AT300s confirmed for South West services by DfT

[jimm]

GWML was well underway before the MML & TPE announcements, which were both designed to make use of 100's of cascades that came out of the introduction of the 345/700 fleets.

You just said electrification, not MML and TPE. The North West scheme - which is separate from TPE - was also well under way and relies on cascaded stock.

Indications from where ? All indications are towards electrification being dropped in preference to doing HS3
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

TP North isn't the solution - 6x 8 car units is all that electrification will offer, that is enough in the short term, but not the medium to long term, 6x 8 car units taking 50 minutes to travel 40 miles is not good enough, which is why HS3 will ultimately win out as the preferred solution for cross Pennine services.

Try page 15 of the September edition of Modern Railways - 'TPE wiring un-pause set for autumn", which quotes Northern md Alex Hynes as follows: "We're hopeful when we un-pause it later in the year, we'll be in a better place than we were before."

And on the one hand you say we need instant fixes, on the other hand that something that is far from an instant fix, indeed is more a political fantasy right now, is the answer, even though the fantasy is probably the best part of two decades away from becoming reality at the usual British rate of progress on such things. TPE wiring is going to happen because for places like Huddersfield and Dewsbury - which seem unlikely to be served by HS3 given the practicalities of where you would tunnel under the Pennines, with Woodhead being the obvious one - HS3 will not be any kind of a solution, ever.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

There was but that was just hot air to make it sound like GBuk was getting a better deal than was actually the case.
I would put money on the fact that Hitachi had no intention of increasing the assembly work that would be done in the UK, and just said whatever was needed to get the order, once the order is signed there is nothing anyone can do about it because I am sure Hitachi would have made sure the contract gave them enough leeway to wiggle out of anything they didn't want to do.

Nice of you to apologise for being wrong about where lots of the components are coming from. Last November, Hitachi said UK-sourced components and systems added up to more than 70 per cent of the trains.

http://www.railmagazine.com/news/ne...nveils-first-five-car-iep-for-dft-s-6bn-order

 

[broadgage]

270std+45fst (315 seats) on a 5 car Class 800

Per car 74std or 48fst - that's over 500 seats with a 6std+2fst+Buffet car arrangement so less seats

First class seating on the SETs that are already being built for FGW has now been downgraded to 36 seats on the half length trains and to 71 seats on the full length ones.
The number of first class seats to be provided on the AT300s is not yet known, but I expect it to be similar.

 

[HSTEd]

Could I trouble you for some figures to back up this argument before going any further ?

Indeed you can - despite what others may say I always attempt to back up my statements.

Please include your figures that confirm purchase and operation costs for DMUs including 'hidden' costs such as fuel distribution, bunding and pollution control measures.

Fuel Distribution - this is normally included in the quoted prices of fuel I use to derive the price of red diesel and thus in the price of the diesel option.
Bunding - this is indeed a significant cost, but given the relatively concentrated nature of refueling on trains there are only a handful of bunded facilities. Additionally tanks, once built tend to have very long service lives and the bunding even more so. So this tends to amortise to nothing - and even then the tanks are already in place so this cost will not become apparent for 20 years or more.
Pollution control - this is similar to the above, and in any case will not tend to add a large quantity to the price of the fuel - after all if fuel becomes more expensive it will become economic to waste less and so on.

I also don't see the relevance of your comment about the Class 377s - British Rail created several versions of the Mk.3 EMU family with different traction motors and control equipment, but they're all broadly compatible with each other.

That is exactly what I mean - the Mark 3 units and too a lesser extent the Networkers were the last really mass produced EMU constructed on British railways, after privatisation we have now created a unit zoo.
This is what happens when you start buying trains-as-a-service (as the DfT and TOCs are now enamoured with doing).

Diesel units under British Rail didn't fare quite so well, and under the private railway have been grossly mismanaged.

Before privatisation British Rail had finally got the grip on the problem of dozens of types of units and things were trending towards only two families - which are fairly similar in design. The Networker Turbos and the Sprinter/Pacers.
Each family was fully compatible within itself
Now look at the situation.
(Turbostars aren't even fully compatible with Sprinter/Pacer type units).


So to the analysis:
The Electrification RUS put the maintenance costs of a DMU and EMU at 70p and 40p per vehicle mile respectively. For the sake of simplicity we will say an EDMU runs up costs similar to the DMU when operating on diesel and costs similar to the EMU at other times. (I believe the EMU costs also include the costs of maintenance to the OLE and power supplies as is reasonable)
That means that the extra cost of operating on diesel is about 30p/mile.
So 20p/vehicle-km

IF we go back to Traction Energy Metrics we see that a diesel unit tends to counsume 0.45L of fuel per vehicle-km, which translates to something like 25p/km at the current typical red diesel price of 55ppl. (Diesel prices are still falling and will stay low for quite some time it appears).
Meanwhile electric vehicles consume about 2.2kWh of electricity per vehicle-km.
At current prices that translates to something like 15p of electricity (as we only pay the wholesale price, but the trains run during the day so the price is a bit higher than the average).

So electrification has saved us 20p/vehicle-km on maintenance and 15p/vehicle-km on energy.
So roughly 35p/vehicle-km.

Our illustrious colleagues at Network Rail have shown that new electrification costs over £1.5m/track kilometre, and our 'friends' at the Treasury insist upon a 5% discount rate on capital.
So just to pay the interest charge you would have to save £75,000 per year per kilometre.
And since the network effect is essentially dead (you save only the capital cost of the gensets by going to pure EMU, and that is tiny compared to the capital cost of electrification, as the difference in cost between pure electric and electrodiesel IEPs shows) every kilometre of route electrified has to pass this test independently.

£75,000 is something like 215,000 vehicle passes over the track every year.
THat is about 585 per day.

So to qualify for electrification a two track route must have 585 vehicles pass in each direction every day.
And that assumes we don't actually want the capital back and can have an interest only loan indefinitely - which is very generous.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

What happens to those 700 people once these orders are complete?
Either they will all be made redundant or Hitachi will use them as political pawns to get another (expensive) contract out of our moronic government.

Was there not a commitment to bring full manufacturing to Newton Aycliffe depending on the amount of orders Hitachi received. (tech for stir-welding was mentioned)

There was but that was just hot air to make it sound like GBuk was getting a better deal than was actually the case.
I would put money on the fact that Hitachi had no intention of increasing the assembly work that would be done in the UK, and just said whatever was needed to get the order, once the order is signed there is nothing anyone can do about it because I am sure Hitachi would have made sure the contract gave them enough leeway to wiggle out of anything they didn't want to do.

You presumably know that Hitachi want the Newton Aycliffe plant to produce trains for Europe, not just the UK?
They have to compete with Alstom/Bombardier/Siemens and others for that, at their risk. There are no government guarantees.
The UK orders alone will not sustain a factory long-term, but they do now have an order book a lot larger than seemed likely a year ago.
The Japanese do have a good record of sticking with UK production of cars.
It might not look so good if we leave the EU though.
The trains also have to prove themselves, of course.
Poor quality did for Washwood Heath, and almost for Derby.

 

[Haydn1971]

You just said electrification, not MML and TPE. The North West scheme - which is separate from TPE - was also well under way and relies on cascaded stock.

Apologies Jimm, GWML has zero direct effect on me up here in Sheffield, MML & TPE do, thus are much more in my sub-conscious.

