What would you do?

[PlexiDriver]

You're given £25 billion a year for 5 years and told you have absolute power over the railways...

What do you do?

(You can nationalise, privatise, subsidise, open, close, expand, invest etc.)

 

[deltic08]

You're given £25 billion a year for 5 years and told you have absolute power over the railways...

What do you do?

(You can nationalise, privatise, subsidise, open, close, expand, invest etc.)

personally I would reinstate Cross Gates-Wetherby-Harrogate-Ripon-Northallerton and electrify to give a strategic route avoiding the junction hotspot of York, a route 11 miles shorter than via York, and providing a diversion route for York-Northallerton, the only part of the entire ECML without a diversion.
I would reinstate Penrith-Keswick and electrify.
Extend the Borders railway to Hawick and electrify.
With the rest of the £25billion, I would electrify to Windermere and Barrow, from Derby to Plymouth, Swindon-Gloucester-Severn Tunnel J, the Harrogate Loop, Calder Valley line, Micklefield to Hull, Bury St Edmunds-Peterboro'-Lincoln-Doncaster, Peterboro'-Leicester-Nuneaton-Birmingham and the Marches line.
Ask me again next year.

 

[357]

I would set up my own railway contracting business and divert as much into my own pocket as possible

 

[The Planner]

I would add this to the recent thread

You are now in charge of a random operator/franchise or the DfT and/or Network Rail. What do you do to improve it?

If I was put in charge of SWR, I would try to press the 701s into service asap once the more major issues have been rectified and fix the minor ones over time. The 458 conversions will also go ahead with the 450s relegated to shorter distance operations and the ex-460 coaches may also be...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[A0]

Invest in driverless technology. Human resources are the biggest single cost in running the railways, so automation potentially reduces that.

 

[LLivery]

Hard to know what 25bn will pay for, but my list is:

- Buy a profitable rail company to subsidise the railways (let's get into the European Railfreight and HSR Open Access game)

- Commit to a rolling electrification programme: Chiltern-Snow Hills & EWR, remaining Southern Region routes, easy branch lines, Leeds-Selby-Hull, Bristol-Derby, Felixstowe-Ipswich-Ely-Peterborough-Birmingham, support Scottish electrification plans...

- Complete electrification of: MML (all the way to Doncaster/Wakefield & Erewash Valley), Great Western, TransPennine.

- Reopen: Woodhead (Hope Valley isn't good enough), Leicester-Burton, Portishead, Sutton Park, Walsall-Brownhills-Lichfield

- Extend: Crossrail - Heathrow-Staines

- Major upgrades: Castfield Corridor, Woking Flyover, Newark Flat Crossing, East Croydon-Norwood Junction remodelling. And 4 tracking of: Dorridge-Moor St, Leeds Eastern Approach, Tottenham Hale-Cheshunt

- Stations Rebuild/big referbs of: Stratford, East Croydon, Norwood Junction, Elephant & Castle, and anywhere else that's pressing. New platforms for Brockley (Nunhead link), Clapham High Street (Southeastern)

- Upgrade programmes of the South London and West Midlands suburban networks - not too crazy: station referbs, higher frequencies where possible, new fleets where needed, ticket gates

- Actual unified signage, not half asked attempts

- Fleet - Lengthen more 5 car Intercity stock to 8-10 cars

 

[SynthD]

Repeat Metroland (housing around rapid transit into a city centre) once per county.

 

[HSTEd]

£25bn for five years is quite a lot of money.
£125bn or so should get you at least one Shinkansen, so either attempt a Scotland-Tyne Tees-Leeds-Manchester-Birmingham one, or attempt a South Coast Shinkansen (London-Bournemouth via Brighton)

If anything is left at all, put it into ETCS signalling and ECP brakes on freight. Not sure how much the latter would cost because even the government doesn't know how much freight rolling stock is in use (I made an FOI request and got nothing from ORR).

 

[Nick Ashwell]

I'd find a £20bn project and charge £5bn in consultancy.

In all seriousness it would go on electrification and increasing loading gauge for as many routes as possible

 

[zwk500]

(I made an FOI request and got nothing from ORR).

Why would a private company's assets be subject to FOI?

More seriously, I would focus first on electrification, starting with suburban metros (finish Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, do Bristol and Chiltern) and then on the MML to Doncaster and Leeds, Then infill the remainder of the XC routes on the 'core' sections. Anything left over would go on gauge clearance, starting with existing pinchpoints to increase flexibility and then diversionary routes.

£25bn for five years probably isn't enough money or long enough to rebuild the network for UIC-GB+, sadly.

 

[HSTEd]

Why would a private company's assets be subject to FOI?

