Great Western Electrification Progress

[125Forever]

If not a Paisley Canal Style of electrification then how about either a D Stock DEMU or Parry People Mover for these routes.

Would probably be better suited for Cholsey-Wallingford if that line ever opened again.

Same with Kingham-Chipping Norton.

 

[Who Cares]

STEVE....

So I find your comment that we all should be
Quote:
publically executed on the Town Hall steps.....Well, metaphorically, anyway....

very insulting and offending.

Then you have misinterpreted my comment and intention - sorry !

I deliberately said ' Design, Planning, Implementation ' and nothing about the Hard-Hats out there actually doing the work because they are not responsible for the overly complex designs; didn't spec and then order the HOPS; didn't underestimate the cost by a factor of how many - five and counting ? ; didn't fail to admit two years ago that the project was already out of control; didn't take a deliberate decision to try to ignore social and statutory responsibilities in the AsONB ; and aren't likely to have the MBE's. OBEs, Peerages and gold-plated pensions to give back.

Again, my apologies if you think I was referring to yourself and your colleagues.

 

[Clarence Yard]

No D stock, reworked 442 sets, Parry people movers or any other wacky ideas required.

The 11 HST GTi sets sorts out the DMU position post implementation of the Dec 2018 Timetable - the problem that everyone is now wrestling with is what the May 2017 to Dec 2018 timetable DMU transition looks like and how many 16x units can go west and on what date. It's not all doom and gloom as Electrification to Didcot shifts a big number of units west.

Retaining 143 and 153 units in the franchise until Dec 2018 will be a big help.

 

[heart-of-wessex]

Having watched BBC Points West item I'm confused..

- Reporter telling us that the new trains now have to be fitted with diesel engines. Now? I thought they were all going to be bi-mode in the first place? Or were only a certain amount going to be bi-mode?

- TravelWatch South West or something woman complaining that it's not good enough for commuters to London now not getting a faster and improved service..but if the wires are going to Chippenham, then Swindon to London is covered?
Faster service? Maybe acceleration is better but the linespeed is still the same, made it sound like she was expecting a 200mph service.

The rest was mostly repeating what they said 50 times already, which annoys me!

 

[abn444]

- Reporter telling us that the new trains now have to be fitted with diesel engines. Now? I thought they were all going to be bi-mode in the first place? Or were only a certain amount going to be bi-mode?

Some were originally going to be electric only (with a small emergency diesel engine apparently) with some going to be bi-mode. However, I agree that info is a bit old now as it was June when it was changed to all of them being bi-modes.

 

[dgl]

originally some of the units were to be fitted with only emergency diesel engines, enough to at least get to a station if there is something wrong with the OHLE and only what was needed to run the service past the original electrification end points was to have diesel engines under each carriage.
When it was seen that delays to the electrification project meant that the complex DMU cascade could be in jeopardy esp. The HST's bound for Scotland it was decided to amend the order so that now all GWR's SET's will have diesel engines throughout not just at either end as with a proportion of the ECML fleet. (i.e. only 800's and no longer any 801's for GWR)

Also the other plan was to remove the extra engines from some of the 800's when electrification had finished and there was less need to have the full diesel capability on all trains and it was seen as an advantage to loose the weight the extra engines/alternators, but with the electrification to Bristol/Bath being set back this plan may not happen.

 

[Mikey C]

originally some of the units were to be fitted with only emergency diesel engines, enough to at least get to a station if there is something wrong with the OHLE and only what was needed to run the service past the original electrification end points was to have diesel engines under each carriage.
When it was seen that delays to the electrification project meant that the complex DMU cascade could be in jeopardy esp. The HST's bound for Scotland it was decided to amend the order so that now all GWR's SET's will have diesel engines throughout not just at either end as with a proportion of the ECML fleet. (i.e. only 800's and no longer any 801's for GWR)

Also the other plan was to remove the extra engines from some of the 800's when electrification had finished and there was less need to have the full diesel capability on all trains and it was seen as an advantage to loose the weight the extra engines/alternators, but with the electrification to Bristol/Bath being set back this plan may not happen.

