Potentially massive delays in electrification program

[RobShipway]

I hope that Network Rail might surprise everyone and hopefully have the main core between Bristol and London Paddington electrified by the end of this year, such that all that needs to be done then is extend that to Cardiff/Swansea and to Oxford/Newbury/Basingstoke directions too during the first half of 2016.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

The major boost on electrification - NW Triangle / GW etc was a Labour achievement under Lord Adonis - a shame it has not been delivered to time , - but ..........

Given that it's progressing well, I doubt Labour would do anything to change it.

I really do not want to get political but Labour/Adonis approved Liverpool-Manchester and GWML. All the rest was conservative. Look at 1900-2015 and see where the vast majority of electrification has happened - I am sorry - but it was under a Conservative government.

 

[deltic08]

I really do not want to get political but Labour/Adonis approved Liverpool-Manchester and GWML. All the rest was conservative. Look at 1900-2015 and see where the vast majority of electrification has happened - I am sorry - but it was under a Conservative government.

But the Tories have done more damage to the railways in the last 50 years. Marples followed by Thatcher followed by Majors privatisation

 

[po8crg]

I really do not want to get political but Labour/Adonis approved Liverpool-Manchester and GWML. All the rest was conservative. Look at 1900-2015 and see where the vast majority of electrification has happened - I am sorry - but it was under a Conservative government.

Not really wanting to get into a political argument, but the vast majority of 1900-2015 has been under a Conservative government (1922-1924, 1924-1929, 1951-1964, 1970-1974, 1979-1997) or mostly Conservative coalition (1900-1906, 1918-1922, 1931-1939, 2010-2015).

The vast majority of almost anything in that period happened under the Conservatives.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

But the Tories have done more damage to the railways in the last 50 years. Marples followed by Thatcher followed by Majors privatisation

How - ECML electrification , London Kings Lynn electrification, London -Norwich electrification, Bournemouth- Weymouth Electrification, Ayrshire electrification, Carstairs- Edinburgh, Windsor Link built, CHANNEL TUNNEL connecting Britain's railways to Continental Europe - you really have to have political hatred blinkers on to come up with that statement. :-x

Not really wanting to get into a political argument, but the vast majority of 1900-2015 has been under a Conservative government (1922-1924, 1924-1929, 1951-1964, 1970-1974, 1979-1997) or mostly Conservative coalition (1900-1906, 1918-1922, 1931-1939, 2010-2015).

The vast majority of almost anything in that period happened under the Conservatives.

The modernization plan

NOTE ALL IN CONTEXT AS THIS IS A THREAD ABOUT ELECTRIFICATION

 

[WatcherZero]

Conservatives were in office for 57 years of the 20th century, labour for 15. Even if you add 21st century that's 25 to 63.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Conservatives were in office for 57 years of the 20th century, labour for 15. Even if you add 21st century that's 25 to 63.

OK - lets go about this another way. Under what government has most electrification been carried out?

Labour - or Conservative?

 

[deltic08]

How - ECML electrification , London Kings Lynn electrification, London -Norwich electrification, Bournemouth- Weymouth Electrification, Ayrshire electrification, Carstairs- Edinburgh, Windsor Link built, CHANNEL TUNNEL connecting Britain's railways to Continental Europe - you really have to have political hatred blinkers on to come up with that statement. :-x

The modernization plan

NOTE ALL IN CONTEXT AS THIS IS A THREAD ABOUT ELECTRIFICATION

The Modernisation Plan was more about replacing steam by electrification than dieselisation. What did the Tories do? Overruled BR and ordered thousands of untested diesels that lasted less than ten years instead of getting on and electrifying to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

East Coast electrification done on the cheap and we are all paying for it now as the headspans are too far apart for reliability.

Marples appointed Beeching who cut railways by 30% regardless of the needs of the people. This put a lot of passengers and freight onto the road requiring new motorways built by Marples.

Tories privatised the railways creating the most expensive fares in Europe and £millions lost to the railway industry purely down to dogma.

This Government has unnecessarily rushed through the East Coast franchise when DOR has been doing a good job in keeping fares reasonable and paying Government over £1billion in profit. Already Branson and Souter have ripped us off by cutting loyalty bonus from 20p to 1p before they have fully taken over. My hatred for Virgin is only exceeded by the Tories as you have already discovered.

