Shapps wants ‘earlier extinction of diesel trains’: suggestions welcome on how to achieve this

[yorksrob]

That’s correct. The Chiltern enjoyed a ‘Sparks effect’ following total route modernisation in the early 90s.

Or Kent in the 1960's (even though it wasn't called a total route modernisation then)

Sorry, so it has, but it's a long time since I was up it, as they say.
Don't forget that (in the UK anyway) train services will have had a spell - if not years - of reduced and slowed-down services while the work was being done, so almost any new electric service will be an improvement on what had been offered in the recent past...

Yes, that could have an effect.

 

[Bald Rick]

Or Kent in the 1960's (even though it wasn't called a total route modernisation then).

But didn’t that involve electrification (or am I missing something)?

 

[yorksrob]

But didn’t that involve electrification (or am I missing something)?

It did, but involved new signalling, improved stations and everything else as well.

 

[yorkie]

I've travelled around Norway, Sweden and Finland. Most of their long distance lines are single track and not used that intensively. All of them are electrified.

Hardly a valid comparison!

In any case most of our long distance lines are either electrified, in the process of being electrified or proposed for electrification.

 

[Bald Rick]

It did, but involved new signalling, improved stations and everything else as well.

Oh I see. That was the concept of total route modernisation, it usually involved quicker journey times (sometimes, but not always through higher speeds), new (longer) trains, higher frequencies, station rebuilds; this often involved resignalling and electrification. As seen since the mid 70s on: (in no particular order):

GN inner
GN outer (incl electrification to Cambridge / Peterborough / KL)
WA (Stortford to Cambridge)
MML BedPan
Birmingham Cross City
Leeds NW
Chiltern
Thames Valley
LTS

All but the last three involved electrification, with the LTS obviously having been electrified a long time previously. All had a good degree of patronage increase as a result.

My point is that ‘the sparks effect’ is real, but not necessarily linked to electrification. Noting that some of the frequency or journey time improvements would have been difficult without the performance provided by electric trains.

 

[Bald Rick]

Hardly a valid comparison!

In any case most of our long distance lines are either electrified, in the process of being electrified or proposed for electrification.

And in Norway / Sweden / Finland the lines are not all electrified, far from it.

Finland has a little over half its routes electrified. Sweden and Norway a little over 60%. The latter two have power generation which to all intents and purposes is 98% renewable (including Nuclear in Sweden’s case). As a result both have cheap and plentiful electricity which is a significant factor in the decision to electrify.

 

[coppercapped]

In fairness to @coppercapped , a lot of people on here over-egg the "sparks effect"... if you didn't know anything about railways then reading the posts on here would give the impression that simply changing the power source of a train would suddenly attract thousands of new passengers.

And it's not just the "sparks effect", people similarly go on about this massive "untapped demand", as if increasing the capacity on any line is all you need to do to replicate Operation Princess.

Most of the lines where passenger numbers went up significantly at the time of electrification were a combination of

• increased frequencies
• longer trains
• more comfortable/ better quality trains (please not yet another debate about seats though - please!)
• a long period of disruption due to electrification meaning that there was an apparent jump in passenger numbers once the line re-gained an all-day/all-week service
• a time of economic boom, meaning more commuter demand (e.g. the market for travel into booming Leeds in the early '90s, when previously very few people would have commuted all the way from places like Ilkley/ Keighley)

...but now that frequencies have been pretty much maxed out at major termini, there's a lot less scope for more departures (e.g. the planned EMR timetable will see just the same number of St Pancras departures for Leicester since there's no capacity to increase the paths due to the squeeze of Thameslink), we certainly aren't living in times of much economic boom any more either!

I'm all for wide eyed optimism but I think that we need to be more realistic about the effects of changing fuel on passenger numbers - there are good reasons for electrification (better air quality, more sustainable, cheaper to run trains, potentially running a four coach electric train at less than the cost of a two coach diesel train) but we don't need to exaggerate. I'd love to consign "Sparks Effect" into the Forum's swear filter

Thank you. My point exactly. See also Bald Rick's comment in his post No. 125, to be found here.

