Electrification of GWML: some uncomfortable truths

[starrymarkb]

As far as I'm aware that is being funded by NR rather then the DfT

 

[Chris125]

Due to the way it is funded, cutting it would make little difference to the DfT's budget so from that point of view it wouldnt make any sense with regards to the deficit. While there are longer-term issues with the size of NR's debt, i dont thinks thats going to be solved by cutting a few electrification projects that'll actually save money in due course - whats needed are genuine changes in the way work is done to reduce the cost of large projects and improve efficiency.

Chris

 

[shinkansen1966]

whats needed are genuine changes in the way work is done to reduce the cost of large projects and improve efficiency.
Chris

And this opens up a whole can of worms on the cost of running the railways.

For example, 25 years ago the of cost installing the Tisbury loop on the Salisbury - Exeter london was £435,000.
source http://www.trainweb.org/railwest/railco/sr/se67-sb1.html

In 2010, the cost of the three mile doubling at Axminster plus station upgrade was £20 million. Of course there's inflation and that the loop is three miles plus the cost of Axminster station. But has the cost of improving our railways gone up by a factor of 40 over 25 years ?

And there's another figure which does not quite stack up. During British Rail's day, generally BR collected (I recall) approx 75% of its revenue from fares. The remainder 25% came from central government.

Over the last 15 years, fares have inched up at around slightly above inflation and there are more passengers travelling than at any time since 1960. Yet, the railways collect approx 55% of the revenue from fares.

Just how much fare box revenue + subsidy + grant is coming into the railways now than 20 years ago ?

 

[WatcherZero]

More Grant and Subsidy coming in to pay for services, but its give and take, the government takes most of the rail companies fare revenue then gives it back to them as subsidy for maintaining services.

Network Rails main income is track access charges, though this year ORR has forced them to cut it by a third and thats led to a big drop in their revenues and profits (though as publically owned company they go back to government anyway so may as well be invested). Debt tallly is up £1bn but leverage ratio (debt to assets) is down slightly.

 

[shinkansen1966]

In the British Rail's last year, think its annual govt subsidy was approx £1 bn. And that represented about a quarter of its overall income. So that total income needed to run Britain's railways was approx £4 bn.

When the railways were privatised, the Treasury said saving costs was an objective. Major described British Rail as "deeply ineffecient."

Since 1995, inflation has added approx 50% to prices. So can we safely assume that the total annual cost of running the railways since 1995 is no more than £6bn. And that £6bn figure is made of grants to NR, cost of running ORR, income from fares and subsidy from DfT to TOCs ?

 

[WatcherZero]

Networks Rail after criticism about its efficency has had a drastic cost cutting programme in the last two years its cut costs 15%. It had set a rather agrressive target of cutting costs 25%+ in five years 6 years ago, and achieved that saving 28%, its set itself 21% savings in maintenance between 2009-2014. However that has to be set against a large increase in costs at the start of the decade, so really we are probably about where we were at privatisation cost wise, perhaps a bit under.


Looking at the interim accounts for highlights
In 2009-10 Network Rails income fell from £6.1bn (spot on your estimate) to £5.6bn.
£5.3bn from track access and Grants, (doesnt seperate them unfortunatley), £50m from freight and £206m from property rental.

Operating (operation + administration) costs fell from £3.68bn to £3.61bn
Capital investment (renewals + new infrastructure) fell from £4.7bn to £3.9bn

The fall in value of its assets (depreciation) £1bn, total value of its assets £36.6bn up from £34.9bn
Assets-liabilities mean the companys worth (if it were wound up tommorow) £6.5bn
It is spending £1.2bn a year servicing its debt


So to sum it all up, its got a lot of debt and a lot of assets, its capital investment is increasing the value of its assets and its then using that to finance more borrowing to invest again. For the time being the company is breaking even and its working, however its debt is now many many times its revenues and still growing. The company is now slightly more efficent at doing what it does than BR was when it was broken up, though not by a huge lot, however its resisted costs rising above inflation.

 

[Old Timer]

WatcherZero
I guess you either work for Network Rail or have swallowed the usual hype and spin ?

Your bland statement completely omits to address WHERE Network Rail made those "cost savings/reductions".