How many examples do you need?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

How many examples do you need?

Under what government has most electrification been carried out?

Labour - or Conservative?

 

[jimm]

But the Tories have done more damage to the railways in the last 50 years. Marples followed by Thatcher followed by Majors privatisation

The 1964-1970 Labour government closed many more miles of railway than the previous Tory regime, this despite the 1964 Labour election manifesto stating that "major rail closures will be halted" and Harold Wilson making public speeches reiterating this position, along with the notorious 'Whitby letter', discussed by alan Williams in the March edition of Modern Railways, pledging to halt closures which would have left the town without any rail service. The eventual survival of the Middlesbrough line was not much compensation for loss of the links down the coast and to the major towns and cities of Yorkshire.

And many of the closures approved by ministers during the Labour period in office, such as the Waverley route, Oxford-Cambridge and Bere Alston-Okehampton, were arguably of far great strategic value to the nation - as opposed to hopelessly loss-making branch lines that succumbed earlier - and are, of course, in at least the first two cases and quite likely the latter as well, now having to be rebuilt at huge expense after politicians were finally persuaded that their predecessors got it wrong.

I have no love for the Tories whatever, but I'm afraid sweeping statements about how terrible they were in no way whatever excuses the Labour Party, or politicians generally, for their treatment of the railways and transport policy in this country over very many years, which has played a large part in our stop-start efforts at electrification, causing a lack of the expertise and know-how needed to implement wiring on the scale now envisaged, which has surely played a large part in the delays and cost over-runs we are now seeing.

Under what government has most electrification been carried out?

Labour - or Conservative?

Easy one to answer - the Conservatives.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

The 1964-1970 Labour government closed many more miles of railway than the previous Tory regime, this despite the 1964 Labour election manifesto stating that "major rail closures will be halted" and Harold Wilson making public speeches reiterating this position, along with the notorious 'Whitby letter', discussed by alan Williams in the March edition of Modern Railways, pledging to halt closures which would have left the town without any rail service. The eventual survival of the Middlesbrough line was not much compensation for loss of the links down the coast and to the major towns and cities of Yorkshire.

And many of the closures approved by ministers during the Labour period in office, such as the Waverley route, Oxford-Cambridge and Bere Alston-Okehampton, were arguably of far great strategic value to the nation - as opposed to hopelessly loss-making branch lines that succumbed earlier - and are, of course, in at least the first two cases and quite likely the latter as well, now having to be rebuilt at huge expense after politicians were finally persuaded that their predecessors got it wrong.

I have no love for the Tories whatever, but I'm afraid sweeping statements about how terrible they were in no way whatever excuses the Labour Party, or politicians generally, for their treatment of the railways and transport policy in this country over very many years, which has played a large part in our stop-start efforts at electrification, causing a lack of the expertise and know-how needed to implement wiring on the scale now envisaged, which has surely played a large part in the delays and cost over-runs we are now seeing.

In my opinion this is a fair and balanced posts. Sweeping statements are not good and not helpful. On a thread about electrification - to get back on topic but involving politics -to me the greatest mistake made was in about 1991. We had expertise built up over quite a few years and schemes were being delivered in general on time/early and in or under budget. That was the time to continue the momentum. If, If only the government had approved and let the team go on to do the MML and probably Edinburgh- Glasgow we would be in a much better position.

 

[Taunton]

And many of the closures approved by ministers during the Labour period in office, such as the Waverley route, Oxford-Cambridge and Bere Alston-Okehampton, were arguably of far great strategic value to the nation - as opposed to hopelessly loss-making branch lines that succumbed earlier.

You should read Stewart Joy "The Train that Ran Away" (1960s), a companion to Gerry Fiennes' "I Tried to Run a Railway". Joy was Beeching's economist, a very practical (unusual for economists) Australian (probably explains the plain speaking) who looked in some detail at the closure proposals.

What he said he found was that for the "strategic" ones (the Waverley is the significant example he uses but there were others), their overall loss, loss per passenger, or however you measured it, was way in excess of what was being lost on the smaller branch lines. He also found on that many such "lifeline" routes, there were cheap fares being offered, and when he challenged why at least fares at the standard rate should not be used in such cases was told that if they did that, what little patronage remained would finally be lost to the competing bus service that had already scooped most of the passengers; so much for lifeline or strategy.

