Why has electrification not got further in the UK?

[yorksrob]

Also worth noting that the Modernisation Plan didn't envisage electrification from Woking (well, Pirbright Junction) to Southampton and Bournemouth, so that was a Beeching add-on.

The Glasgow Suburban electrification had originally been based vaguely on the extensive Inglis Report proposals from as far back as 1951 but only the Airdrie-Helensburgh and South Side group of lines had actually been authorised. These were largely complete by the time that Beeching took over, having been started in 1958, so were very much 'winding down' rather than 'rolling'. However, Beeching did re-start the programme with the Glasgow-Gourock/Wemyss Bay scheme.

Sensible phasing of the King's Cross suburban routes indicated getting the Victoria Line and Finsbury Park-Moorgate routes sorted out first. Marples had given the go-ahead to the Victoria Line after pioneering use of cost-benefit analysis (a technique which Beeching also embraced). The scheme might have been authorised in the late 1960s after Beeching had gone but had to wait for the Heath government.

Beeching also presided over the tactical 1,500V dc extension from Sheffield Victoria/Rotherwood to the new Tinsley Marshalling Yard.

All very sound decisions in their day.

At a more general level it was patently obvious that with the haemorrhaging of traditional freight and passenger traffic in the face of road competition that BR had already (recently) ordered broadly enough diesel locomotives and DMUs to meet almost all of its 1960s traffic requirements on lines that were going to survive. There was little financial appeal in dumping this new kit that was then less than ten years old. The good old British Transport Commission had already made that mistake once with a large fleet of post-war new steam locomotives.

I do think in this country, if something doesn't go to plan, rather than learn lessons we give up. This was as true of the post GW electrification landscape as it was of the modernisation plan schemes.

 

[JonathanH]

The Chiltern Line has a far more intensive service frequency at the southern end than Manchester to Blackpool ever will. It is about the same as the WCML slows.

It does, but those trains go to Birmingham, Oxford, Banbury, Aylesbury, High Wycombe. A lot of route miles have to be electrified before any wholly electric diagrams can exist meaning the extra cost of bi-modes is needed for almost the entire fleet.

Passenger numbers not reported to be the best recovery either.

 

[Peter Sarf]

So no examples then? Why did the politicians/ nationalised NR not deliver things like the GWML electrification properly?



Would you rather we bought all trains for cash, brand new, no amortisation?

And, if we did (would this make lots of schemes unaffordable, given the need to buy everything up front), how many extra miles of electrification would that buy us each year?

(P.s. better not Google things like English Electric Leasing and find that BR were leasing locomotives over fifty years ago)



He was, keen to run an efficient railway full of MGRs and marshalling yards, something they electricifation would have helped but “haters gone hate” regardless of things like facts!



Twenty years of Network Rail should have improved that though;


can’t blame delay attribution for GWML electrification problems



In “RobWorld”, all bad things happen because of politicians and their representatives , yet he seems determined on nationalisation

I agree that the GWML problems have hurt other schemes, e.g. not only have we not wired the gaps in the “MML” to Moorthorpe/ Doncaster, we’ve not even reached Leicester… heck, we’ve not even done the GWML to Oxford etc, but this will all (somehow!) be blamed on the ROSCO contacts from thirty years ago… magical thinking

My bold. Ironically one would think certain ROSCOs would instead be lobbying for electrification so as to find a use for the redundant 350/2s and 379s !.

 

[The exile]

And if the people on them would otherwise drive, rather than using the other route from London to Exeter.

The other route from London to Exeter is largely irrelevant - otherwise those passengers would already be using it.

 

[Starmill]

The other route from London to Exeter is largely irrelevant - otherwise those passengers would already be using it.

I'm afraid that's not what the data suggests. If SWR charged more or GWR charged less, people would be using the space on GWR services more efficiently as they're significantly quicker.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I do think in this country, if something doesn't go to plan, rather than learn lessons we give up. This was as true of the post GW electrification landscape as it was of the modernisation plan schemes.

