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Decarbonising Scotland’s Railways
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Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
Good find and thanks for telling us the time point. I like the way he says putting the wires up is the easy bit and its the civils that hard and costing a lot of money. Oh and him trumpeting that Scotland can do it for £2m/km but its £3m/km south of the border! Says money is tight compared to recent years for investment but are getting on with the £150m feeder station works. They have more for operate maintain renew than was expecting for CP7 so maybe that can help lubricate progress. Anyhow the plan is going through a three year update as we know and we will see that later in the year. What i heard very firmly keeping the teams together and creating a production line environment is what has driven down costs so im pretty sure once E.Kilbride/Barrhead are completed those teams will remerge over on the East side.
Thanks for that. I've watched it from 55mins to the end, will maybe watch the earlier part later. I found it encouraging - basically they seem to be sticking with all the plans.
Round about 1:05 there's an interesting bit about deciding to go ahead with Levenmouth, though no doubt a lot more formality was required after the chat in the pub.
I'm pleased that, as @Nicholas Lewis says, Hynes confirmed that the first review of the decarbonisation programme, originally due this spring, will still be published this year.
Round about 1:05 there's an interesting bit about deciding to go ahead with Levenmouth, though no doubt a lot more formality was required after the chat in the pub.
I'm pleased that, as @Nicholas Lewis says, Hynes confirmed that the first review of the decarbonisation programme, originally due this spring, will still be published this year.
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At around 37 minutes into the podcast Alex Hynes mentioned that the big renewal project in CP7 will be Perth (he hoped lessons would be learned from Carstairs which the NR Scotland team thought they could have done a better job on by challenging standards and requirements). Is the Perth renewal project likely to take until the end of CP7 meaning electrification to Perth is unlikely to happen until CP8?
HSTEd
Veteran Member
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- 16,743
There are sufficient weasel words in the small print for that Scotland railway map for me to be entirely skeptical about how much electrification will actually happen.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
The seven cities plus Carstairs perhaps?
Altnabreac
Established Member
I would think it’s more likely to be Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth, Inverness, Clachnaharry and Banavie.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
So 6 of the seven cities then?
Altnabreac
Established Member
Seems likely. Could see an argument for Stirling or Carstairs instead of Clachnaharry but suspect remote canal bridge monitoring is so niche as to be expensive to implement.
However I’d be certain that Banavie will survive as one of the 8. RETB plus the canal makes abolishing it very unlikely.
waverley47
Member
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- 17 Apr 2015
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West of Scotland Signalling Centre (Cowlairs, controls the E&G, Dunblane, various lines across the Central Belt)
West Scotland Regional Operations Centre (Ayrshire and G&SW lines, next door to the WSSC at Springburn)
Edinburgh (ECML and lines up as far as Aberdeen)
Aberdeen for the line to Inverness
Inverness for the Far North and Kyle
Banavie for the WHL
I'm unsure as to the other two. Carlisle and something for the Stranraer line?
West Scotland Regional Operations Centre (Ayrshire and G&SW lines, next door to the WSSC at Springburn)
Edinburgh (ECML and lines up as far as Aberdeen)
Aberdeen for the line to Inverness
Inverness for the Far North and Kyle
Banavie for the WHL
I'm unsure as to the other two. Carlisle and something for the Stranraer line?
Falcon1200
Established Member
Not sure why existing arrangements would be changed; Edinburgh currently controls the E&G throughout, and the West of Scotland Signalling Centre (WSSC) controls everything out of Glasgow Central High Level (including the interface with Carlisle SC on the WCML, so no need for any more of Scotland's railways to be controlled from Carlisle!). Logic would suggest extending control areas to contiguous routes, eg WSSC extends from Barrhead to Annan and Ayr to Stranraer.
Gaelan
Member
Dunfermline would like a word!
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
I made the assumption ( probably incorrectly) that Thornton would be a possible location - possibly I am mixing up grid feeders and ROC signalsDunfermline would like a word!