 

[deltic08]

Setting aside the issue of CO2 emissions, the main issue with diesel emissions from road transport is the direct impact on pedestrians that share the same transport corridor as them - i.e. people walking on pavements adjacent to roads inhaling particulates. Given rail transport away from stations doesn’t generally run along pedestrian routes then rail emissions are somewhat less important in improving public health.

Maybe there is an argument here for an interim solution using small battery units (or even OHLE) to power trains on departure when the most fumes tend to be generated next to platforms and humans, with a switchover to diesel once running at speed away from population centres, analogous perhaps to plug-in hybrid cars with a short range, where urban trips are done on electric but longer trips on trunk roads use the engine. Maybe on routes where hybrid trains are proposed (e.g west of Cardiff) the wires can terminate a few miles past the last electrified station to cover the acceleration away.

Diesel particulates don't just stay close to the site of emission. They are light enough to stay airborne for days and can transport tens of miles. So whether it is from road or rail transport, we all share it.

 

[tbtc]

So you're saying that the "Sparks Effect" only works when there's a parallel improvement in service quality.

Rather like replacing 2 carriage 150's and 142's with 4 carriage 319's on Northern then

Yeah - I think that some people rely too much on electrification as a transformational tool, whereas it's generally happened as part of other improvements - the Operation Princess improvements actually saw *fewer* miles of electrified trains (since Voyagers replaced the 86-hauled trains from Birmingham up the WCML to Edinburgh/ Glasgow) but passenger numbers jumped - it's not as if average passengers pay much attention to how a train is fuelled.

However nowadays there's not a lot of spare capacity to transform frequencies (and remove random intervals with clock face timetables) since most lines are already fairly full nowadays - hence my comment about the MML where there's not a lot of a leap forward possible (other than replacing ancient HSTs, of course...)

Most of the "low hanging fruit" have already been picked, so it's going to be hard get a huge jump in passenger numbers just because we electrify a line - I'm all for electrification - in the long run it'd be cheaper to run four coach EMUs than to continue with two coach DMUs - faster, better accelerating, better for the environment etc - but I think some on here are getting a bit evangelical about the transformative powers of EMUs, as if potential passengers base their journey decision on such things.

So, for example, if you replace HST/Voyagers on XC with IET300s then you're stuck with the same number of paths through New Street, you may struggle to improve much on existing Voyager times (given their fast acceleration), you probably aren't going to attract a lot of people just because you are using trains with a different fuel - so it should be seen more in terms of longer trains/ environmental benefits/ long term planning (and less as a magic wand that will attract significantly more passengers)

And in Norway / Sweden / Finland the lines are not all electrified, far from it.

Finland has a little over half its routes electrified. Sweden and Norway a little over 60%. The latter two have power generation which to all intents and purposes is 98% renewable (including Nuclear in Sweden’s case). As a result both have cheap and plentiful electricity which is a significant factor in the decision to electrify.

I wonder if part of the issue with such comparisons is that other countries (which built their railways as organised/ planned networks, rather than speculative routes by private Victorian businessmen) means that they aren't lumbered with thousands of miles of lines with only minimal services (that the UK has)?

Thank you. My point exactly. See also Bald Rick's comment in his post No. 125, to be found here.

@Bald Rick has a habit of putting things much better than I ever could!

 

[The Ham]

On the issue of is global warming man made I've two questions which are useful to answer. There's a challenge at the end of this post which is like everyone to consider to do.

Question one, which requires you to consider two views to answer; what happenes if your view is wrong?

Let's assume that global warming isn't happening and I'm wrong and we've made changes to how we power our lifestyle, more of us live & work in the same locality, we drive less and walk/cycle/use public transport more (which makes our streets more pleasant places to be and fees up space which was car parking for other uses) and the like what's the downside?

Now what's the downside if global warming is happening and those that think it isn't are wrong, what happens then?

Question two; for this I'll use an analogy to prove my point. Do you only look at the biggest source of a problem and only fix it is you can change that? (This is relating to those who claim that CO2 emissions are mostly natural and therefore we can't do anything about it).

The analogy is this; if you are short of money each month by about £50 do you just look at your finances and think, well there's nothing I can do about my mortgage payments which are £1,000 a month so I'll do nothing, or do you look further an notice that you are buying lunches out, using ubar for short trips, having takeaways and drinking a lot of coffee from coffee shops and then act on those items? Clearly you do the latter, yes it means a change in lifestyle but you do what's needed to balance your income Vs your outgoings. In the same way we need to make changes to the "little" things that we do when it comes to emissions so that the world is back to a point where the amount of CO2 is within the limits of what the planet can deal with.