Well the ORR knows how many passenger rail vehicles are in the fleet, and those are overwhelmingly in private hands.
The Office of National Statistics has a fairly good estimate of the number of cars and other road vehicles on the road, and those are overwhelmingly in private hands.

It just strikes me as odd that apparently the state doesn't have estimates of the number of freight rail vehicles operating on infrastructure that it, de-facto, owns.
But peripheral to the topic so probably leave that there.

 

[PTR 444]

You're given £25 billion a year for 5 years and told you have absolute power over the railways...

What do you do?

(You can nationalise, privatise, subsidise, open, close, expand, invest etc.)

Reinstate the cancelled bits of HS2 in full

 

[GRALISTAIR]

1) Full electric spine electrification and upgrade
2) Full Felixstowe to Birmingham and all the freight logistic hubs electrification and upgrade including Ely bottleneck upgrade
3) Full MML electrification plus rolling of Birmingham to Derby, Sheffield to Doncaster, Leeds, York and Nottingham.
4) Restart HS2 missing bits
5) B and H to Taunton electrification then rolling programme
6) Leeds to Hull electrification

 

[Dr Hoo]

The fundamental problem with 'spending' £25,000,000,000 per year, effectively from a standing start, is that the supply chain, 'shovel ready'/'off the peg' schemes to invest in simply isn't ready for it.

So there would be massive bidding up of prices for scarce resources, simultaneous blockades to multiple parts of the network that would probably cause a freight collapse, gargantuan rail replacement bus services, delays to projects, lack of oversight, waste, corruption, training backlogs, demand for workers from overseas, etc.

Anything infrastructure-related, such as electrification, re-openings or gauge clearance would presumably need a lot of 'new' rolling stock to exploit it too. Along with depots, grid power supply upgrades and so on.

Basically an awful five years for rail customers but hopefully with a better network at the end of it.

 

[The exile]

As hinted in the previous post, and assuming this is capital funding only - first arrange for the money to be committed to projects that didn't even have to be commenced within those five years so that the supply chain wasn't completely overwhelmed.

1. Grade separation at lots of junctions.
2. All platforms to be raised to standard height to enable level boarding everywhere once new trains are introduced. (I doubt anywhere needs lowering - but that too if necessary)
3. Rolling electrification - starting with the "hard bits" on the assumption that once they are done the BCR for the easier bits will be that much more favourable in later years. So would suggest that means a) completion of MML to Leeds via Derby and Nottingham, b) Chiltern through Snow Hill to Worcester, linking up with c) "somewhere west of Bristol" to Leeds, d) Once current Trans-Pennine complete then Calder Valley and associated bits and pieces.
4. Start ( because I don't think what's left would be enough) a programme to establish a fit-for-purpose integrated heavy and light rail suburban network in all conurbations. (Can we get 95% of the population of larger towns and cities within 10 minutes' walk of a light or heavy rail "station"?)

 

[Bevan Price]

To do anything, first you would need to strip Civel Service, especially DfT, of any involvement with railways.
Then, I agree with much of the above - a countrywide rolling programme of electrification to commence.
A gradual programme to increase the size of passenger trains.
No more 2 coach dmus except for a handful of rural branches.
Selective programme of new or reopened lines to nmtch population changes / requirements since Marples/Beeching era.

 

[778]

Invest in driverless technology. Human resources are the biggest single cost in running the railways, so automation potentially reduces that.

The unions might have something to say about that.

 

[JLH4AC]

• Reestablish British Rail Engineering Limited to produce specifications (Which are set out by engineers and actual transport planers, not DfT “accountants”.) for a rolling program of rolling stock procurement starting with the replacements for pre-2004 DMU/EMU. They should have limited capacity to manufacture rolling stock but the actual manufacture of large rolling stock orders should be left to private companies.
• Reestablish Red Star Parcels to provide faster and greener courier service to parcel lockers/parcel desks at every station in the UK as well as door-to-door parcel/light goods deliveries. They would also operate postbuses in areas where a normal bus/postal service would be uneconomic, and along rail routes that are planned to be reopened.
• Nationalise all ROSCOs and restructure them, Direct Rail Services, Network Rail, Rail Delivery Group, Caledonian Sleeper and DfT OLR Holdings into a singular company known as British Railways through various business sectors would be subsidiaries of the main company (What is currently Network Rail, Rail Delivery Group and DfT OLR Holdings.). This would include complete rebranding most notable being the websites, uniforms, train liveries and all branded signage.
• Devolve the development of regional rail strategies, and management of budgets, operations and procurement of contracts for regional in England to the Sub-national transport bodies (Though the borders of the current transport bodies would be redrawn to match that of the regions.) yet they will still need to co-operate with the Department for Transport.
• Use any remaining/recovered (From disposing of surplus rolling stock, old uniforms and other railwayana.) funds to refurb stations through improvements such as installing solar roofs, correcting platform heights and replacing ageing/ugly prefab buildings/shelters with nice looking masonry/wooden buildings/shelters.

