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Transport Select Committee calls for cancelled electrification schemes to be reinstated

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AndrewE

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What is HS2 then?
A half-baked job that will only deliver a small proportion of what it might have delivered - at an outrageous price, and will principally benefit London. No link to Heathrow. Unnecessarily expensive because of unnecessarily high speed. Wasteful/inefficient terminal stations in London and Birmingham. I could go on...
 
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Senex

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A half-baked job that will only deliver a small proportion of what it might have delivered - at an outrageous price, and will principally benefit London. No link to Heathrow. Unnecessarily expensive because of unnecessarily high speed. Wasteful/inefficient terminal stations in London and Birmingham. I could go on...
I'd agree with all of that and just add that the principal reason behind it was to provide extra capacity to serve short-distance movements into London by switching the longer-distance traffic to the new line — logical enough, as it's very much more straightforward to build a new line than widen an existing one. If you then build the new line to high-speed standards you can brag about bringing Birmingham closer to London and about the time-saving to be gained in the distant future for places north of Birmingham so as to take attention off the fact that it's really all for the benefit of London. So much money, that could have done so much to modernise and improve the existing system to a much shorter time-scale, bringing real benefits to places like Liverpool, Leeds, and Manchester which, apart from their links to London, do not really have fast modern train-services to any other destinations.
 

edwin_m

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I'd agree with all of that and just add that the principal reason behind it was to provide extra capacity to serve short-distance movements into London by switching the longer-distance traffic to the new line — logical enough, as it's very much more straightforward to build a new line than widen an existing one. If you then build the new line to high-speed standards you can brag about bringing Birmingham closer to London and about the time-saving to be gained in the distant future for places north of Birmingham so as to take attention off the fact that it's really all for the benefit of London. So much money, that could have done so much to modernise and improve the existing system to a much shorter time-scale, bringing real benefits to places like Liverpool, Leeds, and Manchester which, apart from their links to London, do not really have fast modern train-services to any other destinations.
You're entitled to your view about HS2 but please base it on the facts rather than the other way round.

Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland will get quicker London services when the London-Birmingham section opens, as their trains will use that section and transfer to the exiting line. Phase 2 in 2032 will allow a vast improvement in journey time between Birmingham and Manchester, the north-east and to a lesser extent Scotland.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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A half-baked job that will only deliver a small proportion of what it might have delivered - at an outrageous price, and will principally benefit London. No link to Heathrow. Unnecessarily expensive because of unnecessarily high speed. Wasteful/inefficient terminal stations in London and Birmingham. I could go on...
But it is long-term and joined up, things you said politicians don't do.
And backed by all major parties.
 

B&I

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The benefits being what exactly? apart from being years late, vastly over budget, shambolic timetables, Unions with some TOC's going on strike every few weeks, why invest in a Railway which simply not delivering?


Or you could ask, why spend your time posting on a railway forum when you clearly hate railways and have no interest in them developing or improving ? If you need to ask what the benefit of electrification is, this rather tends to suggest that you never actually use them.

I don't expect you to have picked up on it in your impatience to let the railway have it with both barrels (including in respect of matters that have nowt to do with electrification), but the point I was making was that, by keeping a small-scale electrification programme rolling, you can retain and enhance skills, and hopefully help overcome some of the problems you complain about
 

swt_passenger

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A half-baked job that will only deliver a small proportion of what it might have delivered - at an outrageous price, and will principally benefit London. No link to Heathrow. Unnecessarily expensive because of unnecessarily high speed. Wasteful/inefficient terminal stations in London and Birmingham. I could go on...
I believe the reasoning behind not serving Heathrow directly was sound, and has been discussed a number of times in the HS2 sub-forum. Probably irrelevant to this thread anyway.
 

daikilo

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Does the Cardiff valleys qualify as small-scale given that it is supposed to be a train-tram not a tram-train network?
 

edwin_m

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Does the Cardiff valleys qualify as small-scale given that it is supposed to be a train-tram not a tram-train network?
From what I can tell it's a 25kV scheme though they may be using simpler OLE for lower speeds. The intermittent nature of it introduces more complication not less for the electrification engineer (compensated by the reduction in work on structures).
 

AndrewE

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But it is long-term and joined up, things you said politicians don't do.
And backed by all major parties.
Long-term, yes. Joined up? No (IMHO) Global warming? Pollution around west London? overheated local economy? ... I know, how about we increase Heathrow air traffic by 50%? How is that joined-up thinking?
(instead of freezing LHR as it is, reinstating lost transatlantic flights from regional airports, cutting shuttle flights - which would release slots - and putting in a good rail connection to the rest of the country.)
 
