Hammond To Announce ‘More Money’ For Northern Powerhouse Rail
This title of this post is the same as that on this article on the BBC.
This is said.
Chancellor Philip Hammond is to announce an extra £300m to improve rail links in northern England, in a speech to the Conservative Party conference.
Plans to electrify the whole Trans-Pennine route have been in doubt.
But the new money will be used to ensure HS2 will link to faster trains between Liverpool and Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and York – so-called Northern Powerhouse rail.
What would I do with £300 million to improve the rail lines in the North?
To Electrify Or Not!
If we don’t electrify a few routes it will make things difficult.
As an example, you might want to create an HS2 route from London to Middlesbrough, using the Northallerton to Middlesbrough Line.
HS2 trains would probably travel from the HS2 terminus at Leeds along the East Coast Main Line to Northallerton.
If the last few miles were not electrified, then the train would need to be a bi-mode.
However, the dead weight of a diesel engine might reduce the performance sufficiently, so the train couldn’t run at full speed on HS2.
So the HS2 trains would probably need electrified track at all time!
I don’t think that all the destinations that might need an HS2 service are on all-electric route from HS2.
How about these stations?
- Barrow
- Blackburn
- Burnley
- Edinburgh
- Huddersfield
- Lincoln
- Middlesbrough
- Newcastle
- Sheffield
- York
Note that Carlisle and Glasgow are not on my list, but four important stations , that are served by the East Coast Main Line, cannot be reached by an electric train from HS2, because of gaps in the electrification.
Splitting And Joining
I am assuming that trains can join and split like the Class 395 trains to Kent.
As a simple example two five-car trains might start from London as a ten-car train and split at Crewe or Nottingham, with perhaps each train going to different destinations.
Going southward, two trains would join for the dash to London.
Cross-And Same-Platform Interchanges
By clever station design, it might be possible for interchanges at places like Crewe, Nottingham, Preston and York to be a simple procedure, where passengers get off one train and get on the connecting service either immediately or after a few minutes, without negotiating any steps, escalators or lifts.
Electrification
Possible routes to electrify would be as follows.
Batley To Selby Via East Leeds Parkway, Leeds and White Rose Centre
Leeds are keen to build two new stations; East Leeds Parkway and White Rose Centre. The line could be electrified between these two stations to form a new electrified CrossLeeds service perhaps between Batley in the West and Selby in the East.
There is the 4km. long tunnel at Morley and this could be easy to electrify, by using an overhead rail, as was used in the Severn Tunnel.
Leeds to York
This would give the following advantages.
- It would complete a fully electric route from Leeds to York, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
- A time saving of upwards of upwards of five minutes between Leeds and York.
- Direct connection for HS2 to the East Coast Main Line.
- It would allow electric trains to be moved between York and Neville Hill depot in Leeds.
It would also be a fairly simple piece of electrification.
Northallerton To Middlesbrough
This line is only twenty miles long and it would allow electric trains and HS2 to go to Middlesbrough.
Preston To Burnley via Blackburn
I’m very keen on this electrification.
- It would give a lift to the area.
- Electric and bi-mode trains could run between Blackpool, Blackburn, Clitheroe, Burnley, Colne, Liverpool and Manchester.
HS2 trains would be able to reach Blackburn and/or Burnley.
Tunnels
There are several long tunnels in the Pennines. I believe that these should be electrified, as Network Rail seem to be able to handle tunnels.
Bi-mode trains would run through using the electrification.
Improved Lines
These lines could be improved and might even be electrified.
Camp Hill Line
This would create a second line across Birmingham. Extra chords at Bordesley, a couple of stations and electrification would make it a quality improvement.
Carnforth To Barrow
Barrow and the nearby Sellafield need a lift and perhaps, if the line were to be improved bi-mode trains could reach Barrow from Crewe, where there will be an easy interchange with HS2.
Electrifying the line might be possible, but the Heritage lobby won’t want the Lake District spoiled.
Derby To Nottingham Via East Midlands Hub
When HS2 gets to the East Midlands Hub station between Nottingham and Derby, it will need good connections to both cities.
This could be heavy rail or an extended Nttingham Express Transit.
