Transpennine Route Upgrade and Electrification updates

[GRALISTAIR]

We don't know where the last gap in the wiring will be, but it might not be closed for perhaps a decade from now.

Yikes !

 

[The exile]

Yikes !

Compared with the time span between the announcement of GWML electrification and wires reaching the City & County of Bristol, it’s phenomenally quick!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Yikes !

I haven't seen anything that suggests wiring will be complete before the 2030s.
Hud-Dewsbury will take at least 5 years, and there is no detail on the remaining gaps.
Any new NPR route will take at least as long.
The positive side is at least that the DfT seems prepared to fund it, within the IRP envelope, and is probably asking NR to "get on with it" for levelling up reasons.
Mind you, we will have a new PM and Chancellor in 6 weeks or so.

 

[Bald Rick]

Mind you, we will have a new PM and Chancellor in 6 weeks or so.

yep.

 

[LucyP]

And will either a new PM or Chancellor in 6 weeks time, speed up the ridiculous snails pace of 1 hr 20 minutes, that it takes from Manchester Piccadilly to Leeds? A journey by road of 45 miles. Transpennine Express? What a joke. It should be called Transpennine Embarrassingly Slow.

Leeds to London Kings Cross is 193 miles by road and takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

 

[snowball]

In the August Modern Railways, most of pages 12-13 is about TRU. A lot of it is stuff well known to regulars in this thread. Some of the new bits are depressing over timescales.

Wiring on Colton to Church Fenton is due to end in October. Two Christmas closures will be neeed to connect it to the existing ECML wiring. I first thought this meant two closures around Christmas 2022, but it means two successive Christmases, so it will not go live until March 2024!! "with the full scheme including a linespeed increase due for completion by December 2024"!!

Optioneering is still in progress on the length of blockades for Hudds-Westtown though "a decision would be needed on the preferred approach within the next nine months."

Electrification through Standedge Tunnel "will be achieved by lowering the tracks". Discussions with DfT are proceeding about gauge clearance for freight, and if this proceeds [did the recent obfuscatory press release include a decision on this?] some alterations to the structure of the tunnels may be needed.

There's a bit on OLE types. Sicat near York because of the higher linespeed, elsewhere will be as in the Scottish central belt.

Of the sections east of Leeds, E2 Crossgates to Leeds is the most complex as it includes the interface with Neville Hill.

NPR-related interventions will include "additional capacity through Dewsbury, east of Leeds and west of Huddersfield" (my emphasis).

Edit: There's a map with labels which include "Layout Enhancement at Stalybridge", "Station Upgrade fund to improve access, facilities and platform length at all stations", "ETCS between Stalybridge to Colton Junction", "New 3rd track" between Standedge and Huddersfield, and "Clearances for W12 increased freight gauge". The last of these has a pointer to the section between Stalybridge and Standedge but may be intended to refer to the whole route.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

"ETCS between Stalybridge to Colton Junction",

I imagine this will follow ECML South which is targeted for the end of 2029.
Presumably it also limits the ETCS rollout to York ROC, which makes sense.
Will it include the Leeds station area, I wonder, a hugely complex section.
And will it be "signals-free" or an overlay?

The page on MML electrification indicates that the "country areas" (eg Syston-Sheet Stores) will be done before the more complex urban centres (Leicester, Derby etc), hinting at discontinuous electrification for a period.
This will be no problem when you already have bi-modes on the route.
I wonder if there is any scope for this approach on TRU?
It would obviously depend on power feeding arrangements.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

NPR-related interventions will include "additional capacity through Dewsbury, east of Leeds and west of Huddersfield" (my emphasis)

I'm not sure how that can be achieved without MASSIVE spending on rebuilding the viaduct to the East and the embankment to the West of the station. You could squeeze a fourth track in through the station, but it would cause speeds to drop as non-stopping services would have to dogleg at both ends of the station.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I wonder if there is any scope for this approach on TRU?
It would obviously depend on power feeding arrangements.