By moving from experienced to Infrastructure Contractors to cheap labour agencies, by cancelling track renewals, by deferring sites due for renewal back into the future, by chnaging training and competency arrangments to favour Network Rail whilst at the same time as refusing to let Infrastructure Contractors doe likewise (thus widening the perceived "costs"), not filling vacant posts in maintenance, and by reducing the maintenance workforce from what it is now.

This is simply a re-arrangment of the deckchairs on the Titanic.

The REAL source of high costs have not even been touched.

 

[LE Greys]

I would suspect that a lot of the extra cost of engineering work goes to the TOCs as compensation for lost revenue. Although BR would also have lost some revenue, it was not owned by a parent company whose shareholders demand profits and dividends. Much of the rest would go on increased health and safety or administrative costs (both of which cause problems for the construction industry in general) and on sourcing of improved-quality materials. BR were famous (or notorious) for sourcing materials 'on the cheap', with the inevitable results in 'wires down' incidents on the ECML and so on, but that does not tend to happen with NR. Of course, I haven't seen their books, but that might be a reasonable explanation.

 

[WatcherZero]

They moved a lot of work inhouse over the years too, and the report yesterday did a side by side comparison of Networks Rails costs to do a job versus contractors on an example job (lengthening a 2.5m wide platform by 50m) NR doing it itself cost £5000 Arup did it for £4868, Spons suggested exactly the same ideal price as Arup, Chiltern was charging about £5500.

The Report which was unfairly savage, for example heavily criticising NR for not using Norwegian Modular Platforms suggested that savings of 5% could be made from a top down rather than bottom up contracting procedure, though they declined to try a theoretical costing to back up their assertion.

 

[Old Timer]

I would suspect that a lot of the extra cost of engineering work goes to the TOCs as compensation for lost revenue. Although BR would also have lost some revenue, it was not owned by a parent company whose shareholders demand profits and dividends. Much of the rest would go on increased health and safety or administrative costs (both of which cause problems for the construction industry in general) and on sourcing of improved-quality materials. BR were famous (or notorious) for sourcing materials 'on the cheap', with the inevitable results in 'wires down' incidents on the ECML and so on, but that does not tend to happen with NR. Of course, I haven't seen their books, but that might be a reasonable explanation.

All Engineering work within the planned programme does not as far as I know recover any penalties except where there is a late change to the plan.

Now this is an area where TOCs can make an awful lot of money, as the change only has to be a "change" and not necessarily a disruptive change. Unless things have altered since I was involved, any change resulted in an automatic pre-set payment being made to a TOC, so a TOC like MM for example made an enormous amount of money sinmply by watching for any changes to the WON for example and then insisting on being paid, irrespective of whether there was any impact or not.

In one case where I was involved, the route was completely closed, and so we wished to undertake an extension to Possession to complete a job in one week rather than two within the route that was blocked. This would have resulted in an absolute win-win for everyone, except that MM insisted on being paid their penalty for the late notice change, which was more than we would have saved by moving the work into one weekend.

Our work would in no way have had any effect whatsoever on anyone as the route was blocked for the duration of the time we wanted.

As a result considerable disruption affecting many other TOCs and passengers took place. If this is still happening then it is an insidious practice and should really be stopped.

Considerable savings would be made if Network Rail just followed simple Contracting protocols such as IChemE or ICE, rather than continuing to expand their already bloated I &I organisation, which incidentally I see has undergone yet another name change to something else now - I cannot remember what it is.

We have already seen the outcomes of Network Rail carrying out Renewals, and Electrification work themselves. Taking the Rugby Remodelling scenario, their OHL Renewals organisation could not even install an OHL switch properly, and it needed to be disassembled and re-built by Balfour Beatty OHL Engineers who had to be brought in specially.

Track renewals have seen over-runs and poor planning/site management, albeit these naturally get hushed up in a way that would not be the case if it was a Contractor.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

global warming is fictional

 

[ainsworth74]

Your evidence that it is fictional is?

 

[LE Greys]

global warming is fictional

I recently learnt the dangers of making claims that are hard to substantiate. I suggest you think carefully before trying to prove a negative in the face of substantial evidence that many consider overwhelming.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

The Earth has been heating up since the Big Bang (yes Im an atheist too), except for the period during the Ice Ages, for us only to discover this now is rubbish, and the levels at which it is predicted s overestimated beyond belief. Its just another scare-mongering thing by governmets: russia (obviiously now over), Nuclear War, etc.

