North TPE electrification

[WatcherZero]

This is a second batch of projects after the Chancellors statement list, though apart from one London project are entirely road based.

 

[bnsf734]

Looks like the Nuneaton - Coventry upgrade has finally got the green light . That one has been on the burner for several years now.

Also the Croxley Link has got the go-ahead.

Thanks for the link.

 

[Whistler40145]

Is the Coventry to Nuneaton being wired or just an upgrade?

 

[sprinterguy]

Is the Coventry to Nuneaton being wired or just an upgrade?

Upgraded: Two additional stations and platform lengthening at Bedworth, and a few other bits and pieces:
http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=56889

 

[Whistler40145]

Thanks

 

[Bevan Price]

Once Liverpool to Manchester & Manchester to York projects are electrified, will the TransPennine service to Newcastle go over to EMUs with the Hull/Middlesbrough still being Class 185s?

Anyone's guess. If Hull and Middlesbrough are not electrified, we might find their services are mostly reduced to Leeds / Hull and York / Middlesbrough shuttles, or maybe new service patterns will be devised (e.g. Blackpool or Manchester - Hull via Calder Valley).

 

[swt_passenger]

I do not see the completion of the A6/A555 (SEMMS) link to Manchester Airport amongst these projects. Was the approval for that scheme incorporated in another document or just overlooked in this document?

It was in the main body of the Autumn Statement, like TPE electrifcation:

A.7 Access to Manchester Airport – The Government will invest approximately £165 million in a new dual carriageway road linking the M56 at Manchester Airport to the A6 south of Stockport

This list updated yesterday is for more locally organised 'development pool' that replaced the Labour government's 'Regional Funding Allocation' procedure.

Edit: Heres the list of (almost all) more road schemes announced today, they claim their investing £854m but if you do the maths it only adds up to £444.4m
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/clientmicrosi...02&NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=422474&SubjectId=36

That's the link from the Autumn Statement (the DfT website link you gave links to the earlier version of the table when today's projects were still pending - their fault though not yours), the updated list that is linked to properly elsewhere on the DfT's site gives the figures for yesterday's projects, and they do add up to £854m:

http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publicatio...rt-schemes/scheme-decisions-december-2011.pdf

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It was in the main body of the Autumn Statement, like TPE electrifcation......This list updated yesterday is for more locally organised 'development pool' that replaced the Labour government's 'Regional Funding Allocation' procedure.

I am most grateful for your clarification of this, as I read and re-read the information in the link submitted, prior to making my posting.

 

[WatcherZero]

Read the link

This is in addition to the 20 schemes, worth £574m, which were announced in the Autumn Statement at the end of last month.

And tot up the projects.

Part of the discrepancy is the £371m Nottingham Phase 2 they announced yesterday then quickly withdrew all mention of without publishing a correction when the local Council said the contract wont actually be signed until the new year and the Dft shouldnt have announced it while negotiations were ongoing. However that still leaves a missing £40m.

It was in the main body of the Autumn Statement, like TPE electrifcation......This list updated yesterday is for more locally organised 'development pool' that replaced the Labour government's 'Regional Funding Allocation' procedure.

No its not, the Dfts RFA procedure for highways maintenence grants and transport improvements is still ongoing, this is the replacement for the transport portion of the regionally administered Regional Development Agencies moving all the grant decisions away from the region to London and reducing the size of the funding by over 70%. Bodies were forced to reapply for funds previously committed by the RDA's through 2014 but which hadnt broken ground at the time of the mid 2010 spending review.

 

[swt_passenger]

Part of the discrepancy is the £371m Nottingham Phase 2 they announced yesterday then quickly withdrew all mention of without publishing a correction when the local Council said the contract wont actually be signed until the new year and the Dft shouldnt have announced it while negotiations were ongoing. However that still leaves a missing £40m.

Sorry but I don't follow your reasoning here, the Nottingham Tram Phase 2 is not mentioned in either the first of the second list of 'development pool' projects, the latter of which total £854m.

No its not, the Dfts RFA procedure for highways maintenence grants and transport improvements is still ongoing, this is the replacement for the transport portion of the regionally administered Regional Development Agencies moving all the grant decisions away from the region to London and reducing the size of the funding by over 70%. Bodies were forced to reapply for funds previously committed by the RDA's through 2014 but which hadnt broken ground at the time of the mid 2010 spending review.

Thanks for the clarification. The decision seems on the face of it to have significantly reduced the cost of the some of these projects.

 

[WatcherZero]

Theres been some value engineering but for the most part its councils agreeing to increase their share of the costs or descoping the scale of projects slightly, for example the Cross City Bus Routes in Manchester they took 800m of bus lane out of the project and put it in its sister the Leigh-Salford-Manchester Guided Busway which the council was wholly funding anyway.

