Wigan to Bolton electrification officially given go ahead

[david l]

Some observations off the top of my head, no doubt there are several others.

Some work (you can still see the bases if you look carefully) was done when the WCML was electrified in the early 70's on the section from WNW towards Ince.

Could never understand the excuses given for ground conditions (due to mining) on the Manchester-Euxton electrification when the WCML of the early 70's was done with no/few problems in the Wigan area (coal capital), and nothing has collapsed or had to be replaced in the last nearly 50 years.

Is the Bolton line 50 mph? -the Atherton line is which is a disgrace for the shortest Wigan-Manchester route. There is long standing for conversion to Metrolink which may benefit the Mcr end, but does nothing for Wigan/Southport end.

Don't know how many bus replacements will be needed but on a Sunday Wigan to Bolton (and back) has been subject to bus since at least Dec 20, and before that was very hit and miss due to coronavirus and other excuses.

Completion by 2024/5 ?, hasn't the design work already been done?

Significant work should (will) be needed at WNW - having recently lost Platform 2, there are only 1 & 3 available on that side, if there is a problem on WCML there is very little capacity to cope with out of course. At least 4 times in the last month No. 6 has been blocked for hours with WCML problems, thus having to move the Liverpool stopper (currently only 1 ph vice 2) which blocks 1 for much of each hour.

No cover at WNW on 3, and very little useable on No. 1.

 

[jayah]

This chart is shown in the The value of Great Western route modernisation Interim project completion report courtesy of what do they know which is probably the clean electrification costs excluding civils structure clearance works, platform extensions, signalling immunisation and associated H&S measures like bridge parapet adjustments. As ive speculated in posts above these non electrification costs would be of the order of 15-20m tops so by any stretch of the imagination the stkm route costs look excessive for this scheme but I doubt that DofT aka Treasury would have authorised a unit rate in excess of previous abnormal levels so we are all clearly missing something here. Maybe the stations are being given substantial enhancements not just simple platform extensions and going by costs by Soham etc could easily run up 5m a station if access for all compliance is being delivered.

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The cost of electrification without the civils is utterly meaningless as you cannot deliver electrification without it, and there is little reason to go around demolishing perfectly good bridges otherwise.

It's true that one can have something of a "sparks" effect with a vast installed diesel HP and an augmented service but at a cost. The ECML electrification was in fact justified entirely on avoiding that exorbitant cost (of HST operation) without increased traffic (which it did).

I saw the effect of HST's on the GWML; they stimulated traffic that they were unable to cope with and became horribly overloaded and often erratic in reliability when pushed. Stopping services were even worse.

The Wigan extension will enable cross Manchester EMU journeys between large population centres that will compare very well with the previous 2-car pacers and 150's.

WAO

The East Coast electrification was £344m at 1983 prices or £1.2bn at 2020 prices.

The 2020 East Coast power upgrade was £216m.

Today it is the cost of electrification that is exorbitant.

 

[Ken H]

It's true that one can have something of a "sparks" effect with a vast installed diesel HP and an augmented service but at a cost. The ECML electrification was in fact justified entirely on avoiding that exorbitant cost (of HST operation) without increased traffic (which it did).

I saw the effect of HST's on the GWML; they stimulated traffic that they were unable to cope with and became horribly overloaded and often erratic in reliability when pushed. Stopping services were even worse.

The Wigan extension will enable cross Manchester EMU journeys between large population centres that will compare very well with the previous 2-car pacers and 150's.

WAO

HST was an object lesson in getting too much power from an engine. The thermal stresses were immense, especially with 'binary driving' with the driver taking full power then none. Diesels are made to sit at even power output. If you want power in a train, the only real way is electrification. And enough power delivered to the feeder station.

 

[The exile]

The cost of electrification without the civils is utterly meaningless as you cannot deliver electrification without it, and there is little reason to go around demolishing perfectly good bridges otherwise.


The East Coast electrification was £344m at 1983 prices or £1.2bn at 2020 prices.

The 2020 East Coast power upgrade was £216m.

Today it is the cost of electrification that is exorbitant.

If using the ECML electrification as a comparison, should it not be taken into consideration that it is now accepted that it was done “ on the cheap”, which has caused/ is causing all sorts of problems?

 

[Bald Rick]

If using the ECML electrification as a comparison, should it not be taken into consideration that it is now accepted that it was done “ on the cheap”, which has caused/ is causing all sorts of problems?