Altnabreac
Established Member
The reference is to Dunfermline now being Scotland’s 8th city.
Scotrail’s 7 cities Intercity branding hasn’t caught up with Dunfermline’s new legal status.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
Ok I am with you now! As my son in law was born in Girvan Ayrshire, I try and keep up!
Are these not the same thing, just different names depending on what was in vogue at the time? Certainly its all 1 building not two.
The Puddock
Member
Yes it’s all under one roof and the whole lot is referred to as simply WSSC. It also doesn’t control the E&G or Dunblane, the former is controlled by the Cowlairs and Cumbernauld workstations in Edinburgh IECC and the latter still has a mechanical signalbox at the station.
waverley47
Member
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I was under the impression that those two were separate operations under the same roof, ie one level for south of the river with all the bells and whistles and one for north of it.
Also has the entire E&G gone over to Edinburgh, as I was under the impression that at least some of it north of Greehill junction was still the WSSC
Ahh just seen this.
The Puddock
Member
The workstations in WSSC are all on one floor, in a single large room. The E&G has never been controlled by WSSC.
59CosG95
Established Member
Yep, Cathcart.
The Puddock
Member
Yes, though I have heard it is soon to be extended. They’re taking on more operators too.
ABB125
Established Member
What sort of electrics are controlled from here?
59CosG95
Established Member
25kV traction power.
Falcon1200
Established Member
Indeed, it leads to the odd situation that the WSSC is situated within a triangle of lines, none of which it actually controls!
Altnabreac
Established Member
There would be a certain logic in Girvan being one of the 8.
Once Girvan is electrified and included in the Glasgow - Ayr electrics you could run a battery Girvan - Stranraer shuttle 2 hourly service.
Signalling wise this could pretty much operate “One Engine in Steam” but you’d still need some signaller presence to fringe with WSCC and Girvan would be a logical location.
Probably a simplified RETB type system.
In this podcast Alex Hynes talked about decarbonisation, fleet procurement and scrapping peak fares amongst other things.
Passenger numbers had increased by 4% since the fares trial started. They hadn’t done any paid advertising in case demand increased to such an extent that it would cause overcrowding, but there would be a big paid advertising campaign in January when demand is normally lower.
On the suburban fleet procurement he said they had been ‘ready to go’ for a while but were still awaiting clarification from Scottish Ministers on what funding would be available. They would assess whether there was a business case to replace the HSTs (with hybrid electrics) earlier than 2030 - this would require Ministers’ permission to approach the market.
The refresh of the Decarbonisation Action Plan was ongoing and would be published ‘in due course’. He commented on how the public finances were much tighter than they were 3 years ago when the original plan was published. He made reference to the ‘mega project’ to electrify Dunblane to Aberdeen, and said some advance works had started for this.
https://x.com/greensignallers/status/1732710579368825164?s=61&t=UyoTeT5kB81xizJMJ3aw_g
Passenger numbers had increased by 4% since the fares trial started. They hadn’t done any paid advertising in case demand increased to such an extent that it would cause overcrowding, but there would be a big paid advertising campaign in January when demand is normally lower.
On the suburban fleet procurement he said they had been ‘ready to go’ for a while but were still awaiting clarification from Scottish Ministers on what funding would be available. They would assess whether there was a business case to replace the HSTs (with hybrid electrics) earlier than 2030 - this would require Ministers’ permission to approach the market.
The refresh of the Decarbonisation Action Plan was ongoing and would be published ‘in due course’. He commented on how the public finances were much tighter than they were 3 years ago when the original plan was published. He made reference to the ‘mega project’ to electrify Dunblane to Aberdeen, and said some advance works had started for this.
https://x.com/greensignallers/status/1732710579368825164?s=61&t=UyoTeT5kB81xizJMJ3aw_g
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Interesting. I wonder how thst compares to:
1) the increase in passenger numbers on the rest of the network
2) forecasts
and what impact it has had on reveneue. 4% doesn’t seem very much in the context of reducing a significant proportion of fares paid by a much higher percentage.