LE Grays and Ainsworth, at least i am not one of those people who is convinced that all world leaders are lizards
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I recently learnt the dangers of making claims that are hard to substantiate. I suggest you think carefully before trying to prove a negative in the face of substantial evidence that many consider overwhelming.

What did you say?

 

[ainsworth74]

LE Grays and Ainsworth, at least i am not one of those people who is convinced that all world leaders are lizards

Can you prove they're not lizards in human suits!!!

The Earth has been heating up since the Big Bang (yes Im an atheist too), except for the period during the Ice Ages

Fair enough. This is one of the arguments that make me doubt man made warming, the Earth has been warming up for a long time (not quite since the Big Bang however, the BB was ~13bn years ago, the Earth is only ~4.5bn old).

Then again the rate of warming has increased over the last 100 years. Personally I'm not convinced either way and I am firmly rooted to the fence! (I do feel however if we can do things to lessen our impact on the environment we should).

 

[Greenback]

Can you prove they're not lizards in human suits!!!

Fair enough. This is one of the arguments that make me doubt man made warming, the Earth has been warming up for a long time (not quite since the Big Bang however, the BB was ~13bn years ago, the Earth is only ~4.5bn old).

Then again the rate of warming has increased over the last 100 years. Personally I'm not convinced either way and I am firmly rooted to the fence! (I do feel however if we can do things to lessen our impact on the environment we should).

I have a similar attitude. The rate of temperature increase has been rising since records began, but we cannot know whether it is a natural phenomenon or man made. Where I may differ is my belief that pumping so much unnatural material into the atmosphere over the last couple of centuries must have had some effect.

 

[ainsworth74]

Where I may differ is my belief that pumping so much unnatural material into the atmosphere over the last couple of centuries must have had some effect.

I agree with you that it must have some effect, look at acid rain or smog over cities like London, Los Angeles and Beijing. Those are certainly man made effects since the industrial revolution that is undeniable. I am however not convinced that it is neccessarily warming the planet however, then again I am open to being persuaded that it is. Hence my fence sitting.

 

[Greenback]

Yes, the smog is a good example of udnesirable effects. The trouble is that most of the debate about MMGW comes down to opinions - the interpretation of the data available as the data itself is inconclusive due to the short period that we have been measuring the climate.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Can you prove they're not lizards in human suits!!!



Erm - maybe. OK at least i dont go on about Area 51 etc, like said people do

 

[Greenback]

I booked on a tour to Area 51 from Las Vegas once. It was cancelled due to lack of interest. I was surprised, I got the impression loads of people wanted to go and have a look at it!

 

[tbtc]

I have a similar attitude. The rate of temperature increase has been rising since records began, but we cannot know whether it is a natural phenomenon or man made. Where I may differ is my belief that pumping so much unnatural material into the atmosphere over the last couple of centuries must have had some effect.

That's the backbone to my beliefs too. Plus the fact that we are running out of things to burn, so need to look at alternatives.

Surely even Jeremy Clarkson agrees that there is a limit to how much petrol/ diesel we can produce (regardless of the environmental impact)

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I booked on a tour to Area 51 from Las Vegas once. It was cancelled due to lack of interest. I was surprised, I got the impression loads of people wanted to go and have a look at it!

I thought Area 51 was the place where you got AK-47'd if you went within about 10 miles of it or tried to access it, or maybe I'm thinking of a different area of Southern Nevada

 

[Greenback]

Yes, but there is a public highway (ET Highway?) that they take you down so that you can you can see the fences, signs about use of deadly force and the sinister looking MIB's in their patrol vehicles!

 

[Old Timer]

I believe that it can be shown that we have managed to pump considerable quantities of pollutants into the atmopshere and indeed the rivers and seas since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

As dwellers of the planet, it is a sad fact that we have gone to considerabnle lengths, and indeed some Countries continue to do so (such as the Japanese still do), to overfish and destroy the natural habitat of many species.

The overuse of pesticides has now resulted in the fact that the worlds bee colonies are in desperate shape, and the UK in particular, are losing honey bees at an increasingly rapid rate. Indeed only last week I found a dead queen bee in the garden, something I have not experienced before.

