. I am no expert, but an electric motor bogie (331) is clearly radically different to a cardan shaft drive (195).

 

[Bletchleyite]

The propulsion system is a much higher proportion of the cost of a multiple unit than the heating system is of a house. Particularly when you include the bogies. I am no expert, but an electric motor bogie (331) is clearly radically different to a cardan shaft drive (195).

Clearly so, but if you can design an electric motor and gearbox to drive the cardan shaft then you've potentially got an EMU.

 

[Energy]

How different are the bogies on a 195 vs 331? Is it possible to change the 195 bogies from cardan shaft to bogie mounted motors?

 

[BayPaul]

Batteries have surely got to be the way to achieve this. On a different thread @Bald Rick suggested that it would only be a few years before battery powered trains could comfortably bridge 50 mile gaps in electrification, and that if the generator unit on the battery trial GWR 802 that is replaced with a battery weighing the same as the GU, then it would have a 30 min range at full power, which to my mind means that a nationwide intermittent electrification programme based on wiring up busy areas, but leaving battery gaps seems very sensible. For my mind this would mean

• Complete electrification of key mainlines (i.e. Great Western to Oxford and Bristol, Midland Mainline, Transpenine) and busy suburban networks (e.g. more of Manchester, Valley Lines, Snow Hill lines, Marylebone - High Wycombe etc), but with gaps where bridge / station / tunnel / level crossings etc would make electrification tricky, and with small traction batteries on these trains to bridge the gaps - similar to the planned Valley lines scheme. Batteries of this size should be able to be fitted simply to most existing EMUs
• For suburban networks, consider cross-linking lines the other way around to current - i.e. an electrified line runs across the city to a non-electrified line, to allow them all to be run by BEMUs, charging at one end
• Electrification of 'recharge networks' which would allow a BEMU to recharge back up to full power before it needs to do another 50 mile 'jump' to the next wired section. An example would be to electrify Taunton - Plymouth. This would reduce the gap to Newbury (for London Trains) and Bristol (for XC and GWR stoppers) to within an achievable distance, whilst also allowing a BEMU Devon Metro service as well. Another example would be the Chiltern mainline - if the suburban bits at either end were electrified then the longer distance trains should have the range to complete the journey to Birmingham. Equally, for Cross Country, the gaps from Birmingham to Bristol, Oxford and Derby are not enormous.
• Where most of a line is electrified, a BEMU should be able to extend services on non-electrified branches such as Uckfield and Windermere
• Short self contained branches and branch lines that run partly on electrified track provided with BEMUs, and fast charging stations at one or both ends. These chargers can have their own batteries, to allow them to trickle charge off the mains, rather than overloading local networks. Where the local network isn't enough for this, then these lines will need to be DMU. Where the turnaround time isn't long enough for charging, focus would be on speeding up the line a little, to get the few extra minutes, taking advantage of the better acceleration of a BEMU than a typical 150.
• Consider wiring obvious gaps that could mean that an otherwise BEMU could be replaced by an EMU, but this should be a lower priority than the above
• That leaves mainly long, fairly lightly trafficked lines such as the Cornish mainline, Cambrian Mainline, North Wales, Tyne Valley, West Highland, Far North etc. Initially these would get diesels (or bi-modes for Cornwall / North Wales long distance trains), with a long term plan for them to move to hydrogen / battery as technology improves, or to add more electrification. The amount of CO2 produced by these would be very small, so can be low down the priority list, though obviously it needs to go eventually.

As all of this happens, I would have a 'fat controller' style of cascade, with 150/153/155/156/ GWR HSTs going first, followed by 158/165/166/175, leaving just 185/170/172/19x for the remaining branches. Long distance DMUs, HSTs (and DEMUs not realisitically convertible to bi-modes i.e. Voyagers) should all be replaced with 80x type trains ASAP, as in all cases they can already start using electricity for a good proportion of the run. I would consider moving some or all of the 755s away from Anglia, as they mainly operate on lines that fit the above battery profile, and put them onto routes that require a bi-mode

The above seems quite achievable in a sensible time-scale and without ridiculous spend.

 

[Domh245]

How different are the bogies on a 195 vs 331? Is it possible to change the 195 bogies from cardan shaft to bogie mounted motors?