Actually I fear the lesson learnt is that the railways cannot control costs so don't throw good money after bad. I do not agree with this simplification but to an outsider holding the purse strings I think this is the "lesson learnt".

The only "popular" driver for electrification will be the green agenda.

Anyway, with such dire passenger numbers outside of the M25 - London Commuter area I think any investment of any sort is highly unlikely. The UK railways have to attract what passengers could be available with what the railways already have.

 

[yorksrob]

I'm afraid that's not what the data suggests. If SWR charged more or GWR charged less, people would be using the space on GWR services more efficiently as they're significantly quicker.

The reason I've tended to use the Southern route is because the trains from Paddington have tended to be quite crowded.

Even with an advanced, I can choose my seat, and if I choose one diagrammed to be six carriages, I get a double seat to myself.

Now you can argue that part of that is train management, but I am using the service as a relief. Infact my family have switched to the route for the same reason (and the easy connection from Kent at Waterloo).

There are various reasons people use the Southern route which can't be explained away by pricing.

Actually I fear the lesson learnt is that the railways cannot control costs so don't throw good money after bad. I do not agree with this simplification but to an outsider holding the purse strings I think this is the "lesson learnt".

But that's the wrong lesson. The lesson should be the railway learning to do things better - which you would absolutely get from a rolling programme.

 

[JonathanH]

My bold. Ironically one would think certain ROSCOs would instead be lobbying for electrification so as to find a use for the redundant 350/2s and 379s !.

Not sure they can lobby for someone else to spend money they don't have just to make more themselves. I dont think the sums of what you suggest add up.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Not sure they can lobby for someone else to spend money they don't have just to make more themselves. I dont think the sums of what you suggest add up.

I agree !. I think the idea some have that the ROSCOs are to blame is a distraction !.

 

[yorksrob]

I agree !. I think the idea some have that the ROSCOs are to blame is a distraction !.

They're not to blame for the current drop in revenue. But having a lease cost for every carriage will dosincentivise putting more on.

And paying leasing costs on trains once construction has been paid off, is an additional revenue burden for the industry.

 

[stuu]

I'm afraid that's not what the data suggests. If SWR charged more or GWR charged less, people would be using the space on GWR services more efficiently as they're significantly quicker.

If that were true then there would be plenty of cheap advances available on GWR, but there aren't. So someone is buying them

 

[coppercapped]

There were two periods of extensive electrification - the modernisation plan and the period spanning the 1980's. They should have been continued

Why? Why? Why?

I tried in my previous post to point you in the direction of making a reasoned case for your position.

You still have not, or possibly cannot, done so.

but they weren't. Beeching, Marples, Major, various people in Railtrack and NR at the time bear responsibility for that.

You are demonising again.

BTW electrification isn't my pet project. Network Rail recognise the need, hence the call for no regrets schemes. It is perfectly possible for railway management to advocate something publicly to Government if they think its right.

Advocacy alone will get you nowhere. The only thing that will have an effect is a closely reasoned and financially justified argument as to why and how your project meets the strategic and financial frameworks set by the Government. It is no good whinging that the railways are a special case or because of climate change or whatever - the calls for increased Government expenditure come from almost everywhere.

The Government has only one source of income — taxes[1] —so the frameworks are a way of comparing the costs and benefits of Government spending across many different areas[2] and spending set accordingly.

[1] For example income, National Insurance and inheritance taxes from individuals; VAT, Stamp Duty on transactions and income tax (Corporation Tax) and payroll taxes on companies.
[2] Examples: pensions, health care, support for science and technology research, defence, social care, prisons, border force, transfers to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Governments and administrations, the Maritime & Coastguard Agency, overseas payments, etc., etc.

 

[Dai Corner]

The reason I've tended to use the Southern route is because the trains from Paddington have tended to be quite crowded.

Even with an advanced, I can choose my seat, and if I choose one diagrammed to be six carriages, I get a double seat to myself.

It's quite difficult to argue that running half-empty trains where many passengers are paying discounted fares and could take an alternative route is a good use of taxpayers' money.