This fact has been known within the Scientific community in the UK (and obviously also central Government) for some 10-12 years now, but rather than set up a proper investigation to establish why, Labour actually reduced the amount of money into this and similar research.

It is a rather sad state we are in when a Government is more interested in catering for groups who are not sure of their sexual orientation whilst issues of greater consequence are left.

Perhaps (in my opinion anyway) the greatest two factors which have done so much to damage "Green" issues, is the fact that early on they were identified with by the sandal-wearing Beardie set, thus forever becoming Politicised, and the recent revelations that the debate about global warming was being skewed by the Pro-lobby.

There will always be debate upon the precise findings of any study, and differences of opinion as to the overall causes. I suggest however that there is now sufficient evidence for even the most blind to accept that something is happening that has not happened before, and WE need to do something.

Internationally we could start for example by boycotting those Countries (such as Japan for example) who want to fish the fish stocks to extinction and refusing to procure from Countries who continue to ignore calls for action to lower pollution.

 

[jon0844]

I'm somewhat skeptical about global warming (or at least our direct involvement in it, as it may well be the case that it's going to happen and tough luck to us - the human race), but there are certainly many good arguments to cut down pollution and we're all aware of the fact that oil will run out - or, at best, get more and more expensive to obtain.

So, I probably go along with the need to do similar things to stop global warming but for a different reason. Finding alternatives to oil, or at least as many alternatives as possible so the things that DO need oil don't have to become so much more costly.

As for things like over-fishing and so on, these are also very important - but I think that since certain scientists (who benefit a great deal for doing so) and Governments have found new ways to tax us and push global-warming as all our fault, I think these other things have fallen by the wayside.

It's as if reducing our individual carbon footprint will solve everything.

Given how the human race has evolved and all the questions about where we came from, I am sure that in the next hundred, thousand or million years, we'll have either killed ourselves or advanced to the point where we're in space ships and seeking out another place to live. Who knows? It's not the sort of thing you can Google for to provide evidence!!

 

[LE Greys]

If you go through the evidence, then you would see the current situation in the light of the various global trends that affect the planet's constantly changing climate anyway. We know that:

• We are currently in an 'ice house' climate, with ice caps at both poles, which is caused by the current position of the continents, which almost land-lock the Arctic Ocean and place a continent over the South Pole. This tends to create ice buildup.
• Within this ice age, the climate cycles from (colder) 'glaciations' and (warmer) 'interglacials'. This is caused by variations in the Earth's orbit (creating warmer peaks every 100,000 yrs), changes of the tilt of the Earth's axis (every 40,000 yrs) and adjustment in the position of the Earth's axis (every 22,000 yrs).
• The first two peaked about 6,000 years ago, while the third peaked about 2,000 years ago.
• Therefore the planet should be getting colder.
• It is getting warmer at a higher rate than ever (we can tell this by looking at ice cores for recent measurement and sedimentary rocks for older measurement).
• This rate has got even faster since 1800 AD, and the rate of increase has continued to increase since then.
• If this is connected to industrial output, there appears to be a 25 year time-lag.
• There have been lower points of increase, including one in the 1950s, possibly linked to the decease in industrial output in the Great Depression.
• So what is going on?

Correlation is not causation, but it is highly likely that the massive changes we have made to the planet is the cause for this anomaly. 6,000 years ago was the late Neolithic Period, where the development of farming caused massive clearances in forests in Europe and Asia. The time-lag is interesting, and worth bearing in mind when you look at the data.

I thought Area 51 was the place where you got AK-47'd if you went within about 10 miles of it or tried to access it, or maybe I'm thinking of a different area of Southern Nevada

Only if a bunch of US Militia started guarding it, or they transfer ownership to North Korea, Iran or any of the various other countries that don't use M-16s. Even the Russians tend to use newer versions of the AK these days.

Sorry if I'm a rivet-counting nitpicker.

 

[Old Timer]

Jon
I dont profess to have all the answers however it cannot be sensible economically or ecologically to transport plane loads of hen and stag parties to the nicer parts of the Baltic, simply so that they can come back to the UK to boast of having drank to excess, indulged in behaviour that most normal people would find indefensible, abused the locals and gotten into fights, and in all probability either soiled their clothes or their hotel rooms to boot.

Whilst it is great to travel and see different places, I have little doubt that the development of cheap airlines, coupled with VAT free aviation fuel, does little to help.

