Rising electrification costs caused by increased overhead electrification clearances

[najaB]

Please tell me HS2 is going to be 25kV AC OHLE

Has there been a suggestion otherwise?

 

[QueensCurve]

In case you missed it, the act has received royal assent - its just a matter of weeks until the earthmovers start rolling.

The channel Tunnel started construction around 1971. It was cancelled in 1975 and not resumed until 1986.

 

[QueensCurve]

Please tell me HS2 is going to be 25kV AC OHLE

There are those on this forum who will insist that 25kV is unsafe and unaffordable and that it must be third rail. :roll:

 

[Elecman]

Please tell me HS2 is going to be 25kV AC OHLE

I would hope it is going to be a 25 KV AC ATFS system to reduce feeder requirements.

 

[najaB]

The channel Tunnel started construction around 1971. It was cancelled in 1975 and not resumed until 1986.

The difference being, of course, that the those in charge of the Channel Tunnel had to pander to two electorates who had vastly differing views towards the project. The 1964-1975 channel tunnel project failed as much due to British attitudes towards Europe and the EEC as it did for financial or technical reasons.

Interestingly, HS2 is contemporaneous with Brexit which actually works for it rather than against since the Government has to stick to the 'open for business' line. Cancelling the biggest infrastructure project going would be a direct contradiction of that position.

 

[najaB]

There are those on this forum who will insist that 25kV is unsafe and unaffordable and that it must be third rail. :roll:

It's only expensive when you are either (a) retrofitting an existing railway built to the UK's Victorian loading gauge*; or (b) re-doing work that's already been done but to the wrong standard.

On a new-build railway OHLE is going to win out on cost grounds every single time.

*The period, not the person. If the gauge took after the queen we wouldn't have problems with width, though height might be challenging!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The channel Tunnel started construction around 1971. It was cancelled in 1975 and not resumed until 1986.

Cancelled by an incoming Labour government, on 2 grounds:
(a) insufficient money to fund 3 megaprojects at the same time (Channel Tunnel, New London Airport (at Wing) and Concorde.
Concorde won (and is now history).
We are still waiting for the new London Airport.
(b) escalating costs of new line under the North Downs, needed because BR opposed Channel Tunnel trains on the existing Southern Region.

HS2 is (I hope) designed to the latest electrification standards with no conflicting clearances.
I guess you would need to be careful interfacing with the classic railway at Euston and Lichfield (and later at Crewe).

 

[D1009]

The difference being, of course, that the those in charge of the Channel Tunnel had to pander to two electorates who had vastly differing views towards the project. The 1964-1975 channel tunnel project failed as much due to British attitudes towards Europe and the ECC as it did for financial or technical reasons.

I presume you were referring to the European Economic Community rather than English China Clay.

 

[najaB]

I presume you were referring to the European Economic Community rather than English China Clay.

I was indeed. Thanks for the correction.

 

[class26]

Cancelled by an incoming Labour government, on 2 grounds:
(a) insufficient money to fund 3 megaprojects at the same time (Channel Tunnel, New London Airport (at Wing) and Concorde.
Concorde won (and is now history).
We are still waiting for the new London Airport.
(b) escalating costs of new line under the North Downs, needed because BR opposed Channel Tunnel trains on the existing Southern Region.

HS2 is (I hope) designed to the latest electrification standards with no conflicting clearances.
I guess you would need to be careful interfacing with the classic railway at Euston and Lichfield (and later at Crewe).

It will most likely be built by the time there is another Labour government and anyway, cancelling it by a labour government is going to go down well in the north I think !

 

[NotATrainspott]

Cancelled by an incoming Labour government, on 2 grounds:
(a) insufficient money to fund 3 megaprojects at the same time (Channel Tunnel, New London Airport (at Wing) and Concorde.
Concorde won (and is now history).
We are still waiting for the new London Airport.
(b) escalating costs of new line under the North Downs, needed because BR opposed Channel Tunnel trains on the existing Southern Region.

HS2 is (I hope) designed to the latest electrification standards with no conflicting clearances.
I guess you would need to be careful interfacing with the classic railway at Euston and Lichfield (and later at Crewe).

HS2 is new-build track and alignment at Euston, so it's no different to the rest of the line. The ground will be totally cleared and then the railway built properly with the right drainage and clearances; since the new tracks will be at -1 level (i.e. the walkways above them will be at ground level) vertical clearance won't be an issue. As far as I'm aware all of the bridges over the Euston approach tracks will need rebuilt and widened anyway.

 

[QueensCurve]

The difference being, of course, that the those in charge of the Channel Tunnel had to pander to two electorates who had vastly differing views towards the project. The 1964-1975 channel tunnel project failed as much due to British attitudes towards Europe and the EEC as it did for financial or technical reasons.