 

[yorksrob]

Why? Why? Why?

I tried in my previous post to point you in the direction of making a reasoned case for your position.

You still have not, or possibly cannot, done so.

You are demonising again.

Advocacy alone will get you nowhere. The only thing that will have an effect is a closely reasoned and financially justified argument as to why and how your project meets the strategic and financial frameworks set by the Government. It is no good whinging that the railways are a special case or because of climate change or whatever - the calls for increased Government expenditure come from almost everywhere.

The Government has only one source of income — taxes[1] —so the frameworks are a way of comparing the costs and benefits of Government spending across many different areas[2] and spending set accordingly.

[1] For example income, National Insurance and inheritance taxes from individuals; VAT, Stamp Duty on transactions and income tax (Corporation Tax) and payroll taxes on companies.
[2] Examples: pensions, health care, support for science and technology research, defence, social care, prisons, border force, transfers to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Governments and administrations, the Maritime & Coastguard Agency, overseas payments, etc., etc.

The question has to be, why are we such an outlier in terms of similar European countries ?

OK, I'll give you the sixties one, we had lots of diesel kit to use up, and a Deltic can do an express pretty well.

But the 80's period ? This was a period where we'd electrified many miles of route (Im sure I don't need to list them all, but ECML, bed pan, Cambridge and Kings Lynn, Norwich, thats without the expansion of the Southern electric.

We obviously knew that electrification was a benefit otherwise we wouldn't have bothered with it, and we obviously did it cost effectively, otherwise we wouldn't have done so much of it. And this was way before de-carbonisation became a thing.

So I put it to you @coppercapped why, why, why didn't we continue in the same vein ?

Why why why didn't we, as a country, as an industry build, build, build upon that resounding success ?

It's quite difficult to argue that running half-empty trains where many passengers are paying discounted fares and could take an alternative route is a good use of taxpayers' money.

I don't count all/most double seats taken as a half empty train. I count that as a comfortably busy one.

 

[JonathanH]

Why why why didn't we, as a country, as an industry build, build, build upon that resounding success ?

A) There were other priorities for the money in the past.
B) There is no money now.

 

[yorksrob]

A) There were other priorities for the money in the past.
B) There is no money now.

Really ? I don't recall the 1980's as being the land of milk and honey in terms of the Nation's finances, infact if anything the 90's were better economically than much of the 1980's, so overall economic outlook doesn't explain why we were able to undertake so much electrification in the 1980's and so little in the late 1990's.

 

[coppercapped]

They're not to blame for the current drop in revenue. But having a lease cost for every carriage will dosincentivise putting more on.

And paying leasing costs on trains once construction has been paid off, is an additional revenue burden for the industry.

This is rubbish.

There is a cost associated with any asset, the great thing about privatisation is that it made the railway's accounts transparent. Whether the London & Birmingham Railway owned the asset, or BR or a demonised ROSCO — these costs exist.

Whether you like it or not as long as an asset continues to be used after the income generated by it has paid off the initial construction costs there will continue to be costs involved is ensuring its continued operation in a safe manner. This may require re-engineering some or all of the asset at some or several points in its career. This costs.

These costs may be hidden, as in the case of the BTC, or in the sectorised days of BR becoming more visible through to nearly full transparency after 1993 — but they existed then and still exist now. They are not now suddenly 'an additional revenue burden for the industry'. BR also did mid-life updates of some of its assets, both infrastructure and rolling stock and these costs were, even then, a 'revenue burden'. Someone had to pay. As long as an asset is in use there are other costs involved than simply those of employing the operating staff, cleaning the thing and changing the oil and brake pads regularly. It is delusional to think otherwise.

 

[JonathanH]

I don't recall the 1980's as being the land of milk and honey in terms of the Nation's finances

A lot of 1980s electrification was justified on the basis of removal of old rolling stock. The 1990s started with recession and after ECML electrification, the next project was the WCML upgrade, which took precedence in the late 1990s / early 2000s over further electrification of railway lines.