Assuming the trains last 30 years, you would like to think that Network Rail will have finally finished the GW electrification well before then!

 

[w1bbl3]

...
If electrification had been planned better then there probably would have been no need for bi-modes at all, and far far cheaper EMU's could have been ordered.

Not really the GW electrification project was planned to cover the core Thames valley, GWML and SWML routes only.
This would still have left golden valley, cotswold lines and Worcester-Bristol routes untouched all of which do see multiple daily HST services, golden valley is 1 per 2 hours, cotswold's ditto and Worcester-Bristol are peak time extensions of golden valley.
All of these would have in a pure EMU option needed a pure DMU ordering or loco's to haul the EMU's, some stations are short platformed so loco hauling with the EMU actually making platform in any meaningful way would be interesting.

And again I said a while back that bi-modes gave a perfect excuse to delay electrification indefinitely which is exactly what we have right now. If they had ordered EMU's you can bet they would have got on top of it.

Actually bi-modes incentivise continuation as finances are available rather than big bang total route modernisation.
The times four/five cost increase for a descoped GW electrification is kind of point where had the plan been pure EMU DfT would have long since gone back to the train builders to exercise whatever break clauses exist and kill the project, I suspect the 2015 review would have straight cancelled a pure EMU GW project. It would today be cheaper just about to cancel the project write off the current work as sunk cost to run DMU only IEP's, back in '15 even more so.

They have not committed to any date by which the electrification will be completed because they know they don't need to. It's a complete and utter shambles.

I'd suspect no date has been committed because either NR do not know how long and how much it will cost to complete the scheme as originally planned or do know both but also know that the budget isn't available, CP5 is already forecast to overspent considerably. The monumental cluster**** that is GW electrification will probably set back any rolling programme of electrification by a generation or more.

Had NR been able to deliver the vision and cost per single track km forecast for GW with claims of further reductions possible overtime then we would be looking at a rolling extension programme to address the bits of GW not planned and on to the XC network. Now the question more how much of the original scope will be eventually delivered.

 

[WatcherZero]

National Audit Office is calling on Dft to abandon Great Western improvements saying costs have risen by £2 billion since 2013 (though half of that is increased spec, capacity improvements not electrification directly). It also claims electrification is £330m over budget which may be why the Dft pre-emptively 'paused' a load of branch lines saving around £150m yesterday.

 

[highdyke]

THE costs of Great Western electrification have risen by more than £2 billion since 2013 to reach a total of £5.58 billion, according to the National Audit Office, which says the project now needs to be 'reconsidered'.

The NAO says electrification between Maidenhead and Cardiff alone is set to cost £2.8 billion, plus a further £433 million for the extension to Swansea and some related schemes. The full total also includes other upgrades, such as the £763 million which has been spent on rebuilding and enlarging Reading station. Capability and capacity works for new trains will cost another £258 million, while Bristol area signalling and also track quadrupling at Filton Bank, between Bristol Parkway and Temple Meads, will account for £318 million more.

In a damning report, the NAO accuses the Department for Transport of failing to 'plan and manage all the projects which now make up the Great Western Route Modernisation industry programme in a sufficiently joined up way'.

https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2016/11/08-audit-office-calls-for-gw.html?

The Department for Transport’s bungled modernisation of the Great Western railway offers “a case study in how not to manage a major programme”, the head of the National Audit Office has said.

n a report into the scheme, Amyas Morse said the modernisation of the route has potential to deliver significant benefits for passengers. However, he said the department's failure to plan and manage all the projects that make up the Great Western Route modernisation scheme in a sufficiently joined up way, as well as weakness in Network Rail's management has led to additional costs for the taxpayer.

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news...rade-case-study-poor-management-say-auditors?

Wouldn't be at all surprised if TPE and MML OHL are now scrapped.

 

[reddragon]

I do not think that this is as bad as it first looks.