Interestingly, HS2 is contemporaneous with Brexit which actually works for it rather than against since the Government has to stick to the 'open for business' line. Cancelling the biggest infrastructure project going would be a direct contradiction of that position.

My recollection was that the Channel Tunnel was a Grand Project of the Heath Gov't which the subsequent Labour Gov't found unaffordable.

Whether a wholly internal project is consistent with "open for business" to the world remains to be seen. Whether it will be affordable against rising Gov't debt and falling revenues likewise.

 

[QueensCurve]

It will most likely be built by the time there is another Labour government and anyway, cancelling it by a labour government is going to go down well in the north I think !

I don't imagine this time round it would be a Labour Gov't that would be cancelling.

 

[najaB]

Whether a wholly internal project is consistent with "open for business" to the world remains to be seen.

A project of this size is going to attract interest from companies all over the world.

 

[Grumpy]

(b) escalating costs of new line under the North Downs, needed because BR opposed Channel Tunnel trains on the existing Southern Region.

Partly correct.
The main problem was the cost of the general "gold taps" specification by BR. In particular the provision of effectively a new railway, largely in tunnel, from Croydon to the proposed terminal at White City. All totally unnecessary.

The proposed train service at the time required no more paths than already existed from the ports to Victoria and the journey time was little different.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I don't imagine this time round it would be a Labour Gov't that would be cancelling.

The 1970s projects were all 100% public funded, and we had the IMF crisis to deal with.
These days a proportion of the cost would be from private sources (eg pension funds), or maybe foreign governments (Gulf, China etc).
Concorde won then because HMG discovered Tony Benn had insisted on a "no cancellation" clause in the treaty with France (to prevent them cancelling on us!).

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

A Tweet by Captain Deltic in reply to John Dalton implies the nightmare will get worse.:roll:

https://twitter.com/Captain_Deltic/status/835495927485980672

Either Mr Ford has had a little too much pop or this is just advance click-bait for his next article of despair. I think he stopped finding much to smile about on the railway once the Derby car-park-watching squads were disbanded.

 

[QueensCurve]

Ward on the Line cartoon from Railnews December 1983.

 

[Joseph_Locke]

I would hope it is going to be a 25 KV AC ATFS system to reduce feeder requirements.

Correct.

 

[snowball]

Time to bump this thread.

From Roger Ford's email preview to his column in the August Modern Railways:

(This is just one of several items. The lead item is about history repeating itself in relation to the ECML franchise. The late-breaking non-electrification news gets a couple of paragraphs added on at the end and will be covered in future months.)

Conference highlights OHLE clearance impact

You can always rely on the Railway Division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers to get the timing spot on when it comes to organising conferences. And the events team pulled it off again on 6 June with their Electrification Seminar.

First up was my old chum British Rail electrification veteran Peter Dearman. Peter was Network Rail’s Head of Network Electrification in 2011 when the Great Western Electrification Programme (GWEP) was in its infancy. But in 2013, like so many other experienced engineers, he left for the world of railway consultancy and is now advising Bechtel on … GWEP.

His paper ‘The cost of electrification - Adequate or perfect’, was inspired by the cost explosion on the Great Western scheme. He told the audience ‘We are sleep walking towards nailing down the coffin lid on rail electrification. Unless we actively and passionately address cost reduction that will be the result’. As you will see in Late breaking news’, he got the tense wrong.

His primary concern was the change in the regulations applying to electrical clearances – covered in detail in the December 2016 Informed Sources. Most of the change in the UK has been driven by the Office of Rail & Road’s interpretation of the relevant European Technical Specification for Interoperability.

In Peter’s view not only are the TSI numbers derived from continental European loading gauges, the TSI is ‘dominated’ by the thinking around the new-build high speed networks. As a result, ‘blind adoption of those clearances is at best irrational’. I do like that ‘at best’.

Obviously increased clearances will be safer. But Mr Dearman argues that it is a ‘grotesque over simplification to conclude automatically that the increased safety is significant or economically justified’.

At the heart of the clearance issue is the increase in the minimum distance between the platform and the live equipment from 2.75m to 3.5m. But, as Peter argued, in the 60 years during which the standard UK clearance has been 2.75m, an estimated 15bn passengers have used the stations on the electrified network without a recorded incident involving electric shock.

ORR’s insistence on 3.5m clearances is increasing cost and ‘diminishing the case for electrification’. In addition ‘money spent on this is obviously then not available to address risks of much more significance’, Mr Dearman pointed out.

Following Peter was Network Rail’s Professional Head of Contact Systems Philip Doughty. For him, too, the top challenge in achieving cost effective electrification was legislation and the application of the Energy TSI in the form of electrical clearances and separation at public locations.

These changes, in conjunction with ORR’s greater focus on the application of Regulation 7 of the Electricity at work regulations (EAWR) , have ‘resulted in confusion across the industry which in turn has led to cost escalation and delay for new electrification schemes’.