 

[yorksrob]

This is rubbish.

There is a cost associated with any asset, the great thing about privatisation is that it made the railway's accounts transparent. Whether the London & Birmingham Railway owned the asset, or BR or a demonised ROSCO — these costs exist.

Whether you like it or not as long as an asset continues to be used after the income generated by it has paid off the initial construction costs there will continue to be costs involved is ensuring its continued operation in a safe manner. This may require re-engineering some or all of the asset at some or several points in its career. This costs.

These costs may be hidden, as in the case of the BTC, or in the sectorised days of BR becoming more visible through to nearly full transparency after 1993 — but they existed then and still exist now. They are not now suddenly 'an additional revenue burden for the industry'. BR also did mid-life updates of some of its assets, both infrastructure and rolling stock and these costs were, even then, a 'revenue burden'. Someone had to pay. As long as an asset is in use there are other costs involved than simply those of employing the operating staff, cleaning the thing and changing the oil and brake pads regularly. It is delusional to think otherwise.

You can throw around the "rubbish" insult as much as you like, but it simply doesn't run that the cost of building a carriage + cost of maintenance + cost of 20 year refurbishment or face lift adds up to the cost of leasing that vehicle over 40 years. If it does, what figures illustrate this ?

Also, if leasing stock was such a cost effective model, why didn't the industry adopt the leasing model of its own free will during the nationalisation/pre nationalisation eras ?

A lot of 1980s electrification was justified on the basis of removal of old rolling stock. The 1990s started with recession and after ECML electrification, the next project was the WCML upgrade, which took precedence in the late 1990s / early 2000s over further electrification of railway lines.

Rolling stock gets older all of the time. The fact that a total route modernisation took so long and cost so much isn't an answer to the issue.

Why did it take so long and cost so much to the extent that other sensible projects were crowded out such as electrification ?

 

[Clarence Yard]

Really ? I don't recall the 1980's as being the land of milk and honey in terms of the Nation's finances, infact if anything the 90's were better economically than much of the 1980's, so overall economic outlook doesn't explain why we were able to undertake so much electrification in the 1980's and so little in the late 1990's.

The mid to late 1980’s was when the financial shackles came off for both investment and Opex and those shackles came back on again, starting in 1990. The 1990 Railplan (BR’s five year planning process) iterations were brutal.

The nation’s finances had everything to do with this. On BR you could get your investment authorised relatively easily when the Treasury was well disposed to splashing the cash but when times were tougher, you had a rough ride, both for Capex and Opex.

 

[yorksrob]

The mid to late 1980’s was when the financial shackles came off for both investment and Opex and those shackles came back on again, starting in 1990. The 1990 Railplan (BR’s five year planning process) iterations were brutal.

The nation’s finances had everything to do with this. On BR you could get your investment authorised relatively easily when the Treasury was well disposed to splashing the cash but when times were tougher, you had a rough ride, both for Capex and Opex.

It does beg the question though, during the mid to late 1990's when the country was, if not booming, definitely not in recession, we didn't pick up the electrification programme.

 

[tbtc]

You can throw around the "rubbish" insult as much as you like, but it simply doesn't run that the cost of building a carriage + cost of maintenance + cost of 20 year refurbishment or face lift adds up to the cost of leasing that vehicle over 40 years. If it does, what figures illustrate this ?

I’d depends how you want to pay for things

Most stuff gets bought up front but things like houses might be on a twenty/ twenty five year mortgage…

…but some people use facilities like Klarma or credit cards

Part of the question is how much you can afford up front; what do you do if you can’t aford to purchase enough assets to meet demand ? Buy fewer?

Also, if leasing stock was such a cost effective model, why didn't the industry adopt the leasing model of its own free will during the nationalisation/pre nationalisation eras ?

Like the way that Stagecoach/ First etc lease some assets rather than buying everything outright?

Or that it’s over fifty years ago since BR were leasing Class 50s?

“the Class 50s were initially on a 10-year lease from English Electric Leasing” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_50

Why were BR leasing locomotives, if it’s always such a bad thing, Rob?