There are many accounts of passenger counts understating things, but Joy found that when he went into the fine detail there was in fact very often an overstatement, particularly railwaymen travelling on free passes to/from work being counted as revenue "passengers". Likewise services to holiday resorts requiring stock and resources only used for eight Saturdays a year, and which were hardly used at all from October to April; again car and bus had taken almost all of it.

 

[Haydn1971]

I read that the 3rd rolling stock report is now saying that 350-500 new self powered units will be required in CP5/CP6 to deal with passenger growth, replacement of Pacers and the delays in electrification.

Rolls eyes, been saying that for years, now get the new DMU's ordered !

 

[superkev]

Not heard much about this. Has it actually been made to work?
K

 

[SpacePhoenix]

I read that the 3rd rolling stock report is now saying that 350-500 new self powered units will be required in CP5/CP6 to deal with passenger growth, replacement of Pacers and the delays in electrification.

Rolls eyes, been saying that for years, now get the new DMU's ordered !

AFAIK they'd need to develop new engines first as it was mentioned somewhere that all existing designs fall foul of the emission regs that just come into force

 

[Greybeard33]

I read that the 3rd rolling stock report is now saying that 350-500 new self powered units will be required in CP5/CP6 to deal with passenger growth, replacement of Pacers and the delays in electrification.

Rolls eyes, been saying that for years, now get the new DMU's ordered !

Quite an about-face from last year! Regarding the emissions regs it now says:

It is probably unlikely that a business case can be made at present to fit a Stage IIIB
compliant diesel engine (or engines) to any of the existing British DMU types. The D-Train
project being developed by Vivarail proposes to examine the feasibility, reliability and
business case of fitting pairs of smaller Stage IIIB compliant automotive diesel engines
beneath former LUL vehicles.
Further discussion of new-built or additional self-powered rolling stock being required in CP5 or CP6
is contained in Sections G and H on pages 19 to 24.

Then in Section H:

RSSSG has undertaken some detailed analysis and sensitivity testing of the requirements for
self-powered trains in recent months. This has included detailed analysis of the total number of
Type A and Type B vehicles likely to be required in each year to 2022. This work has indicated
a potential requirement for 350 to 500 additional non-electric vehicles, for a variety of urban
stopping, rural stopping and inter-urban express services. This analysis assumes replacement
of most or all of the 290 Class 14x ‘Pacer’ vehicles, and the provision of additional vehicles for
the alleviation of present levels of crowding and/or to permit future growth. This requirement
might be satisfied by various permutations of new construction and/or conversion of older
vehicles, including loco-haulage in some instances. Train builders, lessors and franchise bidders
are examining the case for new construction. Concerns about how to ‘future-proof’ such an
investment in new trains could be mitigated in various ways including:
• building the trains as bi-modes, assuming that the trains can potentially have long term value
operating in both diesel and electric modes; or
• building the trains as unpowered vehicles to be hauled or propelled by diesel, electric or bi-
mode locomotives; or
• incorporating energy storage from braking (though the development timescale for such new
technology is likely to be too long for the immediate requirement).

Timescales are tight but RSSSG is confident that the industry (TOCs, manufacturers and leasing
companies) can provide solutions to these issues in CP5 and early in CP6. It is probable that
some manufacturers will be willing to develop new non-electric vehicles. Equally, life extension
of older vehicles can still be an attractive and cost-effective solution, as demonstrated by
Chiltern Railways’ use of loco-hauled Mark 3 coaches, and ScotRail’s future use of HSTs on its
internal intercity routes.

http://www.raildeliverygroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/2015-02-long-term-passenger-rolling-stock-strategy-3rd-ed.pdf

Of the 350 to 500 additional carriages, the Northern ITT requires the franchisee to purchase at least 120 new ones, which leaves a maximum of 230 to 380 carriages that might be D-trains or refurbished LHCS.

