MML Electrification: is it going to be completed?

[WAO]

Heidi did announce "improvements" to both ECML and WCML - probably power supplies and signalling. She also started her statement by saying that people wanted electrification.


Perhaps the Midland has lost out again to its big brothers. It seems that Midlands Rail Hub (East) has also been "paused", cutting out a real wiring network of lines, had the proposed frequencies been implemented.


The statement is just a cut in (thin) disguise, with political sops to some of the Mayors.


WAO

 

[QSK19]

Heidi did announce "improvements" to both ECML and WCML - probably power supplies and signalling. She also started her statement by saying that people wanted electrification.


Perhaps the Midland has lost out again to its big brothers. It seems that Midlands Rail Hub (East) has also been "paused", cutting out a real wiring network of lines, had the proposed frequencies been implemented.


The statement is just a cut in (thin) disguise, with political sops to some of the Mayors.


WAO

To be honest, whether under Alexander or somebody else, I’ll never, ever trust any SoS of the DfT (Labour, Tory or otherwise) when it comes to MMLE.

Alexander has proved that she pees in the same pot as Grayling and all the others that have failed the East Midlands.

In the meantime, we are on the point of an imminent rolling stock crisis with the IC operation, 360s which are flawed technically & in terms of maintenance arrangements and new trains which may not come into service until five years after the first ones were built.

Absolutely disgusting treatment of the East Midlands. Surely it can’t get any worse?! We hope Alexander will pull something out of the bag, but I doubt it!

 

[43074]

In the meantime, we are on the point of an imminent rolling stock crisis with the IC operation, 360s which are flawed technically & in terms of maintenance arrangements and new trains which may not come into service until five years after the first ones were built.

360s are not technically flawed - the Desiro UK units (185, 350, 444, 450) are excellent units. The issue is with the maintenance arrangements for EMR and how scruffy the interiors are looking.

Any other EMU fleet on the Corby service would suffer the same way, as 90% of the circuits rotate between Cricklewood and Kettering Sidings. Not building a dedicated EMU Depot in Kettering was a significant oversight in the Corby electrification project; sharing Bedford Cauldwell Depot with GTR is sub-optimal as EMR only have space for a few units there at a time.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2025 ==

Absolutely disgusting treatment of the East Midlands. Surely it can’t get any worse?! We hope Alexander will pull something out of the bag, but I doubt it!

The East Midlands isn't unique in having a new train introduction which is going badly though. There are much bigger injustices in the world!

 

[dosxuk]

Surely it can’t get any worse?!

You've said it now

 

[QSK19]

The East Midlands isn't unique in having a new train introduction which is going badly though. There are much bigger injustices in the world!

Agreed, but to be fair, I never said that EMR’s situation is the worst thing to ever happen (you’re right in saying many greater injustices exist in the world); however, the 810 fiasco isn’t an isolated example that the East Midlands TOC has suffered - think to ex-LNER HSTs and the appalling condition of regional stock when the 15x arrived from CT as two of many other examples. And now we have the bombshell of Alexander becoming Graying Mk 2. So, getting dealt rotten hands of cards continues.

 

[The exile]

The range that can be gained from modern batteries is incredible, so wiring mainlines in their entirely is unnecessary for passenger operations (there is still a reason to do it for Freight, since batteries can only really fulfill a last few miles role). For Cornwall services, charging at Penzance alongside wiring between Taunton and Exeter is probably enough, but this would effectively require batteries the size of the GUs on the 80x. However batteries that size would enable equivalent performance on OHL and battery.

Wiring Taunton - Exeter is not going to be of any help to the majority of Cornwall services! Wires over Dainton, Rattery and Hemerdon should really be in there too to assist over the banks and provide charging opportunities nearer the Eastern end (yes, I know they’re not in Cornwall either!). Even the “we’ve never electrified anything” GWR was planning for those 80 years ago!