Liverpool To Manchester Via Chat Moss
The electrified route between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Victoria stations has a very low operating speed.
Sort it!
New And Reopened Lines
There are a couple of lines thsat could be built or reopened.
MerseyRail’s Northern Line to Skelmersdale
I like this idea and it could be an improvement with a high return.
Skipton And Colne
This missing link should be created, so that there is another route across the Pennines.
As Skipton is electrified, why not electrify the link and the existing Colne to Rose Grove line, which would be on the Preston to Burnley route that I think should be electrified.
Conclusion
I’ve probably spent £300 million now!
But I do think, if Network Rail are innovative, things can be made a lot better.
What Happened In The City That Banned Uber
The title of this post is the same as this article on the BBC.
It details what happened in Austin, where after a spat over security, Uber left the city.
It gives a good insight into Uber and how the people of Austin reacted.
Monarch Goes Bust
It is not a good time for airlines with Ryanair in a mess and now Monarch has gone bust.
The CAA has announced a web site at www.monarch.caa.co.uk, where passengers should look for information.
I checked the site out of curiosity and it seems to do what the chair of the CAA said it does on the BBC!
The internet would seem to help in these situations.
Why A Zopa Investment Is Like A Salary!
I have been investing in peer-topeer lender Zopa since 2008 and it has been very useful to me.
I wrote Managing Zopa As A High-Interest, Almost Instant-Access Deposit Account over three years ago, and a lot of what I said then still applies.
This graph from Zopa, which shows my cashflow from Zopa for October, explains why it is possible.
Note how people tend to choose to pay their loans on the first and twenty-sixth of the month.
This means that if you have Zopa’s Autolend feature turned off and budget your finance, you have a chance, at the end of each month to give your bank account a top up.
What helps, is that, the two credit cards I use have payment dates around the twelve of the month.
At present too, it seems that about four percent of the money you have invested in Zopa is churned through every month, so is available for repatriation if required.
A College For Train Drivers
One of the successes of Crossrail has been TUCA or the Tunneling And Underground Construction Academy in Ilford, which I wrote about in Open House – TUCA, after my visit in 2012.
Since then a couple of other specialist colleges have opened to deal with other skill shortages in the rail industry.
So now another college is to open that will train drivers, replacing the rather ad-hoc system that currently operates.
It is reported in this article in the Daily Mail. They summarise the plan as follows.
- National academy will establish an apprenticeship providing train driving skills
- It is hoped the move will create more recruits to lower reliance on overtime
- Rail services have been hit by industrial action, leading to staff shortages
- Transport Secretary Chris Grayling could announce the plans next week
The Times also has details and their article says.
- The college will establish an apprenticeship to A-level standard.
- There will be classroom-based courses using simulators.
- Hopefully, it will cut train delays, as according to the Office of Rail Regulation, crew shortages are responsible foe one-in-ten train delays.
- Chris Gibb’s enquiry into the problems at Southern, called for a driver recruitment program to reduce reliance on overtime.
- The academy will be led by the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators and the Institute of Rail Operators, the professional body.
- Funding will be from the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
- It is supported by the union; ASLEF.
It certainly sounds like a well-thought out plan, that should have happened some years ago.
A steady supply of well-trained drivers, might mean that certain train companies would change their method of working, to improve and increase services.
Stepping-Up
If you look at the Victoria Line on the London Underground, method of working called stepping-up is used.
The driver of a train arriving at Brixton or Walthamstow Central stations doesn’t change ends, as they would do on many commuter lines. Another driver gets into the other cab and drives the train to the other terminus, when everything is ready.
The first driver, then walks to the other end of the platform, takes a break and then gets ready to step-up for their next scheduled journey across London.
The process obviously works well, but it does mean that you need more drivers than trains.
Some of the intensive services proposed by new train operating companies will probably need more services will be operated in this or some similar way, which will mean more drivers.
Two Drivers On A Train
In Would It Be Better To Run Some Suburban Trains With Two Drivers?, I’ll admit I was speculating, but I did have an e-mail from a driver, who said it would certainly increase services on the route they worked, without needing any more trains.
Conclusion
I can’t see any drawback to this College for Train Drivers.