Thames Valley Branches

Greenford stays Diesel until Crossrail / HS2 create enough demand for the 15 min service & hence justifies wires

Windsor had to stop. The Windsor Rail link plans are progressing and with Heathrow expansion is more likely to proceed. So why wire a branch that may well become a 2 track line to Waterloo?

Marlow is already deferred, subject to sorting Bourne End and options to High Wycombe

Henley – I am sure that the cost of the 140mph wiring does not help and a push is on for a Paisley Canal cost option.

Oxford

The station has not been sorted out yet, the fasts & peak services will be bi-mode IEPs and they will have the Chiltern option.

A Didcot to Oxford shuttle is not an issue. The locals trundle down from Oxford down to Didcot, some stop at Radley, which only appears to be used at Peak times, then there is a rare stop at the hamlets of Culham or Appleford before arriving at Didcot where nearly everyone gets off whilst it sits there for 10 minutes or so. At peak times HSTs operate stopping services to Reading then fast and these will become IEPs anyway.

So let’s wait and see what the best Oxford option is, that maybe include provisions for plans for Cowley, Abingdon & Witney as in the Oxford County plans.

Filton bank

This deferral is simply because the Bristol metro plans are still evolving, so it does not need to be ready yet. (A guess here?)

Bath – Bristol

Yes, this is simply delayed as it is too costly / sensitive and because IEPs do not need wires. A finalised Bristol Metro will get this going one day.


Just a thought!

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Windsor had to stop. The Windsor Rail link plans are progressing and with Heathrow expansion is more likely to proceed. So why wire a branch that may well become a 2 track line to Waterloo?

Will that use the existing GWR branch to Windsor? if it goes into Waterloo, would it transfer over to SWT?

Marlow is already deferred, subject to sorting Bourne End and options to High Wycombe

Can't see the Marlow branch ever being knitted unless some company comes up with a viable 2 car AC unit or the branch goes over to using trams

 

[reddragon]

Will that use the existing GWR branch to Windsor? if it goes into Waterloo, would it transfer over to SWT?

http://windsorlink.co.uk/schematic/

 

[hwl]

Full NAO report (59 pages):
https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Modernising-the-Great-Western-railway.pdf

DfT deferment intentions and reasons:

The Department has instructed Network Rail to defer electrification on some stretches
of the route for longer, reflecting between £146 million and £165 million of spending,
because it cannot meet the costs within the current funding package. It still intends to
electrify these sections, during the next rail investment period, which runs from April 2019
to March 2024. As a result, passengers in affected areas may have to wait longer to
see the full benefits of modernisation. These deferrals are intended to fund projects that
are considered critical, but were not allocated funding in the 2015 replan. Such critical
projects account for £72 million of the funding shortfall. The largest of these are:

A new depot in Exeter (£36 million). The Department agreed to make funding
available for this in March 2015, as part of the second franchise extension, known
as a ‘direct award’.

Work at Bristol East Junction (£15 million). Network Rail now expect that it will
need to spend more on this project in the current rail investment period in order
to complete it before this section of line is electrified.

Platform extensions on the Cotswold Line, which are needed to allow the new
Intercity Express Programme trains to stop at smaller stations (£13 million).
The Department instructed Network Rail to carry out this work in August 2014

Interestingly the report is very critical of DfT and ORR as well as NR.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Platform extensions on the Cotswold Line, which are needed to allow the new Intercity Express Programme trains to stop at smaller stations (£13 million).

Curious. The 800s/802s will have SDO, just like the HSTs and 180s currently do. Why then should £13m need to be spent on lengthening platforms?

 

[59CosG95]

Curious. The 800s/802s will have SDO, just like the HSTs and 180s currently do. Why then should £13m need to be spent on lengthening platforms?

I'd suspect as part of a capacity measure; if more doors are by platforms, dwell times shorten.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Curious. The 800s/802s will have SDO, just like the HSTs and 180s currently do. Why then should £13m need to be spent on lengthening platforms?

To enable 10 car running. You're not allowed to trap people in the "other" unit.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Mmm, but this was discussed way way back (can't remember if here or elsewhere), and the consensus was that for a 2x5 train, you could stop such that the rear three carriages of one unit, and the front two of the next, are on the short platform.

