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What I think is wrong with current OHLE electrification practice
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HSTEd
Veteran Member
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Even the rates being achieved in Scotland seem too high to be worthwhile on the bulk of the railway
In any case, if somewhat lower costs can only be obtained first purchasing thousands of track kilometres of very expensive electrification go establish skills retention, it is still expensive.
That particular implementation of fast-charge tech was purchased by the GWR franchise company at Vivarail break up, wasn't it? Or was it the broader First Group? If GWR, perhaps the IP goes to GBR on takeover.
I agree generally that existing non-proprietary power interfaces should be used where possible, but if GBR end up owning the Greenford tech it could become the third standard.
GBR in the Rolling Stock and Infrastructure Strategy were fairly clear that a minimum of ~25% of the route mileage in the currently unelectrified network would need to be electrified. This still equates to thousands of stkm to electrify.
HSTEd
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The previous British rail industry electrification strategy suggested near total electrification with only marginal use of batteries.
The direction in the trend line is clear.
The report (page 16) says:
Which is pretty far from saying that 25% will actually need to be electrified.
The report also doesn't really define what "alternative battery charging technologies" are, but if that means static chargers then the amount of new electrification could be very small indeed.
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Or very large if you take the meaning to be the number of services transferred to electric operation rather than miles of OHLE.
In a battery/ OHLE / Charger hybrid strategy that seems a more sensible way to think about it.
I think that it means virtually all passenger trains will be electrically worked, the gaps, fringes, short branches and light loads by battery, the main lines for and with charging points by OLE. The wired sections are 25% of the 60% of the network that are unwired, c1500 route miles or c5000stkm, 5 - 15BN pounds, over several decades, good value compared to HS2.
The mains/battery/inverter/charger/train battery/tractive effort link promises to be electrically inefficient as there are significant cumulative losses at each stage, especially as it is stated that power availability is questionable.
I wonder what the next Treasury "do nothing" excuse will be?
WAO
The mains/battery/inverter/charger/train battery/tractive effort link promises to be electrically inefficient as there are significant cumulative losses at each stage, especially as it is stated that power availability is questionable.
I wonder what the next Treasury "do nothing" excuse will be?
WAO
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GRALISTAIR
Established Member
very cynical but sadly I agree with you and was thinking exactly the same thing.
67018
Member
Hasn't that question already been answered on this thread? - the railway has gained a reputation for burning masses of cash on these projects. There are many, many other areas of public service crying out for money that haven't had anything like the amount of money thrown at them as rail has so there are plenty of better things to spend the money on.
I hope this isn't the case, but the industry has some work to do to rebuild credibility.
The industry needs to be moved beyond thinking that OHLE is always better and accept that technology has moved on and business cases have changed.
Future schemes need to be built around both installing OHLE, Charging stations and BEMU'S as part of larger schemes covering wider areas.
For Example any extension of MML wires to Sheffield and Nottingham needs to be designed to allow EMR regional, XC Turbostar and Northern local routes to also be converted to electric operations via BEMU'S, charging stations and enough capacity in the OHLE to recharge BEMU'S.
However, pretty much any infrastructure project in the UK costs more than it does in other European countries. The railways share some blame, of course, but it's clear that there are other factors outside of their control here.