What was the driver for electrification?

[HSTEd]

LUL used to and Deutsche Bahn still do (there's one between Airport & Hbf in Cologne)

Indeed, until Merkel went mad DB used to draw significant power from a special generating set at a nuclear power station.....

16.7Hz single phase.

 

[Brystar35]

Electric Traction is good because its alot more lighter and very efficient.

Also its good that Britain is electriftying the Great Western Main Line and the Midland Main Line, also the Chiltern Main Line is going to be electrfied which is a great plus.

I think the driver has to be the climate change and being more efficent as i see more and more EMU's being produced much more then DMU's so thats what is driving Electrfication.

High Speed 2, Thameslink upgrade, Crossrail, huge ridership projections that i am very happy to see the Railways in Britain as busy as ever, alot more is what is driving the electrfication process, also the britain railways are getting massive upgrades to the exisiting Railways.

I wish the same thing happened to our Railways in the United States we do need High Speed Rail and Electrication on our Railways but not without congress stopping pointless wars for that to happen.

 

[Bald Rick]

Electric rail traction is actually a rounding error on national electricity demand.

Maybe, but Network Rail is the largest single purchaser of electricity in the UK.

 

[Kettledrum]

If you mean the relatively recent enthusiasm for electrification after 15 years of next to no wiring:

a) diesels are increasingly unaffordable and still have significant emissions problems
b) hydrogen fuel cells (the previous nirvana) are still years/decades off viability
c) the major European manufacturers are uninterested in designing diesel trains, as the UK is virtually alone in wanting a big diesel fleet
d) we are in a phase of growth on the railway and the time is ripe for investment
e) all the advantages noted by others above still apply
f) the major schemes (GW, NW, TP etc) are triggered by life-expiry of existing diesel trains and there will be a surplus of useable electric units from Thameslink/Crossrail which would otherwise be parked

The electric spine is to jump-start electric freight and DC-AC conversion, plus wiring the MML and the east-west rail route.

But the U-turn is amazing.
I remember one Transport Minister saying the public didn't know or care what traction was used, and diesels were cheaper and quicker to build.

The ignorance of some previous Transport Ministers has been spectacularly short sighted. For me Lord Adonis was a game changer here and fortunately his successors have carried on where he left off.

 

[HowardGWR]

Electric rail traction is actually a rounding error on national electricity demand.

Do you have a link HSTEd to those percentages - and is it available for diesel consumption in the same way?

I ask because given that transport overall is a quarter of consumption, I found your 'rounding error' statement somewhat eyebrow-raising.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Network rail electricity consumption is 1.8% of national generation. With all added schemes (excluding HS2) this is expected to rise to just below 2.5%.

Source, IMechE presentation by network rail.

 

[D365]

Electric Traction is good because its alot more lighter and very efficient.

Also its good that Britain is electriftying the Great Western Main Line and the Midland Main Line, also the Chiltern Main Line is going to be electrfied which is a great plus.

I think the driver has to be the climate change and being more efficent as i see more and more EMU's being produced much more then DMU's so thats what is driving Electrfication.

High Speed 2, Thameslink upgrade, Crossrail, huge ridership projections that i am very happy to see the Railways in Britain as busy as ever, alot more is what is driving the electrfication process, also the britain railways are getting massive upgrades to the exisiting Railways.

I wish the same thing happened to our Railways in the United States we do need High Speed Rail and Electrication on our Railways but not without congress stopping pointless wars for that to happen.

It is well established that electric traction is better than diesel (steam being the only other traction system which has been widely adopted). Chiltern Main Line electrification isn't confirmed but is a future aspiration.

Although ROSCOs are reluctant to order further DMUs, we are going to need them. One of my favourite ideas brings around 40 Turbostars, slimmed-down 185s or something of the type to South West with the 158/159 fleet cascaded to existing operators to cover for DDA refurbishments and the 2020 Pacer replacement deadline. Future electrification should be able to gradually replace Sprinters.

Improvements are (almost!) always good but the system by which revenue services are operated is horribly inefficient... But we do not need to discuss this here again.

 

[HSTEd]

Do you have a link HSTEd to those percentages - and is it available for diesel consumption in the same way?

I ask because given that transport overall is a quarter of consumption, I found your 'rounding error' statement somewhat eyebrow-raising.

Supposedly the railway industry consumed something on order of 760,000t of oil last year, presumably almost entirely in the form of diesel.

That might sound like a lot, but once you account for a ~35% engine efficiency that translates to an average power of something like ~380MWe.

So we could electrify everything and we are down a small CCGT plant.

 

[D365]

Do you have a link HSTEd to those percentages - and is it available for diesel consumption in the same way?

I ask because given that transport overall is a quarter of consumption, I found your 'rounding error' statement somewhat eyebrow-raising.

Network rail electricity consumption is 1.8% of national generation. With all added schemes (excluding HS2) this is expected to rise to just below 2.5%.

Source, IMechE presentation by network rail.

Supposedly the railway industry consumed something on order of 760,000t of oil last year, presumably almost entirely in the form of diesel.

That might sound like a lot, but once you account for a ~35% engine efficiency that translates to an average power of something like ~380MWe.

So we could electrify everything and we are down a small CCGT plant.

Interesting. Who's volunteering to lend us £18bn and a couple of their weekends then

 

[kieron]

Supposedly the railway industry consumed something on order of 760,000t of oil last year, presumably almost entirely in the form of diesel.

That might sound like a lot, but once you account for a ~35% engine efficiency that translates to an average power of something like ~380MWe.