Even if the 195 bogies weren't capable of being converted, it should be possible to just completely swap the bogies out for new ones with bogie mounted motors

 

[Energy]

Even if the 195 bogies weren't capable of being converted, it should be possible to just completely swap the bogies out for new ones with bogie mounted motors

Probably.

 

[Irascible]

Batteries have surely got to be the way to achieve this. On a different thread @Bald Rick suggested that it would only be a few years before battery powered trains could comfortably bridge 50 mile gaps in electrification, and that if the generator unit on the battery trial GWR 802 that is replaced with a battery weighing the same as the GU, then it would have a 30 min range at full power, which to my mind means that a nationwide intermittent electrification programme based on wiring up busy areas, but leaving battery gaps seems very sensible. For my mind this would mean ... [snipped]

One of the attractions of batteries with auto pan control ( as is already going on ) is you can just wire up random bits & miss out the expensive parts - so to take Cornwall ( or Taunton-Plymouth, even ) as an example you could wire up the hills, the train can regen down the hill and then it's got a full charge to take it to the next big hill when it can feed off the overhead again. Patchwork like that would probably depend a bit on sourcing local power feeds otherwise you're probably a long way to wiring it all anyway, but it's a really interesting far less all-or-nothing way of thinking about it. It's not a new concept because it's doing what a hybrid does except drawing off the OHL and of course it depends if the battery system actually works properly, but I like the idea of electrification being on-the-move charging points, far more flexible ( and cheaper! ). This does mean we really *really* have to start taking OHL/3rail capable DEMUs basically now with the intent of swapping off the diesel genset for battery at some point in the future.

 

[43096]

Bombardier offers an Aventra with diesel, though I think it was unveiled after Northern's contracts were signed

Not any more it doesn't. Alstom on the other hand...

 

[Greybeard33]

Clearly so, but if you can design an electric motor and gearbox to drive the cardan shaft then you've potentially got an EMU.

Except that you have then used up some of the underfloor space between the bogies that you need for the batteries, traction converter, etc....

 

[Bald Rick]

The whole premise of the thread is slightly flawed. It is proposed that diesel only trains are eliminated from the Network by 2040, although note that this is not legislated. Also note the government did legislate to have removed all no PRM compliant trains over a year ago, and we know how that ended up. Hybrids, whether electric / battery + diesel will be a part of the answer

Having said that, there will be electrification. By 2040 I’d expect the MML to be done (including to Leeds / Donny), Trans Pennine via Diggle and probably via Edale, Derby - Birmingham, Didcot to Birmingham, Birmingham to Worcester both ways, and the Chiltern line.

Battery trains will be part of the answer, to enable intermittent electrification over some fairly big gaps. But there is a difficulty there - you don’t really want electrification ‘islands’ to be too small. For security of supply you need 2 feeder stations for any such island, and feeders are expensive; once you have bigger stretches an FS will typically provide back up for 2 others (one either side), and sometimes more.

Clearly there’s a lot of progress to be made on this yet, but my guess is that gaps in the OLE will either be relatively small (eg a mile or two to cover particularly difficult areas, with an along track feeder bridging the gap), or longer but relatively few in number.

Anyone got the breakdown in costs for a km of OHLE on plain line? ( including supply ). I wonder if we could start packaging ( conceptually ) planning & installs of say 10km or 20km ( or whatever distance 5 mins at line speed covers ) sections of knitting on the easiest stretches of line we can find, to keep topping up dual-mode battery EMUs ( or even freight locomotives ).

£3m per single track km all in. About half of that is civils, stations, signalling etc., so in very simple areas with few bridges / stations etc you might get away with £2m. But you will want 50-80km stretches of route to justify 2 feeders, or some thick extension leads.

 

[Greybeard33]

Battery trains will be part of the answer, to enable intermittent electrification over some fairly big gaps. But there is a difficulty there - you don’t really want electrification ‘islands’ to be too small. For security of supply you need 2 feeder stations for any such island, and feeders are expensive; once you have bigger stretches an FS will typically provide back up for 2 others (one either side), and sometimes more.

Clearly there’s a lot of progress to be made on this yet, but my guess is that gaps in the OLE will either be relatively small (eg a mile or two to cover particularly difficult areas, with an along track feeder bridging the gap), or longer but relatively few in number.

