UK “rolling electrification” programme

CIE

Railway Gazette

Small sample:

Routes to be electrified at 25 kV 50 Hz as part of the electric spine are:

• Southampton port - Basingstoke;
• Basingstoke - Reading;
• Oxford - Leamington - Coventry;
• Coventry - Nuneaton;
• Oxford - Bletchley - Bedford;
• Bedford - Nottingham/Derby;
• Derby - Sheffield;
• Kettering - Corby

The government hopes this will encourage private investment in electric freight locomotives. Completion will enable further electrification in the 2019-24 Control Period 6.

Conversion of the Basingstoke - Southampton route from 750 V DC third rail to overhead electrification will 'test the business case for the wider conversion of the third rail network south of the Thames'. ...

dermo88

If there is one area of British Railways which has benefitted greatly from privatisation its Railfreight. Electrification of such a densely trafficked system is a welcome development and long overdue.

corktina

Good news for UK rail.

I hear that a lease has been signed for the GWS Didcot site alleviating any fear of it being made into a Crossrail construction site, particulalry relevant given the announcement of electifying north form there to Oxford et al.

dowlingm

Another opportunity for me to bang on about a favourite hobby horse, the decision to buy all 22000s rather than get *some* dual mode trains so that wires could be progressively extended.

Losty Dublin

While electric trains are cheaper and cleaner by way of fuel bills, the upfront cost for new rolling stock, infrastructure supply and additional construction costs are exorbitant. You well and truly need a busy network to even begin to justify the investment, not 6-7 return trips a day as on most of our long distance services.

CIE

dowlingm wrote: »

Another opportunity for me to bang on about a favourite hobby horse, the decision to buy all 22000s rather than get *some* dual mode trains so that wires could be progressively extended.

Acquiring dual mode anything in terms of motive power usually results in no further investment in electrification. Besides, the only real practical use for dual mode is electric operation in low-ventilation underground passages (tunnels, stations, especially where passenger operation is concerned); where the railway is open-air, continuous operation of internal combustion engines for traction makes little difference and means less hardware on the vehicles.

Sponge Bob

What bits would one start with?? The DU overground sections perhaps as in Sallins/Drogheda/Maynooth ??

dowlingm

Maynooth for me. Kildare line would be isolated whereas Maynooth would mean that current Maynooth-Bray service could go all electric once the entire route was energized. The dual modes could then push further out in both directions.

Here's an SNCF Bombardier B81500 (1.5kV DC + diesel) regional train from the AGC family:

CIE

Just because SNCF likes to blow money on extravagant pieces of equipment that require extra maintenance doesn't mean that IE should. When the diesel is running, it's burning extra fuel carrying around the transformers; when the electric is going, the OHLE system is using excess juice carrying around the diesel engines.

Cookie_Monster

Losty Dublin wrote: »

While electric trains are cheaper and cleaner by way of fuel bills, the upfront cost for new rolling stock, infrastructure supply and additional construction costs are exorbitant. You well and truly need a busy network to even begin to justify the investment, not 6-7 return trips a day as on most of our long distance services.

would electric not be cheaper than diesel, less moving parts and less complicated. They must be cheaper on a like for like basis, no?

CIE

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

would electric not be cheaper than diesel, less moving parts and less complicated. They must be cheaper on a like for like basis, no?

Electric only becomes cheaper past a certain volume of traffic; the expenditure on the electrification infrastructure (costs as much to build as a new-build non-electrified railway) cannot be justified on lower-volume railway lines and perhaps medium-to-high-volume railways in many cases. Diesel is the most economical for non-electrified operations (as high as 40 percent heat efficiency, and even getting more efficient).

And so far, there is no internal combustion engine that can produce the voltage or mechanical torque needed for acceleration to high speeds; gas turbine comes close (e.g. TGV 001), but at the expense of a high volume of fuel.

kc56

dowlingm wrote: »

Another opportunity for me to bang on about a favourite hobby horse, the decision to buy all 22000s rather than get *some* dual mode trains so that wires could be progressively extended.

France has dual mode trains but 50% of the French network is electrified. Ireland has about 5% electrified.

Dual more might make sense if, say, Dublin-Cork was electrified and dual mode could be used on the Kerry and Limerick branches. But to spend money on Dual mode today with so little of the network electrified would have been a waste of money.

Should mode not be tri-mode? Diesel, 1500V DC and 25KV AC (assuming any long distance lines would be 25KV.)

With Irish traffic levels, electrification outside of the Dublin commuter routes is not justifiable - exception - high speed > 200Kph.

CIE

Diesel has been capable of 200 km/h and faster since the 1970s. Even with the volume of Dublin-Cork trains (excessive IMHO), electrification just to achieve a benchmark attained 37 years ago is superfluous. (Electrifying Dublin-Cork made sense back when it was being planned a half-century ago, but the expectation should be for 140 mph and faster with tilt trains if it's going to be done in the 21st century on a traditional alignment.)

Incidentally, SNCF's B 82500 class is capable of running on both 1500V DC and 25000V 50Hz AC as well as its own diesel engines. Although on some videos I've seen of it, it looks like it's running under wires with the pantographs down...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZnMd4kmIpU

kc56

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

would electric not be cheaper than diesel, less moving parts and less complicated. They must be cheaper on a like for like basis, no?

