Why is it so hard to reopen a railway in Britain?

[nanstallon]

It was good to hear that the line from Newcastle to Ashington has at last been reopened to passengers, albeit with only two of the six stations that are planned. But the time and money it has taken is ridiculous.

This line was closed to passengers, under the Beeching cuts in 1964, but remained open to goods. Restoration of the passenger service was first mooted in the 1990s. When plans were finally put into motion five years ago, it was supposed to be an £160 million project ready in spring 2023. After delay upon delay, it’s now opening at a cost of an estimated £298 million.

And yet the Northumberland Line was hardly an HS2 mega project. There weren’t hundreds of miles of cuttings, embankments, expensive bridges (well, there was one of those and it was already in place as part of the goods line) or tunnels to contend with: the journey from Ashington to Newcastle is just 18 miles and 34 minutes long. Forget the issues of rare newts being disturbed or trees with Tree Preservation Orders growing through the points; the Northumberland Line has remained in use for freight trains all this time.

Britain is a rather pathetic country where it is extremely hard and expensive to get anything done.

 

[pint]

I've often wondered why costs are so staggeringly high and progress is so slow in the UK

 

[brad465]

The Dartmoor line I think reopened relatively quickly: Network Rail got funding and ownership in March 2021, then it reopened November that same year, costing around £40 million, including relaying track with associated works, plus doing up Okehampton station. The absolute earliest they could have started planning on the project was early 2020, when the heritage railway company went under.

Lines with no existing track and/or freight operations can have challenges regarding ageing infrastructure like bridges and tunnels (Meldon viaduct pretty much trashes any business case for the Dartmoor line going further south again), housing/other infrastructure built on former trackbed, and all sorts of surveying, among other work required.

Labour want to change planning rules to get housing development underway faster, but they'd do well to extend that to other infrastructure that supports housing developments, including new railway stations which also seem to take years to get up and running, even if on a well-served passenger line already. Slow construction is understandable if the railway is active, but planning and approval should be looked at for improvement I think.

 

[Mgameing123]

It was good to hear that the line from Newcastle to Ashington has at last been reopened to passengers, albeit with only two of the six stations that are planned. But the time and money it has taken is ridiculous.

This line was closed to passengers, under the Beeching cuts in 1964, but remained open to goods. Restoration of the passenger service was first mooted in the 1990s. When plans were finally put into motion five years ago, it was supposed to be an £160 million project ready in spring 2023. After delay upon delay, it’s now opening at a cost of an estimated £298 million.

And yet the Northumberland Line was hardly an HS2 mega project. There weren’t hundreds of miles of cuttings, embankments, expensive bridges (well, there was one of those and it was already in place as part of the goods line) or tunnels to contend with: the journey from Ashington to Newcastle is just 18 miles and 34 minutes long. Forget the issues of rare newts being disturbed or trees with Tree Preservation Orders growing through the points; the Northumberland Line has remained in use for freight trains all this time.

Britain is a rather pathetic country where it is extremely hard and expensive to get anything done.

Short term cost cutting can be a major reason why they never get anything done.

 

[birchesgreen]

I've often wondered why costs are so staggeringly high and progress is so slow in the UK

Because everything involving construction costs a lot and is slow in the UK.

 

[Basil Jet]

On the related matter of less dramatic enhancements, the phrase that I've been seeing for decades is
"We could afford to put in the passing loop now, but we can't afford to modify the signalling until it's life expired in 2043".
"We could afford the extra platform now, but we can't afford to modify the signalling until it's life expired in 2055".

Signalling's job is to stop trains, not stop the railway.

 

[gg1]

How do costs for major infrastructure projects (not just rail) compare to other wealthy European nations? Is the perception that Britain pays more a valid one or are costs in fact broadly comparable to our peers?

 

[pint]

How do costs for major infrastructure projects (not just rail) compare to other wealthy European nations? Is the perception that Britain pays more a valid one or are costs in fact broadly comparable to our peers?

google search shows infrastructure costs ( ie road/rail) in the UK are significantly higher than other European countries

 

[Tetchytyke]

When plans were finally put into motion five years ago, it was supposed to be an £160 million project ready in spring 2023. After delay upon delay, it’s now opening at a cost of an estimated £298 million.

Covid delayed everything by a couple of years. Not just this project.