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cle

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This is absolutely THE KEY POINT. I agree 100%

Especially (without getting political) - we are at risk of bleeding manufacturing jobs in the coming years. This is something within our gift (as with house-building) but requires government support at the initial stage and recognition of the overall benefits. Successive governments have forgotten how to manage their own projects, again party agnostic, but NR have been among the better divisions for this. An electrification academy, with apprenticeships, and regionally dispersed skilled jobs, seems such a vote-winner and no-brainer.
 

HSTEd

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Well long-term joined up thinking would be to work to the closure of all the London Airports and the construction of a six runway airport in the Thames Estuary, it would cost a lot, yes - but it would enable a truly world class hub airport to be built.

And there would be noone affected by air pollution like they are today because noone lives nearby.

Really what we need is a Government backed programme to build an develop a feasible true ~3000hp CoCo electrodiesel with comparable power under all three power sources (third rail, 25kV and diesel).
These would then be built and leased to anyone who wanted to use one cheap, thus incentivising the use of electrification for all traffic where it is available.
That would drastically change the business case for electrification.
 

jayah

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Indeed. Electrification is disruptive Grayling tells us. So if you are building new or not on live railway, by definition if you electrify from the start you are not being disruptive.
The trouble is that East - West will not be heavily trafficked. You are saving thousands in diesel and be spending hundreds of £m. It will never stack up.
 

jayah

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Well long-term joined up thinking would be to work to the closure of all the London Airports and the construction of a six runway airport in the Thames Estuary, it would cost a lot, yes - but it would enable a truly world class hub airport to be built.

And there would be noone affected by air pollution like they are today because noone lives nearby.

Really what we need is a Government backed programme to build an develop a feasible true ~3000hp CoCo electrodiesel with comparable power under all three power sources (third rail, 25kV and diesel).
These would then be built and leased to anyone who wanted to use one cheap, thus incentivising the use of electrification for all traffic where it is available.
That would drastically change the business case for electrification.

Bi modes are the death knell of electrification because you run the same trains on the same track to the same timetable. The cost is diesel, 2.5 tonnes weight (~30pax) on every other vehicle and some externalities.
 

HSTEd

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Bi modes are the death knell of electrification because you run the same trains on the same track to the same timetable. The cost is diesel, 2.5 tonnes weight (~30pax) on every other vehicle and some externalities.

Yep, but large scale electrification has been killed by ORR (in my opinion) overegging the safety requirements for third rail and the balooning cost of 25kV projects.
It is now about ensuring the de-electrification maniacs don't get there way, as has been repeatedly suggested for Newcastle-Edinburgh.
 

47802

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Or you could ask, why spend your time posting on a railway forum when you clearly hate railways and have no interest in them developing or improving ? If you need to ask what the benefit of electrification is, this rather tends to suggest that you never actually use them.

I don't expect you to have picked up on it in your impatience to let the railway have it with both barrels (including in respect of matters that have nowt to do with electrification), but the point I was making was that, by keeping a small-scale electrification programme rolling, you can retain and enhance skills, and hopefully help overcome some of the problems you complain about
#
Ive used the railways for many years on an off including the years when the Railways had little investment and continuing decline, however unlike many on here I don't believe we should be giving the Railway a bottomless pit of money, or that Network Rail should continue to carry out Electrification at vast Cost and Time overruns without asking some serious questions, The Railway needs to get its costs in order and start delivering before any further electrification is even considered.

I was at Preston Station on the second day of the new Timetable and it was complete shambles, and of course the net result of all this investment on the Blackpool line was that you had to catch the Bus as there were hardly any trains running through to Blackpool of any sort let alone an Electric one.

And if in future Electrification schemes are going to be considerably more expensive than the cost originally estimated for many of the CP5 projects, then its going to call into question the financial case for many of these schemes.
 

GRALISTAIR

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I don’t want to go off and say something that will get deleted like “conspiracy theory” but if as rumored the DfT/ORR is really against electrification, then a conspiracy theory sounds not too implausible.
 
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B&I

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Ive used the railways for many years on an off including the years when the Railways had little investment and continuing decline, however unlike many on here I don't believe we should be giving the Railway a bottomless pit of money, or that Network Rail should continue to carry out Electrification at vast Cost and Time overruns without asking some serious questions, The Railway needs to get its costs in order and start delivering before any further electrification is even considered.

I was at Preston Station on the second day of the new Timetable and it was complete shambles, and of course the net result of all this investment on the Blackpool line was that you had to catch the Bus as there were hardly any trains running through to Blackpool of any sort let alone an Electric one.

And if in future Electrification schemes are going to be considerably more expensive than the cost originally estimated for many of the CP5 projects, then its going to call into question the financial case for many of these schemes.