 

[WAO]

Watching Heidi's presentation again, she did answer an EM question about MMLEP directly, pleading priorities within this spending review (i.e EC/WC) but said that the Rail Minister was to meet local MP's later this week and that the matter would be reviewed in the Infrastructure Pipeline to be announced, along with an Integrated National Transport Review. At least one MP still believed that the Midlands Rail Hub would benefit the EM.

What was disappointing was the limited horizons of the MP's questioning her. They were raising very local issues, like a Kings Norton weed strewn island platform, or rear disabled access at York. They also prioritise local trams at probably 10x the cost/km over an electric main line.

WAO

 

[The exile]

They also prioritise local trams at probably 10x the cost/km over an electric main line.

WAO

Well - they may well be of greater overall benefit. In terms of reducing local emissions, they almost certainly are.

 

[Senex]

Agreed, but to be fair, I never said that EMR’s situation is the worst thing to ever happen (you’re right in saying many greater injustices exist in the world); however, the 810 fiasco isn’t an isolated example that the East Midlands TOC has suffered - think to ex-LNER HSTs and the appalling condition of regional stock when the 15x arrived from CT as two of many other examples. And now we have the bombshell of Alexander becoming Graying Mk 2. So, getting dealt rotten hands of cards continues.

Why over many years do the East Midlands (I'm thinking of Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield and their areas) seem to have had such a raw deal from governments of both parties? They just seem to lack political clout. The most massive big railway change for the better in many years was the internal railway marketing decision to move HSTs to the Midland on the basis not only that they'd upgrade the service but also that they'd earn significantly more money there — nothing down to the wretched politicians or the even more wretched DfT at all! And yes, it does indeed look like Grayling Mk2!

What with the unending electrification saga, the 810 fiasco, a London terminal not adequate for the traffic or with platforms the right length for standard modern trains, and the general poor state of both trains and service on EMT, maybe the East Midlands cities ought to start urging the case for widening the M1 .....

 

[NCT]

Before IETs came along the standard modern intercity train had 23-metre carriages ...

To be honest, the 810 fiasco is more a case of bad luck - on the face of it it's a high performance train being specified for the East Midlands communities.

The MML probably has the best timetable structure out of the 3 northern main lines. All services perfectly half hourly at least up to Leicester with clear station banks. Yes, some interchanges are required but generally you can travel from every station to every station with good interchange times. We now don't have Grantham - Newark situations on the MML.

 

[Grimsby town]

The big worry for me is that this will lead to lost skills. I remember the winding down of the North West electrification schemes and remember staff being made redundant leading to some moving permanently to Australia. I really hope the government has considered the impact on skill retention. Will TRU, HS2 and various upgrades deliver enough work for electrification.

One thing certainty is that additional electrification will be needed for battery trains to be rolled out. Its also not clear how good battery's will be for powering higherspeed services and freight trains. It seems like a big mistake to me. At the very least electrification should be completed to Leicester to allow flexibility for class 360s to be used in certain scenarios e.g. times of particularly high demand.

 

[HSTEd]

Ultimately freight trains currently use only around 30% of the diesel burned on the railway. (About 125kT out of around 440kT)

Deployment of electrodiesels would probably cut that by a big chunk even with no additional electrification.

The last few tens of kilotons of diesel burn would have to be dealt with eventually, but there is no enormous rush at this time. The passenger railway is where the political challenge of decarbonisation is.

 

[BorderCollie]

As Roger Ford in Modern Railways repeatedly says - decarbonisation is the least important element and argument for electrification. An electric railway is a better railway on all other metrics of maintenance, time keeping, speed, safety and reliability - those are the key arguments for stringing up wires, not decarbonisation.

 

[NCT]

As Roger Ford in Modern Railways repeatedly says - decarbonisation is the least important element and argument for electrification. An electric railway is a better railway on all other metrics of maintenance, time keeping, speed, safety and reliability - those are the key arguments for stringing up wires, not decarbonisation.

