Great Western Coffee Shop

To start a discussion going - on the BBC Website this morning-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55770529

I am about to join an on-line lecture meeting - comments to follow later today!

The train looks a bit familiar!

The treasury are not looking for new excuses. Just resurrecting their old ones.

Will this money be spent on actually building railway infrastructure and purchasing rolling stock ? Or is it in fact funding for another round of studies, reviews, and consultations ?
Any mention of hydrogen concerns me a bit, since it can mean feasability studies about hydrogen, rather than building anything.

Any new lines should in my view be electrified at 25 KV. Battery power is in my view more applicable to EXISTING lines that are problematic to electrify due to limited clearances to existing structures or for other reasons.

Absolutely Broadgauge!


Exactly!

This is a cause of growing concern. If on the one hand no private passenger cars powered by petrol and diesel will be sold by/after 2030, it is exasperating that the tried, tested and almost universally used OHL electric system is not being used here. If it's good enough for most of the rest of Europe, including many countries that are much poorer than us, why not here? The money being spent on hydrogen and battery development with no guarantee of a satisfactory outcome (I am just old enough to remember gas turbine trains!) would be better spent reviewing how most of the rest of Europe has electrified at (I assume) reasonable cost and learning from them. We are in danger of ending up with schemes being built without OHL, having to be run with diesel because the untried technologies either are not ready, are not reliable enough or simply don't work and then have to to expensively retrofit OHL at greater cost, and disrupting the recently established services too.

In the case of the Ashington/Blyth/North of Tyneside scheme, it screams out that this should be an extension of the Tyne Metro. If it could run with similar rolling stock, the savings of combining the maintenance and support overheads in the medium to long term alone will surely be substantial.

Don't scrap those Pacers yet - we may still need them!

If you read the article it says the East West funding is to reinstate services Bicester / Bletchley - so that'll be reinstating the line Bicester/Bletchley, not a study.

The Northumberland money is for a study - which may or may not result in it being part ogf the Metro.

Yes I did read the article, but based on previous experience, a lot of "re opening schemes" seem to turn into "studies of the various formats that could be adopted rather than old fashioned heavy rail"

The part about Bicester Bletchley is just a re announcement. Network rail are already rebuilding the Bletchley flyover they would not have started the most expensive bit unless the funding was already in place.

Someone at the DFT was trying to add some substance to the announcement of a small amount of money for Northumberland. However it backfired because the question of electrification of the Oxford Bletchley line became the main subject of the Interview.

Agree WRT keeping the pacers. Nasty things, but better a pacer than no train, and better a line re-opened with pacers than the line not being re-opened at all.
Being old, nasty and diesel, they are not a long term solution, but could be a useful and cheap stopgap.

This is at least the third time this has been launched, plus it has been cancelled  a time or two. We can assume that it will happen, and as TonyN points out, big work is under way.

I agree entirely about electrification, although having wires over just the new bit would be ridiculous. At the very least, the gantry bases should be put in ready, with sites for substations made ready. I thought it crazy that Filton Bank wasn't prepared in that way, as it was being practically rebuilt. Hydrogen is a red herring - the minister only mentioned it to wrong-foot anyone who was going to complain about emissions. He can now say "We're looking at it. Now, do you want a railway or a new road?".

Wires "only over the new bit" sounds a bit daft, but IMHO is still preferable to no wires.
Hybrid trains could run in the short term, either diesel/25Kv or battery/25Kv.
Wires over part of the route is an incentive to wire a larger part of the route.
It would avoid closing a newly built railway for electrification works, which are certain to be more costly and disruptive than expected.

?760m or East-West and ?30m for Ashington? For people not knowledgeable about trains it doesn't look much like leveling up. I doubt if you will convince many people in Leeds or Teesside that Oxford/Cambridge is North.

Electrification was formally removed from half of EWR (Bletchley to Bedford) in 2015, and the remainder (Oxford to WCML) in 2016. 

AIUI it has never been proposed for the Northumberland line (aka Blyth and Tyne).

So I don?t think they?re still looking for excuses to remove...

Paul

Er, not at all.   From the DfT press release: 

The investment on the Northumberland line will fund preparatory works, including land acquisition, detailed design work and early site works.

It is already well known it is definitely NOT going to be part of the Metro, and IMHO it never was likely to be, as nearly all of the route being reopened is outside Tyne and Wear, and it is an existing operating freight line.

Paul

Thanks all for your contributions.

On the issue of what's being done at what cost see- https://www.nexus.org.uk/news/item/government-approves-funding-re-open-rail-line-between-ashington-and-newcastle

As to whether the fact that most of the route is outside Tyneside is material to whether the re-opened line will be formed part of the Metro, Nexus which runs it is run jointly by two "super authorities" - The North East Combined Authority (County Durham, South Tyneside, Sunderland and Gateshead), and North of Tyne Combined Authority whose website informs us-

"The North of Tyne Combined Authority is a partnership of three local authorities: Newcastle, North Tyneside, and Northumberland and a directly-elected Metro Mayor."