Try page 15 of the September edition of Modern Railways - 'TPE wiring un-pause set for autumn", which quotes Northern md Alex Hynes as follows: "We're hopeful when we un-pause it later in the year, we'll be in a better place than we were before."

Just read that article - there's absolutely zero indication from the DfT on restarting, just a reaffirmation of the pause, with a "hopefully" from Alex Hynes

HS3 will not be any kind of a solution, ever.

In your opinion perhaps... The City Regions are signed up to it, most local authorities are keen, the PTE's want it, Higgins says we need it - Throwing up some wires to get an extra train per hour doesn't represent value for money in any measure.

 

[Dave1987]

There was but that was just hot air to make it sound like GBuk was getting a better deal than was actually the case.
I would put money on the fact that Hitachi had no intention of increasing the assembly work that would be done in the UK, and just said whatever was needed to get the order, once the order is signed there is nothing anyone can do about it because I am sure Hitachi would have made sure the contract gave them enough leeway to wiggle out of anything they didn't want to do.

We have very similar opinions on this! Hitatchi supplied the DFT with the exact design they wanted even though other manufacturers knew a different design was the way to go. Hitatchi also said that if they got the order they would bring the assembly of these trains (they are not being "built" here) by building a new factory where the workforce will spend their time essentially building flat pack trains where they just bolt the various bits together and plug the various connections together. And then Hitatchi said they "might" make Newton Aycliffe into a full fabrication facility if they receive enough orders. So another order for these AT300's is made and has to be sent to Japan because Newton Aycliffe can't handle the order. How convenient!

 

[jimm]

Indeed you can - despite what others may say I always attempt to back up my statements.

Fuel Distribution - this is normally included in the quoted prices of fuel I use to derive the price of red diesel and thus in the price of the diesel option.
Bunding - this is indeed a significant cost, but given the relatively concentrated nature of refueling on trains there are only a handful of bunded facilities. Additionally tanks, once built tend to have very long service lives and the bunding even more so. So this tends to amortise to nothing - and even then the tanks are already in place so this cost will not become apparent for 20 years or more.
Pollution control - this is similar to the above, and in any case will not tend to add a large quantity to the price of the fuel - after all if fuel becomes more expensive it will become economic to waste less and so on.

That is exactly what I mean - the Mark 3 units and too a lesser extent the Networkers were the last really mass produced EMU constructed on British railways, after privatisation we have now created a unit zoo.
This is what happens when you start buying trains-as-a-service (as the DfT and TOCs are now enamoured with doing).

Before privatisation British Rail had finally got the grip on the problem of dozens of types of units and things were trending towards only two families - which are fairly similar in design. The Networker Turbos and the Sprinter/Pacers.
Each family was fully compatible within itself
Now look at the situation.
(Turbostars aren't even fully compatible with Sprinter/Pacer type units).


So to the analysis:
The Electrification RUS put the maintenance costs of a DMU and EMU at 70p and 40p per vehicle mile respectively. For the sake of simplicity we will say an EDMU runs up costs similar to the DMU when operating on diesel and costs similar to the EMU at other times. (I believe the EMU costs also include the costs of maintenance to the OLE and power supplies as is reasonable)
That means that the extra cost of operating on diesel is about 30p/mile.
So 20p/vehicle-km

IF we go back to Traction Energy Metrics we see that a diesel unit tends to counsume 0.45L of fuel per vehicle-km, which translates to something like 25p/km at the current typical red diesel price of 55ppl. (Diesel prices are still falling and will stay low for quite some time it appears).
Meanwhile electric vehicles consume about 2.2kWh of electricity per vehicle-km.
At current prices that translates to something like 15p of electricity (as we only pay the wholesale price, but the trains run during the day so the price is a bit higher than the average).

So electrification has saved us 20p/vehicle-km on maintenance and 15p/vehicle-km on energy.
So roughly 35p/vehicle-km.

Our illustrious colleagues at Network Rail have shown that new electrification costs over £1.5m/track kilometre, and our 'friends' at the Treasury insist upon a 5% discount rate on capital.
So just to pay the interest charge you would have to save £75,000 per year per kilometre.
And since the network effect is essentially dead (you save only the capital cost of the gensets by going to pure EMU, and that is tiny compared to the capital cost of electrification, as the difference in cost between pure electric and electrodiesel IEPs shows) every kilometre of route electrified has to pass this test independently.

£75,000 is something like 215,000 vehicle passes over the track every year.
THat is about 585 per day.

So to qualify for electrification a two track route must have 585 vehicles pass in each direction every day.
And that assumes we don't actually want the capital back and can have an interest only loan indefinitely - which is very generous.

So we should just give up on wiring, leave those half-driven piles where they are and go on buying diesels - indeed there must be lots of places where we should be giving up on electric traction and start taking down the catenary.

Never mind that you have no idea where oil prices will be in 10 or 20 years' time. For all the talk about how cheap it is now compared with a couple of years ago, it is still a hell of a lot more costly than it was at the end of the 1990s, when the price was bumping along at 10 or 11 dollars a barrel and much of the North Sea faced shutdown as they were barely covering operating costs. Opec may not wield the power it once did, but if its members stop squabbling among themselves and close up the taps a bit, the price could go back up again in pretty short order.

You talk about a network effect but where are freight services in your figures? How many 'vehicles' does a heavy freight amount to? And even on the supposedly basketcase Cardiff-Swansea section, FGW is currently running 21 HSTs a day each way, accounting for a substantial chunk of your 585 vehicles one way or another.

What about XC routes, where once could make a pretty convincing case that the number of vehicles currently running up and down hugely understates the number that should be running now, never mind what might be needed in the future?

There are all manner of electrified lines here and abroad where traffic is nowhere near your magic number - anyone remember the wheeze of dewiring the ECML north of Newcastle? Only in Britain, though we do happily seem to have got beyond that particular nonsense now.

The French didn't just give up once they had wired their key trunk lines and then began to build the LGVs. Catenary didn't reach Caen and Cherbourg until 1996, to take but one example. Norway is currently wiring lines around Trondheim where the number of vehicles passing in a day is nothing like 585 - on single or double track. Maybe the people responsible have all lost their senses - or maybe they do indeed see there is a network effect and benefit in the long term, whatever the bald figures may say. And as we know from all the reopenings where passenger numbers have far outstripped forecasts, this country is pretty rubbish at a lot of sums to do with railways.

 

[contrex]

Hitatchi

Who they?

 

[jimm]

Apologies Jimm, GWML has zero direct effect on me up here in Sheffield, MML & TPE do, thus are much more in my sub-conscious.

Well GW electrification links to East West which links to the MML...

Just read that article - there's absolutely zero indication from the DfT on restarting, just a reaffirmation of the pause, with a "hopefully" from Alex Hynes

Oh, so they've just made it all up then, not least the intro saying "Industry sources report that the DfT has informed Network Rail that it intends to 'un-pause' the TransPennine electrification in the autumn". Doubt they would be saying things like that without a fair degree of certainty, never mind what Mr Hynes said. If he has no idea of what's going on, why say anything at all when he was under no obligation to open his mouth?

In your opinion perhaps... The City Regions are signed up to it, most local authorities are keen, the PTE's want it, Higgins says we need it - Throwing up some wires to get an extra train per hour doesn't represent value for money in any measure.