 

[Batman]

Upgraded: Two additional stations and platform lengthening at Bedworth, and a few other bits and pieces:
http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=56889

So I guess there's new stations planned at Bermuda and Richo Parkway?

And why does Bedworth need platform extensions, the only units that use that line are 153's?

There are other stations in greater need of platform extensions, like those on the Chase line.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

So I guess there's new stations planned at Bermuda and Richo Parkway?

And why does Bedworth need . . . . . .

Not from the TPE electrification proposals, there won't!


Perhaps you're confusing 'the north' with 'the midlands'? There is a separate scheme to enhance the Coventry - Nuneaton infrastructure, but not, to my knowledge, with electrification.

 

[Masbroughlad]

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/general/2011/12/16-electrification-york-is-in-and.html

Looks like the 185s could definitely have a new home before too long!!

Hasta la vista Pacers!!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/general/2011/12/16-electrification-york-is-in-and.html

Who are the people who decide if any projects are "subject to satisfactory business cases"...as stated in this report.

 

[WatcherZero]

The Dft/Treasury bean counters (though really its a Ministerial decision no matter how strong or weak a business case actually is)

 

[tbtc]

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/general/2011/12/16-electrification-york-is-in-and.html

Looks like the 185s could definitely have a new home before too long!!

Hasta la vista Pacers!!

As with all of these things, wiring one route improves the case for doing adjacent ones/ extensions etc.

My guess is that Leeds - Hull will be next to be announced, in six months/year, with the emphasis being on the "Horseshoe" that GNER wanted, and therefore better London services for Hull/Leeds.

 

[HSTEd]

Well this probably makes the business case of the XC Voyager electrodiesel conversion rather better as its now Edinburgh-Wakefield rather than just Edinburgh-York.

 

[Viscount702]

Reference is made to Guide Bridge to Leeds.

I would hope that it will be Victoria to Leeds via Stalybridge and with Guide Bridge to Stalybridge infilled . The Hub proposals provided for the main TPE trains going from Leeds to Victoria via Huddersfield and Stalybridge but for perhaps a couple to go to Piccadilly via Guide Bridge as at present.

It would therefore throw a large part of Hub proposal up in the air if TPE electrification was not taken to Victoria and only to Piccadilly

 

[WatcherZero]

Mmm, ORR reporting that in the last quarter rail journeys increased by 7.4% year on year, looks like the 2010 recessionary dip is well and truly over. The scary thing is everytime theres some apparently ludicrously high estimate of how passenger numbers will increase real life beats it. electrification and increased rolling stock are going to become more and more essential.

 

[northwichcat]

Mmm, ORR reporting that in the last quarter rail journeys increased by 7.4% year on year, looks like the 2010 recessionary dip is well and truly over. The scary thing is everytime theres some apparently ludicrously high estimate of how passenger numbers will increase real life beats it.

The recession has had an effect on the FGW and SWT franchises in particular. It reduced the amount of business and leisure travel to London meaning some London services have seen a decrease in passenger numbers in recent years.

With other areas of the country the higher number of people out-of-work should in theory reduce passenger numbers but the number of people still in work who have given up their cars is higher so passenger numbers are actually rising.

 

[Nym]

So... In London where money is being splashed LRC the passenger numbers are falling, and in the starved for cash northern city commuter belts where new stock orders or enhancements are very hard to come by there's unprecedented growth...

 

[OxtedL]

So... In London where money is being splashed LRC the passenger numbers are falling, and in the starved for cash northern city commuter belts where new stock orders or enhancements are very hard to come by there's unprecedented growth...

Well... I think the keywords I noticed were "business" and "leisure". The big flow to London is commuting, I understand, and the number of commuters probably hasn't followed a different trend to the rest of the country in this respect.

It's a tricky one to debate, but I reference 8-car Uckfield and Redhill trains that actually leave people at London Bridge compared to equivalent 2/3 car (well OK, maybe longer) issues in the North. And I haven't even touched on operators other than Southern. To do anything about it here in the South East probably requires huge amount of expenditure... It's not quite that straightforward.

 

[Nym]

I know, there just isn't a sarcasm button on here...

But still, if the goverment is serious about DDA compliance and getting additional stock oop norf, it's going to either need to electrify a lot more, or order more Diesels. By the time sprinters (156/158/159) units are nearing replacement (and possibly 150/153/155) we'll hopefully be at the point of having either gas turbine or fuel cell generators being used in Rolling Stock, rather than Diesel, since the main problem with diesel is it will run out, unlike Hydrogen, it's just getting Hydrogen that's hard, but it can be produced from a variety of generation methods, as can the juice for electrified lines...

 

[swt_passenger]

The Dft/Treasury bean counters (though really its a Ministerial decision no matter how strong or weak a business case actually is)

What I was wondering about is that some of these business cases are worked up by transport consultancy firms for the local authorites, I suppose because many (eg HCC for Croxley) don't directly employ rail experts.