There may be details that would need to be worked out with that solution, particularly access to bike spaces and disabled spaces; but £13m seems like an awful lot of money to eliminate such issues. Still, in the context of the electrification budget being blown to kingdom come, perhaps that shouldn't be too surprising.

 

[swt_passenger]

Windsor had to stop. The Windsor Rail link plans are progressing and with Heathrow expansion is more likely to proceed. So why wire a branch that may well become a 2 track line to Waterloo?

Why would the "project" known as Windsor Link even be given a cursory glance by Network Rail in such a context?

It is a one man band fantasy, not a live project - and will never realistically happen.

 

[hwl]

Mmm, but this was discussed way way back (can't remember if here or elsewhere), and the consensus was that for a 2x5 train, you could stop such that the rear three carriages of one unit, and the front two of the next, are on the short platform.

There may be details that would need to be worked out with that solution, particularly access to bike spaces and disabled spaces; but £13m seems like an awful lot of money to eliminate such issues. Still, in the context of the electrification budget being blown to kingdom come, perhaps that shouldn't be too surprising.

If the front of the train is beyond the signal then extremely unlikely...

 

[Clarence Yard]

Having sets fore and aft the platform has been looked at but there are locations where it isn't possible.

 

[WatcherZero]

I think the more annoying thing in that list is Government approving the new depot without actually giving NR the money to do it.

 

[swt_passenger]

I think Reading to Newbury should have been canned in favour of Didcot to Oxford. I would have thought Oxford was more important than Newbury in electrification and passenger demand terms.

Oxford station area has to be done allowing for a relatively major resignalling and capacity improvement project for new services, including EWR through running. This has been pointed out numerous times recently in this thread.

On the other hand the Newbury route would be electrification of a an existing relatively simple two track railway that is not being changed at all.

 

[Clarence Yard]

I think the more annoying thing in that list is Government approving the new depot without actually giving NR the money to do it.

The Government assumed (& told the TOC, apparently) that the money was coming out of the depot and stabling fund part of the CP5 settlement. NR thought otherwise.

So the DfT signed up to a franchise deal that had all these extra units being on Exeter each night without ensuring, through their wholly owned infrastructure subsidiary (NR), that the depot would be there in time to deal with them.

You couldn't make it up.

 

[snowball]

It also claims electrification is £330m over budget which may be why the Dft pre-emptively 'paused' a load of branch lines saving around £150m yesterday.

where "branch lines" includes both routes to Bristol! Curious use of the term.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I'm unsure of the status of Reading-Basingstoke wiring in all this.
Is it like Newbury and will just "get done", or is it outside all scope and back in the "wish list" zone?

 

[Clarence Yard]

I'm unsure of the status of Reading-Basingstoke wiring in all this.
Is it like Newbury and will just "get done", or is it outside all scope and back in the "wish list" zone?

The current assumption is that it remains diesel and, because the turnrounds get busted, goes to a 3 (3 car Turbo) unit service in December 2018 when the new station on the route is assumed to open.

 

[PhilipW]

With all the changes around, I've lost track of some of the basics.

Can someone refresh me as to when it is expected that timetabled EMU services will run between
-- Paddington and Didcot ? (Dec 2017 ?)
-- Paddington and Newbury ? (Dec 2018 ?)

Thanks

 

[33Hz]

How much is the weakening Pound to Swiss Franc to blame?

 

[tbtc]

As I recall, the TPE issue was stated to be that the track/signalling enhancements were not fully coordinated with electrification works. This may have been untrue, but I believe it was stated.

I've no problem with that approach - same at Oxford - it's frustrating that we have a railway where one hand wanted to wire a route/station whilst the other hand wanted to remodel it rather than planning these things together in the first place though.

Co-ordinating these things should have been the procedure from day one.