I'm sure the politicians love the idea (except perhaps in Huddersfield and the rest of Kirklees) - but it is just that, an idea. Show me the detailed planning, tell me where it will actually run and tell me when it will be open.... I'm afraid you will need to 'throw up' some wires from Manchester to Leeds via Standedge anyway because HS3 is years and years away - and we have yet to see if it is value for money either.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

We have very similar opinions on this! Hitatchi supplied the DFT with the exact design they wanted even though other manufacturers knew a different design was the way to go. Hitatchi also said that if they got the order they would bring the assembly of these trains (they are not being "built" here) by building a new factory where the workforce will spend their time essentially building flat pack trains where they just bolt the various bits together and plug the various connections together. And then Hitatchi said they "might" make Newton Aycliffe into a full fabrication facility if they receive enough orders. So another order for these AT300's is made and has to be sent to Japan because Newton Aycliffe can't handle the order. How convenient!

And this different design would be what exactly? The 'power castle' train? I think Roger Ford did a pretty thorough job of killing that one, whoever's design was involved. Alstom pulled out of the running for IEP without submitting a formal tender and Siemens/Bombardier would have had to handle just the same shenanigans over the DfT's changes of mind, whatever design of train they offered in the first place, if they had won the job.

As has already been noted, your description of the train assembly process is not that different from what Bombardier does at Derby, putting various bits together delivered from all over the place. The 'UK-built' Pendolinos' bodyshells were all shipped here from Italy by Alstom ready-painted. And you know full well why the AT300s are being built in Japan, the factory at Newton Aycliffe is going to be flat out with IEP and AT200 orders. Or isn't Hitachi allowed to take rational decisions about how it builds up the operation at Newton Aycliffe. The current order book runs out in 2020, so maybe they would like to see it fill up beyond that before they commit more money.

And remind me, where is the Siemens train-building - or do I mean flat-pack - plant in the UK?

 

[Haydn1971]

Oh, so they've just made it all up then, not least the intro saying "Industry sources report that the DfT has informed Network Rail that it intends to 'un-pause' the TransPennine electrification in the autumn". Doubt they would be saying things like that without a fair degree of certainty, never mind what Mr Hynes said. If he has no idea of what's going on, why say anything at all when he was under no obligation to open his mouth?

"Industry sources" could be anyone. The line at the moment the head honcho in the Cabinet is that the project is paused, it's been said before that some decision will come very soon, so "un-pause" is just as likely to mean cancel, oops, no upgrade with a better idea.

Mr Haynes has just said the he's "hopeful" and nothing else, Modern Railways editorial team may well be reading more into that phrase than there is. I'm "hopeful" of winning the lottery this weekend, but doesn't mean anything.

The engineering teams have been demobilised - I was due to be working on the project this year, my firm has had to find other work for me... Similarly with every other person who was on the TPE Electrification project, they were left twiddling their thumbs, they are now busy on other stuff.

I'm sure the politicians love the idea (except perhaps in Huddersfield and the rest of Kirklees) - but it is just that, an idea. Show me the detailed planning, tell me where it will actually run and tell me when it will be open.... I'm afraid you will need to 'throw up' some wires from Manchester to Leeds via Standedge anyway because HS3 is years and years away - and we have yet to see if it is value for money either.

One North and HS3 is been driven by economic needs, managed by business brains working with PTE's and consultants. The politicians will just get dragged along with the process, because they have no concept of anything beyond the next election date. HS3 can happen quickly, its cynicism from people like your good self that gets in the way - wiring of the route through Huddersfield may well happen in the future, but the eye is currently well and truly on the bigger goal of 30 minutes between Leeds and Manchester - that isn't going to be brought by TP North electrification. Watch this space.

 

[Class 170101]

The wiring of the TPE route will still be needed alongside HS3 for the same reasons HS2 is needed and that is capacity. Also as has already been pointed out Stations between Manchester and Leeds are not being served by HS3 unlike what the existing route does.

In terms of new trains orders being available for XC by 1 Jan 2020, I consider this unlikely given the tight deadline and the state of the franchise most likely to be a short term Direct Award - if not then a franchise competition pushes this back a good 18 months. AT300s being ordered now for mid 2018. Anything for end of 2019 needs to be ordered in the next 12 to 15 months and this assumes there is any space in Hitachi factories to complete the order otherwise another builder will be required (Siemens, Bombardier, Alsthom etc and these may have similar issues). A refurbished unit seems more plausible in the short term to me, whether it be modified Mark IIIs or IVs. Chilternised HSTs, though this presents its own problems with Wolverton, Doncaster, Springburn and Kilmarnock likely to be extremely busy with C6 work for PRM-TSI works in the lead up to December 2019.

 

[WatcherZero]

The unpause is coming, Networks Rails board were tasked with coming up with a resumption plan by the end of August and the government is scheduled to announce it this autumn. Tpe, Northern and the PTE's actually welcomed tbe pause as it meant increasing the scope of the improvements to meet journey time targets.

 

[Class 170101]

The unpause is coming, Networks Rails board were tasked with coming up with a resumption plan by the end of August and the government is scheduled to announce it this autumn. Tpe, Northern and the PTE's actually welcomed tbe pause as it meant increasing the scope of the improvements to meet journey time targets.

With what money for the increased scope though? NR's budget has been fixed by the DfT with the credit card cut up.

 

[swt_passenger]

... or Hitachi will use them as political pawns to get another (expensive) contract out of our moronic government.

Exactly like Bombardier in Derby then?

 

[jimm]

One North and HS3 is been driven by economic needs, managed by business brains working with PTE's and consultants. The politicians will just get dragged along with the process, because they have no concept of anything beyond the next election date. HS3 can happen quickly, its cynicism from people like your good self that gets in the way - wiring of the route through Huddersfield may well happen in the future, but the eye is currently well and truly on the bigger goal of 30 minutes between Leeds and Manchester - that isn't going to be brought by TP North electrification. Watch this space.

So maybe that's what's going to happen in the autumn then. Full steam ahead on HS3.... or perhaps not. Your business brains and consultants are going to need the politicians to come up with the money and we're nowhere near that stage yet.

As for doing it quickly, don't underestimate the potential problems tunnelling under the Pennines through millstone grit. The 'new' Woodhead tunnel took four-and-a-half years from 1949 to 1953, little better than the navvies managed on the second single-line bore in the middle of the 19th century. See http://www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/tunnels/woodhead.html

With what money for the increased scope though? NR's budget has been fixed by the DfT with the credit card cut up.

The point that Alex Hynes makes in that article I mentioned - sorry but I'm not going to type out the entire thing - was not really about 'increased scope', more that the aim now was to get all the wiring and proposed track and signalling improvements on the route packaged up together, precisely in order to get best value for money.

 

[WatcherZero]

With what money for the increased scope though? NR's budget has been fixed by the DfT with the credit card cut up.

By pushing other projects such as MML and Hull into Cp6 and beyond. Same rate of spend you just spend longer doing it. There is also the possibility of direct Treasury funding for projects which doesnt come from the Dft/network rail standard budget such as with HS1, HS2 and Crossrail.

 

[HSTEd]

So we should just give up on wiring, leave those half-driven piles where they are and go on buying diesels - indeed there must be lots of places where we should be giving up on electric traction and start taking down the catenary.

Why do people insist on puttings in my mouth? I have never, and never will, support de-electrification. Indeed I am probably one of the most consistently pro electrification people on this forum.
Whilst I want electrification to proceed to total completion - I am not in charge of the decisions.

And de-electrification would only make sense if it was possible to click your fingers, remove the electrification and magically receive a cheque for all the money you originally spent.
The calculation for existing lines continuing to operate with electric traction is entirely different and will generate a far lower bar.