 

[A0]

The unions might have something to say about that.

Exactly the reason to do it. Longer term it mitigates the ability of the unions to bring the network to a halt, which is a benefit to both users and the country's economy..

 

[A0]

• Nationalise all ROSCOs and restructure them, Direct Rail Services, Network Rail, Rail Delivery Group, Caledonian Sleeper and DfT OLR Holdings into a singular company known as British Railways through various business sectors would be subsidiaries of the main company (What is currently Network Rail, Rail Delivery Group and DfT OLR Holdings.).
• Reestablish Red Star Parcels to provide faster and greener courier service to parcel lockers/parcel desks at every station in the UK as well as door-to-door parcel/light goods deliveries. They would also operate postbuses in areas where a normal bus/postal service would be uneconomic, and along rail routes that are planned to be reopened.
• Reestablish British Rail Engineering Limited to produce specifications (Which are set out by engineers and actual transport planers, not DfT “accountants”.) for a rolling program of rolling stock procurement starting with the replacements for pre-2004 DMU/EMU. They should have limited capacity to manufacture rolling stock but the actual manufacture of large rolling stock orders should be left to private companies.

Brilliant - a return to BR, which over ordered rolling stock which was abandoned after less than 10 years. Nothing like repeating the mistakes of the past.

And whilst you may dislike "accountants", there is no organisation on earth, government or private, which ultimately doesn't have some form of financial restriction.

 

[Magdalia]

You're given £25 billion a year for 5 years and told you have absolute power over the railways...

What do you do?

As hinted in the previous post, and assuming this is capital funding only - first arrange for the money to be committed to projects that didn't even have to be commenced within those five years so that the supply chain wasn't completely overwhelmed.

The fundamental problem with 'spending' £25,000,000,000 per year, effectively from a standing start, is that the supply chain, 'shovel ready'/'off the peg' schemes to invest in simply isn't ready for it.

The original post has some similarities with the Labour Party's abandoned green investment pledge, where the annual amount was £28bn.

This fell down in two stages. First, it was quickly realised that spending £28bn in year 1 from a standing start just isn't possible for the reasons given above.

The second stage, and even more fundamental, was where the funds would come from. The original intention was to borrow, but that was closed down by subsequent economic events.

Another fundamental issue is the planning process leading to Development Consent Orders for big projects and Transport and Works Act Orders for smaller projects. With the planning process as currently constituted it is actually impossible to deliver anything from concept to completion in less than 5 years.

The important thing is to have a rolling programme of projects for the available capacity to move on to once existing projects are completed.

A gradual programme to increase the size of passenger trains.

This would be my quick win. Many of the railway's capacity issues are rooted in too many short trains, not lack of train paths. The ECML and Ely are classic examples. One area where the UK has spare capacity crying out to be used is train building, so let's use it, combined with a platform lengthening programme. This is also a far more effective way of increasing traincrew productivity than marginal changes to their working conditions.

 

[gravitystorm]

You're given £25 billion a year for 5 years and told you have absolute power over the railways...

What do you do?

(You can nationalise, privatise, subsidise, open, close, expand, invest etc.)

I'd ask Network Rail for a spreadsheet of enhancements, sorted in order of BCR, regardless of the size of project. Each project could be £1m or £100m, but it's the BCR I'm interested in. I'd then select the top projects until I had about £25 billion selected, and approve those ones. Repeat each year.

I'd also put a small amount aside for making that spreadsheet a little smarter, where the expected cost of a project will rise (and the BCR fall) if there's too many of the same type already approved. This would be to offset constraints like trying to do too many resignalling projects at the same time when there aren't enough people or equipment to do e.g. 10+ schemes simultaneously.

I'd also set aside a hundred million for my own pet peeves, regardless of BCR, which include:

• ETCS for Raynes Park to Wimbledon up slow. The number of times we depart Raynes Park on a caution, but the train ahead has already cleared the platform at Wimbledon before the next signal comes into view. ETCS would update the MA immediately.
• ETCS for Moffat to Beatock summit, for similar reasons. Pootling up the hill long on a pendelino, long after the freight has finished entering the loop at the summit, where I can see the next signal is green on my phone but the driver can't see that yet.