And if construction had started in 2020 as planned then it would also have missed the last three years of 20% per annum inflation in construction costs. The rise in costs pretty much aligns with the inflation rate in the sector.

 

[HSTEd]

On the related matter of less dramatic enhancements, the phrase that I've been seeing for decades is
"We could afford to put in the passing loop now, but we can't afford to modify the signalling until it's life expired in 2043".
"We could afford the extra platform now, but we can't afford to modify the signalling until it's life expired in 2055".

Signalling's job is to stop trains, not stop the railway.

The dysfunction in the signalling industry has been much lamented on the pages of this forum, and I'm sure this is far from the only example.

 

[nanstallon]

So often, living in Cornwall, I hear on the radio that trains are being delayed by signalling problems, and it seems that the more they modernise the signalling the more often I hear of these delays. Perhaps the railway is getting too clever for its own (and our!) good.

 

[Meerkat]

If you look at the TWAO applications, or any decent sized planning application, you can see where a fair amount of the money goes. There are so many documents, reviews and studies involving so many different bunches of consultants - light, wind, TV reception, every animal and plant under the sun, multiple design reviews etc etc.*
And then they don't just build the thing they want - the environmental and drainage mitigation involves buying more land and more construction.

*Looked at an application for demolishing a row of shops - they had to get the bat expert in to look for bats, then get them back just before they started to look again, train the workers how to demolish in a bat friendly way, and train one of them to be the on site bat specialist!

 

[Technologist]

The dysfunction in the signalling industry has been much lamented on the pages of this forum, and I'm sure this is far from the only example.

What is the issue here, from a first principles basis signalling should be an industry that is "Moore's Law Adjacent" where what was once specialised and expensive is increasingly found implemented in smart phones for £1.50?

 

[HSTEd]

What is the issue here, from a first principles basis signalling should be an industry that is "Moore's Law Adjacent" where what was once specialised and expensive is increasingly found implemented in smart phones for £1.50?

Only a very limited number of players are willing to develop the sort of safety grade systems used in railway signalling, especially considering (unlike things like cars) there is very limited volume to be had.
Safety grade PLCs are now commodity items, to be sure, but the rest is not.

It appears that it is proving increasingly difficult to maintain anything resembling a market in the field. I think signalling is de-facto down to a duopoly in the UK?
The market failure then sets the stage for rapidly escalating costs, which then leads to further cutbacks in volume and it spirals.

In many ways its the same story as UK train manufacturing.

Perhaps it would be better if the railway simply returned to the (very old fashioned!) system of simply doing its own signalling work in house, but that is rather out of tune with the political mood music of the times. In any case it would require one of the signalling companies to be bought out, or for the railway to spend a decade and a billion pounds redeveloping its own products.

 

[Technologist]

Only a very limited number of players are willing to develop the sort of safety grade systems used in railway signalling, especially considering (unlike things like cars) there is very limited volume to be had.
Safety grade PLCs are now commodity items, to be sure, but the rest is not.

It appears that it is proving increasingly difficult to maintain anything resembling a market in the field. I think signalling is de-facto down to a duopoly in the UK?
The market failure then sets the stage for rapidly escalating costs, which then leads to further cutbacks in volume and it spirals.

In many ways its the same story as UK train manufacturing.

Perhaps it would be better if the railway simply returned to the (very old fashioned!) system of simply doing its own signalling work in house, but that is rather out of tune with the political mood music of the times. In any case it would require one of the signalling companies to be bought out, or for the railway to spend a decade and a billion pounds redeveloping its own products.

I thought that might be the case; I think the interesting example in recent history is SpaceX. It used first principles and incrementalism to argue that the development cost of a space vehicle should be about 1/10 of what it previously was and than production costs should be around 1/5. It then achieved these by simplifying the engineering process by vertically integrating. We get to the point today where SpaceX's biggest customer is now SpaceX!

It looks to me that the majority of the cost of signalling is in the integration and since change and schedule slippage is so contractually difficult and expensive a massive change control and requirements management process is build up around the design and test process. This will be where most of the cost is coming from, if the process was just to build, test, adjust many times over and the only say so needed was internal things could be done much faster and more flexibly.