Nobody doubts that electrification has to be done in a more cost-effective and efficient way. But there's a difference between that and saying a continued programme has no benefits. Scrap electrification completely and, when you come to restart, you're back to square one in terms of doing it cost-effectively and inefficient
 

jayah

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Yep, but large scale electrification has been killed by ORR (in my opinion) overegging the safety requirements for third rail and the balooning cost of 25kV projects.
It is now about ensuring the de-electrification maniacs don't get there way, as has been repeatedly suggested for Newcastle-Edinburgh.
Who has suggested de-electrification?

Doesn't sound remotely serious unless the kit needs ££m spending to keep it going.

Even if electrification costs were halved, you still can't justify spending £500m saving 1min between Kettering and Sheffield.
 

jayah

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Nobody doubts that electrification has to be done in a more cost-effective and efficient way. But there's a difference between that and saying a continued programme has no benefits. Scrap electrification completely and, when you come to restart, you're back to square one in terms of doing it cost-effectively and inefficient
There is no sense in spending £1bn on Kettering to Sheffield to deliver a very small operational cost saving and a trivial time saving. It is desperate times when £1bn has to be spend because of some absurd not thought through commitment to phase out diesel trains. When diesel trucks are phased out, then trains will follow as they are generally the same underfloor engines.
 

Railwaysceptic

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Who has suggested de-electrification?

Doesn't sound remotely serious unless the kit needs ££m spending to keep it going.

Even if electrification costs were halved, you still can't justify spending £500m saving 1min between Kettering and Sheffield.

Not all electrification projects have such a weak case. Doncaster to Hull, for example, if accompanied by re-signalling and track improvement, would save far more than a minute or two. It's utterly absurd that diesel trains run under the wires all the way from Kings Cross to Doncaster, then proceed across a flat landscape to Hull under a 75mph speed limit along mainly straight track with easy curves.
 

B&I

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There is no sense in spending £1bn on Kettering to Sheffield to deliver a very small operational cost saving and a trivial time saving. It is desperate times when £1bn has to be spend because of some absurd not thought through commitment to phase out diesel trains. When diesel trucks are phased out, then trains will follow as they are generally the same underfloor engines.


Better get ready in advance for diesel technology becoming obsolete then, rather than desperately trying to find different ways of powering trains when it does
 

Andyjs247

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The flip side is it costs money. What's the point of spending all the money on electrifying a route if the only stock that will be used on it for many years will be diesel only? As the new build sections will be hooking into non-electrified existing bits. That money could be spent on somewhere that can immediately make use of the wires.
My understanding is that East-West is being built with passive provision, so there should be far less disruption required if the decision is made later.
Not so. Whilst it would be eminently sensible to include passive provisions for electrification of East West Rail, several bridges which would require rebuilding for electrification are not now being rebuilt.

This is actually creating additional costs - additional consultations, environmental assessments having to be redone - as well as being a barrier to future electrification. Madness.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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Not all electrification projects have such a weak case. Doncaster to Hull, for example, if accompanied by re-signalling and track improvement, would save far more than a minute or two. It's utterly absurd that diesel trains run under the wires all the way from Kings Cross to Doncaster, then proceed across a flat landscape to Hull under a 75mph speed limit along mainly straight track with easy curves.

Hull Trains and LNER both have bi-modes coming which will use electric to Doncaster.
The case for Hull electrification based on the local Northern/TPE services is much less strong.
In a bi-mode era, the electrification priorities swing to diesel-miles replaced by electric.
Selby/Doncaster-Hull would come well down that sort of list, with the CLC or Calder Valley routes (4tph+) near the top.
Leeds-Selby might squeeze back in.
 

HSTEd

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Who has suggested de-electrification?

Doesn't sound remotely serious unless the kit needs ££m spending to keep it going.

Even if electrification costs were halved, you still can't justify spending £500m saving 1min between Kettering and Sheffield.

The Tony Blair government and occasionally the management of XC.

We could do more than half electrification costs, but it would take tough and potentially politically impossible decision making.
 

HSTEd

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You have me intrigued- care to expand a little?

You could, for example, set your basic safety objective type figure for third rail installations to a higher value which would force ORR to accept third rail installations as safe So Far As Is Reasonably Practicable.

You could also tell the EU to lump it and adopt our original 25kV specification.

Or you could adopt tram trains en-masse to replace essentially all regional services and electrify at 750Vdc overhead.

Or you could suspend existing line upgrades entirely and adopt a Shinkansen model - which honestly will likely deliver better results in the long term.

Preferably while avoiding the words "third rail" and "DC".

You got any suggestions beyond hope that the new kit that doesn't work miraculously starts working?
 
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