Never mind that you have no idea where oil prices will be in 10 or 20 years' time. For all the talk about how cheap it is now compared with a couple of years ago, it is still a hell of a lot more costly than it was at the end of the 1990s, when the price was bumping along at 10 or 11 dollars a barrel and much of the North Sea faced shutdown as they were barely covering operating costs. Opec may not wield the power it once did, but if its members stop squabbling among themselves and close up the taps a bit, the price could go back up again in pretty short order.

The only people expecting a fast rebound in oil prices are the SNP - because they desperately need it to happen if their sums are not to blown out of the water in advance of their soon-to-be-demanded neverendum.
The explosion in light tight oil has caused a structural change in the oil market - OPECs share of supply has been crushed and the organisation is collapsing as the Saudis and Kuwaitis have thrown the weaker members to the wolves to maintain their own market share. [Nigeria for example needs a huge oil price to support its ongoing civil-war related spending]
Combined with continuing growth in unconventional oil extraction it would appear sub <$70/barrel prices are here to stay for the forseable future - especially with the current economic problems in China.
(Also I think you mean the 1980s Oil glut, and if you adjust the oil price for inflation then it comes out surprisingly close to today's values).

You talk about a network effect but where are freight services in your figures? How many 'vehicles' does a heavy freight amount to?

None - since there is little to no interest amongst freight operators about actually expanding electric hauled freight operations. Why do you think the 'electric spine' was left to die quietly in the corner?

And even on the supposedly basketcase Cardiff-Swansea section, FGW is currently running 21 HSTs a day each way, accounting for a substantial chunk of your 585 vehicles one way or another.

Firstly I never said that Cardiff-Swansea was a basket case.
I was referring to thinks like the Breckland line or the Grantham-Nottingham line and things like that.
Or to the extremities of the XC network.

Although Swansea does (probably) fail that test - it is politically impossible for it to be cancelled and so it won't be. But don't expect any extensions like that to be bankrolled in the future.

What about XC routes, where once could make a pretty convincing case that the number of vehicles currently running up and down hugely understates the number that should be running now, never mind what might be needed in the future?

Five-car IEPs would be easily sufficient for the bulk of those services - they have far more capacity than a 4 or even a 5-car Voyager does.

The French didn't just give up once they had wired their key trunk lines and then began to build the LGVs. Catenary didn't reach Caen and Cherbourg until 1996, to take but one example.

That was a different world - bi modes for 25kV didn't exist then.
They do now.
And what was the last electrification project in France not connected with a TGV project?

Norway is currently wiring lines around Trondheim where the number of vehicles passing in a day is nothing like 585 - on single or double track.

Leaving aside the traditional love of electrification felt in Scandinavian countries - that is associated with an expansion of the local metro service and since I do not read Norwegian I cannot determine what the post project service will be.
Additionally they might be better at electrification and be able to do it at lower cost - just as BR did it for a cost that is, in real terms, a tenth of what it is taking Network Rail.

Maybe the people responsible have all lost their senses - or maybe they do indeed see there is a network effect and benefit in the long term, whatever the bald figures may say.

It will take time for the new world to assert itself.
France has just stopped ordering new DMUs in favour of only ordering electrodiesels - it will take time for this to spread over the world, as it is currently doing in North America.

And as we know from all the reopenings where passenger numbers have far outstripped forecasts, this country is pretty rubbish at a lot of sums to do with railways.

All I have to say to that is -
Remember the Sinfin branch.

 

[NotATrainspott]

None - since there is little to no interest amongst freight operators about actually expanding electric hauled freight operations. Why do you think the 'electric spine' was left to die quietly in the corner?

That's because the core electrified network isn't completed yet, meaning that the network effect hasn't properly kicked in yet for freight services. The network effect means that as more of the network is electrified, the value of electrifying the rest of it will increase. The majority of the Electric Spine can still be justified for non-freight services - AC conversion of the line between Basingstoke and Southhampton for improved passenger services when the equipment is life-expired; the Chiltern line will be electrified for passenger trains so Banbury to Birmingham will be done, with Oxford to Banbury as an infill with a good business case; the various lines with local West and East Midlands services to Nuneaton will be electrified for passenger services across the region; and much of the W10/W12 gauge work needing done regardless of electrification will also enable it in future. Once these other schemes are done for their own benefits, the freight companies will be much more enthusiastic about the prospect of running electrified freight.

Firstly I never said that Cardiff-Swansea was a basket case.
I was referring to thinks like the Breckland line or the Grantham-Nottingham line and things like that.
Or to the extremities of the XC network.

Although Swansea does (probably) fail that test - it is politically impossible for it to be cancelled and so it won't be. But don't expect any extensions like that to be bankrolled in the future.

Five-car IEPs would be easily sufficient for the bulk of those services - they have far more capacity than a 4 or even a 5-car Voyager does.

The Grantham-Nottingham line is short, connects two major trunk routes (one already electrified, the other will be in future) and has a good number of small town/village stations spaced frequently. It seems like quite a good candidate for electrification as an extension for East Midlands local services. Toton shuttles will likely extend beyond Derby and Nottingham and going to Grantham seems like quite a sensible choice. Bi-mode might work at a pinch but there would be quite a good case for being able to run these services with bog-standard EMUs with their lower upfront and running costs. It's also possible that the line might see ECML services running to Nottingham once HS2 Phase 2 opens, which would further improve the case for electrification.

The northern extremities of the XC network either are already electrified or are under the control of Transport Scotland, who really want to have electric InterCity services to Aberdeen from the Central Belt. Since the CrossCountry route from Leeds to Bristol is going to be electrified, the question is then whether electrification into Cornwall and the West Country is warranted. Electrification to Weston-super-Mare will need done for Bristol local services. Electrifying beyond would convert all long distance trains to electric-only operation.

 

[Class 170101]

The northern extremities of the XC network either are already electrified or are under the control of Transport Scotland, who really want to have electric InterCity services to Aberdeen from the Central Belt. Since the CrossCountry route from Leeds to Bristol is going to be electrified, the question is then whether electrification into Cornwall and the West Country is warranted. Electrification to Weston-super-Mare will need done for Bristol local services. Electrifying beyond would convert all long distance trains to electric-only operation.

I don't hold your confidence that the route will be wired south of Wakefield in the short to medium term despite announcements made by Cameron and Osborne in Derby in February 2015 regarding the Bristol to Derby (via Birmingham) section though I believe it will happen at some point in the longer term.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

By pushing other projects such as MML and Hull into Cp6 and beyond. Same rate of spend you just spend longer doing it. There is also the possibility of direct Treasury funding for projects which doesnt come from the Dft/network rail standard budget such as with HS1, HS2 and Crossrail.

I doubt the Treasury would intervene regards TPE wiring as unlike HS2/3 Crossrail it doesn't carry as much kudos despite talking of the Northern Powerhouse (or Powercut as some are calling it).

 

[Greybeard33]

So to the analysis:
The Electrification RUS put the maintenance costs of a DMU and EMU at 70p and 40p per vehicle mile respectively. For the sake of simplicity we will say an EDMU runs up costs similar to the DMU when operating on diesel and costs similar to the EMU at other times. (I believe the EMU costs also include the costs of maintenance to the OLE and power supplies as is reasonable)
That means that the extra cost of operating on diesel is about 30p/mile.
So 20p/vehicle-km

IF we go back to Traction Energy Metrics we see that a diesel unit tends to counsume 0.45L of fuel per vehicle-km, which translates to something like 25p/km at the current typical red diesel price of 55ppl. (Diesel prices are still falling and will stay low for quite some time it appears).
Meanwhile electric vehicles consume about 2.2kWh of electricity per vehicle-km.
At current prices that translates to something like 15p of electricity (as we only pay the wholesale price, but the trains run during the day so the price is a bit higher than the average).