Well Heyrod is already in but that only gets us so far. I will try and find the link/post but I could swear there is either a full Grid Feeder or possibly and SFC going in around Ravensthorpe and then another in Micklefield. I hope they follow the Scottish approach of getting Grid feeders planned, ordered and installed then they will surely dictate timing and use of bimodes etc?

 

[snowball]

Well Heyrod is already in but that only gets us so far. I will try and find the link/post but I could swear there is either a full Grid Feeder or possibly and SFC going in around Ravensthorpe and then another in Micklefield. I hope they follow the Scottish approach of getting Grid feeders planned, ordered and installed then they will surely dictate timing and use of bimodes etc?

There's definitely going to be an SFC at Ravensthorpe. I don't remember anything further east until Hambleton, which is not on the core TRU.

 

[59CosG95]

I don't remember anything further east until Hambleton, which is not on the core TRU.

I seem to recall that that Colton - Church Fenton - Micklefield is dependent upon Hambleton, or at least Colton - Church Fenton will be at the start.

Thankfully ECPSU2 are focusing on the Feeder Stations first (Hambleton, York, Hutton Bonville, Durham, Benton etc.), and it looks like Colton Jn TSC's new base is being built at the moment.

 

[Watershed]

I imagine this will follow ECML South which is targeted for the end of 2029.
Presumably it also limits the ETCS rollout to York ROC, which makes sense.
Will it include the Leeds station area, I wonder, a hugely complex section.
And will it be "signals-free" or an overlay?

AIUI the resignalling will initially still be with "lights on sticks" but with ETCS ready interlocking. Then ETCS will be rolled out later and eventually the lineside signals will be removed.

That end state is still many years away, but the first tranche of resignalling is not long off.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Especially where much of this money will have gone to 'professionals' working in the south.
There seems to be a trend in this country of bloating these 'professional' parts of organisations (eg finance, legal, HR, planning, etc) - more expensive jobs for university educated boys and girls - at the same time as trimming the number of (usually much less well-paid) roles involved in delivery of the actual service.
No wonder UK productivity remains stubbornly mediocre.

your spot on there. BR never had all these hanger ons in delivering these sort of modernisation programmes in the 1970 and 80's. Privatisation allowed the professional class to massively infiltrate the industry as outsiders took it over and were convinced that BR people weren't upto the task.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Jul 2022 ==

AIUI the resignalling will initially still be with "lights on sticks" but with ETCS ready interlocking. Then ETCS will be rolled out later and eventually the lineside signals will be removed.

That end state is still many years away, but the first tranche of resignalling is not long off.

its the trackside signalling that costs significant amount these days especially where you need multi track structures which need vast steelwork and massive foundations to support them running up a considerable bill let alone possession access to construct them.

 

[Starmill]

There was never any possibility that electrification would be complete before the new fast lines as subject to the current Huddersfield - Westtown Application. This isn't even going to be decided until next year and is easily more than five years' work.

your spot on there. BR never had all these hanger ons in delivering these sort of modernisation programmes in the 1970 and 80's. Privatisation allowed the professional class to massively infiltrate the industry as outsiders took it over and were convinced that BR people weren't upto the task.

Every large business economy-wide has to have a small army of highly qualified and thus highly paid lawyers and accountants. Usually they're in-house because usually this is cheaper. Their functions are usually not core to the business, but despite that their roles are not optional because everyone else also has them.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Every large business economy-wide has to have a small army of highly qualified and thus highly paid lawyers and accountants. Usually they're in-house because usually this is cheaper. Their functions are usually not core to the business, but despite that their roles are not optional because everyone else also has them.

Yes BR had a legal department who did tap into external resources for land acquisition but the engineering was managed in house on projects of this scale that was the fundamental difference to today

 

[jonesy3001]

Are they heading more dates to the stalybridge to victoria line on the transpennine upgrade page, since there's only 2 weekends left or are they waiting for more funding?