This belief that we hold in the Western World that we must have everything "on tap" including out of season products, and our never ending thirst for goods produced abroad in comparison to ours (do we actually make that much here anymore ?) has been a major contributor to the less effective use of natural resources.

I understand that as a farming country, we no longer have the ability to be self sufficient and we now have to rely on the international transport of products that twenty or thirty years ago we would have been exporting.

 

[jon0844]

I do think that, unless we can get planes flying on some other type of fuel, that flying will go back to being a very costly luxury and the low-cost airlines will be buggered.

As a result, I think we need to be looking at high-speed rail throughout the UK, Europe and the world as a serious alternative to air travel.

Flying is going to get more and more expensive, and that's even before we consider whether aviation fuel should be taxed. If it is, then game over all the examples you've given! Businesses might just stop sending people all over the world and seek alternatives methods of communication, and we might just stop looking to import so many things from far, far away.

When Concorde stopped flying, we suddenly doubled the time it takes to get to New York. I think in the years to come, people will come to accept longer journey times. They'll accept it because they'll want to save money and choose cash savings over a short flight.

 

[LE Greys]

I do think that, unless we can get planes flying on some other type of fuel, that flying will go back to being a very costly luxury and the low-cost airlines will be buggered.

As a result, I think we need to be looking at high-speed rail throughout the UK, Europe and the world as a serious alternative to air travel.

Flying is going to get more and more expensive, and that's even before we consider whether aviation fuel should be taxed. If it is, then game over all the examples you've given! Businesses might just stop sending people all over the world and seek alternatives methods of communication, and we might just stop looking to import so many things from far, far away.

When Concorde stopped flying, we suddenly doubled the time it takes to get to New York. I think in the years to come, people will come to accept longer journey times. They'll accept it because they'll want to save money and choose cash savings over a short flight.

It's possible to fly on hydrogen-based fuel, the Space Shuttle uses it as fuel for the main engines, and I am sure it must be possible to adapt jets. Otherwise, it might be possible to use fuel cells to power electric motors hooked up to propellers, which would look a bit like an updated Bristol Brabazon (but hopefully a bit more powerful).

However, that is not really the point. If we do start churning out loads of hydrogen from seawater, we will also have enough deuterium to power hundreds of fusion reactors, and thus produce cheap electricity from a by-product. What better excuse for electrifying more railways and building a high-speed network accross the country and the whole of Europe. Even better if the USA returns to rail instead of air for domestic travel. With decent track, a 200 mph sleeper could travel from Boston to San Francisco in four days including plenty of stops. Not sure how practical it is, but considering the number of people who travel by car and Greyhound, there is a market. As a result, the airline industry would lose much of the lucrative US domestic market, which would probably have adverse effects on the rest of the world.

Would ocean liners come back? Well, as long as people want a cheaper way of crossing the oceans, then there is a potential market there. I looked at the idea of an ekranoplan-type ground-effect design as an Atlantic car ferry once, but that's probably impossible. An Atlantic tunnel would be amazing, but would have to cross an active ocean ridge, although surfacing in Iceland might make that easier. Potentially, a Bering Sea tunnel could make a trans-Pacific railway an option.

However, the Internet is slowly reducing the need for people to fly around the world for conferences. It won't eliminate it, but will do something to reduce it. Shipping in food is probably unsustainable, but the CAP takes a lot of that out of our hands, and is very slow to reform. Lack of oil will eventually squeeze shipping, although ships can run on coal, nuclear power, or even return to sail as a practical means of propulsion. However, that is much more expensive, and we will probably have to accept that foreign goods will be more expensive, which means that we will buy domestic goods instead.

Maybe then we can return to a more sensible world, but who knows?

 

[jon0844]

I think the high cost of travel will be what really changes things. Things are already getting more expensive, but it's still incredibly cheap to travel all over the world - and pretty quick.

I do think the bubble will burst and there will be a big reduction in foreign travel (at least for everyone, given the rich will be just fine) before we invent some alternatives - as you mention - that can make foreign travel an affordable reality again.

Rail travel is one of the few things that can ride things out, along with motor vehicles that could easily change to electric (and the range is always improving) without any major changes. Air travel is definitely, in my opinion, going to suffer at some point.