Might technology come to the rescue here, in the form of small static frequency converters that can feed an "island" from the local DNO network? Combined with sufficient reserve battery capacity that trains can cope with one failed island, so you don't need redundant feeder stations?

 

[Bald Rick]

Might technology come to the rescue here, in the form of small static frequency converters that can feed an "island" from the local DNO network? Combined with sufficient reserve battery capacity that trains can cope with one failed island, so you don't need redundant feeder stations?

Yes that’s a possibility. As is ‘trickle charged’ trackside batteries that then feed a train in section. The latter is more likely for end of branch line recharging - Newquay would be a good example.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Except that you have then used up some of the underfloor space between the bogies that you need for the batteries, traction converter, etc....

Some of it, yes. That said, I don't know about 331s specifically, but I do know that one of the four vehicles on a 350 has basically nothing other than a compressed air reservoir under it. That's a heck of a lot of battery space, so you'd easily find room for a couple of electric motors and final drives, albeit at the cost of some rejigging.

Yes, you're in essence building a new train, but on an existing, perfectly-good bodyshell and set of above-floor ancillaries - the same principle as a 230, I guess.

I suspect the most difficult thing would be cutting a pantograph well and modifying the structure not to be weakened by that if you wanted OHLE power, but there are other options.

 

[6Gman]

As more diesel-only units become life expired, their replacements would come in the form of bi or tri-modes, and allow electrification to be prioritised on the busiest routes.

I wonder what the whole-life carbon impact of carting a tri-mode capability around is?

 

[Irascible]

£3m per single track km all in. About half of that is civils, stations, signalling etc., so in very simple areas with few bridges / stations etc you might get away with £2m. But you will want 50-80km stretches of route to justify 2 feeders, or some thick extension leads.

You do not, presumably, have to make that 80km of contiguous OLE though - so you can skip tunnels, stations, awkward bridges, expensive stuff? and just parts you don't feel are necessary. I take it 40km or so is about as far from a feeder as you want to go? although you could have battery reservoirs at the ends & use them to feed further sections etc.

 

[Bald Rick]

You do not, presumably, have to make that 80km of contiguous OLE though - so you can skip tunnels, stations, awkward bridges, expensive stuff? and just parts you don't feel are necessary. I take it 40km or so is about as far from a feeder as you want to go? although you could have battery reservoirs at the ends & use them to feed further sections etc.

You don’t have to, but there’s all sorts of reasons why you don’t want pantographs being raised and lowered regularly, not least that it increases the chance of a failure.

 

[Irascible]

You don’t have to, but there’s all sorts of reasons why you don’t want pantographs being raised and lowered regularly, not least that it increases the chance of a failure.

I see that - somewhere improvements in tech might help ( plenty of robot arms do many cycles per hour & hybrid tech is going to have to make switching power source reliable ) given they're generally designed to go up & stay up right noe. At least you could have dead sections of wire through places that'd otherwise be expensive due to clearance issues, so you only have to worry about mechanical clearances.

 

[SynthD]

Can one feeder station power two sections isolated from each other?

 

[Elecman]

Can one feeder station power two sections isolated from each other?

Only if you connect it via independent feeder cables ( aka long extension leads)

 

[Bald Rick]

Can one feeder station power two sections isolated from each other?

Only if you connect it via independent feeder cables ( aka long extension leads)

Strictly speaking, many feeders usually do power two sections, occasionally three, isolated from each other; it’s just they are isolated by a neutral section about a metre long.

I suspect you meant can one feeder station power two sections isolated from each other by another section - in which case you need a long extension lead!

 

[mrgreen]

You don’t have to, but there’s all sorts of reasons why you don’t want pantographs being raised and lowered regularly, not least that it increases the chance of a failure.

I guess that the risks of raising/lowering pantographs are smaller when at a station than in motion: less risk of the changeover location being wrong, dynamic forces less a problem, less risk of bringing knitting down when stationary, and in case of failure then at least it's a failure in a station. So, for instance, for the Chiltern mainline, pantographs would go up at Marylebone to charge from a short length of OLE. Then run out of London on battery and change back to the OLE at a Beaconsfield or High Wycombe stop, once clear of 4th rail, multiple bridges, and junctions. Assuming 25 - 30 miles on battery isn't stretching it.

 

[Irascible]

Strictly speaking, many feeders usually do power two sections, occasionally three, isolated from each other; it’s just they are isolated by a neutral section about a metre long.