⚠️ Upcoming Closures and changes to services

Upgrading the Transpennine main line is a huge job. This means that, at times, we’ll need to close certain parts of the railway so we can make it more reliable and greener. When this happens, we’ll get you to where you’re going on a diversion route, or on a high quality bus or coach with comfy...

thetrupgrade.co.uk

 

[snowball]

There was never any possibility that electrification would be complete before the new fast lines as subject to the current Huddersfield - Westtown Application. This isn't even going to be decided until next year

It was decided on 27th June. See #5509 and subsequent posts.

 

[AndrewE]

There was never any possibility that electrification would be complete before the new fast lines as subject to the current Huddersfield - Westtown Application. This isn't even going to be decided until next year and is easily more than five years' work.

Every large business economy-wide has to have a small army of highly qualified and thus highly paid lawyers and accountants. Usually they're in-house because usually this is cheaper. Their functions are usually not core to the business, but despite that their roles are not optional because everyone else also has them.

Yes, but how many companies are there now doing what BR did by itself - every single one with all these hangers-on? There are also the interest payments on working capital, itself "procured" through middlemen who take their cut.

One company with one objective ("Run trains - or convey people and freight - on our tracks") keeps everybody working together and focussed on the same deliverable, rather than trying to enrich one or other small group of shareholders or directors.
To my mind that's why BR electrification was so much more cost-effective than it is now. Granted some contractors were and probably always will be used, but nowadays it's hard to even count the diferrent companies involved, let alone guess their motivation or agendas.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Yes BR had a legal department who did tap into external resources for land acquisition but the engineering was managed in house on projects of this scale that was the fundamental difference to today

BR used contractors like Balfour Beatty (or their predecessors) for electrification, and people like Westinghouse and GRS for signalling projects.
It's well known that Taylor Woodrow built the 1966 Euston, of similar design to their Terminal 1 at Heathrow.
With signalling, you have to buy from the global majors, just like rolling stock, because the UK railway is just not big enough to do everything in-house.
All the European railways do the same - in fact they have used contractors for longer, hence the size of firms like Siemens and Alstom.

 

[Roger B]

Every large business economy-wide has to have a small army of highly qualified and thus highly paid lawyers and accountants. Usually they're in-house because usually this is cheaper. Their functions are usually not core to the business, but despite that their roles are not optional because everyone else also has them.

Yes they do.
My point is that the size of these armies seem to have risen continually over the past few decades, with ever more 'must have' areas being added (eg PR, branding, compliance, etc), whereas the number of people actually delivering the service, and their terms and conditions seem, in comparison, to have been suppressed over the same period.
The size of these armies was also accelerated by the fragmentation of the railways at privatisation, with each of the new entities all duplicating the same functions - many of them just to manage the relationships between themselves.
About the only exception to the downward spiral for front-line staff has been drivers - perhaps because they had more clout. Although the end of that era may be on the horizon: with ETCS and increasing automation, the end game may be driverless trains with on-board staff covering passenger-facing responsibilities and also train safety - including what to do when things go wrong.

 

[modernrail]

I haven't seen anything that suggests wiring will be complete before the 2030s.
Hud-Dewsbury will take at least 5 years, and there is no detail on the remaining gaps.
Any new NPR route will take at least as long.
The positive side is at least that the DfT seems prepared to fund it, within the IRP envelope, and is probably asking NR to "get on with it" for levelling up reasons.
Mind you, we will have a new PM and Chancellor in 6 weeks or so.

We built the entire national grid, 4000 miles of it, 26,000 pylons under time and budget, in 5 years in the 1930’s. That whole project was delivered within the public sector because the private sector wasn’t getting anywhere with it and we were being overtaken by other countries. The whole thing was delivered and commissioned by a Conservative Government.

If this is the best the railway industry can do in 2022 with all the extra tech available to it….

