Great Western Coffee Shop

From (the next) Rail Magazine (https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/exclusive-haines-electrification-must-start-soon-and-progressively)


I couldn't agree with him more.   Not my original thought - been said many times on the forum, but worth a fresh topic. And excellent to see it now clearly stated by the Network Rail chief executive.

For my 1p worth ... I have a lot of time for Andrew Haines, dating back to his days with FGW where he had the task of turning around a TOC that - err - needed to be turned around.

The problem with the last attempt and electrifying the National network was all the political parties were writing cheques out bidding each other for the amount of electrification and the speed at which it would be done; and placing very high demand on NR to eliminate all failure modes of previous schemes.

Future electrification schemes should be left to the Industry to determine the lines, the rate at which electrification is delivered and the type of equipment, by Industry I mean ToC's FoC's NR and the professionals at the DfT

I think though that voters and passengers would expect this to be against a background target of all main lines to be electrified within a specified period, and the expectation that politicians (who will control the purse strings) will on the one hand supply adequate funding but on the other hold to account all those who have together undertaken to meet the target if they fail to do so.   

How to pay for it?,or make a contribution towards it?

Don't lets worry about restoring closed lines,costing millions

Lets get some ticket ticket gates installed at Preston Doncaster Rotherham Chesterfield Barnsley Meadowhall and Sheffield.

Don't have a lot of time that the trams or a bridge is to blame for no ticket gates at Sheffield

Sheffield station has approx 9 million thorough its station in a year

Bristol Temple meads has approx 11 million through its station in a year

No wonder trains are always full in the Sheffield area,the guards can't through to collect the fairs.

Has anyone ever seen ticket checks at any of the Northern train stations mentioned?

The very fact that Andrew Haines has made such a statement is encouraging - he was only recently (in railway terms!) appointed to the job by this Government. I would have thought that it is unlikely that he would be espousing a plan/aspiration/whatever that is not reasonably closely aligned with Government thinking[1] as that is unlikely to help him win friends and influence people in other areas where he has to be persuasive.

[1] Assuming 'Government thinking' is not an oxymoron...

Should be an interesting read.

Basically, by time of the next election, the Government needs to be able to demonstrate to 'provincial' English voters that their rail infrastructure and services are getting closer to the quality of those in the south east. The TPE electrification and quadrification will help, but they will need projects in places like Nottingham, Birmingham, Newcastle, Sheffield and Bristol, not to mention the seats that they won in the 2019 election. 

Remember also that a lot of work was also done in the north of England to prioritise lines for electrification. There's also quite a lot that can be done by 2024 with a bit of extra case. For example once Bristol East is relaid then electrification to Bristol TM and of Filton Bank is do-able. There are advanced plans to rebuild Sheffield station ahead of HS2, MML electrification from Leeds to Kettering would enable a lot of other projects so could be considered 'strategic'.

I'm under the impression that a lot of work has been quietly going on to reduce the cost of electrification by demonstrating how reduced structure clearances are possible etc. The Welsh valley lines electrification is also going to have a laarge number of permanently earthed sections to avoid having to rebuild structures.   

So hopefully if Andrew Haines can produce deliverable plans, then the Treasury could be very receptive

 

There was an interesting item published in Railengineer in 2018 giving some reasons for the failures behind the GWML Electrification (and in the UK generally): https://www.railengineer.co.uk/2018/06/04/getting-electrification-right/

As alluded to in the thread about the 180s, a lot depends on a quick fix for XC. If the Meridians are going to be combined with the Voyagers then it ought to be possible to dust off Project Thor to produce a decent-ish fleet of six-car bi-mode* trains, coupled with some intelligent infill. If, as you suggest, Filton Bank is done, then Westerleigh to Bromsgrove doesn’t look so stupid, followed by Brum-Derby.

The mileage piled up by Voyagers under the wires - in some cases the entire journey (e.g. Brum-Manc) - is ridiculous.

* or even with third-rail. I have no idea if this is feasible, but (say) Bournemouth-Oxford is 100 miles, of which about 85 are electrified.

.....arr - I thought I read it somewhere! See my post just made on the 180 thread.

Quite a few times at Preston, including within the station when heading for Platform 1.


Possibly, the more urgent aspect is to show commitment to phasing out fossil fuel use generally. We are now less than half the lifetime of the average train from the date the government set for the cessation of production of cars powered by internal combustion engines. Having public transport still hauled by smoky old diesel will brings loud accusations of hypocrisy. There was a lot of preppy-uppy done around Bristol, Bath, the North-West and many other places where electrification was paused - it should be easy enough to hit the play button again. The electrification teams and kit currently in use should carry on extending where they can once their programmed work is finished, until someone comes up with an alternative.

In the time taken to start, stop, start again and finally do the Channel Tunnel, a small group of men with shovels and wheelbarrows could have finished the job. Make it a rolling, permanent, project.

Electrification of the rest of the network is something that can be carried out at a steady pace, no grandstand "we are going over the boarder" type of set date' just gradually by awarding sensible contracts in a planned manor agreed with the ToCs so that access is available to do the engineering.

With bi-mode trains as sections get commissioned so the electric operation get extended.

The "sparks effect" publicity can then be targeted nearer the actual benefit date.