I can't agree here. DMU (and DEMU) performance in terms of speed and acceleration is rapidly closing in on EMUs. An EMU essentially can't better a Class 222. A Class 196 accelerates as well as a Class 455 (obviously a 331 still gives you an edge).

Yes, electric trains are cheaper to operate over the long term, but you are still spending (I'm making numbers up but you get the idea) £1bn now in order to save £500m over a 60-year appraisal period. So there is still a net cost to the government which needs to be justified by social benefits. The journey time term in the benefit calculations is becoming vanishingly small, and your business case is almost entirely dependent on the 'greenhouse gas' and 'air quality' terms.

 

[Grimsby town]

Ultimately freight trains currently use only around 30% of the diesel burned on the railway. (About 125kT out of around 440kT)

Deployment of electrodiesels would probably cut that by a big chunk even with no additional electrification.

The last few tens of kilotons of diesel burn would have to be dealt with eventually, but there is no enormous rush at this time. The passenger railway is where the political challenge of decarbonisation is.

Agreed that there isn't a huge rush but in terms of maintaining skills and supply chain, the country needs a rolling programme of electrification. The MML seemed like the perfect programme to maintain those skills. Maybe there's enough work from HS2, TRU etc. but I'm skeptical.

As Roger Ford in Modern Railways repeatedly says - decarbonisation is the least important element and argument for electrification. An electric railway is a better railway on all other metrics of maintenance, time keeping, speed, safety and reliability - those are the key arguments for stringing up wires, not decarbonisation.

I agree to a point. Rail isn't a significant contributer to climate change or the UKs carbon emissions but it still needs to be decarbonised and there's certainly an environmental case for electrification both in terms of carbon but also air quality at major stations. I'm also not convinced that rail electrification isn't a government priority because roads contribute so much more carbon emissions. A lot of the costs of decarbonisation of roads will be covered by the private sector. Funding for the MML appears to have been crowded out by capacity improvements to roads which contirbutes nothing to net zero (at best).

 

[NCT]

Government buckled and decided to pay for road schemes as red meat to the Red Wall constituencies.

 

[HSTEd]

Agreed that there isn't a huge rush but in terms of maintaining skills and supply chain, the country needs a rolling programme of electrification. The MML seemed like the perfect programme to maintain those skills. Maybe there's enough work from HS2, TRU etc. but I'm skeptical.

The ultimate question has to be, do we actually need a rolling programme of electrification?

What is this rolling platform of electrification going to be for?

Battery technology that exists today could enable the complete elimination of diesel passenger operation on the railway with only a comparatively small quantity of additional electrification.
I'd wager it is likely less than the amount of track kilometres on the unapproved sections of the MML scheme, or at least not many more than that.

Running such a large scheme to have the capability for a scheme that is probably smaller than that might not be a sensible strategy.

I'm not clear that a battery train will really have substantially greater maintenance or operational costs than a conventional straight EMU. It doesn't even have significantly more moving parts.
After all electrification that doesn't exist doesn't consume maintenance resources.

If we achieve battery based electric operation, is there any pressing need to ever install more electrification?

We might need some conventional electrification later for freight if battery technology turns out to be impractical, but that seems a long shot hedge at this point.

 

[duffield]

The ultimate question has to be, do we actually need a rolling programme of electrification?

What is this rolling platform of electrification going to be for?

Battery technology that exists today could enable the complete elimination of diesel passenger operation on the railway with only a comparatively small quantity of additional electrification.
I'd wager it is likely less than the amount of track kilometres on the unapproved sections of the MML scheme, or at least not many more than that.

Running such a large scheme to have the capability for a scheme that is probably smaller than that might not be a sensible strategy.

I'm not clear that a battery train will really have substantially greater maintenance or operational costs than a conventional straight EMU. It doesn't even have significantly more moving parts.
After all electrification that doesn't exist doesn't consume maintenance resources.