So electrification has saved us 20p/vehicle-km on maintenance and 15p/vehicle-km on energy.
So roughly 35p/vehicle-km.

Our illustrious colleagues at Network Rail have shown that new electrification costs over £1.5m/track kilometre, and our 'friends' at the Treasury insist upon a 5% discount rate on capital.
So just to pay the interest charge you would have to save £75,000 per year per kilometre.
And since the network effect is essentially dead (you save only the capital cost of the gensets by going to pure EMU, and that is tiny compared to the capital cost of electrification, as the difference in cost between pure electric and electrodiesel IEPs shows) every kilometre of route electrified has to pass this test independently.

£75,000 is something like 215,000 vehicle passes over the track every year.
THat is about 585 per day.

So to qualify for electrification a two track route must have 585 vehicles pass in each direction every day.
And that assumes we don't actually want the capital back and can have an interest only loan indefinitely - which is very generous.

A rather simplistic analysis? The Long Term Passenger Rolling Stock Strategy for the Rail Industry, Third Edition, February 2015, http://raildeliverygroup.com/files/Publications/2015-03_long_term_passenger_rolling_stock_strategy_3rd_ed.pdf has the following comparison of the total operating costs of diesel and electric vehicles:

120. Typical rolling stock costs (i.e. total maintenance costs, and capital leasing costs) per vehicle-mile
of diesel and electric vehicles are compared in Table 5:

Table 5 – Comparison of Diesel and Electric Rolling Stock Costs per Vehicle Mile

Cost per Vehicle Mile (£)    Diesel   Electric   Saving (£)   Saving (%)
Maintenance Cost              £0.80    £0.44     £0.36           45%
Capital Lease Cost            £1.43    £0.97     £0.47           32%
Maintenance and
Leasing Costs Total           £2.23    £1.41     £0.83           37%

Source: TOC and ROSCO sources, for new EMU and DMU vehicles,
assuming similar annual mileages, at February 2013 price levels

121. In general terms, the maintenance costs of diesel vehicles are higher than those of similar
electric vehicles because of the additional costs of fuelling, servicing, maintenance and repair of
the engines and transmissions of the diesel vehicles.

122. Capital lease costs are higher for new diesel vehicles than for similar new electric vehicles
because of the higher initial capital cost, and also because of lessors’ concerns about their
ability to lease diesel vehicles in the medium to longer term when financial and environmental
factors are expected to increase the benefits of electrification as outlined in this RSS.

123. Other costs for diesel and electric vehicles are compared in Table 6:

Table 6 – Comparison of Other Diesel and Electric Costs per Vehicle Mile

Cost per Vehicle Mile     Diesel   Electric   Saving (£)   Saving (%)
Energy Cost                £0.47    £0.25     £0.22           47%
Track Maintenance Cost     £0.071   £0.068    £0.003           4%
Electrification Fixed
Equipment Maintenance
Cost                       £0.00    £0.012   -£0.012          n/a

‘Other Costs’ Total        £0.54    £0.33     £0.21           39%

Source: TOC and ROSCO sources, for new EMU and DMU vehicles at February 2013 price levels

So this gives the total saving from electrification as £0.83+£0.21=£1.04 per vehicle-mile or 65p/vehicle-km - nearly double your estimate. Even assuming a 5% long term discount rate over the 50+ year life of the electrification infrastructure (what is your source for the 5% number?) the break-even comes down to 115000 vehicles/year or about 320 vehicles/day, i.e. only 20 8-car trains per day in each direction, or less than 2tph.

Over the life of the infrastructure, there is a significant risk that the difference in operating costs between diesel and electric vehicles will increase, due to increases in the cost of oil and more severe emissions regulations - this would make the break-even lower.

And that is before taking account of the environmental benefits of electrification and any additional farebox revenue generated by the "sparks effect" of a quicker/more frequent service.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

And that is before taking account of the environmental benefits of electrification and any additional farebox revenue generated by the "sparks effect" of a quicker/more frequent service.

Sorry that I can't join in with the numbers, my RSSB account is causing some trouble and I've not been able to get a copy of the traction energy metrics data.

The actual cost of running trains supports electrification, it's fairly clear cut, and the vast majority of Network Rail managers want a reliable electrification system, but the real driver for electrification in the next three to four control periods will be NOx emissions and the impact on public health.

We absolutely cannot afford to have polluting diesel engines sitting idling and accelerating away from stations like Edinburgh Waverley, as they do all day every day.

The cost in health interventions is billions of pounds per year and that alone will drive the de-carbonisation of power generation and transport, especially public transport.

 

[jimm]

(Also I think you mean the 1980s Oil glut, and if you adjust the oil price for inflation then it comes out surprisingly close to today's values).

No, I mean the end of the 1990s, like I said. See the graph at http://oilpricefrom1999to2008.blogspot.co.uk

All I have to say to that is -
Remember the Sinfin branch.

Is that the best you can manage? Running a few trains up and down a factory siding? Hardly typical of other projects we have seen.

 

[CdBrux]

So none will actually be 'built' in this Country in the true sense of the word, they will merely be stuck together like an Airfix kit with all the bits being built in Japan and shipped across to Newton Aycliffe.
Not exactly great for British jobs is it where the main employment is in the outside companies supplying all the parts, something which won't be happening at all in this case.

To me what is being done is a sensible industrial strategy. Start with a cheaper investment, prove you have the business to sustain it (not least the products it assembles are good), then increase capacity / capability. At the point Hitachi believe they have enough ongoing business to make a capital investment of their own to expand Newton Aycliffe because it is cheaper to do more there vs make & transport from Japan then they will. If a local supplier thinks they have a good chance of ongoing business they can have the confidence to invest to be a better option for being a supplier than the current Japanese one.

It's how most businesses will enter a market - toe in the water, 'small' investment to reduce some costs (and in this case no doubt get the business), success, build up local capability (skills in house and in supply chain etc...), another local investment as cost reduction vs shipping in parts / full units from elswewhere and/or to add global capacity as orders go up.

 

[HSTEd]

That's because the core electrified network isn't completed yet, meaning that the network effect hasn't properly kicked in yet for freight services.

And it won't.
Modern freight operators do not want to perform loco changes.
They require too much stock to be maintained, take too long and require additional staffing - they also add reliability issues to the service due to problems with coupling and uncoupling and all that.

The only way to solve this problem is when a freight electric arrives with a diesel engine of sufficient performance that it can perform the entire trip unassisted.
At which point you have just killed the network effect for freights as well.

