You are correct the GRIP▸ process should prevent such things happening, I don't have a lot of faith in it to be honest it can be manipulated to get the desired result, all to common is the "to be developed in GRIP 4" or what ever the next GRIP stage is, thereby the team in the lower GRIP stage puts a "risk" in documents get signed people move on and a new team comes along and find the risk pot is more a thimble
This sums up many of the excellent comments made above. As with MetroBust in Bristol, it is possible to decide the outcome - in this case bus is good, tram is bad - then work the maths to arrive at the desired result. Big infrastructure is harder to deal with, and there are good reasons for pressing ahead despite the cost.
A lot has been invested in the
GW▸ mainline electrification already. To my mind, it was a very big mistake to cancel the project in the 1980s for short term gain. The cost would have been far lower in real terms, although the technology has prospered since. It has now passed the point of no return. Hitachi will be turning out the new trains according to their contract, whether there are wires for them to run under or not. The
HSTs▸ , despite their fans, are nearing a point way beyond the end of their initial lifetimes. They were meant as a stop-gap to keep us moving until electrification.
The day will come when we in the
UK▸ join the ranks of all-electric railways. Diesel is dirty, the trains use it only to produce electricity to drive the trains. They have to carry huge engines and hundreds of litres of oil to do this. That takes energy that costs money. The worst coal-fired power station powering a 14MW electric loco is probably doing a cleaner job than the cleanest diesel unit, but power for rail is heading down a one-track line towards 25 KV overhead equipment, maybe with battery power for the shortest branch lines. Electric train is a prophet in his own time.
Coal-fired stations are being demolished - like Didcot - with gas filling the gap until the new nuclear stations get a new clear path towards our low emission future.We are also using less electricity year on year in our homes. I have just replaced 8 50 watt GU10 spotlights with LEDs burning 3 Watts each, and they are brighter and a decent light. The internet is doing much to increase our consumption, but that will drop off with improvements to the technology, hopefully. We will end up with a base load of around 25 GW, equal to about 8 Hinkley C nuclear stations, with peak consumption provided by
CCGT▸ (Combined Cycle Gas Turbine) plants such as at Didcot and Avonmouth. These can fire up in minutes, with Dinorwig in Wales keeping the lights on when everyone gets up to put the kettle on at the end of one of the soup operas, or half time in the footie. We may develop Thorium as a nuclear fuel, or harness the tides. Wind and solar farms will be with us for a generation only, as they are not reliable, have too big a footprint for the power they supply, and need alternative backup. You build them, you have to do it twice. If the electric railways were powered by wind turbines, then for two thirds of the time you would be going nowhere.
If the price of electrification looks big, then look at Hinkley C. That was put at ^16 billion last year, ^24 billion yesterday, but ^25 billion today. The sight of a Chinese cheque book has an effect. Jobcentres as far away as Bristol and Gloucester are poised to recruit everything from nuclear scientist to cleaner and the possibility of avoiding work anywhere in Somerset will disappear.
But building a better railway and cleaner power isn't a job creation scheme, or at least shouldn't be. Our future as a country will see gas used only to generate electricity, and that gas will come from hydraulically fractured wells as the North Sea proves uneconomic. We will cook by magnetic induction, heat our homes with wood burners or ceramic heaters, maybe even embrace electric cars. The revolution will be driven by cost, not principle, but railways will lead the way if the government lets them.