If we achieve battery based electric operation, is there any pressing need to ever install more electrification?

We might need some conventional electrification later for freight if battery technology turns out to be impractical, but that seems a long shot hedge at this point.

The practical effect of this decision is that the 810s will probably be running on diesel from Leicester northwards for the next 20 years.
It also means no quick win of putting some used spare EMUs on Nottingham to Leicester locals. And no easy win with BEMUs for the Matlock branch recharging on the MML. Full MML electrification would have unlocked the potential of BEMUs on several routes passing through Nottingham/Derby/Leicester. This decision is a huge setback for *BEMU* schemes!

And where are the *125mph* battery trains, with ranges of hundreds of miles and minimal charge times? Do they exist, are any being built? If not, when? If they're not being built now we'll be lucky to see any running before the 2040s!

 

[Nottingham59]

where are the *125mph* battery trains, with ranges of hundreds of miles and minimal charge times?

And which unelectrified 125mph lines would these run on?

 

[Brubulus]

Before IETs came along the standard modern intercity train had 23-metre carriages ...

To be honest, the 810 fiasco is more a case of bad luck - on the face of it it's a high performance train being specified for the East Midlands communities.

The MML probably has the best timetable structure out of the 3 northern main lines. All services perfectly half hourly at least up to Leicester with clear station banks. Yes, some interchanges are required but generally you can travel from every station to every station with good interchange times. We now don't have Grantham - Newark situations on the MML.

The obvious solution would have been to order 7 car trains. 24 7 car trains would have been a similar number of carriages to 33 5 car trains and 24 is just about enough to run the full timetable. Furthermore each 7 car unit would have had more capacity than a 10 car 222. A 7 car 805 could have been easily produced without substantial issues, would have fitted in platforms and had none of the issues the 810s have had.

The practical effect of this decision is that the 810s will probably be running on diesel from Leicester northwards for the next 20 years.
It also means no quick win of putting some used spare EMUs on Nottingham to Leicester locals.

And where are the *125mph* battery trains, with ranges of hundreds of miles and minimal charge times? Do they exist, are any being built? If not, when? If they're not being built now we'll be lucky to see any running before the 2040s!

We have the solution of sticking a giant box of batteries into the GU of 80x. That'll provide a service range of around 120 miles, and almost equivalent performance to electric. The range could reach 160 miles on 810s, given the fact they have 4 GUs.

Electrification of major stations, such as Bristol, Exeter and Sheffield is needed for battery trains to work.

 

[WAO]

I can't agree here. DMU (and DEMU) performance in terms of speed and acceleration is rapidly closing in on EMUs. An EMU essentially can't better a Class 222. A Class 196 accelerates as well as a Class 455 (obviously a 331 still gives you an edge).

Yes, electric trains are cheaper to operate over the long term, but you are still spending (I'm making numbers up but you get the idea) £1bn now in order to save £500m over a 60-year appraisal period. So there is still a net cost to the government which needs to be justified by social benefits. The journey time term in the benefit calculations is becoming vanishingly small, and your business case is almost entirely dependent on the 'greenhouse gas' and 'air quality' terms.

Given two class 50's upfront, you could just about match an 86 or 87's performance over Shap and Beattock but at a cost. (adhesion was better though!) The continuing world wide experience of main line electric railways, intensively used, is that they are cheaper overall, more cost effective, of higher performance etc etc all round, even allowing for clever DMU's.

Our UK problem is that when the rest of the world sees that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, we think that there is a quicker way.

Pausing the measly c38 route miles (c£400M) of wiring onward to Nottingham and Derby will actually increase the cost of running the service, although batteries may work in the interim for the thinner service, 30 miles further on to Sheffield.

A DfT/Treasury triumph.

