Edinburgh-Aberdeen route will "end up with discontinuous electrification

[Haribolover06]

Edinburgh-Aberdeen route will "end up with discontinuous electrification"

Leading engineer makes prediction over future if Scottish main line.

www.railmagazine.com

ScotRail’s Edinburgh-Aberdeen route will “end up with discontinuous electrification”, a leading rail engineer has said...

...“In the current climate, where money is really tight, we’re going to do some work between Dundee and Arbroath, and then we’re going to do an area to Montrose where we’re going to close all boxes and get that into a computer, into a VDU box station,” said Braid, who is also signalling programme director for Siemens in Scotland...

There are definitely some tricky bits of track to electrify from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. The Forth and Tay Bridges comes first on the list, but it is all realistically possible.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

"For example, Dock Street tunnel in Dundee: how do we get the wires through there? It’s really difficult.

“Dundee station sits below the waterline of the Tay, so it’s really challenging from an engineering perspective.”

That's not so different to the Severn Tunnel. Has he heard of solid bar electrification? Might that method also be possible for the two big bridges?

 

[HSTEd]

The question is not so much whether it is possible to fully electrify.

The question is whether it is worth the effort.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

If the political will is there it can get done.

 

[N1]

If the political will is there it can get done.

Who's political will. Scottish Government can't legally overspend. There is another thread on how block grant is decreasing in real terms in the next five years.

It might not be a perfect strategy, bit the slow and steady electrification strategy in Scotland has contributed to the reduction in costs per single track kilometre. And this gives nearly all the benefits of full electrification.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Who's political will. Scottish Government can't legally overspend.

No, but with political will, money can not be spent somewhere else and spent on decarbonisation/electrification. So to answer your question "The Scottish Governments political will.

It might not be a perfect strategy, bit the slow and steady electrification strategy in Scotland has contributed to the reduction in costs per single track kilometre. And this gives nearly all the benefits of full electrification.

I totally agree and have said so multiple times on this forum.