The Three Baltic Countries Sign The Largest Railway Electrification Agreement In History
The title of this post, is the same as that as this news item on the LTG Group web site.
This is the sub-heading.
Today in Vilnius, the institutions of the three Baltic countries responsible for implementing the Rail Baltica project signed a historic agreement on railway electrification. The contract, valued at €1.77 billion (excluding VAT), has been awarded to COBELEC Rail Baltica – a consortium formed by the Spanish companies Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios S.A. and Elecnor Servicios y Proyectos S.A.U.
These three paragraphs add more detail.
The electrification of the Rail Baltica European railway is considered the largest cross-border railway electrification initiative in Europe, implemented as a single, joint project.
“Rail Baltica is more than just infrastructure – it is an economic and security link to the West. This contract is particularly important for our integration into the European railway network, enabling smooth passenger and freight transport while strengthening the resilience of the Baltic region. It is our strategic pathway to the future,” said Eugenijus Sabutis, Acting Minister of Transport and Communications of Lithuania.
One of the largest contracts in the history of the Baltic States was signed by the institutions responsible for implementing the project: LTG Infra, the infrastructure company of the LTG Group; Eiropas Dzelzceļa Līnijas in Latvia; and Rail Baltic Estonia in Estonia. Representatives from the ministries of transport and communications of all three countries also gathered in Vilnius for the occasion.
Note.
- The electrification will be to the European standard of 25 KVAC overhead.
- There will be a total of 2,400 km. of electrification.
- High-speed passenger and freight trains will operate on the full length of the route.
- It is planned that the electricity used will be generated from renewable energy sources.
- I feel everybody will be pleased except Putin.
The Russian dictator and war-monger won’t like it, as the railway will not be built to Russian standards.
The Garden At 120 – 27th September 2025
The Wikipedia entry for Fen Court has this section, which has a brief description of The Garden At 120.
In 2019, a mixed use building of 15 storeys built by Generali Real Estate with Eric Parry Architects, called One Fen Court or 120 Fenchurch Street, opened alongside the east side of Fen Court. The building has a publicly accessible roof garden named The Garden at 120, and is 69 metres (226 ft) high. A pedestrian route parallel to Fen Court runs through an undercroft in One Fen Court, with a ceiling-mounted public artwork.
As the helpful man on the entrance to the Garden at 120, said that I could see the tower of All Hallows Staining, I went back today and took these pictures.
Note.
- The Shard, Guerkin and Walkie-Talkie can be easily identified.
- Canary Wharf, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the River Thames can be seen in the distance.
- Pictures 16-21 give views of the tower of All Hallows Staining.
I shall be taking more pictures as Fifty Fenchurch Street grows.
Rail Vehicle Dispensation: Great Western Railway Class 230 Fast Charge Unit
The title of this post, is the same as that of this page on the UK Government web site.
The page is an interesting read, but I do feel, that it marks a big step on introducing the Class 230 trains on the Greenford Branch between West Ealing and Greenford stations.
I should say, that I’ve used the Class 230 trains several times and there are trains and platforms with worse passenger access problems on the UK network.
Where Have The Special Characters Gone In WordPress?
I have just written Ørsted In Talks To Sell Half Of Huge UK Wind Farm To Apollo, where of necessity I have used Ørsted more than a few times.
There used to be an omega character in WordPress, that you used to access the special characters, but it seems to have disappeared.
Does anybody know where it’s gone?
TIA!
Ørsted In Talks To Sell Half Of Huge UK Wind Farm To Apollo
The title of this post, is the same as that as this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
The US investment giant is eyeing a 50 per cent stake in the Danish energy company’s £8.5 billion Hornsea 3 project off the Yorkshire coast
These are the first three paragraphs, which add more detail.
An American investment giant is negotiating a deal to buy half of what will be the world’s largest off-shore wind farm off the coast of Yorkshire from the troubled Danish energy company Ørsted.
New York-based Apollo, which oversees assets of about $840 billion, is in talks with Ørsted about acquiring a 50 per cent stake in Hornsea 3, an £8.5 billion project that started construction in 2023 and will be capable of powering more than three million UK homes.
A transaction would be a boost for Orsted, which has come under pressure in recent months from rising costs and a backlash against renewables in the United States by President Trump. Orsted started the process of selling a stake in Hornsea 3 in 2024 and said last month that it had an unnamed preferred bidder for the asset, which the Financial Times first reported was Apollo.
I have written several times about Ørstedregularly building a large wind farm and then selling it, so they must be doing something right.
In World’s Largest Wind Farm Attracts Huge Backing From Insurance Giant, I wrote about how Aviva bought Hornsea 1 from Ørsted.