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Jul 2022 ==

There was never any possibility that electrification would be complete before the new fast lines as subject to the current Huddersfield - Westtown Application. This isn't even going to be decided until next year and is easily more than five years' work.

Every large business economy-wide has to have a small army of highly qualified and thus highly paid lawyers and accountants. Usually they're in-house because usually this is cheaper. Their functions are usually not core to the business, but despite that their roles are not optional because everyone else also has them.

I am a lawyer who has worked in finance and in infrastructure projects. The problem is not the people per se, I don’t know why we all love having a pop at each other so much between jobs in the UK! Many of us work very hard in whatever jobs we do. It is how resource is used and whether the ratios are right. Lawyers, finance people etc are enablers to ensure the engineers proposals can be implemented. I would agree I see the ratios being wrong too often.

The Conservative Government has become absolute experts it making it look like they are doing something and generating headlines by commissioning this study or that study, or even worse, serious amounts of project development before cancelling things. It is appalling how much money they have thrown down the drain because some idiot or other made an ill-considered promise of a very grand scale to bag some votes. Yes we always expect a bit of this from our politicians but it seems to have become all about this now. Not how do you govern, how do you wind people up in the short term to fool them into voting for you before you revert to type.

The Conservative Government has also long been an expert in outsourcing, where these skills sit too remote to cost centres and the engineering priorities. Often this is outsourcing of the engineering roles not legal, finance etc. Let’s be really clear, the Conservatives are at their worst point ever in not believing that the public sector can or should be asked to do anything. They don’t believe in local government, they don’t believe in public bodies, they have an amazingly high opinion of themselves despite most of them never having worked in the real world.

Outsourced consultants, whilst individually very good sometimes, don’t have skin in the game in the same way that an internal team does. Their bosses are also most loyal to the bottom line of the consultancy and not, in this case, the railway. It is also hard for external consultants to stay efficient if they are not led by a really strong client team. To a made point above there is a big difference between development consultancy and delivery contracting. As the poster intimated, all public sector bodies enter into a range of contracts with the private sector to deliver things. The NHS has never built hospitals, contractors do that.

The Conservative Government needs to stop micro-managing stuff it doesn’t understand, even have the first clue about in many cases, the DfT needs to withdraw to its proper position and Network Rail needs to be left without stupid constant political distraction and instead held to account on basic engineering performance.

The transpennine lines are some of the oldest in the country/world, connecting the biggest population centres in the UK outside London. One bit is literally the oldest in the world. All Governments have failed to sort them out, but as the Conservatives have been in power for the vast majority of the last 4 decades, it is to them the award for Chinese water torture goes to. Just get on with it and show just a tiny bit of ambition, just a tiny bit.

It is seriously pathetic stuff from a seriously pathetic Government.

 

[matacaster]

We built the entire national grid, 4000 miles of it, 26,000 pylons under time and budget, in 5 years in the 1930’s. That whole project was delivered within the public sector because the private sector wasn’t getting anywhere with it and we were being overtaken by other countries. The whole thing was delivered and commissioned by a Conservative Government.

If this is the best the railway industry can do in 2022 with all the extra tech available to it….

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Jul 2022 ==


I am a lawyer who has worked in finance and in infrastructure projects. The problem is not the people per se, I don’t know why we all love having a pop at each other so much between jobs in the UK! Many of us work very hard in whatever jobs we do. It is how resource is used and whether the ratios are right. Lawyers, finance people etc are enablers to ensure the engineers proposals can be implemented. I would agree I see the ratios being wrong too often.

The Conservative Government has become absolute experts it making it look like they are doing something and generating headlines by commissioning this study or that study, or even worse, serious amounts of project development before cancelling things. It is appalling how much money they have thrown down the drain because some idiot or other made an ill-considered promise of a very grand scale to bag some votes. Yes we always expect a bit of this from our politicians but it seems to have become all about this now. Not how do you govern, how do you wind people up in the short term to fool them into voting for you before you revert to type.