Electric traction isn't especially efficient, either. Electric trains account for 60% of rail journeys, but account for 43% of carbon emmisions, according to a 2010 report into transmission loss. One of the points it makes is that the DC network loses about 35% through its transformers, and through only benefiting from regenerative braking when there's another train in the right place to use the energy.

This statistic doesn't actually say too much about how efficient an AC train is in comparison with a similar diesel one, but it does suggest that electrification wouldn't have anything like that big an impact on energy use, even if the operator resisted the temptation to increase services.

Diesel is made more expensive by the way that TOCs are taxed heavily on the amount they use, but power stations are not.

 

[Tiny Tim]

As I said in another thread, I can forsee a VERY LIMITED return to coal burning steam locos for branch and secondary routes and perhaps for engineering trains.
There will allways be a demand for steam on heritage railways, and when maintaining 100+ year old steam locos becomes too expensive, I can forsee a small batch of new ones being built with a few destined for outlying bits of the national network.

I'd be surprised by even a 'very limited' return to steam. Not because coal isn't a viable fuel, but because steam locomotive technology hasn't been developed for modern needs. New build steam is already with us, but presently it uses old designs.

 

[Crisso]

Regarding the Woodhead Scheme - it was originally intended to include electrifying the line from Fairfield into Manchester Central and other short links, which would have been the stepping stone to extensions in the North West. Also, I believe it was planned to extend the Electrification south and south eastwards to Woodford Halse (maybe ultimately Marylebone?) and March respectively.

One thing I never understood, why not have dual voltage locomotives and emu's both 1500V dc/25Kv ac as they do abroad, particularly in France? Then, the Woodhead DC Network could have been continued to be of use, easily connected to the WCML AC Network.

Lastly , why not have left the Great Eastern electrification a self contained DC area as originally built and, used aforesaid dual voltage equipment for cross transfer freights, etc.?

 

[MattRobinson]

I'd be surprised by even a 'very limited' return to steam. Not because coal isn't a viable fuel, but because steam locomotive technology hasn't been developed for modern needs. New build steam is already with us, but presently it uses old designs.

Burnt coal has larger particulate matter in the exhaust than diesel making it conform to regulations without as much processing. It's possible to design a diesel engine to run on coal dust (so wikipedia reliably informs me), so that may be a possible alternative to steam engine designs based on the days of old?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[krus_aragon]

I'd be surprised by even a 'very limited' return to steam. Not because coal isn't a viable fuel, but because steam locomotive technology hasn't been developed for modern needs. New build steam is already with us, but presently it uses old designs.

As an external combustion engine, a steam engine could be fired with substances other than coal. Going oil fired doesn't give much of a benefit over Diesel, though. More pressing is the matter of a water supply for these new branch line locos...

 

[Surreyman]

It is well established that electric traction is better than diesel (steam being the only other traction system which has been widely adopted). Chiltern Main Line electrification isn't confirmed but is a future aspiration.

Although ROSCOs are reluctant to order further DMUs, we are going to need them. One of my favourite ideas brings around 40 Turbostars, slimmed-down 185s or something of the type to South West with the 158/159 fleet cascaded to existing operators to cover for DDA refurbishments and the 2020 Pacer replacement deadline. Future electrification should be able to gradually replace Sprinters.

Improvements are (almost!) always good but the system by which revenue services are operated is horribly inefficient... But we do not need to discuss this here again.

Its been confirmed, there is no 2020 Pacer replacement deadline.
With ongoing electrification and life extension of existing stock, 'Self powered' trains won't need to be ordered for many years.

 

[Muzer]

Its been confirmed, there is no 2020 Pacer replacement deadline.
With ongoing electrification and life extension of existing stock, 'Self powered' trains won't need to be ordered for many years.

They do have to be either replaced or heavily upgraded (to comply with DDA) by then, though, surely?

 

[LE Greys]

Burnt coal has larger particulate matter in the exhaust than diesel making it conform to regulations without as much processing. It's possible to design a diesel engine to run on coal dust (so wikipedia reliably informs me), so that may be a possible alternative to steam engine designs based on the days of old?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

That may arise from confusion with gas turbine 18100, designed to run on diesel or potentially pulvarised coal. Back then, the idea was to have an engine capable of using domestic fuel instead of imported oil (similar to the alcohol-fuelled cars of France before WW1). I'm not sure what they would have done about flyash, but I think the concept has been tested at least once.

 

[HSTEd]

Electric traction isn't especially efficient, either. Electric trains account for 60% of rail journeys, but account for 43% of carbon emmisions, according to a 2010 report into transmission loss.

Those carbon emissions are the carbon emissions of the electricity generation which are possibly zero.
And that means that electric traction emits something like 30% less carbon than diesel traction, despite the average power demand by electric trains likely being far higher (in terms of wheel horsepower.hours demanded) due to higher speeds and more rapid, and often called for, acceleration.

One of the points it makes is that the DC network loses about 35% through its transformers, and through only benefiting from regenerative braking when there's another train in the right place to use the energy.

Which is one of the reasons that DC's days are numbered.

This statistic doesn't actually say too much about how efficient an AC train is in comparison with a similar diesel one, but it does suggest that electrification wouldn't have anything like that big an impact on energy use, even if the operator resisted the temptation to increase services.

AC traction comes out 90% efficient or so from the power station to the traction package, and a CCGT plant can top 50-60% efficiency now, they are laughing compared to diesel traction.

Diesel is made more expensive by the way that TOCs are taxed heavily on the amount they use, but power stations are not.

Railway traction fuel is currently exempt from Petroleum Fuel Duty.

EDIT:

And Union Pacific did convert one of its GTELs to run on coal, feeding coal dust into the turbines.
They rapidly concluded it was a very bad idea due to ash tearing the turbine blades apart and went back to firing Bunker oil.