It should certainly be accepted that the full true costs of the ECML electrification didn’t get accounted for in the ECML electrification costs.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

It should certainly be accepted that the full true costs of the ECML electrification didn’t get accounted for in the ECML electrification costs.

For sure I was in DMEE on the project for a couple of years and internal management and engineering resources weren't recharged to the project. However, when RT rocked up everyone in Major Projects needed a project code for their time and this was adding the order of 8-10% to projects. I would observe that BR Projects didn't have all the baggage that RT and NR employed on projects either, and they still couldn't deliver on budget despite all the additional oversight, so the true overhead was lower. Anyhow lets be pessimistic and use 10% so referring to @jayah post above we will add on another 120m for management and engineering costs at £1.32B. However, we did have the luxury of lot less H&S requirements than todays teams so that could easily add on 200-300m on trackside works. So lets say 1.6B. Still good value compared to GWEP!

 

[The exile]

For sure I was in DMEE on the project for a couple of years and internal management and engineering resources weren't recharged to the project. However, when RT rocked up everyone in Major Projects needed a project code for their time and this was adding the order of 8-10% to projects. I would observe that BR Projects didn't have all the baggage that RT and NR employed on projects either, and they still couldn't deliver on budget despite all the additional oversight, so the true overhead was lower. Anyhow lets be pessimistic and use 10% so referring to @jayah post above we will add on another 120m for management and engineering costs at £1.32B. However, we did have the luxury of lot less H&S requirements than todays teams so that could easily add on 200-300m on trackside works. So lets say 1.6B. Still good value compared to GWEP!

Are the costs for what presumably was the most expensive bit (Kings Cross - Hitchin / Peterborough) included in that figure? (Fair enough to leave Moorgate out, I should say!)

 

[Bald Rick]

For sure I was in DMEE on the project for a couple of years and internal management and engineering resources weren't recharged to the project. However, when RT rocked up everyone in Major Projects needed a project code for their time and this was adding the order of 8-10% to projects. I would observe that BR Projects didn't have all the baggage that RT and NR employed on projects either, and they still couldn't deliver on budget despite all the additional oversight, so the true overhead was lower. Anyhow lets be pessimistic and use 10% so referring to @jayah post above we will add on another 120m for management and engineering costs at £1.32B. However, we did have the luxury of lot less H&S requirements than todays teams so that could easily add on 200-300m on trackside works. So lets say 1.6B. Still good value compared to GWEP!

How much did the engineering trains cost? And the possession staff? And the compensation to customers for not running a service? And so on....

Are the costs for what presumably was the most expensive bit (Kings Cross - Hitchin / Peterborough) included in that figure? (Fair enough to leave Moorgate out, I should say!)

No. It’s Hitchin - Edinburgh and Leeds (Neville Hill). Also much of the prep work south of Doncaster was already done under cover of other projects - eg much of the signalling was already electrification ready. And IIRC there were only around 60 overbridges that needed clearance work doing between Hitchin and York for example.

 

[td97]

Completion by 2024/5 ?, hasn't the design work already been done?

Only to GRIP 3 - option selection/single option development. Certainly no detailed design.
Will require new surveys (the existing 4+ year old surveys are well expired) before detailed design can begin. And first of all appointment of a contractor/subcontractor alliance

 

[Brissle Girl]

So resurveying is one inefficiency from having stopped the project, in terms of wasted cost first time around.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

So resurveying is one inefficiency from having stopped the project, in terms of wasted cost first time around.

frustrating as f*** isn't it?

 

[civ-eng-jim]

Not really. Unless you can turn around a design and build it in under a year some form of revised survey is required to validate the design.

 

[Grumpy]

No. It’s Hitchin - Edinburgh and Leeds (Neville Hill). Also much of the prep work south of Doncaster was already done under cover of other projects - eg much of the signalling was already electrification ready.

I understood the original project didn't go beyond Leeds station. Lovely example of value analysis. Neville Hill was done some years later.

Similarly I believe the earlier project to do works to the tunnels to facilitate container trains fortuitously reduced the work necessary for electrification clearances.

 

[david l]

Only to GRIP 3 - option selection/single option development. Certainly no detailed design.
Will require new surveys (the existing 4+ year old surveys are well expired) before detailed design can begin. And first of all appointment of a contractor/subcontractor alliance

New surveys? Is it any wonder that costs are so high, its 6 and a half miles.................