WAO

 

[HSTEd]

The practical effect of this decision is that the 810s will probably be running on diesel from Leicester northwards for the next 20 years.
It also means no quick win of putting some used spare EMUs on Nottingham to Leicester locals. And no easy win with BEMUs for the Matlock branch recharging on the MML. Full MML electrification would have unlocked the potential of BEMUs on several routes passing through Nottingham/Derby/Leicester. This decision is a huge setback for *BEMU* schemes!

It might have unlocked those schemes, but only at the cost of consuming a huge portion of the available capital budget for years!
As for spare EMUs, if your objective is to make use of the available extra EMU fleet, this scheme is far from the best available.

And where are the *125mph* battery trains, with ranges of hundreds of miles and minimal charge times? Do they exist, are any being built? If not, when? If they're not being built now we'll be lucky to see any running before the 2040s!

What would we need such a train for?
There are very few non electrified 125mph lines on the system, and very few diagrams that I can think of that would require "minimal charge times".

And as a previous poster noted, you can get a not appalling electric train using the drop in battery system Hitachi recently trialled.

 

[The exile]

Electrification of major stations, such as Bristol, Exeter and Sheffield is needed for battery trains to work.

AIUI, the Sheffield area has an excess of electricity supply capacity - however, in general, major stations are among the hardest areas to wire and in general will be in areas where getting the necessary power will be hardest.

 

[duffield]

We have the solution of sticking a giant box of batteries into the GU of 80x. That'll provide a service range of around 120 miles, and almost equivalent performance to electric. The range could reach 160 miles on 810s, given the fact they have 4 GUs.

Electrification of major stations, such as Bristol, Exeter and Sheffield is needed for battery trains to work.

And this giant box of batteries solution - has it been tested, is it planned to be tested, when's it happening? And where are these plans for electrifying major stations? It just looks as if battery technology for high speed main lines has become an excuse to punt everything off into the distance and carry on running on diesel indefinitely.

 

[HSTEd]

And this giant box of batteries solution - has it been tested, is it planned to be tested, when's it happening?

Hitachi ran a trial recently where one generator unit of a TPE Class 802 was replaced with a battery pack.

The single battery ran the train 43 miles alone.

 

[duffield]

What would we need such a train for?
There are very few non electrified 125mph lines on the system, and very few diagrams that I can think of that would require "minimal charge times".

And as a previous poster noted, you can get a not appalling electric train using the drop in battery system Hitachi recently trialled.

The whole point is that half the MML remains unwired. That's where the 125mph battery trains that don't exist come in, otherwise we're saying it's just fine to carry on with diesel power indefinitely.

So we're saying no OHLE, and no batteries either for the rest of the MML. And that's acceptable. Right.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2025 ==

Hitachi ran a trial recently where one generator unit of a TPE Class 802 was replaced with a battery pack.

The single battery ran the train 43 miles alone.

At 125mph?

Edit: No. At up to about *75mph* for 43 miles.

Summary, for the MML, from Leicester northwards.

There is currently no suitable high speed battery solution. None is currently being tested or planned.
There is no charging infrastructure, and none is planned.
The 810s will run on diesel from Leicester northwards indefinitely, probably until they are life expired, since it's likely that if any battery/charging solution is eventually developed it will be cancelled anyhow by a future government.

Meanwhile a fully developed spade ready OHLE programme for which much preparatory work has been done has now been cancelled.

Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and Sheffield will remain on diesel, probably for decades to come; our best and only chance for real progress has been blown away once again.

 

[HSTEd]

The whole point is that half the MML remains unwired. That's where the 125mph battery trains that don't exist come in, otherwise we're saying it's just fine to carry on with diesel power indefinitely.

We'll be carrying on like that anyway for many years even if this go-ahead had been given to move marginally further north.

At 125mph?

Edit: No. At up to about *75mph* for 43 miles.

Well its not surprising that the train didn't manage to attain 125mph with a single 700kW battery.
A Class 810 has four such generator units, so it would easily attain 125mph if all were replaced.