 

[47802]

AFAIK they'd need to develop new engines first as it was mentioned somewhere that all existing designs fall foul of the emission regs that just come into force

I don't believe that will be an issue that everybody's makes out I'm sure manufacturers will come up with something, a quick look Cummins website suggests a number of engines for possible rail use, plus there's always the IEP engine even if its probably a bit overpowered for a regional DMU, but then some carriages could be unpowered.

 

[TheKnightWho]

I don't believe that will be an issue I'm sure manufacturers will come up with something, a quick look Cummins website suggests a number of engines for possible rail use, plus there's always the IEP engine even if its probably a bit overpowered for a regional DMU, but then some carriages could be unpowered.

I imagine it's thirsty, although at low gearing it could provide some seriously good acceleration for those all-stoppers services.

 

[Haydn1971]

Thinking outside the box, perhaps a stepped floor design could be work, three carriages long, each end with a raised floor, engine under, then low floor in the middle with no engine - distributed traction across the lot
______________________________________
|------______||____________||______------|

Excuse the ascii art, but something like the above ?

 

[edwin_m]

Thinking outside the box, perhaps a stepped floor design could be work, three carriages long, each end with a raised floor, engine under, then low floor in the middle with no engine - distributed traction across the lot
______________________________________
|------______||____________||______------|

Excuse the ascii art, but something like the above ?

I don't think there is enough room between the bogie and the end of the coach to fit an engine, unless it's a very small Vivarail-type one which would fit under a normal-height floor anyway.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I don't believe that will be an issue that everybody's makes out I'm sure manufacturers will come up with something, a quick look Cummins website suggests a number of engines for possible rail use, plus there's always the IEP engine even if its probably a bit overpowered for a regional DMU, but then some carriages could be unpowered.

The bogie centres of a 20m vehicle are closer together than those of the IEP and a raised floor is probably not acceptable if there are doors in that area, as there probably would be with a 1/3 and 2/3 door layout. So I doubt that engine would fit.

 

[47802]

I don't think there is enough room between the bogie and the end of the coach to fit an engine, unless it's a very small Vivarail-type one which would fit under a normal-height floor anyway.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


The bogie centres of a 20m vehicle are closer together than those of the IEP and a raised floor is probably not acceptable if there are doors in that area, as there probably would be with a 1/3 and 2/3 door layout. So I doubt that engine would fit.

Who says they have to be 20m, I would have thought 23m is more likely which has similar space between the bogie's as a 26m IEP, I agree a sloping floor might be an issue with a suburban door design, but as I say I am sure a smaller compliant engine will be found from the manufacturers.

 

[anthony263]

Sure I read somewhere that Cummins have developed an engine that does meet the latest emission regulations?

The problem is that somebody should have ordered additional class 172' where production was in full swing especially when we need to replace the pacers but the class 150/153's are pretty old themselves and the 156/158/165/166's are not going to last forever.

Technology is always improving so perhaps in the future we will see trains powered by other means rather than just by overhead wires/3rd rail/diesel engines. Hopefully in time we will see fuel cells improved enough that they are viable.

 

[deltic08]

You should read Stewart Joy "The Train that Ran Away" (1960s), a companion to Gerry Fiennes' "I Tried to Run a Railway". Joy was Beeching's economist, a very practical (unusual for economists) Australian (probably explains the plain speaking) who looked in some detail at the closure proposals.

What he said he found was that for the "strategic" ones (the Waverley is the significant example he uses but there were others), their overall loss, loss per passenger, or however you measured it, was way in excess of what was being lost on the smaller branch lines. He also found on that many such "lifeline" routes, there were cheap fares being offered, and when he challenged why at least fares at the standard rate should not be used in such cases was told that if they did that, what little patronage remained would finally be lost to the competing bus service that had already scooped most of the passengers; so much for lifeline or strategy.

There are many accounts of passenger counts understating things, but Joy found that when he went into the fine detail there was in fact very often an overstatement, particularly railwaymen travelling on free passes to/from work being counted as revenue "passengers". Likewise services to holiday resorts requiring stock and resources only used for eight Saturdays a year, and which were hardly used at all from October to April; again car and bus had taken almost all of it.

As I have said before, Beeching based his decisions of fare box collection at booking offices rather than passenger counts so travelling railwaymen is irrelevant. That is why large numbers of coastal holiday resorts were closed because most holidaymakers bought return tickets at stations other than at resorts.