The sooner people stay to make changes the smaller those changes need to be. As an example if 3,500 households drove 2 miles a week less that would be the equivalent distance saved as to the moon. Which although isn't a big change for most people would result in a significant amount less emissions if enough people do it.

For quite a few people that's just walking or cycling to school or a local group or local pub once or twice a week rather than driving. Even if it's replacing a longer journey once a month by train (which is on average circa 5 times better than driving) that's going to result in a similar impact (I'd suggest you'd probably want to go for a return trip of 100 miles per month or equivalent if done less frequently so as to be sure that it was still better). For some it could be parking their car a mile from home one evening a week and then walking the last bit home and then walking the first bit back to their car the following morning. Others may consider dusting off a folding bike and parking a mile or two from work and cycling at that end (which could save them parking charges if they work in a town centre).

Having your shopping delivered can be better, however you do have to be careful that you're not just outsourcing your emissions. As such try and do shopping when doing another trip which is needed.

Now for some they'll reduce by two miles a week so easily that they actually do more and then wonder why they even need a second car and so do further than needed. Whilst there'll be a few who will find that they are already doing all that they can (as they are already walking all their local trips and longer trips are only by public transport). However I challenge everyone to try to do this for a year.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

. . . currently the spineless shower in Westminster and Whitehall seem not care at all about death rates beyond their immediate neighbourhood . . .

Marylebone Station is in their neighbourhood.

 

[Energy]

Part of the his may be longer franchises, when Chiltern got a 20 year franchise it did lots of work on the tracks, redoubling sections and changing signalling on some. Operators now can't seem to do anything more than introducing new trains as they don't have a long enough franchise to see the return on investment.

The next Chiltern franchise will be interesting, Chris Grayling seems to be fine with the civity dmus but whether Grant Shapps will allow new ones will be seen... Hopefully they just electrify the line.

I also think bimodes are to blame for some of this, it allows th government to electrify part of a line and say that bimodes can just switch to diesel for the unelectrified bit. In the new west coast partnership franchise we should be electrifying the north Wales lines which are used, not going for bimodes.

 

[Energy]

Looking at the issues with northern's civitys with lots not being in service, the delays and issues with mk5s and the 397s still not being in service and they were meant to be in passenger service in the spring, it may be safe to think that caf may not be having great build quality on the civity and mk5s and that by 2040 the civitys may be at the end of their life anyway.

 

[Meerkat]

I've travelled around Norway, Sweden and Finland. Most of their long distance lines are single track and not used that intensively. All of them are electrified.

Were those lightly used lines built principally for freight, especially bulk freight, for which electric is more powerful?

 

[Agent_Squash]

When the Government finally sorts out Windermere (diesel trains running nearly entirely under wires), then I’ll know they’re serious.

 

[Bletchleyite]

When the Government finally sorts out Windermere (diesel trains running nearly entirely under wires), then I’ll know they’re serious.

Windermere is utterly silly. It needs wires, it would be a cheap and easy job, and then adequate capacity could be provided using 4-car 331s.

 

[AM9]

Just how do the acquisition, ownership and maintenance costs of DMUs and DEMUs stack up? A DEMU should have lower maintenance costs and probably lower energy requirements. Of course, DMUs might have lower manufacturing costs, but I doubt by much.
The real boon is that DEMUs can have a life beyond the electrification of their lines whereas DMUs are a technology cul-de-sac. It's a ashame that the climate change debate took hold after the 195s were ordered, because there must be regrets that pure diesels were bought.

 

[Bald Rick]

Just how do the acquisition, ownership and maintenance costs of DMUs and DEMUs stack up? A DEMU should have lower maintenance costs and probably lower energy requirements. Of course, DMUs might have lower manufacturing costs, but I doubt by much.
The real boon is that DEMUs can have a life beyond the electrification of their lines whereas DMUs are a technology cul-de-sac. It's a ashame that the climate change debate took hold after the 195s were ordered, because there must be regrets that pure diesels were bought.