The Conservative Government has also long been an expert in outsourcing, where these skills sit too remote to cost centres and the engineering priorities. Often this is outsourcing of the engineering roles not legal, finance etc. Let’s be really clear, the Conservatives are at their worst point ever in not believing that the public sector can or should be asked to do anything. They don’t believe in local government, they don’t believe in public bodies, they have an amazingly high opinion of themselves despite most of them never having worked in the real world.

Outsourced consultants, whilst individually very good sometimes, don’t have skin in the game in the same way that an internal team does. Their bosses are also most loyal to the bottom line of the consultancy and not, in this case, the railway. It is also hard for external consultants to stay efficient if they are not led by a really strong client team. To a made point above there is a big difference between development consultancy and delivery contracting. As the poster intimated, all public sector bodies enter into a range of contracts with the private sector to deliver things. The NHS has never built hospitals, contractors do that.

The Conservative Government needs to stop micro-managing stuff it doesn’t understand, even have the first clue about in many cases, the DfT needs to withdraw to its proper position and Network Rail needs to be left without stupid constant political distraction and instead held to account on basic engineering performance.

The transpennine lines are some of the oldest in the country/world, connecting the biggest population centres in the UK outside London. One bit is literally the oldest in the world. All Governments have failed to sort them out, but as the Conservatives have been in power for the vast majority of the last 4 decades, it is to them the award for Chinese water torture goes to. Just get on with it and show just a tiny bit of ambition, just a tiny bit.

It is seriously pathetic stuff from a seriously pathetic Government.

It should be noted that there is a high preponderance of lawyers, solicitors, accountants and doctors in Parliament. They are hardly likely to vote for any simplification of rules which make them rich. (Eg ECHR,although this is in fairness off topic)

 

[Purple Orange]

And will either a new PM or Chancellor in 6 weeks time, speed up the ridiculous snails pace of 1 hr 20 minutes, that it takes from Manchester Piccadilly to Leeds? A journey by road of 45 miles. Transpennine Express? What a joke. It should be called Transpennine Embarrassingly Slow.

Leeds to London Kings Cross is 193 miles by road and takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

If you’re on a train that takes 1 hr 20 from Piccadilly to Leeds, you’ve boarded the wrong train.

 

[HSTEd]

We built the entire national grid, 4000 miles of it, 26,000 pylons under time and budget, in 5 years in the 1930’s. That whole project was delivered within the public sector because the private sector wasn’t getting anywhere with it and we were being overtaken by other countries. The whole thing was delivered and commissioned by a Conservative Government.

If this is the best the railway industry can do in 2022 with all the extra tech available to it….

Ultimately we now have a giant hyper complex apparatus that's job is to stop "waste of mney" buying things. But which generates enormous csots of its own.

We spent huge sums of money on extra staff to avoid spending money on "unnecessary" material goods - when the material wealth of modern society is so large as to be almost inifinite in terms of projects like this.

We also have a railway industry that has been rendered moribund by the mass of legal contracts and such between the components of it, none of which are under public control.

ETCS has been held up for a decade by chicken-and-egg nonsense with freight operators over the cost of fitment, god knows how much wealth that has cost society overall.
And we will get into a similar problem with the abolition of trackside train completeness equipment. Freight operators say no and we have no real ability to compel them even if it benefits society overall.

 

[92002]

Ultimately we now have a giant hyper complex apparatus that's job is to stop "waste of mney" buying things. But which generates enormous csots of its own.

We spent huge sums of money on extra staff to avoid spending money on "unnecessary" material goods - when the material wealth of modern society is so large as to be almost inifinite in terms of projects like this.

We also have a railway industry that has been rendered moribund by the mass of legal contracts and such between the components of it, none of which are under public control.

ETCS has been held up for a decade by chicken-and-egg nonsense with freight operators over the cost of fitment, god knows how much wealth that has cost society overall.
And we will get into a similar problem with the abolition of trackside train completeness equipment. Freight operators say no and we have no real ability to compel them even if it benefits society overall.