The majority of the Electric Spine can still be justified for non-freight services - AC conversion of the line between Basingstoke and Southhampton for improved passenger services when the equipment is life-expired;

The CBA for the 25kV conversion was based on costings that we now know are rubbish - every single 25kV project that has proceeded significantly so far has blown its budget and time scales enormously.
The project is on its last legs - which is why all the bits that are actually required to be done any time soon have been quietly transferred to other projects.

the Chiltern line will be electrified for passenger trains so Banbury to Birmingham will be done, with Oxford to Banbury as an infill with a good business case;

When will it be done?
The Electrification RUS - even at the height of NR's electrification mania - did not propose that as a scheme with a significant chance of progressing any time soon.
HS2 will rip the heart out of Chiltern's attempt to grow a London-Birmingham intercity market and return Chiltern to its late 20th Century role as a relatively low traffic commuter railway.

the various lines with local West and East Midlands services to Nuneaton will be electrified for passenger services across the region; and much of the W10/W12 gauge work needing done regardless of electrification will also enable it in future. Once these other schemes are done for their own benefits, the freight companies will be much more enthusiastic about the prospect of running electrified freight.

The Freight companies will not be interested in electrified freight until they either get Co-Co Electrodiesels with sufficiently good diesel performance to actually be useful for things other than shunting - or all the freight branches are electrified.

Neither is going to happen in the near future.
Red Diesel is just too cheap.

The Grantham-Nottingham line is short, connects two major trunk routes (one already electrified, the other will be in future) and has a good number of small town/village stations spaced frequently. It seems like quite a good candidate for electrification as an extension for East Midlands local services.

From where? To Where?
There are two trains an hour on that line, one runs to Skegness and the other one takes a tour of a bunch of unelectrified lines to get to Norwich.
Thinking it has a case is just being deliberately ignorant of reality.

Toton shuttles will likely extend beyond Derby and Nottingham and going to Grantham seems like quite a sensible choice. Bi-mode might work at a pinch but there would be quite a good case for being able to run these services with bog-standard EMUs with their lower upfront and running costs.

The 'lower upfront costs' of EMUs have been shown to be very small by the costings of the various types of IEP vehicles.
Its less than ten percent of the cost of the vehicle - and electrification already costs much more than the vehicles so the cost is almost negligible.

It's also possible that the line might see ECML services running to Nottingham once HS2 Phase 2 opens, which would further improve the case for electrification.

A handful of extra trains does not a business case make - especially since the ECML is going to be swimming in electrodiesels by then.

The northern extremities of the XC network either are already electrified or are under the control of Transport Scotland, who really want to have electric InterCity services to Aberdeen from the Central Belt.

Which is why they have determined to obtain pure diesel intercity trains?

Since the CrossCountry route from Leeds to Bristol is going to be electrified, the question is then whether electrification into Cornwall and the West Country is warranted. Electrification to Weston-super-Mare will need done for Bristol local services. Electrifying beyond would convert all long distance trains to electric-only operation.

None of these things have reached the serious proposal stage - and electric-only operation doesn't actually save much money.

A rather simplistic analysis? The Long Term Passenger Rolling Stock Strategy for the Rail Industry, Third Edition, February 2015, http://raildeliverygroup.com/files/Publications/2015-03_long_term_passenger_rolling_stock_strategy_3rd_ed.pdf has the following comparison of the total operating costs of diesel and electric vehicles:
So this gives the total saving from electrification as £0.83+£0.21=£1.04 per vehicle-mile or 65p/vehicle-km - nearly double your estimate.

This data set is endorsed with the following statement:

TOC and ROSCO sources, for new EMU and DMU vehicles,
assuming similar annual mileages, at February 2013 price levels

The price of oil was nearly double what it is now - and diesel prices have also decreases relative to feedstocks since then thanks to the rise of the diesel car converting diesel into the dominant motor fuel product.

It also goes on to mention that leasing costs are inflated because leasors will not be sure that they will be able to lease DMUs in the long term because of electrification - this obviously does not apply to EDMU which in th worst case can be leased as a pure EMU.
The gensets required do not cost a large fraction of the cost of the train.
It also mentions that DMUs are much more expensive than EMUs - this has been disproved by the stated cost of IEP vehicles where the EDMU units are little more expensive than the EMU ones.

In other words these figures are out of date and do not acknowledge that EDMUs have changed the playing field.

Even assuming a 5% long term discount rate over the 50+ year life of the electrification infrastructure (what is your source for the 5% number?)

I found it buried in Treasury guidance years ago - and this is actually a low rate of return for commercial purposes. EDF are demanding 9% from Hinkley Point C.

Over the life of the infrastructure, there is a significant risk that the difference in operating costs between diesel and electric vehicles will increase, due to increases in the cost of oil and more severe emissions regulations - this would make the break-even lower.

Except that the cost oil is unlikely to rise enormously any time soon - and emissions figures are almost never retroactive, so this will be locked in for the several decade life of the train.

And that is before taking account of the environmental benefits of electrification and any additional farebox revenue generated by the "sparks effect" of a quicker/more frequent service.

Except this is not the era where EMUs were replacing ancient DMUs with mechanical transmissions or even loco hauled trains.
The Voyagers and Class 185s eliminated the supposed EMU performance advantage - and we are already hard up against the limitations of the infrastructure in many cases.

Sorry that I can't join in with the numbers, my RSSB account is causing some trouble and I've not been able to get a copy of the traction energy metrics data.

They took them down a while back - it has become very difficult to get hold of this stuff recently. I wonder if they are attempting to pay-wall the lot.

The actual cost of running trains supports electrification, it's fairly clear cut, and the vast majority of Network Rail managers want a reliable electrification system

It might be reliable, but what they have created is an electrification system that is so expensive that it will never get built.

but the real driver for electrification in the next three to four control periods will be NOx emissions and the impact on public health.

NOx from trains is fairly negligible compared to cars - and modern engines will likely have selective catalytic reduction and other technologies that will drastically reduce the size of the emissions.

We absolutely cannot afford to have polluting diesel engines sitting idling and accelerating away from stations like Edinburgh Waverley, as they do all day every day.

But electrodiesels would not be idling at Edinburgh Waverley - they will sit quietly with the pan up and only start the engines as they reach the end of the electrification, which will depend on what route they are taking.
Somewhere west of Haymarket.

No, I mean the end of the 1990s, like I said. See the graph at http://oilpricefrom1999to2008.blogspot.co.uk

That blip was produced by an entirely different set of circumstances to the current slump - what we have is a structural change in the oil market and disintegration of OPEC.
This is not caused by some sort of financial crisis in Asia (although that is now happening as well).

Is that the best you can manage? Running a few trains up and down a factory siding? Hardly typical of other projects we have seen.

Just demonstrates that not all projects have magical explosive growth in demand just because this is Britain and we hate trains and bias the calculations or whatever.

To me what is being done is a sensible industrial strategy. Start with a cheaper investment, prove you have the business to sustain it (not least the products it assembles are good), then increase capacity / capability. At the point Hitachi believe they have enough ongoing business to make a capital investment of their own to expand Newton Aycliffe because it is cheaper to do more there vs make & transport from Japan then they will. If a local supplier thinks they have a good chance of ongoing business they can have the confidence to invest to be a better option for being a supplier than the current Japanese one.

It's how most businesses will enter a market - toe in the water, 'small' investment to reduce some costs (and in this case no doubt get the business), success, build up local capability (skills in house and in supply chain etc...), another local investment as cost reduction vs shipping in parts / full units from elswewhere and/or to add global capacity as orders go up.

International shipping is so cheap now that that will never be the case.

 

[NotATrainspott]

And it won't.
Modern freight operators do not want to perform loco changes.
They require too much stock to be maintained, take too long and require additional staffing - they also add reliability issues to the service due to problems with coupling and uncoupling and all that.

