Electrification - so Cascade - so congestion easing - delayed.

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From ITV Meridian

Radical plans to ease the congestion crisis on the regions most overcrowded trains will be delayed by up to two years, ITV News can reveal.

Plans to electrify the Great Western line are being delayed with the budget tripled to ^2.8 billion.

It means plans to run more commuter carriages from next spring in the south and Thames Valley routes will now be delayed.

I suspect from the format of the report that this may be a teaser at the moment, with full video to be added once it's been shown on the breakfast time show ... as with bus cut in Oxfordshire report.

[grahame]

And more from ITV Meridian

Radical plans to ease overcrowding on the regions most congested rail routes could be delayed for up to two years, ITV News Meridian can reveal.

Big rail projects could also be hit. But the disappointment for passengers in the Thames Valley and the south will be having to put up with overcrowding for longer than expected on key routes from Paddington to Reading, Oxford and Newbury. Also hit could be the line from Reading to Basingstoke and south coast Great Western services from Portsmouth to Cardiff.

A formal announcement will be made within weeks as Network Rail decide how it will deal with project overruns and a funding crisis

The problem is caused by a massive increase in costs and delays to electrify the Great Western line. The price was ^874 million in 2013. But that has now risen to ^2.8 billion and is delayed. Unexpected problems and a lack of engineers lead a long list of issues it has faced.

A new ^500 million link from Reading to Heathrow, aimed at cutting jams on the M4, may also be delayed as resources are diverted to the over budget electrification project.

There are also fears a ^300 million scheme called East West Rail to link Oxford and Aylesbury with Bedford and Milton Keynes could be put on hold for up to seven years.

The problems mean 58 new electric trains for the Thames Valley will not be introduced as planned from next spring. They're meant to increase capacity by 25 per cent and speed up journeys. The diesel trains they are replacing where then meant to move to other parts of the network to increase capacity along the south coast, Bristol and Exeter, so there is a major knock on.

Great Western Railway will be unable to run the electric trains because the overhead wires and gantries to hold them up are far from being installed.

There are also questions over the new high speed Hitachi services costing ^5.7 billion pounds from 2017. Some of the trains run on diesel and electricity but others may have to have diesel motors added to stop them sitting in the sidings. It is unclear when they will run.

Network Rail and the Government, who own it, will reveal how it plans to proceed in the next few weeks but those inside the project have told ITV News there will be major delays, possibly up to two years.

It is thought they will focus on the key mainline route from Paddington to Bristol and delay sections due to be upgraded from Reading to Newbury and Basingstoke and Didcot to Oxford.

The company say a review is still underway but insist work is taking place and when it is complete passengers will have a world class railway with more and faster services that will revolutionise rail travel.

Great Western Railway finds itself in the middle of the mess having promised passengers improvements it will not be able to deliver because of no fault of its own.

They have already converted poorly used first class carriages to standard class and added every extra carriage it can. The company say they are investing more than half a billion pounds of its own money on fleets of new trans, Wi-Fi, station upgrades and other passengers improvements. Its sleeper service is also being given a radical upgrade.

It like its passengers, who face the most crowded trains in the country, await the announcement from Network Rail to find out just how long the delays will be and how it will be sorted out.

[grahame]

Press Release from TravelWatch Southwest at http://travelwatchsouthwest.org/media/

In response to the news that Network Rail will not complete the Great Western Electrification Project as planned, TravelWatch SouthWest demands the urgent purchase of new trains:

TravelWatch SouthWest, the region's passenger watchdog, is demanding that the Government takes special measures to acquire additional carriages for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s hard-pressed rail passengers.  The call comes following the revelation by ITV today that Network Rail won't be completing the Great Western electrification project as planned. 

The cost of completing modernisation of the Great Western main line from Paddington through Reading to Bristol, South Wales, and the branches to Basingstoke, Oxford and Newbury is now expected to be around three times the original budget and has slipped years behind schedule.  Network Rail^s recovery plan for the project means that work on the lines to Oxford, Newbury and Basingstoke will be stopped while effort is concentrated on completing the main line. 

This will have a big impact on passengers throughout the region.  Great Western Railway, which operates passenger services throughout the south west, had planned to cascade the diesel trains released by electrification to enhance services, adding more seats in the rapidly growing Bristol and Exeter travel-to-work areas and on the busy routes between South Wales and the south coast.  The faster trains from those areas were then to be released to improve regional services using the main line to Cornwall.

Vinita Nawathe, chair of TravelWatch SouthWest said:
"Network Rail's shambolic management of this vital Government initiative is a serious setback for communities throughout the South West.  It means that passengers will have to put up with clapped-out, over-crowded trains for even longer, just when the region is looking forward to growth.  FirstGroup reports that its subsidiary GWR is growing at 7%, year-on-year.  That means that we'll need an extra carriage for every two carriages today just to ensure that every passenger gets a seat by the time of the next election.  That's now not going to happen unless the Government comes up with a way of providing additional rolling stock to fill the gap left by the electrification shambles." 