If this was Switzerland all the main lines and many branch lines would have been
Electrified around 100 years ago. At a cost much cheaper than now. It would now be do old it would be needing renewed.The railway would have built their own supply for the system

Needless to say a lot could be learned from our European railways and governments.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

If this was Switzerland all the main lines and many branch lines would have been
Electrified around 100 years ago. At a cost much cheaper than now. It would now be do old it would be needing renewed.The railway would have built their own supply for the system
Needless to say a lot could be learned from our European railways and governments.

Switzerland and Austria had plentiful domestic hydro power and had to import most of their coal and oil.
They also had a number of long tunnels and gradients which were difficult to operate with steam.
France and Italy could also benefit from cheap hydro power in some regions.
By comparison, the UK had plentiful coal and comparatively short tunnels and hills.
So there was little incentive to go electric, and arguably the most prominent electric operator of the Big 4 (the SR) adopted a system which was unsuitable for mainline use.
BR also persisted with steam for a decade longer than it should have done, by which time the money and government trust were running out.

 

[92002]

Switzerland and Austria had plentiful domestic hydro power and had to import most of their coal and oil.
They also had a number of long tunnels and gradients which were difficult to operate with steam.
France and Italy could also benefit from cheap hydro power in some regions.
By comparison, the UK had plentiful coal and comparatively short tunnels and hills.
So there was little incentive to go electric, and arguably the most prominent electric operator of the Big 4 (the SR) adopted a system which was unsuitable for mainline use.
BR also persisted with steam for a decade longer than it should have done, by which time the money and government trust were running out.

Think perhaps you may be just a bit behind the times for current day electricity production. Quite sizable amounts are now produced by wind, tidal and wooden pellets. With much produced by oil and gas. However coal is now a thing of the past givrn our commitment to become net zero in the next number of years.

Given theTrans Pennine route passes many hills and water courses, there is a massive opportunity to produce hydro electricity. For not a lot of cash.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Think perhaps you may be just a bit behind the times for current day electricity production. Quite sizable amounts are now produced by wind, tidal and wooden pellets. With much produced by oil and gas. However coal is now a thing of the past givrn our commitment to become net zero in the next number of years.
Given theTrans Pennine route passes many hills and water courses, there is a massive opportunity to produce hydro electricity. For not a lot of cash.

Electrification policy has of course changed over the years, but coal was a strategic fuel in the UK until at least the 1970s, leading to extended steam operation.
Similarly, hydro power (and lack of coal/oil) was strategic for CH/AT until EU-times, and will still be a major local factor.
UK hydro was/is useful in Scotland/Wales but hardly in England.
Wind is now dominating, but hasn't fed through to rail consumption yet.
NR's traction supply is based on EDF nuclear generation, mostly in France (the contract is about to be renegotiated for the next decade).

 

[snowball]

Wind is now dominating, but hasn't fed through to rail consumption yet.
NR's traction supply is based on EDF nuclear generation, mostly in France (the contract is about to be renegotiated for the next decade).

Of course, these statements are just bookkeeping. You can't control where the electrons go.

 

[LittleAH]

We don't know where the last gap in the wiring will be, but it might not be closed for perhaps a decade from now.

Huddersfield to Stalybridge most certainly. 2030 expected completion... maybe

And will either a new PM or Chancellor in 6 weeks time, speed up the ridiculous snails pace of 1 hr 20 minutes, that it takes from Manchester Piccadilly to Leeds? A journey by road of 45 miles. Transpennine Express? What a joke. It should be called Transpennine Embarrassingly Slow.

Leeds to London Kings Cross is 193 miles by road and takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

Manchester to Leeds is a circa 50 min journey. Victoria is now the primary station for fast services to enable more capacity at Piccadilly. And TRU is precisely the thing, alongside NPR, that will speed up the route. The infrastructure is the issue on speeds, not the train operators.