One of the guys at Aviva explained that these sort of investments gave the right sort of cash flow to fund insurance risks and pensions.
Now that Trump has attempted to give his kiss of death to wind power in the United States, will US funds be looking for quality investments like Hornsea 3 in the UK and other large wind farms in France, Germany, Norway, Japan and Korea?
Already, Blackrock are investing billions to build a massive data centre at Blyth, where there are Gigawatts of offshore wind power and an interconnector to Norway, so that UK and Norwegian wind can be backed up by UK nuclear and Norwegian hydropower.
Highview Power And Ørsted
I wrote Highview Power, Ørsted Find Value In Integrating Offshore Wind With Liquid Air Energy Storage in November 2023.
I would have thought, that by now a battery would have been announced in one of Ørsted’s many projects.
I asked Google AI if Highview Power and Ørsted were still talking about liquid air energy storage and received this reply.
Yes, Highview Power and Ørsted are still actively involved in Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES), having completed a joint study in late 2023 on combining LAES with offshore wind to benefit the UK grid, and the findings were presented to the government for its long-duration energy storage (LDES) consultation. They believe LAES can reduce wind curtailment, increase energy productivity, and support grid resilience, with potential projects aligned with offshore wind farm timelines.
Perhap’s Ørsted are getting their finances aorted first?
Conclusion
The Times They Are A-Changing!
Just Attempted To Book King’s Cross To Glasgow On Lumo
Lumo starts their King’s Cross and Glasgow service on the 14th December 2025, which is the day the timetable changes.
- All the tickets for the first few days have gone.
- But tickets can be booked into February.
- It also appears that most of the offered direct services have sold out already.
- Are Scots showing their frugal side?
This was a typical ticket, I could have booked using my Senior Railcard for the 7th January 2026.
- Leave King’s Cross at 05:45.
- Arrive Glasgow Central at 11:22.
- Journey Time is 5:37.
- Cost £23.10
Note.
- There was a change of train to ScotRail at Edinburgh Waverley.
- The price included a ticket on the shuttle bus between Glasgow Queen Street and Glasgow Central.
- Serving both main Glasgow stations with one ticket is probably what ScotRail offer.
The service looks convenient and well-priced.
Will Trains Be Faster After The Timetable Change On 14th December 2025?
These are times for two early morning trains, between King’s Cross and Edinburgh, where the first is before the timetable change and the second is after.
- 23rd October 2025 – 05:48 – 10:09 – 04:19
- 17th December 2025 – 05:45 – 09:57 – 04:12
Seven minutes is only the first saving of what I believe will be several.
Historic Church Tower Suspended On Stilts To Make Way For London Skyscraper
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
The remaining part of the 700-year-old All Hallows Staining, off Fenchurch Street, will be the centrepiece of the public square below Axa’s £1 billion office
These three paragraphs add more details.
A700-year-old church tower is being suspended on 45ft stilts while developers clear the ground beneath to make way for the City of London’s newest skyscraper.
The tower, which is all that remains of All Hallows Staining close to Fenchurch Street station, is being preserved and will be the centrepiece of the public square at the base of 50 Fenchurch Street — the £1 billion office tower being built by the investment arm of Axa, the French insurer.
More than 125,000 tonnes of earth has been cleared from underneath and around the church — which survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 — into which the foundations will be laid and a basement level built.
The Wikipedia entry for All Hallows Staining, starts with this paragraph.
All Hallows Staining was a Church of England church located at the junction of Mark Lane and Dunster Court in the north-eastern corner of Langbourn ward in the City of London, England, close to Fenchurch Street railway station. All that remains of the church is the tower, built around AD 1320 as part of the second church on the site. Use of the grounds around the church is the subject of the Allhallows Staining Church Act 2010 (c. v).
Note.
- The Wikipedia entry gives a lot of history and other details about the tower.
- It was named “Staining”, which means stone, to distinguish it from the other churches of All Hallows in the City of London, which were wooden.
- The old church survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 but collapsed five years later in 1671.
- The church appears to have been cheaply rebuilt in 1674.
- In 1870 the parish of All Hallows Staining was combined with that of St Olave Hart Street and All Hallows was demolished, leaving only the tower.
- All Hallows Staining seems to have survived World War Two, but St Olave Hart Street suffered serious damage.
- Between 1948 and 1954, when the restored St Olave’s was reopened, a prefabricated church stood on the site of All Hallows Staining. The tower of All Hallows Staining was used as the chancel of the temporary church.
- The remains of All Hallows Staining were designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
The tower of All Hallows Staining seems to have a very strong survival instinct.
This web page gives more details of Fifty Fenchurch Street,
This morning, I went to take some pictures of the tower and the construction site.
Note.
- I walked around the site from the forecourt of Fenchurch Street station.