The news item in the link above does imply that it will be a "heavy rail" Network Rail project notwithstanding its joint promotion by the county, a member of Nexus, but personally for the reasons given before I am not sure that makes sense.

As to whether the OHL has been deleted before, the fact remains that OHL electrification is by far the most widespread non-fossil fuel means of traction power. There's a cost in initially providing it (cheaper and more efficient than retro fitting later) but there will be development costs for hydrogen or battery with no guarantee that either will be a satisfactory solution, the need to build relatively small production batches of more complicated rolling stock (while as a result of the inefficiencies of rolling stock procurement in the recent past we seem to have surplus electric stock sitting idle), so a saving of initial capital expenditure is likely to result in decades of increased operating costs. All this from a Government that proclaims that it is committed to low carbon transport and wants to implement it as soon as possible.

Here's a state of affairs I think collectively we should be campaigning against.

[/quote]

Very interesting as what is considered a "new" line.  And I will beg a couple of exceptional situations

Oxted to Uckfield, and Guidford to Reigate - happy with 750v third rail.   Also more arguably lines on the western periphery of third rail such as the Waterside line. Also Ashford to Hastings. And Newport and Ventnor should they happen.  Should Lostwithiel to Fowey re-open, isolated 25kV would seem perverse while the nearest other electric trains are Newbury or Bristol Parkway. Run National  Network or Go-op trains to Minehead, sharing the same line and infrastructure costs with WSR (well, we can dream) and I would be happy with batteries or even (!) fossil fuel for the first handful of years.

But - for the majority of cases ... utterly OHL from day 1.   Oxford to Bedford (AND Didcot to Oxford).  Portishead. etc.

New conductor rail installations are effectively prohibited except perhaps in the case of VERY minor additions such as adding another platform at a station already equipped with conductor rail, or doubling an existing single track conductor rail route.

Whilst there is no law that states in so many words "no more conductor rail installations" There IS a de facto ban via general health and safety law.
For a new installation, someone, somewhere has to "sign off" a new conductor rail installation as being "as safe as reasonably practical" That person would be liable to prosecution, perhaps years later when a trespasser is electrocuted.

And yes in the case of Minehead I would be satisfied with fossil fueled trains initially, with battery power or even electrification in the longer term. "Heritage Over-Head Line Equipment" ("Heritage OHLE") perhaps !


Edit:VickiS - Clarifying acronym

New exposed conductor rail electrification (ie NR Southern Region) are not prohibited.   

The ORR however require any such new electrification to be fully compliant with the Electricity at Work (1989) Regulations.  no "grandfathered" practices would be permitted.

NR recent policy for Electrification has had its words amended to reflect the ORR position, the ORR position has not really changed it was more NR policy.

To make a new exposed conductor rail electrification compliant with the EaW Regs are not easy to achieve but not impossible just expensive

Whatever the legal situation, I do recall a Network Rail (NR) director speaking of third rail problems one icy winter day. In essence, he said that if Network Rail (NR) was to introduce electrification for the first time, third rail DC would not be the method of choice, but we are stuck with it for the foreseeable. When the rest of the country is 25 KV AC, replacing the third rail can be the next job.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

Agree, third rail is a non optimum choice for long distance main lines.
The former Southern Railway network is said to be the largest in the world, in terms of both total route miles, and distance in miles to the most distant parts.

It was never properly planned, but "just sort of grew"
In the early days of the Southern, electric power was clearly preferable to steam for inner suburban routes due to the rapid acceleration from the many stops, and the absence of light engine movements at London termini.
Electric trains then gradually spread to outer suburban routes and even to the south coast.
The cost of electric outer suburban services was reduced by the capital already sunk in the inner suburban routes.
Each extension therefore made perfect sense on its own, but considered as a whole did not make sense if compared to overhead electrification.

They had better get a move on in changing to 25 KV overhead, before English Heritage list the conductor rail!

Remember the the Brighton line correctly chose overhead before the more prolific South Western swamped them on Grouping and one system had to prevail.

LSWR weren't the only ones. In Paris, the banlieu ouest suburban network of Gare Saint Lazare was electrified with 750 V DC third rail in the 1920s. I thought that was short-lived, due to the adverse effect of ice, but it was used until thew 1960s. (I was probably thinking of ground pick-up for trams!)

The whole network was changed over to 25 kV OLE in 1967-77, with all the attendant clearance works, bridge rebuilding, etc. The height of French trains isn't an issue - it's the extra height for the OLE that matters. So it can be done. 

Those were the days! How much quicker it would be to get electrification done on stepladders by the Peaky Blinders.