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

How much did the engineering trains cost? And the possession staff? And the compensation to customers for not running a service? And so on....

Fair point better add another 100m for trains and possession resources.

You also make a good point about passenger compensation or Schedule 4 in the privatised railway which was a huge cost for some of the big projects I worked on that were on primary routes. Thing is though whilst there are costs for busing operations, where diversions aren't possible, Sch4 is a bit of a money go around that is no longer relevant in the non franchised system that is now in place. This regime needs to be overhauled so only the direct costs of providing alternative transport are charged to projects in future.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Fair point better add another 100m for trains and possession resources.
You also make a good point about passenger compensation or Schedule 4 in the privatised railway which was a huge cost for some of the big projects I worked on that were on primary routes. Thing is though whilst there are costs for busing operations, where diversions aren't possible, Sch4 is a bit of a money go around that is no longer relevant in the non franchised system that is now in place. This regime needs to be overhauled so only the direct costs of providing alternative transport are charged to projects in future.

There is still a cost to the railway, in terms of lost revenue, when services are reduced, stopped or diverted during electrification works.
It's not just the excess RRBs/engineering costs.
It's true GBR will be suffering that loss rather than the TOCs, but they are still there.

 

[Ken H]

Are the costs assuming they close the Bolton - Wigan line for a few months. Well Lostock - Crows Nest. Bus for Bolton - Hindley. Would cut costs dramatically. Get the civils done in daytime in one big bang.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are the costs assuming they close the Bolton - Wigan line for a few months. Well Lostock - Crows Nest. Bus for Bolton - Hindley. Would cut costs dramatically. Get the civils done in daytime in one big bang.

Given that there is only one station (Westhoughton) affected, this would make a lot of sense. Modified service patterns (e.g. Southports moved to the Atherton line) could be started then but left that way permanently.

 

[Springs Branch]

Some observations off the top of my head, no doubt there are several others.

Could never understand the excuses given for ground conditions (due to mining) on the Manchester-Euxton electrification when the WCML of the early 70's was done with no/few problems in the Wigan area (coal capital), and nothing has collapsed or had to be replaced in the last nearly 50 years.

I was about to say the same thing about the WCML (don't see any of those four-track headspan masts keeling over around Wigan)

Plus there has been the recent electrification of the Chat Moss line between Parkside and Rainhill areas, and Huyton - St Helens - Springs Branch, both of which must have had similar risks of encountering old coal workings as Lostock Junction to Wigan. Anyone remember if this problem had any serious impact on those schemes?

And if you can't electrify a railway in former mining areas without exorbitant expense, God help the South Wales Valleys aspirations.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

There is still a cost to the railway, in terms of lost revenue, when services are reduced, stopped or diverted during electrification works.
It's not just the excess RRBs/engineering costs.
It's true GBR will be suffering that loss rather than the TOCs, but they are still there.

I acknowledge that and said the direct costs (ie hiring buses, its planning and support staff) would have to be absorbed by the project but Schedule 4 was designed to incentivise the reduction in engineering access so was set artificially high to do that. Using elevated costs makes business cases harder to justify and reduces how many stkm your budget can deliver. Sch 4 suited Railtrack plc as the more costs it could capitalise the easy it was to flatter its profitability but non profit making companies don't need to do financial engineering. Also many TOCs factored in income streams from sch4 in there franchise models.

What we need now is true cost of delivering these projects so we can get on and deliver electrification and to support net zero. Of course the panacea here would be for the govt to be bold and just tell the industry to get on with it. Whilst I don't believe that will fully happen my monies on MML and TRU getting go ahead in late Autumn as part of the spending review along with some freight infills.

 

[Taunton]

The ‘sparks effect’ is a misnomer and misunderstood.

It was applied to the after effects of electrification in BR days, where there were significant increases in passenger numbers. But it wasn’t electrification that did it - it was the significant speeding up of services and extra capacity / frequency enabled by the modernisation that came with electrification that caused it.

Notably, there was a considerable ‘sparks effect’ as a result of HST implementation, and also modernisation fo the Chiltern line, both of which were notable for their lack of electrification.

Where electrification enables quicker services, and more frequent / higher capacity services, you will see the ‘sparks effect’. But where electrification doesn’t bring these things, you won’t.