And again I said a while back that bi-modes gave a perfect excuse to delay electrification indefinitely which is exactly what we have right now. If they had ordered EMU's you can bet they would have got on top of it. Instead of getting on top of it they have converted more IEP's to bi-modes and now deferred a lot of it. But because of the fact they ordered bi-modes there is no PR consequence! With bi-modes they can defer/cancel/delay electrification at will

Plenty of schemes have been delayed/ descoped/ ditched in recent years.

MML electrification, TPE electrification, Electric Spine, East West...

Most of these would have required "pure" EMU operation (if they were going ahead), yet they have been delayed/ descoped/ ditched.

They didn't "get on top of it" - they pulled the plug/ kicked the schemes onto the CP6 wish list.

If the commitment to bi-modes on the GWML had meant that it was so easy to cancel, with no PR consequences, then wouldn't they have cancelled GWML electrification first (whilst focussing resources on the pure electric MML etc)?

Bi-mode trains are the reason why yesterday's news isn't the end of the project - the only positive to take from the story - yet you are blaming bi-modes (whilst seemingly not noticing all of the other projects that were delayed/ descoped/ ditched, projects which didn't commit to bi-modes).

Also the other plan was to remove the extra engines from some of the 800's when electrification had finished and there was less need to have the full diesel capability on all trains

We should be thankful that the flexibility of bi-mode trains means that we can order more diesel engines to get through the NR delays (and then remove them at a later date if/when they become superfluous).

Great trains.

Not really the GW electrification project was planned to cover the core Thames valley, GWML and SWML routes only.
This would still have left golden valley, cotswold lines and Worcester-Bristol routes untouched all of which do see multiple daily HST services, golden valley is 1 per 2 hours, cotswold's ditto and Worcester-Bristol are peak time extensions of golden valley.
All of these would have in a pure EMU option needed a pure DMU ordering or loco's to haul the EMU's, some stations are short platformed so loco hauling with the EMU actually making platform in any meaningful way would be interesting.

Actually bi-modes incentivise continuation as finances are available rather than big bang total route modernisation.
The times four/five cost increase for a descoped GW electrification is kind of point where had the plan been pure EMU DfT would have long since gone back to the train builders to exercise whatever break clauses exist and kill the project, I suspect the 2015 review would have straight cancelled a pure EMU GW project. It would today be cheaper just about to cancel the project write off the current work as sunk cost to run DMU only IEP's, back in '15 even more so

Agreed - both re the flexible bi-mode trains allowing Hereford etc to retain their existing services (something which others haven't provided an alternative "solution" for) - and the fact that a "pure electric" GWML would probably not have seen any wiring beyond Crossrail's Reading extension - we'd now be debating whether to squeeze several more years out of HSTs or terminate a number of services at Reading instead.

The monumental cluster**** that is GW electrification will probably set back any rolling programme of electrification by a generation or more.

Had NR been able to deliver the vision and cost per single track km forecast for GW with claims of further reductions possible overtime then we would be looking at a rolling extension programme to address the bits of GW not planned and on to the XC network

Agreed - sadly.

We may be frothing about "what if the GWML had worked as planned and we'd gone on to make a positive case for wiring other routes in western England" in a generation's time - this feels like such a wasted opportunity.

Can't see the Marlow branch ever being knitted unless some company comes up with a viable 2 car AC unit or the branch goes over to using trams

We may need such a unit on other lines too (I appreciate that Cardiff Bay may not get wired any time soon, but there are a number of services in line for electrification that won't need anything like a 3x20m EMU).

The Government assumed (& told the TOC, apparently) that the money was coming out of the depot and stabling fund part of the CP5 settlement. NR thought otherwise.

So the DfT signed up to a franchise deal that had all these extra units being on Exeter each night without ensuring, through their wholly owned infrastructure subsidiary (NR), that the depot would be there in time to deal with them.

You couldn't make it up.

This isn't helping belief in a "nationalised" railway being able to solve things very easily (beyond the mentality of some enthusiasts who think that it'd mean The Government handing over bucketloads of cash every five years to some Proper Railwaymen and not interfering - which certainly wouldn't be the way that any politicians would treat a 21st century railway)