The only way to solve this problem is when a freight electric arrives with a diesel engine of sufficient performance that it can perform the entire trip unassisted.
At which point you have just killed the network effect for freights as well.[/QUOTE]

I'm not talking about loco changes. I'm saying that when lines can and will be electrified for other purposes, it will mean more and more freight flows will either be fully electric, or would be able to get by with a last mile diesel capability. The last mile capability is essential for some freight services because it would be impractical to have wires all the way into where the cargo is loaded and unloaded, but the switchover would happen within literally the last mile.

The CBA for the 25kV conversion was based on costings that we now know are rubbish - every single 25kV project that has proceeded significantly so far has blown its budget and time scales enormously.
The project is on its last legs - which is why all the bits that are actually required to be done any time soon have been quietly transferred to other projects.

And what about the costings of 750V DC replacement? Replacement on this route would have to entail increased power demands of having more trains which draw more power.

When will it be done?
The Electrification RUS - even at the height of NR's electrification mania - did not propose that as a scheme with a significant chance of progressing any time soon.
HS2 will rip the heart out of Chiltern's attempt to grow a London-Birmingham intercity market and return Chiltern to its late 20th Century role as a relatively low traffic commuter railway.

Are you seriously trying to suggest that Chiltern suburban services would be best left diesel forever? That's an absurd idea. The route is getting busier and busier and when suburban routes get busy, that's precisely when electrification is such a sensible idea. Once you've wired the line within the commutable distance of London, bearing in mind that distance now stretches to Peterborough, plus wiring of the West Midlands end for suburban services heading into Birmingham, then you're left with not a vast amount of point in not filling in the rest. Seriously, have a look at the map and try to argue that not wiring the short section between Leamington Spa (the southern part of the West Midlands suburban network) and Banbury (just as far from London as Oxford via Bicester) would be at all a sensible idea.

The Freight companies will not be interested in electrified freight until they either get Co-Co Electrodiesels with sufficiently good diesel performance to actually be useful for things other than shunting - or all the freight branches are electrified.

Neither is going to happen in the near future.
Red Diesel is just too cheap.

Wiring freight branches isn't that daft an idea when the line they branch off will be wired, and where the freight is going can be wired as well. Most freight branches are short, unencumbered by tunnels or bridges and able to be powered by the normal mainline supply.

From where? To Where?
There are two trains an hour on that line, one runs to Skegness and the other one takes a tour of a bunch of unelectrified lines to get to Norwich.
Thinking it has a case is just being deliberately ignorant of reality.

At the moment, yes. What you're entirely failing to see is that electrification and general enhancements of services go hand-in-hand. The Derby-Nottingham axis is going to have the core of a suburban city region rail transport network in the Toton shuttles which will run to connect them to HS2. Extending them at either end is an enormously sensible and practicable idea.

The 'lower upfront costs' of EMUs have been shown to be very small by the costings of the various types of IEP vehicles.
Its less than ten percent of the cost of the vehicle - and electrification already costs much more than the vehicles so the cost is almost negligible.

Costings for IEP vehicles, where the design is already based around the need for the diesel engines. Electric-only IEP vehicles are more expensive than they need to be for the fact that the same design has to be able to handle a diesel engine underneath. I'm talking about standard EMUs that are bought for suburban use. Fitting diesel power packs to an Aventra, AT100/200 or Desiro City is going to be quite a different ask.

A handful of extra trains does not a business case make - especially since the ECML is going to be swimming in electrodiesels by then.

If there were no other services running, then yes, in the short-medium term it might not make sense to electrify. Added to the case for suburban services the picture will be quite different.

Which is why they have determined to obtain pure diesel intercity trains?

Because it is only the northern extremities of their network which are electrified? Back when the Voyagers were ordered, it was thought that diesel would be fine, especially if each train was only 4 or 5 carriages. The future of the XC network is for much longer trains due to the massive increase in demand on these routes after Operation Princess. These long trains are only really efficient if they can use electric power, especially if they're having to keep up with other 125mph electric services.

None of these things have reached the serious proposal stage - and electric-only operation doesn't actually save much money.

They may not have, but they're entirely feasible within the medium-long term.

This data set is endorsed with the following statement:

The price of oil was nearly double what it is now - and diesel prices have also decreases relative to feedstocks since then thanks to the rise of the diesel car converting diesel into the dominant motor fuel product.

It also goes on to mention that leasing costs are inflated because leasors will not be sure that they will be able to lease DMUs in the long term because of electrification - this obviously does not apply to EDMU which in th worst case can be leased as a pure EMU.
The gensets required do not cost a large fraction of the cost of the train.
It also mentions that DMUs are much more expensive than EMUs - this has been disproved by the stated cost of IEP vehicles where the EDMU units are little more expensive than the EMU ones.

In other words these figures are out of date and do not acknowledge that EDMUs have changed the playing field.

As I said above, the price differential of an IEP won't be the same as it will be for bog standard commuter trains.

Except this is not the era where EMUs were replacing ancient DMUs with mechanical transmissions or even loco hauled trains.
The Voyagers and Class 185s eliminated the supposed EMU performance advantage - and we are already hard up against the limitations of the infrastructure in many cases.

The Voyagers and 185s are small trains. If you want EMU performance in a fully length train, you've got a huge amount of weight and lots of fuel being used. It may have been efficient to run these when they were sufficient for passenger numbers but the increase in passenger numbers has meant that they are no longer so efficient.

It might be reliable, but what they have created is an electrification system that is so expensive that it will never get built.

The costs of which will go down as more of it is installed, which it will be because even with a higher upfront cost, it is still justified on the major trunk routes. It would still have been just as necessary to go ahead with electrification on the Great Western even if they knew how much it would cost to actually deliver it.

NOx from trains is fairly negligible compared to cars - and modern engines will likely have selective catalytic reduction and other technologies that will drastically reduce the size of the emissions.

Technologies which add cost and mass and would be just as necessary on a bi-mode train. Meanwhile, the electrics would be left as-is.

But electrodiesels would not be idling at Edinburgh Waverley - they will sit quietly with the pan up and only start the engines as they reach the end of the electrification, which will depend on what route they are taking.
Somewhere west of Haymarket.

Electrodiesels aren't worth it if you're only using the electric capabilities for a tiny fraction of the total journey. They are a compromise which means they cost more to buy and run than either a pure EMU or a DMU. In this case, Transport Scotland are pretty determined to ensure that there would be no need for bi-modes at Waverley at all, other possibly than for a few scenic trains running through to the West Highlands in the summer.

Just demonstrates that not all projects have magical explosive growth in demand just because this is Britain and we hate trains and bias the calculations or whatever.

You know fine well that modern real reopening proposals are based on more sound predictions than the Sinfin branch. A good number of them are based around the construction of extra housing, which will lead to a captive commuter market that will use the railway. The closest modern comparison to the Sinfin branch seems to be the Cowley branch line reopening proposals, which revolve around providing extra commuting capacity for the city given that it is already bursting at the seams.

International shipping is so cheap now that that will never be the case.

If Hitachi are ramping up their production capacity worldwide, and they're going to try and get lots of orders in Europe, then it is absurd to argue that they would just build another factory in Japan and ship them when they can have a large factory here for no extra cost over another Japanese one and then save on the shipping costs.

 

[455driver]

Freight is a red herring because it is impossible to run an electric unless the whole route is electrified including the sidings/terminals at either end of the route and nobody wants to pay for these to be done!

 

[NotATrainspott]

Freight is a red herring because it is impossible to run an electric unless the whole route is electrified including the sidings/terminals at either end of the route and nobody wants to pay for these to be done!