 

[Magdalia]

I'd ask Network Rail for a spreadsheet of enhancements, sorted in order of BCR, regardless of the size of project. Each project could be £1m or £100m, but it's the BCR I'm interested in. I'd then select the top projects until I had about £25 billion selected, and approve those ones.

It is inappropriate to use BCR in this way. BCR calculations are hugely dependent on being able to identify all of the benefits and costs, and on assumptions about future inflation and interest rates.

BCR has some value for comparing different options of the same project, where the benefits and costs are not very different, for example different alignments of a new line. Any errors in the calculation are likely to affect each option similarly, so the ranking is likely to be robust.

For comparing a £1m project with a £100m project, BCR is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, especially if inflation and interest rates are high or volatile.

 

[spyinthesky]

The unions might have something to say about that.

I would automate them first

 

[yoyothehobo]

I would fix all the earthworks and drainage on the network. That would probably use all the money.

 

[FGWHST43009]

Organisation:
1) Create a national long-distance operator for intercity and interregional services
2) Create regional operators based on regional authorities such as Wales, West Midlands and Devon/Cornwall etc (running regional trains)
3) Establish city-region suburban rail networks
4) Eliminate open access operators where they don't make sense (like direct trains from London to small places) as well as the fact they run short trains in paths that could be used by longer trains on busier routes

Infrastructure:
1) Electrification
2) Remodel and increase approach speeds to large stations
3) Junction upgrades to increase diverging speeds
4) Bypass/realign slow sections of railway (new bridges and tunnels included for example new Severn Tunnel)
5) Increase linespeeds where journey time savings are enough that investment can be justified
6) 4-track lines where needed

Rolling stock:
1) Lengthen all 80x to at least 7 cars
2) All train services run with enough seats to meet demand
3) More electric freight trains which would also run faster with new wagons
4) All future mainline trains minimum design speed of 100mph

Train services:
1) Eliminate direct London to (small town name here) services where better connecting regional services could be provided. Examples include Harrogate and Carmarthen. Essentially the services removed are those that negatively impact local services
2) Enhance connecting regional and commuter services to large stations to connect well with intercity services
3) Cut stops on intercity services in order to reduce journey times, with regional services filling in the removed stops

Probably a bit too much stated above but here's what I'd do which doesn't include building a high-speed rail network

 

[D6130]

ETCS for Moffat to Beatock summi

Err....the branch to Moffat closed in about 1951. I think you mean Beattock!

 

[Class15]

Reinstate the cancelled sections of HS2.
Upgrade the Great Eastern with 4-track sections to allow more freight trains along the WCML - NLL - Felixstowe corridor.
Electrify the remaining Southern Region routes (Uckfield and Marshlink) and the Oxford and Bristol lines.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I'd ask Network Rail for a spreadsheet of enhancements, sorted in order of BCR........

I would love to see this I admit.

It is inappropriate to use BCR in this way. BCR calculations are hugely dependent on being able to identify all of the benefits and costs, and on assumptions about future inflation and interest rates.

BCR has some value for comparing different options of the same project, where the benefits and costs are not very different, for example different alignments of a new line. Any errors in the calculation are likely to affect each option similarly, so the ranking is likely to be robust.

 

[JLH4AC]

Brilliant - a return to BR, which over ordered rolling stock which was abandoned after less than 10 years. Nothing like repeating the mistakes of the past.

And whilst you may dislike "accountants", there is no organisation on earth, government or private, which ultimately doesn't have some form of financial restriction.

The only time that I can recall British Railways actually overordering rolling stock was due to the failure of the modernisation plan to foresee how the traffic would change and BR ordering way too many different locomotive types as part of the pilot scheme, there was also the time they technically over ordered Class 158s but that was more of a case of rolling stock orders being assigned to the wrong sector than a lack of need for new rolling stock.

Returning to having a singular company operating the British railway does not mean we can’t learn from the past to avoid making the same mistakes, just like how we can learn from the more recent past to avoid current/recent issues (Such as the lack of a plan to replace rolling stock that is near end of their designed service life is putting our nation’s capacity to manufacture new rolling stock at risk, and 10 year old EMUs being stuck in storage for the foreseeable future due to no operator wanting them due to high leasing costs.) happening again in future

Well run organisations ensure that there is a degree of separation between actual accountants, and penny pinching managers who falsely think they know how to do effective accounting (These are ones that I actually dislike, accountants when correctly placed within the decision-making process play a crucial role in ensuring that an organisation can operate as it should.) and those responsible for non-financial decisions as a safeguard against financial misconduct by management as well as protection against a short-term cash-focused mindset taking over the whole organisation leading to chronic underinvestment and decline.