Electric trains might be cheaper than diesels but the cost escalates rapidly when you take into account the infrastructure. In the UK, the proposed upgrades are along high usage routes; nothing west of Bristol for example despite having lines far busier the Cork or Belfast routes.

corktina

i'm not sure even Bristil is included, although it would take very little to electrfy from Parkway (on the Cardiff line) to Temple Meads.

There is massive redevelopment work ongoing in Reading currently to facilitate more traffic (its a central hub for many of the proposed upgraded lines) and things look rosy over.

Maverick88

Cardiff had already been authorised. The jury was out on Swansea as the figures did stack up, however this has now been authorised as well as the Valley lines around Cardiff (Valley lines is about another 60-80 miles). The Valley lines makes sense as the current Pacer (Class 142/143 units) DMU'S/ Railcars are about 30 years old and pretty substandard.

New Railcars will be difficult to order in future as the leasing companies don't see a long term future for them so new orders are unlikley, added to that new railcars have to meet EU emission standards and it seems there's no engines currently that can be used that will fit in the UK loading gauge.

Also authorised is the Midland Mainline (St Pancras- Sheffield/ Nottingham) which had the best cost/ benefit figures- however it just couldn't get authorised. This will release the Meridian fleet used by East Midlands trains which could be cascaded elsewhere.

dowlingm

Well now lookie here:
Agility Trains signs Intercity Express Programme contract

Financial close has been reached for IEP Phase 1, which covers the provision of 369 electric and 'bi-mode' vehicles for Great Western services. The bi-mode units will have underfloor diesel engines to operate on non-electrified routes, which DfT said 'is estimated to save around £200m' compared with using all-electric trains hauled by diesel locomotives beyond the wires. The diesel engines can be removed if electrification is extended in the future.

CIE

dowlingm wrote: »

Well now lookie here:
Agility Trains signs Intercity Express Programme contract

Financial close has been reached for IEP Phase 1, which covers the provision of 369 electric and 'bi-mode' vehicles for Great Western services. The bi-mode units will have underfloor diesel engines to operate on non-electrified routes, which DfT said 'is estimated to save around £200m' compared with using all-electric trains hauled by diesel locomotives beyond the wires. The diesel engines can be removed if electrification is extended in the future.

...and that implies that it's a very big "if". Money is already on the non-extension of electrification.

corktina

CIE wrote: »

...and that implies that it's a very big "if". Money is already on the non-extension of electrification.

thats an odd post...they've just announced a HUGE programme of electrification and are making provision for suitable trains (for the GW main lines) which can be adapted if further extensions of the programme occur. These presumably (in this case) would be the lines west of Bristol to Devon and Cornwall and the NW/SW line from Bristol to Birmingham. plus the curiously named "Berks and Hants"

dowlingm

I would hope that electrification north of Malahide at least to Drogheda (and its yard) would have happened by the end of the IEP production run, and being UK built trains maybe the UK gov would find a way to get NIR some money for their share of a DD replacement order for Enterprise in the early 2020s... subject to a suitably written tender document naturally!

Maverick88

From Roger Ford (Technical editor of Modern railways)

"Meanwhile, I’ve published the latest DfT figures for the IEP fleet allocations for Great Western and East Coast. With the GWML electrification extended to Swansea, the nonsense of the fleet for an electrified railway containing 38 diesel bi-modes and only 11 EMUs must surely be dead.

On the East Coast the 10 five-car electric sets for are retained but the previous homogenous fleet of 35 five car bi-modes has become eight five-car and 10 nine-car units. What a shambles"

And from the same source regarding the East Coast main line:

"Following the trial runs on the ECML Alstom is enthusiastically promoting Pendolino as the long term IC225 replacement. With ETCS allowing both tilt and 140mile/h running Alstom’s simulations based on the trial runs suggest that 50min could be knocked off the London-Edinburgh Journey time. Meanwhile, several Intercity West Coast franchise bidders are considering six car ‘Pendoninos’ as Voyager replacement."

A Dub in Glasgo

IEP is a white elephant that is only being pushed by the civil servents in the Government. It is mind boggling why they still pursue it

Maverick88

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

IEP is a white elephant that is only being pushed by the civil servents in the Government. It is mind boggling why they still pursue it

Above. Bingo in one!

The whole project started out as HST (High Speed Train) 2 and has been through various name changes. DFT rail has millions on consultants for a train that the train operators themselves are said not to really want- they're reluctant to say in public as any dissent will see them unlikely to not be awarded franchises / lose franchises.

Whats that old saying about a camel being a horse that was designed by a committee. That's IEP

CIE

corktina wrote: »

thats an odd post...they've just announced a HUGE programme of electrification and are making provision for suitable trains (for the GW main lines) which can be adapted if further extensions of the programme occur. These presumably (in this case) would be the lines west of Bristol to Devon and Cornwall and the NW/SW line from Bristol to Birmingham. plus the curiously named "Berks and Hants"

It's not that odd. If electrification really was planned for these extensions, it'd be now rather than later. Buying the dual-power vehicles (aside from the trouble they're going to be) strongly implies that no extensions will take place at all.