There shouldn't be any "sparks" from an electric train . Those belonged to the awful Standard 82xxx sent to Taunton shed in the last few years of steam, with "self-cleaning" (haha) smokeboxes, whose resulting sparks set fire to the lineside summertime wheat fields on the climb from Bishops Lydeard on the Minehead branch, until banned.

More straightforwardly, electrification does in itself offer the benefits described, because it changes the financial dynamics between capital and operating costs. Once installed, in itself often a notable expense, the operating costs of additional/regular etc trains are notably less than the case for other forms of traction, even diesel. It also allows performance that even diesel cannot manage, for acceleration in particular. Mileage-related maintenance costs of the rolling stock are proportionately less, and fuel/power costs normally less as well. This allows a service to be provided that is more frequent all day than the same budget would allow, even for diesel. Even the ambience inside the coaches is different, with the absence of diesel fumes, heating/AC that works properly pretty much all the time, etc.

 

[Bald Rick]

More straightforwardly, electrification does in itself offer the benefits described, because it changes the financial dynamics between capital and operating costs. Once installed, in itself often a notable expense, the operating costs of additional/regular etc trains are notably less than the case for other forms of traction, even diesel. It also allows performance that even diesel cannot manage, for acceleration in particular. Mileage-related maintenance costs of the rolling stock are proportionately less, and fuel/power costs normally less as well. This allows a service to be provided that is more frequent all day than the same budget would allow, even for diesel. Even the ambience inside the coaches is different, with the absence of diesel fumes, heating/AC that works properly pretty much all the time, etc.

I agree with all of that, but the increase in passengers only follows if the frequency is increased and if the journey times are reduced. That is not always a given following electrification. There is something in improved ambience too.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I was about to say the same thing about the WCML (don't see any of those four-track headspan masts keeling over around Wigan)
Plus there has been the recent electrification of the Chat Moss line between Parkside and Rainhill areas, and Huyton - St Helens - Springs Branch, both of which must have had similar risks of encountering old coal workings as Lostock Junction to Wigan. Anyone remember if this problem had any serious impact on those schemes?
And if you can't electrify a railway in former mining areas without exorbitant expense, God help the South Wales Valleys aspirations.

There were ground problems between St Helens and Springs Branch, and I think some foundations had to be redone.
Like the Chat Moss line it was a mix of concrete and piled foundations, with piles (and "gravity pads") in the difficult areas.
There are still some unused piles lying at lineside on the stretch around Ince Moss - maybe they will get moved to the Wigan-Lostock job!

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I agree with all of that, but the increase in passengers only follows if the frequency is increased and if the journey times are reduced. That is not always a given following electrification. There is something in improved ambience too.

In todays electrification schemes that has almost become the norm but wasn't the case historically and the industry needs to leverage the time advantage of electric traction in support of modal transfer and get the sparks effect mojo back.

 

[Ken H]

In todays electrification schemes that has almost become the norm but wasn't the case historically and the industry needs to leverage the time advantage of electric traction in support of modal transfer and get the sparks effect mojo back.

one would hope they would squeeze a relaxation of the line speed out of electrification.

 

[Wolfie]

There is still a cost to the railway, in terms of lost revenue, when services are reduced, stopped or diverted during electrification works.
It's not just the excess RRBs/engineering costs.
It's true GBR will be suffering that loss rather than the TOCs, but they are still there.

Indeed but if one took that logic to extremes no upgrades or enhancements would ever be done.

 

[hwl]

So resurveying is one inefficiency from having stopped the project, in terms of wasted cost first time around.

Given some of the quality of the NWEP surveying last time round starting again would be sensible.

 

[CdBrux]

Will require new surveys (the existing 4+ year old surveys are well expired) before detailed design can begin

Is this some official rule? Why would in practice (i.e not just because some rule says so) the findings of the survey be now not valid? Could some project risk management decide the risk is quite low and just decide to get on without another survey that could well just give the same results as the previous one?

 

[Starmill]

Is this some official rule? Why would in practice (i.e not just because some rule says so) the findings of the survey be now not valid? Could some project risk management decide the risk is quite low and just decide to get on without another survey that could well just give the same results as the previous one?

Isn't the purpose of doing ground surveys that they are up to date? I.e. something might have changed.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Isn't the purpose of doing ground surveys that they are up to date? I.e. something might have changed.

All adding up to a "ROLLING PROGRAMME OF ELECTRIFICATION" being super efficient and stop-start is where a huge amount of cost is.