 

[yorksrob]

I’d depends how you want to pay for things

Most stuff gets bought up front but things like houses might be on a twenty/ twenty five year mortgage…

…but some people use facilities like Klarma or credit cards

Part of the question is how much you can afford up front; what do you do if you can’t aford to purchase enough assets to meet demand ? Buy fewer?



Like the way that Stagecoach/ First etc lease some assets rather than buying everything outright?

Or that it’s over fifty years ago since BR were leasing Class 50s?

“the Class 50s were initially on a 10-year lease from English Electric Leasing” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_50

Why were BR leasing locomotives, if it’s always such a bad thing, Rob?

That's an interesting example. I had no idea that BR leased class fifties.

In a way, I think it strengthens my point, in that BR were fully aware of the leasing option, and whilst they obviously found it useful in this case, in so many others they considered owning their own stock to be the better option

 

[JonathanH]

It does beg the question though, during the mid to late 1990's when the country was, if not booming, definitely not in recession, we didn't pick up the electrification programme.

As I noted above, the big project in that period was West Coast Route Modernisation, so the facility to pay for electrification wasn't available concurrently. Also, diesel was being touted as a clean fuel at the time.

Remember also that diesel Voyagers were built with nearly half the fleet running over electrified lines at any given time.

 

[yorksrob]

As I noted above, the big project in that period was West Coast Route Modernisation, so the facility to pay for electrification wasn't available concurrently. Also, diesel was being touted as a clean fuel at the time.

The second point about diesel, I take to an extent. There certainly weren't the clean air/carbon concerns as much at the time.

But I still feel that it was a policy failure to allow the West Coast TRM to crowd out electrification projects, given the proven benefits of electrification from all previous decades.

 

[Magdalia]

But the 80's period ? This was a period where we'd electrified many miles of route (Im sure I don't need to list them all, but ECML, bed pan, Cambridge and Kings Lynn, Norwich, thats without the expansion of the Southern electric.

I am very familiar with the Bishops Stortford-Cambridge, Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Kings Lynn electrifications as I was a commuter while they were happening.

In each project costs were driven down to a minimum to get them past the Treasury. Some of the important features were:

• much of the infrastructure was installed weekday off peak with single line working or, in the case of Kings Lynn, complete line closures
• expenditure on expensive kit like feeder stations was avoided, Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Kings Lynn were both electrified for 4 car trains only
• no new rolling stock, Bishops Stortford-Cambridge started with over 20 year old slam door trains, Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Kings Lynn got class 317s cascaded from the Bedpan to Thameslink transition
• the end of locomotive hauled trains with buffet cars
• no new signalling expenditure, Bishops Stortford-Cambridge, Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Ely had already been done, Ely-Kings Lynn is still proper signal boxes even now
• no new track expenditure, electric trains still trundled Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Kings Lynn at 60/70 mph
• DOO with class 317s was a big part of the financial case, getting DOO on Kings Cross-Royston in 1986 was an essential part of getting the projects approved

Further investment came later: power enhancements for 8 car trains, new class 365 trains, and track improvements that raised speeds to 90mph in places. This included a 9 day closure of Royston-Cambridge in August 1999.

That's how electrification was done in a hostile political and economic environment.

 

[yorksrob]

I am very familiar with the Bishops Stortford-Cambridge, Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Kings Lynn electrifications as I was a commuter while they were happening.

In each project costs were driven down to a minimum to get them past the Treasury. Some of the important features were:

• much of the infrastructure was installed weekday off peak with single line working or, in the case of Kings Lynn, complete line closures
• expenditure on expensive kit like feeder stations was avoided, Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Kings Lynn were both electrified for 4 car trains only
• no new rolling stock, Bishops Stortford-Cambridge started with over 20 year old slam door trains, Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Kings Lynn got class 317s cascaded from the Bedpan to Thameslink transition
• no new signalling expenditure, Bishops Stortford-Cambridge, Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Ely had already been done, Ely-Kings Lynn is still proper signal boxes even now
• no new track expenditure, electric trains still trundled Royston-Cambridge and Cambridge-Kings Lynn at 60/70 mph
• DOO with class 317s was a big part of the financial case, getting DOO on Kings Cross-Royston in 1986 was an essential part of getting the projects approved

Further investment came later: power enhancements for 8 car trains, new class 365 trains, and track improvements that raised speeds to 90mph in places. This included a 9 day closure of Royston-Cambridge in August 1999.