- The last three pictures were taken from the top deck of a Westbound 25 bus.
- There appears to be no accessible bar or roof-top from which you can look down on the site.
So for the present time, the 25 bus seems to give the best views.
This afternoon, I took a train to Fenchurch Street station and looked at the Eastern and Northern sides of the site.
Note.
- The first picture was taken through the upper windows of the front of Fenchurch Street station.
- I think I might have got a better view out of the window of Fenchurch Street station, if Great Socialist Railways had cleaned the windows.
- In pictures three to nine, the “Walkie-Talkie” towers over All Hallows Staining.
- Some pictures were better than those I took in the morning, as the truck had moved.
- The last picture shows the sign for the Garden at 120.
The area isn’t short of geometric shapes to photograph.
Offshore Construction Work Resumes On Revolution Wind After US Judge’s Ruling
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
A US judge in Washington has cleared the way for work to resume on the 704 MW Revolution Wind offshore wind farm after granting a temporary injunction that lifted the federal stop-work order imposed in August.
These two paragraphs add details to the post.
On 22 August, the US Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued a stop-work order halting all offshore construction activities on the 704 MW project, which is already 80 per cent completed, according to its developers, Ørsted and Skyborn Renewables.
A few days later, the joint venture challenged the stop-work order in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, while Connecticut and Rhode Island filed their own lawsuits against the decision on the same day.
I’ve written about this project before in ‘This Has Nothing To Do With National Security’ | Revolution Wind Halt Leaves Connecticut Leaders Demanding Answers
How Will The UK Power All These Proposed Data Centres?
On Wednesday, a cardiologist friend asked me if we have enough power to do Trump’s UK AI, so I felt this post might be a good idea.
Artificial Intelligence Gave This Answer
I first asked Google AI, the title of this post and received this reply.
The UK will power proposed data centres using a mix of grid-supplied low-carbon electricity from sources like offshore wind and through on-site renewable generation, such as rooftop solar panels. Data centre operators are also exploring behind-the-meter options, including battery storage and potential future nuclear power, to meet their significant and growing energy demands. However, the UK’s grid infrastructure and high energy prices present challenges, with industry calls for grid reform and inclusion in energy-intensive industry support schemes to facilitate sustainable growth.
Google also pointed me at the article on the BBC, which is entitled Data Centres To Be Expanded Across UK As Concerns Mount.
This is the sub-heading.
The number of data centres in the UK is set to increase by almost a fifth, according to figures shared with BBC News.
These are the first three paragraphs.
Data centres are giant warehouses full of powerful computers used to run digital services from movie streaming to online banking – there are currently an estimated 477 of them in the UK.
Construction researchers Barbour ABI have analysed planning documents and say that number is set to jump by almost 100, as the growth in artificial intelligence (AI) increases the need for processing power.
The majority are due to be built in the next five years. However, there are concerns about the huge amount of energy and water the new data centres will consume.
Where Are The Data Centres To Be Built?
The BBC article gives this summary of the locations.
More than half of the new data centres would be in London and neighbouring counties.
Many are privately funded by US tech giants such as Google and Microsoft and major investment firms.
A further nine are planned in Wales, one in Scotland, five in Greater Manchester and a handful in other parts of the UK, the data shows.
While the new data centres are mostly due for completion by 2030, the biggest single one planned would come later – a £10bn AI data centre in Blyth, near Newcastle, for the American private investment and wealth management company Blackstone Group.
It would involve building 10 giant buildings covering 540,000 square metres – the size of several large shopping centres – on the site of the former Blyth Power Station.
Work is set to begin in 2031 and last for more than three years.
Microsoft is planning four new data centres in the UK at a total cost of £330m, with an estimated completion between 2027 and 2029 – two in the Leeds area, one near Newport in Wales, and a five-storey site in Acton, north-west London.
And Google is building a data centre in Hertfordshire, an investment worth £740m, which it says will use air to cool its servers rather than water.
There is a map of the UK, with dots showing data centres everywhere.
One will certainly be coming to a suitable space near you.
Concerns Over Energy Needs
These three paragraphs from the BBC article, talk about the concerns about energy needs.
According to the National Energy System Operator, NESO, the projected growth of data centres in Great Britain could “add up to 71 TWh of electricity demand” in the next 25 years, which it says redoubles the need for clean power – such as offshore wind.
Bruce Owen, regional president of data centre operator Equinix, said the UK’s high energy costs, as well as concerns around lengthy planning processes, were prompting some operators to consider building elsewhere.
“If I want to build a new data centre here within the UK, we’re talking five to seven years before I even have planning permission or access to power in order to do that,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
But in Renewable Power By 2030 In The UK, I calculated that by 2030 we will add these yearly additions of offshore wind power.