I’ve republished the relevant section of the EAWR in the column and when you have read it you will understand Philip’s aside, ‘We have had many debates with ORR on what Regulation 7 means’.

Network Rail has produced a new standard covering electrical clearances in public areas. This refers to ‘reasonably foreseeable’ system level hazards and operating conditions.

Which raises the question of how you define a ‘reasonably foreseeable hazard’? Network Rail is meeting with ORR in pursuit of a ruling.

Following publication of the new standard colleagues have been sending Philip photographs of people potentially at risk on platforms. One photograph showed a man carrying a 9ft long curtain pole. ‘reasonably foreseeable or stupidity’, Philip asked?

To date, ORR has taken a firm line on the justification for risk assessments where 3.5m clearances cannot provided economically. Philip Doughty believes that this attitude may be changing, arguing that the cost of any intervention must be proportionate to the risk.

That may be so, but I believe that the only way to bring common sense to this issue is to take on ORR with a high profile test case. There are a couple of bridges on Scottish electrification schemes, where 2.75m can be provided economically but 3.5m requires a highly disruptive rebuild with massive inconvenience to the local population. Time to make a stand.

 

[MarkyT]

Time to bump this thread.

From Roger Ford's email preview to his column in the August Modern Railways:

Thanks for that. I'll get that issue dreckly. Oh for a like button!

‘blind adoption of those clearances is at best irrational’

At worst deliberate sabotage of the programme? On behalf of the oil industry? Remember it's the office of rail and ROAD today.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Thanks for that. I'll get that issue dreckly. Oh for a like button!



At worst deliberate sabotage of the programme? On behalf of the oil industry? Remember it's the office of rail and ROAD today.

"we cant trust the rail industry with infrastructure spend" should read we cant trust other Government Departments.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I think electrification is going to fall off the agenda for a very long time. A longer gap than that between West Coast Main Line electrification and the East Coast Main Line electrification, or the next. History is repeating itself but in an even bigger way. We are heading towards replacing all our diesel intercity trains with new diesel trains. The result is there will be no need to introduce electric trains for about thirty years !.

It is a disaster caused by those who want to be in charge not knowing how to deal with things. I refer to the European standards that British Rail always got a derogation for but the replacement government department neglected to see the significance of. Bunch of amateurs have caused decades of damage.

 

[ac6000cw]

I think electrification is going to fall off the agenda for a very long time. A longer gap than that between West Coast Main Line electrification and the East Coast Main Line electrification, or the next.

It took nearly 15 years to electrify the WCML in stages (1959-1974) and about the same time to complete the ECML (1976-1991). I think a major part of the problem with the recent programme is we were trying to do too much in too short a time, probably stretching the available experienced resources too thinly.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

What's the standard for OHLE clearance outside of the UK? If it's lower, why was the clearance increased in the UK?

 

[jopsuk]

it isn't lower. Re read that extract from Roger Ford's email. It seems the issue is UIC pushing a single standard for clearance that is only really needed if you're building a brand new high speed line with space for double decker trains.

But here's where I'm confused. The UK is one of the largest countries in the UIC. Network Rail is surely one of the most influential infrastructure operators in the organisation. What role did they have in this? How hard did they push for derogation that would have reduced their costs?

 

[najaB]

What's the standard for OHLE clearance outside of the UK? If it's lower, why was the clearance increased in the UK?

The UK used a lower minimum clearance than the rest of the EU (and, I suspect, most of the world). This was a result of our own testing in the 1950s.

 

[YorkshireBear]

it isn't lower. Re read that extract from Roger Ford's email. It seems the issue is UIC pushing a single standard for clearance that is only really needed if you're building a brand new high speed line with space for double decker trains.

But here's where I'm confused. The UK is one of the largest countries in the UIC. Network Rail is surely one of the most influential infrastructure operators in the organisation. What role did they have in this? How hard did they push for derogation that would have reduced their costs?

I think the answer to your question should be self apparent.

Not very hard, if at all.

 

[davetheguard]

it isn't lower. Re read that extract from Roger Ford's email. It seems the issue is UIC pushing a single standard for clearance that is only really needed if you're building a brand new high speed line with space for double decker trains.

But here's where I'm confused. The UK is one of the largest countries in the UIC. Network Rail is surely one of the most influential infrastructure operators in the organisation. What role did they have in this? How hard did they push for derogation that would have reduced their costs?

If I've understood it correctly, from Uncle Roger's pieces in Modern Railways, it is ORR's role to "push for derogation" as you put it; not Network Rail's. But they failed to do so. I don't think anyone comes out of this whole affair very well, including Network Rail, but it is the Office of Road & Rail that needs to take the blame for this particular aspect of it. By failing to apply for the derogation they've made most future electrification in this county unaffordable.

 

[HSTEd]

Why would the ORR care? They've never been very enthusiastic about railway electrification