I suspect you meant can one feeder station power two sections isolated from each other by another section - in which case you need a long extension lead!

Or go from feeder -> OLE -> cable >- OLE? in future you could replace cable sections with more knitting.

I guess that the risks of raising/lowering pantographs are smaller when at a station than in motion: less risk of the changeover location being wrong, dynamic forces less a problem, less risk of bringing knitting down when stationary, and in case of failure then at least it's a failure in a station. So, for instance, for the Chiltern mainline, pantographs would go up at Marylebone to charge from a short length of OLE. Then run out of London on battery and change back to the OLE at a Beaconsfield or High Wycombe stop, once clear of 4th rail, multiple bridges, and junctions. Assuming 25 - 30 miles on battery isn't stretching it.

GWR ( and presumably other 80x bimode operators ) switch on the move - it really is not a great problem to solve moving an arm up & down on the move and switching input ( with batteries not even the latter and that iis a hybrid problem in general ), it's just a *new* one. One of the ideas of partial electrification is not to wire complicated stations.

 

[HSTEd]

Solid State converter substations will somewhat mitigate against the costs of isolated feeder sections over the long term, because ultimately they allow phase breaks to be abolished entirely and the entire traction power system to operate in parallel.

At which point you can just erect power lines carrying the single phase supply wherever it is convenient.

 

[Bald Rick]

Or go from feeder -> OLE -> cable >- OLE? in future you could replace cable sections with more knitting.

GWR ( and presumably other 80x bimode operators ) switch on the move - it really is not a great problem to solve moving an arm up & down on the move and switching input ( with batteries not even the latter and that iis a hybrid problem in general ), it's just a *new* one. One of the ideas of partial electrification is not to wire complicated stations.

As ever - automatic systems work brilliantly - except when they don’t. In this case you will have drivers doing something they are trained for, but rarely do, which can lead to errors. The incident at Neville Hill was triggered, in part, by a driver manually overriding the auto pan drop system.

 

[Irascible]

As ever - automatic systems work brilliantly - except when they don’t. In this case you will have drivers doing something they are trained for, but rarely do, which can lead to errors. The incident at Neville Hill was triggered, in part, by a driver manually overriding the auto pan drop system.

Aye, it's a risk in any industry ( I can vividly remember the day one person's misconfiguration in Florida brought down the entire internet given I was responsible for a little part of it at the time ) - it's something the air transport industry has been dealing with for some time, although the cost of failure there is generally more in human lives than infrastructure. I don't feel we should be frightened of trying, though; if it costs us a bit more in recurrent training then we should be paying for more recurrent training, same as we should for pilots. Large-scale battery tech like this is in its infancy still so there is time to iron out procedural elements as well as technical.

( also and I hate to say it, but in a world where self-driving cars are looking practical without any changes to the road network, if the rail industry can't solve automated power changeovers then it needs to have a good look at itself... )

 

[zwk500]

if the rail industry can't solve automated power changeovers then it needs to have a good look at itself... )

It's not doing it that's the problem, it's doing it safely, without failure, and without time penalty several hundred times a day (across all units).

 

[Bald Rick]

also and I hate to say it, but in a world where self-driving cars are looking practical without any changes to the road network, if the rail industry can't solve automated power changeovers then it needs to have a good look at itself...

Fair analogy, but it’s not the automatic part that’s a problem. If you drive a car with reversing sensors, and they stop working, you know you have to look out for yourself. But one day you’ll forget...

 

[Bevan Price]

With us having railways under the "influence" of DfT, and Treasury, I suspect the chance of not needing DMUs after 2040 is close to zero.
Battery technology will play a part in the future, but not as much as some people might expect. There are limits as to how much power can be obtained from chemical reactions (which is how batteries function); they gradually lose capacity after multiple recharging, and some of them contain expensive materials. Their most useful function is likely to be for lowish-speed services, rather than high speed operation (100 mph plus).
(Very roughly, it requires a sixfold increase in power consumption to double the speed of a train.)

From memory, the 1st generation era battery mu could operate one round trip between Aberdeen & Ballater, which was 86 miles - but restricted mostly to 40/50 mph. Modern battery technology should be able to increase that distance, but not if you try to run at 90 to 100 mph.