Inland resorts such as Keswick suffered similarly. Keswick had a large influx of visitors by rail most of the year but the fare box at Keswick booking office was low. BR still had the revenue but taken elsewhere on the system. This revenue was lost forever when the lines closed. Beeching was either ignorant of this possibility or deliberately chose to ignore it. Either way he was flawed in his decision making.

I have seen as many as five charters arrive in Keswick in one day, all from London, for the Easter Convention. After the Keswick-Workington line closed in 1966 the turntable and run round facilities were lost at Keswick and only one train ran top and tailed on the branch the following year. Most now used road coaches and 1970 was the last time I saw a charter. The line closed in 1972, stupidly only two years before electrification of the WCML through Penrith was completed, to save money but no contributory revenue was taken elsewhere from charters or other passengers travelling to Keswick. How we need this line now.

A large number of railwaymen who worked at the BR NE headquarters in York lived in Knaresborough, Starbeck, Ripon and Harrogate. Despite the numbers travelling the booking offices in Knaresborough and Ripon didn't reflect these numbers so Ripon-Harrogate and Harrogate-York were marked down for closure. Only a very active campaign saved Harrogate-York to give Harrogate a route to the north via York and Harrogate-Ripon-Northallerton was sacrificed as Barbara Castle would not reprieve both routes

 

[HSTEd]

You are talking about a billion pound investment though - that kind of money could be used to brute-force many of the bottlenecks inherent in the electrification though.
(Better wages for linemen and training a large number of new staff, and paying above the odds to increase production of required components).

Perhaps electrification equipment design and manufacture should be brought in-house by Network Rail?

 

[BantamMenace]

You are talking about a billion pound investment though - that kind of money could be used to brute-force many of the bottlenecks inherent in the electrification though.
(Better wages for linemen and training a large number of new staff, and paying above the odds to increase production of required components).

Perhaps electrification equipment design and manufacture should be brought in-house by Network Rail?

Electrification college or university department similar to the one in the making for HS2 would be a good start, 50 places each year for electrical engineers and the like to learn their trade and become the future of this country's electrification workforce.

I'm a student at Lancaster and although I'm not an engineer we've just opened a large new state-of-the-art engineering building. I couldn't help but think a large amount of the cost of this could have been passed on to Network Rail or the DfT if they committed to teaching this kind of trade.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Electrification college or university department similar to the one in the making for HS2 would be a good start, 50 places each year for electrical engineers and the like to learn their trade and become the future of this country's electrification workforce.

I'm a student at Lancaster and although I'm not an engineer we've just opened a large new state-of-the-art engineering building. I couldn't help but think a large amount of the cost of this could have been passed on to Network Rail or the DfT if they committed to teaching this kind of trade.

It's already happening, at least on Carillion electrification projects (EGIP):
http://www.carillionplc.com/news-me...s-with-first-trainee-intake.aspx#.VPsks41ybIU

They were also nominally down to do the TP scheme, although no contract has been let.
If would be interesting to compare the 3 current main projects (EGIP, NW, GW, with MML due to start shortly) for resource availability.

 

[Grumpy]

As I have said before, Beeching based his decisions of fare box collection at booking offices rather than passenger counts so travelling railwaymen is irrelevant. That is why large numbers of coastal holiday resorts were closed because most holidaymakers bought return tickets at stations other than at resorts.

I don’t believe this to be the case. This is unsubstantiated trainspotters’ folklore. I haven’t seen anything published from an authoritative source that would suggest it.
Revenue was basically assessed by combining two types of survey. Firstly passenger miles were estimated from a physical count of actual train loadings in a summer week and a similar survey in a winter week. These were then pro-rated up to give a total estimated annual passenger mileage. In parallel with this on-train ticket surveys were carried out to analyse the actual tickets held by passengers and a weighted average revenue per passenger mile calculated. The average revenue per passenger mile was then applied to the estimated passenger mileage to calculate the annual revenue.
The weaknesses in such a system will be apparent, but it did try to reflect actual usage and the mix of fares paid. To suggest booking office receipts being used alone would have resulted in ridicule. A colleague of mine had been a relief booking clerk and used to joke that at one station (Felixtowe Beach?) the receipts from the vending machine in the ladies loo generated more income than ticket sales.
Coastal resorts stations didn’t close because of the means of calculating revenue, they closed because they weren’t used for most of the year.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