I wonder if DfT also then subcontract the analysis of these schemes to competing consultants - it seems from the letterheads seen on timetabling stuff, franchising specs and rolling stock ITTs on the DfT website a lot of work does get done by the same consultancy firms working directly for DfT?

 

[HSTEd]

I know, there just isn't a sarcasm button on here...

But still, if the goverment is serious about DDA compliance and getting additional stock oop norf, it's going to either need to electrify a lot more, or order more Diesels. By the time sprinters (156/158/159) units are nearing replacement (and possibly 150/153/155) we'll hopefully be at the point of having either gas turbine or fuel cell generators being used in Rolling Stock, rather than Diesel, since the main problem with diesel is it will run out, unlike Hydrogen, it's just getting Hydrogen that's hard, but it can be produced from a variety of generation methods, as can the juice for electrified lines...

Actually, once you can obtain sufficiently cheap hydrogen for fuel cell trains to be practical, the cost of carbon dioxide in bulk will be sufficiently low that it becomes cost effective to use the hydrogen to make methanol, which can either be handled as a liquid fuel (being far more energy dense and easier to store than hydrogen), or simply used in a knockoff of the Mobil process to convert the methanol to synthetic fuels, most likely ones suitable for combustion in diesel engines.

As for gas turbines, the less said about those the better efficiency-wise, they died in the 70s (unless you are in North America where electrification apparently costs $5m/mile)

 

[Nym]

Well, tbh the main 'answer' I have today for the likes of trains is using SVO (Stright Vegtable Oil) running through a vaporiser (on board) to make it behave like diesel, just need to make sure that all the fuel lines are synthetic and provide a small diesel tank for starting and to purge to when stopping (Cold SVO won't work).

This can be fitted in a reasonably small space, and if new vehicles are being built with two fuel tanks (One SVO, One Diesel) and will need two anyway (Diesel & AdBlue) for new emissions regs, why not run from SVO..?

As a side note, older units can be converted to run from this too, just need to make sure that the fuel lines are synthetic rubber...

 

[northwichcat]

Well... I think the keywords I noticed were "business" and "leisure". The big flow to London is commuting, I understand, and the number of commuters probably hasn't followed a different trend to the rest of the country in this respect.

With the exception of Kings Cross the main London terminus' saw falls in passenger numbers between 08/09 and 09/10.

Waterloo passenger numbers were down 2.2 million between 08/09 and 09/10. Paddington passenger numbers were down 2.5 million in the same period while Euston numbers were down 1.1 million, despite being the first full financial year of Virgin's VHF frequency, while St Pancras was down 1.3 million.

To be honest I'm looking through various central London stations and struggling to find any others (apart from Kings Cross) that saw passenger numbers rise. Greenwich saw a rise but it's not really central London.

Outside of London while some major interchanges, like Leeds, also saw falls in passenger numbers stations like Liverpool Lime Street, Birmingham New Street, Manchester Oxford Road, Bristol Temple Meads, York, Newcastle, Crewe and Stoke all saw increases. (Manchester Victoria also saw a rise but Manchester Piccadilly saw a fall so the changes were probably down to Northern moving their Blackpool service from Piccadilly to Victoria.)

 

[WatcherZero]

Well will have to wait a couple of months for the final 2010/11 station usage figures to be published for more detail but in the quarterly figures.

Q1-Q4 2010-2011
Long Distance up 5.6% to 117.9m
London and SE up 9% to 917.6m (only region to fall in 09/10)
Regional up 4.6% to 318.2m
Total Franchised up 7.6% to 1353.8m
OAO up 28% to 1.8m

Q1 2011-2012 year on year
Long Distance up 4.8% to 30.1m
London and SE up 8% to 232.2m
Regional up 3.4% to 81.1m
Total up 6.6% to 343.3m
OAO down 20% to 0.4m (very small numbers = wild change)

Q2 2011-12 year on year
Long Distance up 6.1% to 31.1m
London and SE up 7.9% to 244m
Regional up 6.3% to 82.9m
Total up 7.3% to 358m
OAO down 20% to 0.4m (very small numbers = wild change)

 

[northwichcat]

While they aren't the cheapest units DEMUs for TPE do sound like a good idea. Whether all 4 North TPE routes will be completely electrified is something that's still under consideration, while TPE services operate through the night and can get diverted over routes that won't be electrified for the forseeable future.

What about this idea:
Once Manchester-Bolton-Preston is electrified they'll be less excuse for Virgin to say they need diesels on Birmingham-Scotland in case they are diverted. Order a new set of 6 car EMUs to replace Voyagers on Birmingham-Scotland, cascade the Voyagers to TPE with a pantograph vehicle added, then use a mixture of the cascaded Voyagers plus new 6 car EMUs (part of the same order as for Birmingham-Scotland) on North TPE.