I guess you are thinking of the picture on first page of this https://www.thepwi.org/technical_hub/technical_hub_files/section_meeting_presentations/9_september_2020_-_managing_overhead_line_ole_on_network_rails_western_route_-_darrel_tiddy_elena_ionescu (https://www.thepwi.org/technical_hub/technical_hub_files/section_meeting_presentations/9_september_2020_-_managing_overhead_line_ole_on_network_rails_western_route_-_darrel_tiddy_elena_ionescu)

I have also seen a photo taken in the 1980s of work on OHL with ladders.

Here is the 1980 photo somewhere on the ECML

I expect they knocked the speed limit down to 100mph past the site.  ;D

For a moment I thought someone was standing on the roof of that 125 sorry High Speed Train (HST).


Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

IC125. It even says so on the power car, that train is an InterCity 125. It is also a HST, but HST is just High Speed Train which depending on the definition you choose to use can mean any train capable of at least 125mph in service. That means, for example, Voyagers, class 390s, 800s and InterCity 225s are also HSTs.

Agreed 100%. I am starting to worry that lines will be closed because we get to 2049 and still haven't electrified them and closure is the only way to decarbonise the railway by 2050. Then again, like with the PRM deadline, the DfT may just grant a dispensation.

I disagree; the Metro (I assume) does not have toilets on its trains, and Newcastle-Ashington is further than Cardiff-Caerphilly/Taffs Well which I think should be the limit for TfW's toiletless tram-trains. Also, I forget whether the new Metro stock will have 25kv capability.

Regarding East-West Rail, I think the sensible thing at this stage if you're not going to wire the lot is to wire Oxford - Bletchley. Didcot - Oxford is still due to be wired (it was defered rather than cancelled if I recall correctly) so there will be wires at that end anyway, Oxford-Bicester I think has already had the bridge work done as part of Chiltern's evergreen programme and Bicester - Bletchley doesn't have any passenger services currently that the electrification work would disrupt. GWR would then be able to use 387s (or 769s in electric mode) on Oxford - Milton Keynes services and a regional express (ie. something like a 158, 175 or 444) bi-mode unit (which I think we need lots of in the UK, so there are economies of scale to be had) could be used for the 1tph that is planned to project through to Bedford.

I wouldn't say 'inefficiencies', I would say 'poorly planned and specified'. Even so, the big problem is the loss of faith regarding electrification - had the rolling programme once mooted following on from the Manchester-Liverpool/Blackpool triangle and MML schemes materialised there would be homes for the cascaded EMUs.

From SENRUG (https://www.senrug.co.uk/blog/index.php/2021/03/30/key-mistakes-with-northumberland-line-implementation/) on 30th March


Oh dear ...

The full a) reads as follows:


This will actually be illegal under the new DfT Bus Strategy, which requires that bus services call at the railway station, that bus stops are situated as close to the station entrance as possible, and that schemes and proposals that move bus services away from railway stations will no longer be allowed.

I dont know whether there is a "history" there, but on the Council apparently wishing to "set up a new group of “Northumberland Line Champions” rather than work through SENRUG", from my experience with helping to set up the improved TransWilts Rail service in 2013 - effectively a "reopening" in terms of the dire service it replaced - Wiltshire Council could have taken the view that they didnt want to work with people like grahame, Phil or myself because of previous "Save The Train" era criticisms.

Instead they fully integrated their publicity with ours, even going so far as to appoint me as their Travel Advisor Team Leader. It would be a shame if a similar level of co-ordination couldnt be acheived in this case.

Indeed, Lee.

In our early days, we were a protest organisation - not because we wanted to be such, but because it was really the only way to get the notice and attention to our case.  We moved on as soon as we could from protest to partnership, but even so there was th legacy of history that could have driven a different-inclined council not to work with us.  I take my hat off to the likes of Richard Gamble and Horace Prickett, both public transport champions with Wiltshire council for long periods, for the week done and trust put in us.   

So much of it comes down to trust - hard to establish (especially when you have a protest group versus a council that's been hard to move).  All too easy to break too, but that would be another story if I had it to tell.   We established the trust, I think, by
1. Researching well and only pressing really good, workable proposals
2. Being their, consistently, for the long haul, and able to bounce back after setbacks
3. Working in a professional manner - the critical friend perhaps, but always polite and never the personal attack or dirty trick
4. A willingness to negotiate and compromise to help meet the objectives of all parties
5. An appreciation that while it's a 'system' being applied, it's people within it that oil the wheels and make them turn.

I don't know what has "gone wrong" at SENRUG - or even if one or both parties might consider this a negotiating position; sadly, there are circumstances where a disagreement over methodology or detail between parties ostensibly on the "same side" can lead to a significant degradation of results and a frustration of many parties and even reduction of loss of effective outcome.

Of course, if you remove the station from the plans completely ... that'll make it legal.