By DEMU do you mean a bimode DMU, (which strictly speaking should be an EDMU), or a DEMU in the conventional sense of a diesel prime mover powering electric transmission and no electric current collection capability?

 

[Speed43125]

Windermere is utterly silly. It needs wires, it would be a cheap and easy job, and then adequate capacity could be provided using 4-car 331s.

Given the current rolling stock shortage. Why the hell hasn't that been done?!

 

[AndrewE]

Given the current rolling stock shortage. Why the hell hasn't that been done?!

The only person who can answer that is a certain Westminster politician whose name rhymes with "failing."
Don't believe anyone who tries to tell you that the National Park (or any amenity group) opposed it...

 

[High Dyke]

Perhaps they should harness the hot air spoken in parliament?

 

[HSTEd]

The sooner people stay to make changes the smaller those changes need to be. As an example if 3,500 households drove 2 miles a week less that would be the equivalent distance saved as to the moon. Which although isn't a big change for most people would result in a significant amount less emissions if enough people do it.

Given that the average car drives something like 7100 miles per year, 2 miles a week (100 a year) will make functionally no difference at all to motoring emissions, let alone overall emissions.

 

[The Ham]

Given that the average car drives something like 7100 miles per year, 2 miles a week (100 a year) will make functionally no difference at all to motoring emissions, let alone overall emissions.

Although that is true, it is a useful first step for many. Once someone starts with a small step they may well take more steps.

What do British Cycling do, do they say that's going to make very little difference, or do they say all these little steps will make a difference?

On its own it's not a big change but if it means that people think about their driving and therefore think about of using a car is a good way to get about then they may well then think so we actually need a second car in our household.

An average of 7,100 miles is circa 20 miles a day, which is probably too far to replace with walking and cycling. However that is likely to mean that there's quite a few people who are doing a lot less than this, as there's certainly a lot of people don't more than that too.

Those who are doing closer to 10 miles a day may well find that it's possible to live without a car and, if needed, hire a car for the few infrequent long journeys that they make. It is almost certainly going to be cheaper, even if they are in a few taxi trips a month too.

Based on a fairly cheap lease car £150/month plus a £1,000 up front payment), a low VED cost (£40), fairly low insurance (£200) and breakdown cover and servicing being included in the above, before fuel costs you're looking at a cost of 35p per mile. With fuel costs that's around the 45p per mile mark.

Even fairly expensive, pay as you go train costs over short distances are likely to be lower than this. For issuance a 5 mile return trip would be £4.50.

 

[The Ham]

Given that the average car drives something like 7100 miles per year, 2 miles a week (100 a year) will make functionally no difference at all to motoring emissions, let alone overall emissions.

Although that is true, it is a useful first step for many. Once someone starts with a small step they may well take more steps.

What do British Cycling do, do they say that's going to make very little difference, or do they say all these little steps will make a difference?

On its own it's not a big change but if it means that people think about their driving and therefore think about of using a car is a good way to get about then they may well then think so we actually need a second car in our household.

An average of 7,100 miles is circa 20 miles a day, which is probably too far to replace with walking and cycling. However that is likely to mean that there's quite a few people who are doing a lot less than this, as there's certainly a lot of people don't more than that too.

Those who are doing closer to 10 miles a day may well find that it's possible to live without a car and, if needed, hire a car for the few infrequent long journeys that they make. It is almost certainly going to be cheaper, even if they are in a few taxi trips a month too.

Based on a fairly cheap lease car £150/month plus a £1,000 up front payment), a low VED cost (£40), fairly low insurance (£200) and breakdown cover and servicing being included in the above, before fuel costs you're looking at a cost of 35p per mile. With fuel costs that's around the 45p per mile mark.

Even fairly expensive, pay as you go train costs over short distances are likely to be lower than this. For issuance a 5 mile return trip would be £4.50.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Restart the electrification I say. The sad thing is we had did so little in the John Major/New Labour years it’ll take decades to put a massive electric dent in the system.

 

[yorksrob]

Restart the electrification I say. The sad thing is we had did so little in the John Major/New Labour years it’ll take decades to put a massive electric dent in the system.

Indeed. Those years when we were apparently seeing unprecedented passenger increases were very much wasted from the point of view of improving the railway.