A large number of railwaymen who worked at the BR NE headquarters in York lived in Knaresborough, Starbeck, Ripon and Harrogate. Despite the numbers travelling the booking offices in Knaresborough and Ripon didn't reflect these numbers so Ripon-Harrogate and Harrogate-York were marked down for closure. Only a very active campaign saved Harrogate-York to give Harrogate a route to the north via York and Harrogate-Ripon-Northallerton was sacrificed as Barbara Castle would not reprieve both routes

It’s bizarre to suggest that because the booking office numbers didn’t include railwaymen commuting to York HQ this resulted in the Ripon-Harrogate and Harrogate-York lines being proposed for closure. My recollection of the staff terms for priv. season tickets is that the first few miles (12?) were free and then the rest were charged at quarter fare. And you had to renew your season ticket at a booking office. So there may have been lots of railwaymen commuting from Poppleton to York, but they were probably not paying anything. Similarly any commuting from Knaresborough or Harrogate would be paying a negligible sum.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
[

 

[snowball]

Not sure what thread this belongs in - previous equivalents have been noted in the Manchester-Liverpool electrification thread, but it's not really specific to that line or even to electrification.

The update due on March 30 to NR's CP5 Enhancements Delivery Plan is out:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...a66HuCcQ06KcpUSbmSsW-aA&bvm=bv.89381419,d.d2s

They're supposed to come out every 3 months. I think this one has already been out a few days - the last two were six weeks late.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Browsing the NW Sparks website I see he has a link to this article in Rail Technology magazine, which describe further delays not yet in the above update to the Enhancements Delivery Programme:

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/major-works-on-north-of-england-programme-delayed-

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Not sure what thread this belongs in - previous equivalents have been noted in the Manchester-Liverpool electrification thread, but it's not really specific to that line or even to electrification.

The update due on March 30 to NR's CP5 Enhancements Delivery Plan is out:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...a66HuCcQ06KcpUSbmSsW-aA&bvm=bv.89381419,d.d2s

They're supposed to come out every 3 months. I think this one has already been out a few days - the last two were six weeks late.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Browsing the NW Sparks website I see he has a link to this article in Rail Technology magazine, which describe further delays not yet in the above update to the Enhancements Delivery Programme:

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/major-works-on-north-of-england-programme-delayed-

GW wires to Oxford/Newbury still Dec 2016.
Tellingly, no milestone for Didcot-Swindon-Chippenham/Bristol Parkway (was also Dec 2016).
Welsh Valleys milestones have been withdrawn after Grip3, saying the funder (WG) is doing due diligence on scope, output and dates.
NW Phase 2 milestones now reflect the recent slippage, remainder are unchanged.
TP electrification still holds to the Dec 2018 completion date we know to be false.
GOBLIN milestones have been split, with the MML connection and London Gateway/Tilbury links deferred (ie the freight links).
Not shown, but mentioned in April Modern Railways, is that Acton-Wembley wiring is being deferred (also for freight).

On the RTM report, I can understand the Northern Hub dates going back with the late approval of the Ordsall Chord.
However I can't see why that should impact the core NW electrification programme (ie Blackpool-Preston-Manchester-Stalybridge).

 

[158756]

GW wires to Oxford/Newbury still Dec 2016.
Tellingly, no milestone for Didcot-Swindon-Chippenham/Bristol Parkway (was also Dec 2016).
TP electrification still holds to the Dec 2018 completion date we know to be false.
On the RTM report, I can understand the Northern Hub dates going back with the late approval of the Ordsall Chord.
However I can't see why that should impact the core NW electrification programme (ie Blackpool-Preston-Manchester-Stalybridge).

Maidenhead to Newbury, Oxford, Chippenham and Bristol Parkway is still 'First electric train' December 2016.
Leeds to York, Selby and Stalybridge is now TBC.

NW Phases 3,4 and 5 have missed their GRIP 3 dates.

Apparently GRIP 6 will start on the Highland Mainline improvements before GRIP 3 completion(which has been 'revised').