[Rhydgaled]

And more from ITV Meridian

Radical plans to ease overcrowding on the regions most congested rail routes could be delayed for up to two years, ITV News Meridian can reveal.

Two years behind schedule, oh dear. I was hoping it was only one year behind (Bristol by Dec 2017 instead of by Dec 2016 in the original plan) as that ought to mean the class 801 units wouldn't have to be parked in sidings for very long, if at all, as they could work the electrified Bristol services while the class 800s could run to Wales (doubled up, I would hope, with some IC125s to allow the 800s to double-up).

The problems mean 58 new electric trains for the Thames Valley will not be introduced as planned from next spring.

Hang on a minute, was there ever an annoucement claiming to have anything wired-up by spring 2016? I thought it was Oxford, Newbury and Bristol by Dec 2016, Cardiff Dec 2017 and Swansea Dec 2018. I think I may have read something about the first cascaded EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) being used on a shuttle between Paddington and perhaps Hayes & Harlington in spring, but I'm not sure if that was just for testing the OHLE and perhaps driver training.

Press Release from TravelWatch Southwest at http://travelwatchsouthwest.org/media/

In response to the news that Network Rail will not complete the Great Western Electrification Project as planned, TravelWatch SouthWest demands the urgent purchase of new trains:

New trains? Wouldn't they take 2 years to procure, design and build anyway? And which routes would you build them for and what do you then do with the stock that was part of the cascade plan?

[JayMac]

Great Western Railway finds itself in the middle of the mess having promised passengers improvements it will not be able to deliver because of no fault of its own.

That's what can happen when you ride on the coat tails of others. Serves them right.

[ChrisB]

Yes, very na^ve from TravelWatch methinks, agree with Rhydgaled....

The 800s are being delivered first. The DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) won't allow the 800s top languish in sidings when there's an election (by the time they are delivered) in the offing, so conversion to 800s may be on the cards.

This report will appear in the next two weeks (towards the end of that period, probably). It's pretty pointless speculating.

[grahame]

New trains? Wouldn't they take 2 years to procure, design and build anyway? And which routes would you build them for and what do you then do with the stock that was part of the cascade plan?

Well ... if "new" means 1976 vintage / refurbished ... there might be something around in the quite short term; perhaps several dozen carriages released on lines which aren't high speed and may be themselves full by putting in longer refurbished trains.

Growth planned for = 3% ... happening = 5.7% ... you may still fill the stock that was part of the cascade plan anyway  


But as ChrisB says, we're looking at the effects of the delay in this thread - which is where the news first broke at 5 a.m; the big picture is in the second release.  But now is a good time to ask "what about" ...

[stuving]

Is there anything in either report that couldn't have been written the day the Hendy review was announced?

[Rhydgaled]

New trains? Wouldn't they take 2 years to procure, design and build anyway? And which routes would you build them for and what do you then do with the stock that was part of the cascade plan?

Well ... if "new" means 1976 vintage / refurbished ... there might be something around in the quite short term;

Well yes, but the phrase 'purchase of new trains' does suggest new new, not 'new' to national rail services (I'm guessing you're talking classs 230 there, given that existing diesel units, even Pacers, are fully utilised (unless you mean loco-hauled mark 2s)).

[didcotdean]

Great Western Railway finds itself in the middle of the mess having promised passengers improvements it will not be able to deliver because of no fault of its own.

That's what can happen when you ride on the coat tails of others. Serves them right.

Left to their own devices, FGW^▸ (First Great Western)/Agility Trains would probably have the HST2 running by now. Whether or not that would have been a good thing long term is a different matter.

[stuving]

New trains? Wouldn't they take 2 years to procure, design and build anyway? And which routes would you build them for and what do you then do with the stock that was part of the cascade plan?

Well ... if "new" means 1976 vintage / refurbished ... there might be something around in the quite short term;

Well yes, but the phrase 'purchase of new trains' does suggest new new, not 'new' to national rail services (I'm guessing you're talking classs 230 there, given that existing diesel units, even Pacers, are fully utilised (unless you mean loco-hauled mark 2s)).

The word 'purchase' appears in the headline, but neither it nor any synonym appears in he main text. That looks like traditional sloppy sub-editing - I wonder who wrote that heading? Could it be TWSW^» (TravelWatch SouthWest - website) suffering a nasty case of journalism?

[trainbuff]

I am not so sure we should give ITV credence for getting this item of news out first. I subscribe to 'RAIL', therefore getting the magazine early, and this item is in their current magazine.

Living in the far west of the territory I dread to think if all the improvements needed for our services will be delayed further.

It may well be that the yet to be constructed AT300's will have to 'fill the gap' leaving HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s in the South West

[ChrisB]

My bet is that ITV Meridian also get a subscribers copy & thus picked it up early this morning/yesterday

[TonyK]

If a week is a long time in politics, then a decade is the blink of an eye in infrastructure development.

[trainbuff]

If a week is a long time in politics, then a decade is the blink of an eye in infrastructure development.

True. The Borders Railway was a decade or so, but it just seems so badly needed now! Probably because we, in Devon and Cornwall,  have been so under funded here for years!