 

[AM9]

By DEMU do you mean a bimode DMU, (which strictly speaking should be an EDMU), or a DEMU in the conventional sense of a diesel prime mover powering electric transmission and no electric current collection capability?

Well sort of but not necessarily. The 195s are DMUs pure and simple, -they have diesel engines, mechanical or hydraulic transmission and mechanical drives to the axles. To convert them to bi-mode or even plain EMU would require a complete rebuild so probably not worth the effort. If they were built as DEMUs with passive provision to convert to a full bi-mode EDMU*, (or even a normal EMU), conversion would enable the bogies, and much of the electric infrastructure to be utilised. Indeed if a new design MU was to be created that had provision for all viable roles, the removal of diesel-powered units from UK railways could be managed a lot smoother and probably with lower total costs. Even though the 319 flex work hasn't reached full maturity yet, many of the problems solved, like a multi-fed dc bus have enabled the consideration of a basic system design with multiple end configurations.

* the genset sleds could have a generator suitable as a traction source for DE use, for battery charging, and of course hotel supplies. The bogies would have conventional 3 phase induction motors and provision for 3rd rail shoes, and the car bodies would include a pantograph well and mounting for a suitably rated transformer. Wiring would include a DC bus routed through to all collection locations, genset and traction electronics locations.

 

[The Ham]

Restart the electrification I say. The sad thing is we had did so little in the John Major/New Labour years it’ll take decades to put a massive electric dent in the system.

Indeed, now Assuming that we're going to need a rolling program of Electrification where would be good candidates to be within the early stages of this program (please note this isn't looking for the correct order of those projects, just the main projects which should be within that list).

As a starter is suggest that some of these would probably be good candidates (not in any particular order, other than the MML would likely be fairly high on most people's lists so that's been put first):

- MML
- Leamington Spa to Kidderminster
- Leamington Spa to Banbury/Didcot
- Banbury to Marylebone
- Reading to Basingstoke
- Bath to Salisbury to tie in with the scheme below
- Basingstoke to Southampton via Salisbury ideally through to Yeovil as well


With the last one on that list of you had wires between Basingstoke and Yeovil you could remove a at least half of diesel trains from Waterloo. You could even go further and run 1 DMU every two hours between Waterloo and Exeter and replace the other service with a cross platform change from an EMU to DMU at Yeovil (the other way depending on direction of travel), even if bimodal trains weren't being used. That would remove a lot of diesel running in general and free up the need for the replacement of quite so many DMU's.

I'm sure that there's other schemes which would be good, and in sure that those who know those areas better than me will be able to provide details of other schemes which could also make it into such a list.

 

[ABB125]

Windermere is utterly silly. It needs wires, it would be a cheap and easy job, and then adequate capacity could be provided using 4-car 331s.

On the one hand, I totally agree that the Windermere branch should be electrified:

• Fairly low speed
• Fairly short
• Long(ish) electrified mainline run prior to the branch (if coming from Manchester)
• Only one train on the line at any one time so little power draw
• I believe could simply run off the existing power supplies for the WCML

On the other hand, it is also a perfect candidate for bi-mode trains:

• Short, low speed branch off an electrified mainline - less diesel power needed
• Goes through a national park which may be "spoiled" by the electrification (although I believe the park authority doesn't object to electrification)

Therefore, should it be electrified when it is a classic example of where bi-mode operation works best?

(Personally, I would say yes, as long as it is done for a reasonable cost (although what counts as "reasonable" I don't know!).)

 

[Bletchleyite]

On the other hand, it is also a perfect candidate for bi-mode trains

Or battery trains rather than diesel. There is the proposal I've made before that a subfleet should be procured for the Barrow/Windermere services of 3x24m bi-modes/battery trains which could be used to run a portion worked hourly clockface Manchester Airport to Barrow and Windermere service. There'd be tons of time to charge up under the wires. A strong "Northern Connect - Lakes and Furness" sub-brand could be developed including named units, and they could have a lot of luggage space for the tourists, and perhaps 4 rather than the usual 2 bike spaces for similar reasons, as well as lots of window-aligned table seats for the scenery.

The question to answer is probably "what's cheaper - such a subfleet ordered new now, or wiring it now"? (To be fair add to the subfleet possibly tweaks to Lancaster station to allow for splitting and joining, e.g. bringing platform 6 back into use).