It's also only 70 ish miles from Wigston to Sheffield via Derby.
If an electrification island was provided on the slow lines in and around Sheffield station, the performance of the train would likely be acceptable.

Also, according to the sectional appendix, there is no 125mph running on the non electrified portion of the MML (ie. north of Wigston).
There are limited sections of 120mph, but much is significantly slower than that.

 

[Grimsby town]

The ultimate question has to be, do we actually need a rolling programme of electrification?

What is this rolling platform of electrification going to be for?

Battery technology that exists today could enable the complete elimination of diesel passenger operation on the railway with only a comparatively small quantity of additional electrification.
I'd wager it is likely less than the amount of track kilometres on the unapproved sections of the MML scheme, or at least not many more than that.

Running such a large scheme to have the capability for a scheme that is probably smaller than that might not be a sensible strategy.

I'm not clear that a battery train will really have substantially greater maintenance or operational costs than a conventional straight EMU. It doesn't even have significantly more moving parts.
After all electrification that doesn't exist doesn't consume maintenance resources.

If we achieve battery based electric operation, is there any pressing need to ever install more electrification?

We might need some conventional electrification later for freight if battery technology turns out to be impractical, but that seems a long shot hedge at this point.

Some sensible points there but the big problem I'm seeing is that there's a lot of questions there and not a lot of answers. The government shouldn't be essentially cancelling resourced and designed projects based on analysis they haven't done yet which might come back with the answer that electrifying the MML is the right thing to do. By the time a new electrification strategy is written, staff will have been made redundant and possibly moved abroad or to other industries. They won't be coming back.

The government didn't even have to commit to full electrification of the MML but it could have kept the wheels turning by commuting to things like EM parkway to Derby/Nottingham which NR were clearly ready to start. That area is such an electrification dead spot that some form of electrification is going to be needed. It may be that less than the whole of Nottingham to Derby is needed for battery services but that smaller section could end up costing more due to loss of skills and supply chain.

 

[brad465]

As Roger Ford in Modern Railways repeatedly says - decarbonisation is the least important element and argument for electrification. An electric railway is a better railway on all other metrics of maintenance, time keeping, speed, safety and reliability - those are the key arguments for stringing up wires, not decarbonisation.

Perhaps this is another case of the railways having a problem selling themselves: HS2 is more about capacity than speed, but kept trying to sell the speed element. Electrification needs to sell the listed benefits here much better, not emissions.

 

[Richard123]

Heidi did announce "improvements" to both ECML and WCML - probably power supplies and signalling. She also started her statement by saying that people wanted electrification.


Perhaps the Midland has lost out again to its big brothers. It seems that Midlands Rail Hub (East) has also been "paused", cutting out a real wiring network of lines, had the proposed frequencies been implemented.


The statement is just a cut in (thin) disguise, with political sops to some of the Mayors.


WAO

A lot of negative conversation in here.

Despite the record high (peacetime) national debt they have inherited, we have seen substantial rail investment.

Yes, not every scheme we might have liked, but many, urban and mainline.

And as we saw previously, pauses have not all been cancellation... Some would say a measured approach is less PR but more likely to succeed.

Regarding the power supply upgrades, I ddidn't read it as any more money for ECML, simply a reference to the pretty much complete power part of the wider ECML upgrade programme. Which given the descope in Scotland probably means diesel TPEs for the foreseeable.

WCML will presumably be further funding of the 25 year long AT conversion that has been running since WCRM was curtailed due to the cost overruns back in the 2000s, and in the past decade has been funded for one or two of the descoped feeding areas each control period.

(For younger members, WCRM was Railtrack's WCML upgrade of the late 90s - mid 00s that was intended to deliver 140mph and higher capacity, promising reduced costs by using new suppliers, innovative designs and technologies, but ended up over budget and delayed, and was ultimately heavily descoped.)