From the SENRUG chair's blog (https://www.senrug.co.uk/blog/index.php/2021/04/16/bebside-for-the-chop/)

Spurred on by the set of figures that grahame inspired me to look for as a result of his recent Swedish topic (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=24893.0), I have been looking into why Ashington passenger service reinstatement costs appear so comparatively high. It soon became clear that the sheer scope of works required mean that it is certainly a completely different kind of challenge to either Haparanda or Okehampton - This Modern Railways article (https://www.keymodernrailways.com/article/ashington-targets-2023-opening) gives an excellent overview.

The Modern Railways article also gives an interesting counter point of view from Northumberland County Council through Stuart McNaughton, their Strategic Transport Manager, and Simon Middleton, a rail business manager with their consultants Aecom, regarding their view that their approach has actually allowed the project to proceed quicker, and reduced costs from what they might otherwise have been had things been left primarily to Network Rail, even attracting interest from, among others, an organisation that will be very familiar to members of this forum:


However, the council have made two key mistakes. The first was to align with the DfT's Project Speed in the belief that it would serve merely as a means to the end of getting Ashington to the front of the queue:


and


However, Project Speed is actually a means to ensure the Treasury/DfT can exert complete control over such projects with the primary aim of driving down costs as far as possible. The economists involved - as member ellendune eloquently explored in their contribution to the Swedish topic - have as their reference point "the good old days" when during previous Conservative administrations of the 1980's and 1990's, British Rail's methods of introducing passenger services on freight-only lines included a spot of track slewing and the plonking of a bus shelter on a patch of repaved platform in Wiltshire, and the joining together with rubber bands and stickyback plastic of sections of line in Nottinghamshire, with their cost expectations set accordingly.

Unfortunately, the council have now discovered this to their cost. Here is the Chronicle article (https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/planned-new-northumberland-rail-line-20402593) that the SENRUG Chair mentioned in his blog piece:


Even more unfortunately, the council have compounded this with their second mistake. In order to illustrate this, I am once again drawn to a section of the SENRUG Chair's blog piece that wasnt originally quoted by grahame:


It is a matter of supreme irony that the SENRUG Chair remained laser-focused on the council during most of that blog piece, but switched his target at exactly the wrong moment. You see, the DfT actually awarded every penny of what the council asked for, because the council only actually asked for £34m of the estimated £166m required in total for the Northumberland Line:


Whilst I am pretty certain that the government will provide just enough funding to ensure the completion of a scheme that has the potential to be a flagship of the "levelling-up" concept, by not asking for a full allocation of funding to complete the project, the council has put themselves in the position of having to accept whatever cost-cutting measures the Treasury/DfT suggest from now on in - Today Blyth Bebside, tomorrow? Well, who knows, really. I suspect that if and when SENRUG actually realise this, they will be looking to inflict rather more than "reputational damage" on the council as a result.

The upshot of this is that it really doesnt matter whether the council or SENRUG have the best plans for stations or anything else along the Ashington route, because neither will be wielding any real influence over any of it. In this "new normal", if the Treasury/DfT provides the funding for such schemes, then the Treasury/DfT will decide what gets built and where, just as they - through control of the vital funding streams - will decide the structure and scope of what bus and rail services are provided. In some cases, such as Bus Back Better, this may turn out to be good or even great for passengers. In other cases such as this, maybe not so great. Even then though, they are probably willing to make the political bet that, as with previous examples such as Borders, Alloa and Ebbw Vale in devolved areas - and indeed ultimately on the Melksham and Robin Hood lines in England - people focus on the positive benefits of having the line open and available for them to use, while any negative aspects of how the line was made open and available for them to use fade to the back of their minds.

The political aspect leads me neatly on to my final point. The eagle-eyed among you - particularly if like me you happen to have been a political advisor in the early to mid 2000's - will have spotted a further rather interesting aspect to this. However, I no longer play in those kind of ballparks, so I will leave it to others to decide for themselves the significance or otherwise of that particular element.

And ... spurred on by your detail, Lee ... I have attempted to post a follow up on that blog. (I say attempted because it gave me "Error: Google reCAPTCHA verification failed." and nothing appeared ... resubmit gave me "Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!".  Could be that I took too long writing, and/or all comments are checked to ensure they're fit for publication  ;D

Nothing really to add here - I just quoted that Modern Railways says they got what they asked for, and so on the surface it would seem that the "levelling up" comment is off kilter.   Also (attempted to - same darned validation) send a more detailed and encouraging comment to Dennis, with an invite to him to publish it.

Ironic that their next public meeting is "Tuesday 29th June 2021
Speaker Dan Nesbitt, Newcastle University
Subject “Transport, Technology and Trouble” – looking at the chaos that can be caused by software issues ...."

My original comment (but edited!!) has been published on that blog, so it did get through in spite of the confusing error messages.