That's how electrification was done in a hostile political and economic environment.

I guess it shows how it's better to get something off the ground, and complete later, than to wait forever gor the perfect plan !

My thoughts are, if that's s hostile environment, the Blair government must have been even more hostile because so much less electrification got done !

 

[A0wen]

Well, it's not rocket science - we were approaching if not a rolling programme, near enough one in the 1980's. Same in the 1960's until the blessed Doctor put a halt to it. It would be a better spend than subsidising roscos or keeping the private sector involved.



I'm lucky living in West Yorkshire as the train is a decent option in almost every direction.

Bit in bold - I'm not sure that's either fair or true.

Throughout the 1960s the major project was the WCML using the then new to the UK 25kv system - that was a huge undertaking.

From Wiki

"As part of the 1955 modernisation plan, the line was modernised and electrified in stages between 1959 and 1974. The first stretch to be electrified was Crewe to Manchester, completed on 12 September 1960. This was followed by Crewe to Liverpool, completed on 1 January 1962. Electrification was then extended south to London. The first electric trains from London ran on 12 November 1965, with full public service from 18 April 1966. Electrification of the Birmingham line was completed on 6 March 1967. In March 1970 the government approved electrification between Weaver Junction (where the route to Liverpool diverges) and Glasgow "

There wasn't the money or capacity to do both the ECML and WCML so the ECML mas modernised using track improvements to increase speed and the 22 Deltics.

Other electrification included converting the GE from 1500v DC and extending to Colchester and Bishops Stortford and electrifying the SWML to Bournemouth.

All done in the 1960s.

 

[Ken H]

My take on it, from memory
To get ECML electrification through the treasury bean counters the project costs had to bared to the minimum. OK some poor provision (Headspan wires?) was done but it got done. I think London based civil servants wondered why money was being spent on a rail line to the uncivilised north where there were dragons in the River Calder! And remember Serpell. His map had Newcastle - Edinburgh slated for closure.
But then we were into sectorisation and privatisation and everything stopped. Rolling stock procurement with the 1000 day hiatus, the splitting up of BR into many pieces, etc.
Then there was west coast modernisation. Railtrack did not have the engineering clout at board level so the project ran into the ground and kulled Railtrack.
Then we had the Blair-Brown government. They needed to spend to deliver on election promises, but they had campaigned onno increase in basic rate of income tax, and to keep borrowing under control to counter the tories saying the were fiscally irresponsible. So while they increased other taxes, they had to cut back on anything that wasnt schools and hospitals.
Since then electrification is seen as expensive (It is far more expensive in real terms than it was due to a number of factors including payments to TOC's and increasing costs of health and safety). But the railway also scored own goals with electrification projects that were late and over budget. Politicians like to open projects. If they are late and another party is in control, then thats a BAD THING. So its hardly surprising Westminster wont sign off rail projects in England.
I also suspect there is some gold plating. The Scots are getting the wires up. As far as I know on time and to budget. Why do we do so badly in England???

 

[43096]

That's an interesting example. I had no idea that BR leased class fifties.

The Class 365s were also leased under a contract placed pre-privatisation.

In a way, I think it strengthens my point, in that BR were fully aware of the leasing option, and whilst they obviously found it useful in this case, in so many others they considered owning their own stock to be the better option

Railway financing (as with much else) has changed significantly in the last 30 years. If leasing is such a bad idea, why are the national operators in many countries in Europe increasingly using leased equipment?

Anyway, I thought your preference wasn't electrification, but to have a man with a flag riding horseback in front of trains.