 

[twpsaesneg]

If you look at the TWAO applications, or any decent sized planning application, you can see where a fair amount of the money goes. There are so many documents, reviews and studies involving so many different bunches of consultants - light, wind, TV reception, every animal and plant under the sun, multiple design reviews etc etc.*
And then they don't just build the thing they want - the environmental and drainage mitigation involves buying more land and more construction.

*Looked at an application for demolishing a row of shops - they had to get the bat expert in to look for bats, then get them back just before they started to look again, train the workers how to demolish in a bat friendly way, and train one of them to be the on site bat specialist!

It's worth pointing out (before some posters start jumping on the consultant bashing train) that all of these reviews, studies etc are due to UK legislation - they're not just made up for fun.

Compliance with Environmental and Ecological regulations have definitely started to be tightened up in the past few years and they can add an awful lot of work and delay to projects. And if you are going down a TWAO route on a scheme it only takes a few objections from folk to extend the process significantly.

Other European countries seem to have a much more centrally ordained direction for projects where local objections are overruled by central government for the "greater good". I would guess that the peasant farmer in China that loses his land to a new High Speed line doesn't get much of a say either

 

[HSTEd]

Other European countries seem to have a much more centrally ordained direction for projects where local objections are overruled by central government for the "greater good". I would guess that the peasant farmer in China that loses his land to a new High Speed line doesn't get much of a say either

The Chinese example is not quite that clear.
One of the major drivers for the very extensive use of viaducts in high speed rail in China is to minimise the land take and the disruption of construction.

 

[Meerkat]

It's worth pointing out (before some posters start jumping on the consultant bashing train) that all of these reviews, studies etc are due to UK legislation - they're not just made up for fun.

Compliance with Environmental and Ecological regulations have definitely started to be tightened up in the past few years and they can add an awful lot of work and delay to projects. And if you are going down a TWAO route on a scheme it only takes a few objections from folk to extend the process significantly.

Other European countries seem to have a much more centrally ordained direction for projects where local objections are overruled by central government for the "greater good". I would guess that the peasant farmer in China that loses his land to a new High Speed line doesn't get much of a say either

Totally agree, but it feels over the top with a distinct lack of proportionality. Need more replication for a start. Surrey has a scheme for the great crested newt issue that does a wide survey then allocates zones where it does and doesn't matter - should be no more miraculous late discoveries of the first newt in that place for centuries.....

Another big factor in cost increases that is less controversial but significant is that we now treat workers as people who need to be paid properly and kept in one piece. Just watch that film of them wiring the WCML by wandering about on top of a moving flat roofed coach, with no PPE and no guardrails!

 

[Indigo Soup]

We get to the point today where SpaceX's biggest customer is now SpaceX!

SpaceX owning Starlink probably has something to do with that.

But yes, there are a whole lot of things that the UK rail industry (and public sector generally) ought to be doing in house that are contracted out in pursuit of largely-imaginary savings from competition.

The Chinese example is not quite that clear.
One of the major drivers for the very extensive use of viaducts in high speed rail in China is to minimise the land take and the disruption of construction.

You also don't need to go nearly so far as China to find examples of 'the State says that the Big Infrastructure Project is happening. Please accept this cheque and vacate this land so we don't have to vacate it for you.'

 

[Meerkat]

But yes, there are a whole lot of things that the UK rail industry (and public sector generally) ought to be doing in house that are contracted out in pursuit of largely-imaginary savings from competition.

I tend to think that GBR should have smallish core teams in each sector and contract the rest. You have an in house comparator, and the contractors mean the in house cant just become hopelessly inefficient and or technologically stale. And the career progression is that your in house doers then become longer term in house experts with real experience to deal with the contractors. Obvious problem being in which fields an in house team can realistically compete with international scale contractors.
On the signalling front does GBR have the clout to insist on non-obsolescence - you support it or release the IP so we can?

 

[Halifaxlad]

I have previously thought that it might be faster and cheaper rebuilding lines the old fashioned way.

 

[HSTEd]

I tend to think that GBR should have smallish core teams in each sector and contract the rest. You have an in house comparator, and the contractors mean the in house cant just become hopelessly inefficient and or technologically stale. And the career progression is that your in house doers then become longer term in house experts with real experience to deal with the contractors. Obvious problem being in which fields an in house team can realistically compete with international scale contractors.
On the signalling front does GBR have the clout to insist on non-obsolescence - you support it or release the IP so we can?