Westminster Proposes A Voluntary Mansion Tax
This may seem a bit strange for the Tories’ flagship Council, but it does seem well researched, according to a report in today’s Sunday Times.
Any house worth over £10 million would be put in a new band above Council Tax Band H and the owners would pay double the Band H rate of tax, which is currently £1,376 a year.
Westminster has 2,000 properties in this band, that are worth over £10 million and the scheme would raise £2.75 million, if everybody paid the extra, which would be voluntary.
It’s an interesting concept, that has been well-thought out.
But like most radical plans, I doubt it will see the light of day!
BBC Click On Batteries
This weekend’s Click on the BBC is a cracker and it’s all about batteries.
Electric Mountain
It starts with pictures of the UK’s largest battery at Dinorwig Power Station or Electric Mountain, as it is colloquially known.
The pumped storage power station was completed in 1984 and with a peak generating capacity of 1.6 GW, it was built to satisfy short term demand, such as when people make a cup of tea in advert breaks in television programs. Under Purpose of the Wikipedia entry for Dinorwig Power Station, there is a very good summary of what the station does.
To build Dinorwig was a wonderful piece of foresight by the CEGB, over forty years ago.
Would environmentalists allow Dinorwig Power Station to be built these days?
That is a difficult question to answer!
On the one hand it is a massive development in an outstanding area of natural beauty and on the other Dinorwig and intermittent power sources like solar and wind power, is a marriage made in heaven by quality engineering.
As solar and wind power increase we will need more electric mountains and other ways of storing considerable amounts of electricity.
Close to Electric Mountain, another much smaller pumped storage power station of 100 MW capacity is being proposed in disued slate quarries at Glyn Rhonwy. This article on UK Hillwalking, is entitled Opinion: Glyn Rhonwy Hydro is Causing a Stir.
The article was written in 2015 and it looks like Planning Permission for the new pumped storage power station at Glyn Rhonwy has now been given.
The UK’s particular problem with pumped storage power stations, is mainly one of geography, in that we lack mountains.
However Electric Mountain is in the top ten pumped storage power stations on this list in Wikipedia.
I doubt in today’s economy, Electric Mountain would be built, despite the fact that it is probably needed more than ever with all those intermittent forms of electricity generation.
The Future Of Pumped Storage Technology
But if you read Wikipedia on pumped-storage technology, there are some interesting and downright wacky technologies proposed.
I particular like the idea of underwater storage, which if paired with offshore wind farms could be the power of the future. That idea is a German project called StEnSea.
Better Batteries
Click also talks about work at the Warwick Manufacturing Group about increasing the capacity of existing lithium-ion batteries for transport use by improved design of the battery package. Seventy to eighty percent increases in capacity were mentioned, by a guy who looked serious.
I would reckon that within five years, that electric vehicle range will have doubled, just by increments in chemistry, design and manufacture.
Batteries will also be a lot more affordable.
Intelligent Charging
Warwick Manufacturing Group are also working on research to create an intelligent charging algorithm, as a bad charging regime can reduce battery life and performance.
I rate this as significant, as anything that can improve performance and reduce cost is certainly needed in battery-powered transport.
The program reclons it would improve battery performance by ten percent in cars.
Surely, this would be most applicable to buses or trains, running on a regular route, as predicting energy use would be much easier, especially if the number of passengers were known.
In Technology Doesn’t Have To Be Complex, I discussed how Bombardier were using the suspension to give a good estimate of the weight of passengers on a Class 378 train. I suspect that bus and train manufacturers can use similar techniques to give an estimate.
So a bus or train on a particular route could build a loading profile, which would be able to calculate, when was the optimum time for the battery to be charged.
As an example, the 21 bus, that can be used from Bank station to my house, is serviced by hybrid new Routemasters. It has a very variable passenger load and sometimes after Old Street, it can be surprisingly empty.
Intelligent charging must surely offer advantages on a bus route like this, in terms of battery life and the use of the onboard diesel engine.
But is on trains, where intelligent charging can be of most use.
I believe that modern trains like Aventras and Hitachi’s Class 800 trains are designed to use batteries to handle regenerative braking.