I know. However, with the last mile capability of an 88 it would be possible to have an electric freight flow without needing to wire every last metre of track. The example I can think of is Grangemouth, where it could be a bit of a challenge to wire the tracks all the way into the refinery and port. However, the route can and will need to be wired to where there are proposals to build a new passenger station. A last-mile locomotive could run on electric power on the branch until the wires run out, at which point there would be no other services running fast along the tracks so speeds wouldn't be much above shunting speed. Other freight terminals could see the same - the first kilometre or so off the mainline could be wired so that freight can run on and off at normal speeds and then just trundle along at shunt speeds into the expensive part of the terminal.

 

[455driver]

That all sounds a bit too sensible and easy!

 

[Greybeard33]

This data set is endorsed with the following statement:

TOC and ROSCO sources, for new EMU and DMU vehicles,
assuming similar annual mileages, at February 2013 price levels

The price of oil was nearly double what it is now - and diesel prices have also decreases relative to feedstocks since then thanks to the rise of the diesel car converting diesel into the dominant motor fuel product.

"Feb 2013 price levels" simply means that the costs have been deflated by the CPI to take out the effect of general price inflation since that baseline date (when the first edition of the document was published). The quotes are from the Third Edition of the Strategy document, which was updated and published in Feb 2015. Admittedly the oil price has decreased in past 6 months, but the document says:

124. Future energy costs and the relative costs of diesel fuel and electricity are very difficult to
forecast. Electricity costs are currently rising to help pay for lower carbon sources, while
diesel fuel costs have fallen sharply. This factor, if it continued in the medium to long term,
would have some impact on the business case for some electrification projects, but would not
undermine the key conclusions of this RSS.

The benefits from electrification projects last for 60+ years and no-one can accurately predict oil prices over that timescale. Oil is a limited resource and it may be necessary to leave much of the remaining reserves in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change.

It also goes on to mention that leasing costs are inflated because lessors will not be sure that they will be able to lease DMUs in the long term because of electrification - this obviously does not apply to EDMU which in the worst case can be leased as a pure EMU.
The gensets required do not cost a large fraction of the cost of the train.
It also mentions that DMUs are much more expensive than EMUs - this has been disproved by the stated cost of IEP vehicles where the EDMU units are little more expensive than the EMU ones.

In other words these figures are out of date and do not acknowledge that EDMUs have changed the playing field.

There are frequent mentions of bi-mode vehicles in general and the IEP in particular throughout the strategy document. The Steering Group that compiled it included senior representatives of all three ROSCOs, most of the TOCs and Network Rail and incorporated inputs from the train builders and the Rail Delivery Group. The industry consensus was clearly that EDMUs have not "changed the playing field" regarding electrification:

These estimated operating cost savings, though material, would not in general be sufficient
on their own to justify the capital cost of electrification. The business case for electrification
is generally founded on a combination of operating cost reductions, revenue increases,
capacity benefits, carbon-related benefits and socio-economic benefits. Each such business
case is route-specific.

and

146. We have adopted the results from a sensitivity test on the ‘Low’ scenario of the RSS to illustrate
what would be the consequences of a slower overall rate of electrification in CP5 through to
CP7, pending the development of new assumptions once an electrification programme for
CP6 is developed through the LTPP and is approved by government. Any reprogramming of
the completion dates of the currently planned electrification projects would have adverse
consequences for rolling stock, as follows:
• Slower achievement of the additional capacity required;
• The higher capital cost and whole-life, whole-system costs of any new diesel vehicles
(compared with new electric vehicles);
• Incremental costs associated with short initial leases, subsequent transfer to other nonelectrified
routes, and residual value risks;
• Longer introduction timescales compared with those for new electric vehicles; and
• The lower reliability of diesel vehicles compared with electric vehicles.

I very much doubt that these conclusions will have changed in the last 6 months.

I found it buried in Treasury guidance years ago - and this is actually a low rate of return for commercial purposes. EDF are demanding 9% from Hinkley Point C.

So we should base the business case for electrification on some old Treasury guidance you found years ago? I found the current Treasury guidance for public sector project CBA in the 2011 Green Book https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/220541/green_book_complete.pdf. This stipulates, in Annex 6, that the "Social Time Preference Rate" (which is the discount rate used to evaluate the Net Present Value of NR infrastructure projects) should be assumed to be 3.5%. However, it also states that, for costs and benefits accruing more than 30 years in the future, the long-term discount rate should be reduced to 3.0%. These are also the rates that have been used in the HS2 CBA.

Network Rail is in the public sector, so commercial discount rates are irrelevant.

Except that the cost of oil is unlikely to rise enormously any time soon - and emissions figures are almost never retroactive, so this will be locked in for the several decade life of the train.

As above, the business case must be evaluated over the likely life of the infrastructure, not the life of a train, still less "any time soon".

Except this is not the era where EMUs were replacing ancient DMUs with mechanical transmissions or even loco hauled trains.
The Voyagers and Class 185s eliminated the supposed EMU performance advantage - and we are already hard up against the limitations of the infrastructure in many cases.

Costings for IEP vehicles, where the design is already based around the need for the diesel engines. Electric-only IEP vehicles are more expensive than they need to be for the fact that the same design has to be able to handle a diesel engine underneath. I'm talking about standard EMUs that are bought for suburban use. Fitting diesel power packs to an Aventra, AT100/200 or Desiro City is going to be quite a different ask.

As I said above, the price differential of an IEP won't be the same as it will be for bog standard commuter trains.

The Voyagers and 185s are small trains. If you want EMU performance in a fully length train, you've got a huge amount of weight and lots of fuel being used. It may have been efficient to run these when they were sufficient for passenger numbers but the increase in passenger numbers has meant that they are no longer so efficient.Technologies which add cost and mass and would be just as necessary on a bi-mode train. Meanwhile, the electrics would be left as-is.

Electrodiesels aren't worth it if you're only using the electric capabilities for a tiny fraction of the total journey. They are a compromise which means they cost more to buy and run than either a pure EMU or a DMU. In this case, Transport Scotland are pretty determined to ensure that there would be no need for bi-modes at Waverley at all, other possibly than for a few scenic trains running through to the West Highlands in the summer.

I concur with NotATrainspott's comments. There are no suburban or regional EDMUs with 20m or 23m carriages and Stage IIIB engines yet. If these turn out to be significantly heavier, with higher floors and hence a more cramped saloon, than a "pure" EMU, TOCs are unlikely to want to keep operating them once a route has been fully electrified. So, as for a "pure" DMU, the ROSCOs are likely to add a risk premium to the lease rates to recover the (higher) capital cost over a shorter useful lifetime.

 

[CdBrux]

International shipping is so cheap now that that will never be the case.

Well thanks for dismissing my thoughts with one small line, especially as I was laying out a decision making process that may or may not lead to increasing production in UK vs Japan and not pre judge the outcome. Let me try to explain better. The decision will be based on several things including (assuming equal quality):
* shipping costs
* manufacturing costs (including labour, energy, raw materials supply)
* demand vs capacity - actual and predicted not only in Europe but in their home markets

I do not know the importance of shipping costs, and the sensitivity of the financials to them, in this equation. Nor do I have a crystal ball to know, rather than just have a personal opinion on, the longer term outlook for oil costs, shipping capacity vs demand etc... I take it from your reply that you do and therefore you know, along with the other considerations mentioned, that the equation will not stack up in favour of further investment in UK.