The real problem is, in this sort of field, you risk being pressured into awarding contracts solely to keep competitors in the business.
Those contracts have to be awarded regardless of the quality of the product - so I don't think it is worth engaging in that sort of behaviour.

On the signallng front, it doesn't take much to keep production of hardware going (or just pile up parts for decades of operation), but persuading a private sector supplier to maintain technical support would be much more difficult.
I think the only way this approach is tenable is if signalling is brought entirely in house.

You can still buy obscure TTL chips from the 1970s because someone periodically orders run of them, or because of huge accumulated "New Old Stock" after all.
The proliferation of semiconductor fabs in the Moores law arms race has also produced lots of capacity for earlier generation hardware that has made that sort of thing quite cheap.

 

[twpsaesneg]

Totally agree, but it feels over the top with a distinct lack of proportionality. Need more replication for a start. Surrey has a scheme for the great crested newt issue that does a wide survey then allocates zones where it does and doesn't matter - should be no more miraculous late discoveries of the first newt in that place for centuries.....

That seems dangerously sensible!

 

[DM352]

Some thoughts:

Without taxes going up more or other budget area items cut, there seems to be limited money to build and then annually fund it. Growing up the Ivanhoe line to Burton was often on the cards but Leicester - Burton still not passenger service today despite Ashby having more population.

Lots of "studies" like Uckfield Lewis and Matlock Buxton going not much further as well.

Then if something does get built, it is built to minimal spec like single span bridges/single platforms making upgrades a high future cost.I do get one line is better than no line.

With mothballed lines, they often need to be ripped out and rebuilt. Existing route redoubling requires stations to be upgraded with elevators where before if singling never happened a footbridge was fine.

 

[nanstallon]

I wonder how much has been spent on endless feasibility studies and consultants' fees - probably enough to get a few lines reopened. Excuse the profanity, but Britain needs a spirit of JFDI.

 

[VItraveller]

not only that, but a number of construction companies have gone bankrupt, we were supposed to have three whole new stations opening up in Birmingham, the Camphill line but this has been delayed and may not even happen now, the new mayor seems more interested in buses because the contractors went bust

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Only a very limited number of players are willing to develop the sort of safety grade systems used in railway signalling, especially considering (unlike things like cars) there is very limited volume to be had.
Safety grade PLCs are now commodity items, to be sure, but the rest is not.
It appears that it is proving increasingly difficult to maintain anything resembling a market in the field. I think signalling is de-facto down to a duopoly in the UK?
The market failure then sets the stage for rapidly escalating costs, which then leads to further cutbacks in volume and it spirals.

Part of the signalling problem is perpetual UK exceptionalism, similar to things like electric plugs, driving on the left, and not-quite full metrication.
The UK railway developed in isolation from others and has a mostly unique set of signalling standards.
The global standards adopted over the years are not the UK ones, so we continue to be "different" and that costs money every time signalling is bought from one of the global majors.
The hope is that ETCS, as a de facto global standard, will mean more standardisation of signalling equipment and operation, including UK applications.
But the transition will be expensive.

 

[Bald Rick]

wonder how much has been spent on endless feasibility studies and consultants' fees - probably enough to get a few lines reopened.

But how would you know what to build, or which line to prioritise for reopening, if the studies were not done?

 

[The Planner]

not only that, but a number of construction companies have gone bankrupt, we were supposed to have three whole new stations opening up in Birmingham, the Camphill line but this has been delayed and may not even happen now, the new mayor seems more interested in buses because the contractors went bust

Of courss they are happening, where has it been said they would get abandoned more than half built?

 

[VItraveller]

Of courss they are happening, where has it been said they would get abandoned more than half built?

i’d be surprised if they do happen, despite what others say the railway is in a cost-cutting mood and many West Midlands projects won’t be delivered, and I think if they can find any excuse to cancel this they will.
Perhaps they won’t say that it’s been cancelled but they’ll keep delaying the timeline for the reopening.

West Midlands transport projects review finds delays and flaws

A review of plans to overhaul public transport in the West Midlands concludes projects are at risk.

www.bbc.com

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Dec 2024 ==

but as to the broader point, those recommendations from the No Doubt highly paid consultants look like something I would’ve written during my business management degree, just a load of empty jargon with nothing substantive behind it.