- 2025 – 1,235 MW
- 2026 – 4,807 MW
- 2027 – 5,350 MW
- 2028 – 4,998 MW
- 2029 – 9,631 MW
- 2030 – 15,263 MW
Note.
- I have used pessimistic dates.
- There are likely to be more announcements of offshore wind power in the sea around the UK, in the coming months.
- As an example in Cerulean Winds Submits 1 GW Aspen Offshore Wind Project In Scotland (UK), I talk about 3 GW of offshore wind, that is not included in my yearly totals.
- The yearly totals add up to a total of 58,897 MW.
For solar power, I just asked Google AI and received this answer.
The UK government aims to have between 45 and 47 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity by 2030. This goal is set out in the Solar Roadmap and aims to reduce energy bills and support the UK’s clean power objectives. The roadmap includes measures like installing solar on new homes and buildings, exploring solar carports, and improving access to rooftop solar for renters.
Let’s assume that we only achieve the lowest value of 45 GW.
But that will still give us at least 100 GW of renewable zero-carbon power.
What will happen if the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine?
I have also written about nuclear developments, that were announced during Trump’s visit.
- Centrica And X-energy Agree To Deploy UK’s First Advanced Modular Reactors
- Is Last Energy The Artemis Of Energy?
- National Grid And Emerald AI Announce Strategic Partnership To Demonstrate AI Power Flexibility In The UK
- Nuclear Plan For Decommissioned Coal Power Station
- Raft Of US-UK Nuclear Deals Ahead Of Trump Visit
- Rolls-Royce Welcomes Action From UK And US Governments To Usher In New ‘Golden Age’ Of Nuclear Energy
This is an impressive array of nuclear power, that should be able to fill in most of the weather-induced gaps.
In Renewable Power By 2030 In The UK, I also summarise energy storage.
For pumped storage hydro, I asked Google AI and received this answer.
The UK’s pumped storage hydro (PSH) capacity is projected to more than double by 2030, with six projects in Scotland, including Coire Glas and Cruachan 2, potentially increasing capacity to around 7.7 GW from the current approximately 3 GW. This would be a significant step towards meeting the National Grid’s required 13 GW of new energy storage by 2030, though achieving this depends on policy support and investment.
There will also be smaller lithium-ion batteries and long duration energy storage from companies like Highview Power.
But I believe there will be another source of energy that will ensure that the UK achieves energy security.
SSE’s Next Generation Power Stations
So far two of these power stations have been proposed.
Note.
- Both power stations are being designed so they can run on natural gas, 100 % hydrogen or a blend of natural gas and hydrogen.
- Keadby will share a site with three natural gas-powered power stations and be connected to the hydrogen storage at Aldbrough, so both fuels will be available.
- Ferrybridge will be the first gas/hydrogen power station on the Ferrybridge site and will have its own natural gas connection.
- How Ferrybridge will receive hydrogen has still to be decided.
- In Hydrogen Milestone: UK’s First Hydrogen-to-Power Trial At Brigg Energy Park, I describe how Centrica tested Brigg gas-fired power station on a hydrogen blend.
- The power stations will initially run on natural gas and then gradually switch over to lower carbon fuels, once delivery of the hydrogen has been solved for each site.
On Thursday, I went to see SSE’s consultation at Knottingley for the Ferrybridge power station, which I wrote about in Visiting The Consultation For Ferrybridge Next Generation Power Station At Knottingley.
In the related post, I proposed using special trains to deliver the hydrogen from where it is produced to where it is needed.
Could HiiROC Be Used At Ferrybridge?
Consider.
- HiiROC use a process called thermal plasma electrolysis to split any hydrocarbon gas into hydrogen and carbon black.
- Typical input gases are chemical plant off gas, biomethane and natural gas.
- Carbon black has uses in manufacturing and agriculture.
- HiiROC uses less energy than traditional electrolysis.
- There is an independent power source at Ferrybridge from burning waste, which could be used to ower a HiiROC system to generate the hydrogen.
It might be possible to not have a separate hydrogen feed and still get worthwhile carbon emission savings.
Conclusion
I believe we will have enough electricity to power all the data centres, that will be built in the next few years in the UK.
Some of the new power stations, that are proposed to be built, like some of the SMRs and SSE’s Next Generation power stations could even be co-located with data centres or other high energy users.
In Nuclear Plan For Decommissioned Coal Power Station, I describe how at the former site of Cottam coal-fired power station, it is proposed that two Holtec SMR-300 SMRs will be installed to power advanced data centres. If the locals are objecting to nuclear stations, I’m sure that an SSE Next Generation power station, that was burning clean hydrogen, would be more acceptable.
The Anonymous Widower 