If you take a Class 345 train running on Crossrail, the battery philosophy might be something like this.
- Enough energy is stored in the battery at all times, so that the train can be moved to a safe place for passenger evacuation in case of a complete power failure.
- Enough spare capacity is left in the battery, so that at the next stop, the regnerative braking energy can be stored on the train.
- Battery power would be used where appropriate to reduce energy consumption.
- The control algorithm would take inputs from route profile and passenger loading.
It may sound complicated, but philosophies like this have been used on aircraft for around forty years.
Reusing Vehicle Batteries In Homes
Click also had detailed coverage about how vehicles batteries could be remanufactured and used in homes. Especially, when solar panels are fitted.
Other Batteries
On the on-line version, the program goes on to look at alternative new ideas for batteries.
Inside Electric Mountain
The on-line version, also gives a tour of Electric Mountain.
Conclusion
The future’s electric, with batteries.
A New Gateway To China: Europe Prepares For The Launch Of Baku–Tbilisi–Kars Railway
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Global Rail News. This is the first two paragraphs.
A new rail corridor linking Azerbaijan and Turkey via Georgia is set to launch in September, establishing a new freight and passenger link between Europe and China.
Every year, millions of tonnes of cargo is expected to be transported on the 825km line.
Baku, which is the Eastern terminus of the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars Railway, is the capital of Azerbaijan and is a port on the Caspian Sea. It is connected to Turkmenbashi on the other side of the sea, which is the Western terminus of the Trans-Caspian Railway, which leads to Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and China.
At the other end of the line Kars in Turkey is connected to the European rail network.
Freight forecasts for the route in the Global Rail News article are bullish.
According to estimates, by the third year the annual turnover of cargo on BTK will be three to five million tonnes, rising to six to eight million by its fifth year and more than 10 million tonnes in its 10th. By 2034 this figure is anticipated to reach 17 million tonnes of annual freight.
Wikipedia also says this.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project is intended to complete a transport corridor linking Azerbaijan to Turkey (and therefore Central Asia and China to Europe) by rail. (In late 2015, a goods train took only 15 days to travel from South Korea to Istanbul via China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—considerably less time than a journey by sea.)
The sea journey takes between four and six weeks.
This article on the BBC is entitled All aboard the China-to-London freight train. This is an except from the article describing why Tesco use trains to get goods from China to the UK.
The UK’s biggest supermarket, Tesco, doesn’t have any goods on this particular train but does use rail to carry toys, electrical goods, homeware and clothing from China to European rail hubs such as Bratislava in Slovakia and Krasnaje in Belarus.
Alistair Lindsay, Tesco’s head of global logistics, says the supermarket prefers shipping its goods because this is the most environmentally friendly way, as well as offering the best value for money, but that “where we need to move products quicker we have that option to do it by rail”.
This decision would normally be driven by customer demand for particular products, he says.
So it’s all about value-for-money and customer demand.
Conclusion
I am drawn to the conclusion, that the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars Railway will meet the forecasts.
It has the great advantage over some of the other routes, that it avoids Putin’s Russia, which must be a good thing.
Levenmouth’s Rail Link Moves A Step Closer In Scotland
The title of this post is the same as this article in Global Rail News.
I wrote about the Levenmouth Rail Link before in Is The Levenmouth Rail Link Going To Be Scotland’s Next New Railway?.
According to the Global Rail News article the Scottish Parliament has debated the proposal to reopen the railway and it all went well, with support from seven MSPs from various parties.
The Scottish Transport Minister; Humza Yousaf, recommended that Transport Scotland look at the project.
So perhaps nearly sixty years after it closed, the Levenmouth Rail Link could be reopened.
The project certainly has a lot going for it.
- Levenmouth is the largest urban area in Scotland not directly served by rail.
- The line passes the largest grain distillery in Europe.
- The line is mostly single track and only five miles long.
- The track is still intact, so relaying won’t be the most difficult job.
- Only two stations need to be built.
- Could the stations be single platform?
My only negative thought about the reinstatement of this line is that like the Borders Railway, it might suffer from London Overground Syndrome, where the new line has such a high level of patronage, that more trains have to be procured.
The Anonymous Widower 