Electrification ‘Very Unlikely’ To Come Back Into EWR Scheme
The title of this post is the same as this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
This is a quote from Andy Free, who is head of engineering of the alliance that is building the East West Rail Link.
The steer from the DfT is that wherever the Alliance is building a new structure it needs to be clear and suitable for electrification, “and we must do nothing that hinders future electrification, but it is not on the short- or medium-term horizon.
Given the developments in bi-mode trains in recent years, I suspect this is a sensible policy.
Electrification is probably cheaper to fit to a train in a nice warm factory in Derby or Newton Aycliffe, than at a remote location in the pouring rain and the howling wind.
In the case of the East West Rail Link, where sections of the route are well defined, as they are existing rail alignments, building the route would involve.
- Raising any over-bridges to be clear of future electrification.
- Building any bridges or flyovers, where the new railway crosses over roads and other railways.
- Preparing the track bed.
- Laying the track.
- Building or rebuilding the stations.
Note I have ignored signalling, as ideally that will be in-cab by radio.
Building the line without electrification must give advantages.
- Network Rail seem to find it impossible to do electrification projects to time and budget.
- Stations without electrification are safer places and easier to design and build.
- There is less visual intrusion for Nimbys to complain about.
- The cost of connecting the electrification to the National Grid is zero.
- There is less copper cable to steal.
In Is A Bi-Mode Aventra A Silly Idea?, I outlined what I believe the ultimate bi-mode train will be like.
A bi-mode Aventra would be a sophisticated train with the following characteristics.
- Electric drive
- Regenerative braking.
- 25 KVAC overhead and 750 VDC third rail capability.
- Automatic pantograph deployment.
- Onboard energy storage.
- Automatic power source selection.
- Diesel or hydrogen power-pack
The first four are probably already in service in the Class 345 train.
A train going from between Reading and Bedford on the East West Rail Link, would charge its energy storage at the terminals and then use this power along the route. If the train detected that the stored energy was running low, the diesel or hydrogen power-pack would cut in and charge the energy storage.
Conclusion
It is my view, that if you are building a new rail line that is not high speed or high frequency, that there is no need to electrify the line, as intelligent bi-mode trains will be able to work the route economically and without the noise, pollution and vibration problems of their diesel engines working all the time.
The Changing Face Of Cambridge
I took these pictures, as my train to Cambridge North station, made a stop at Cambridge station.
There’s certainly been a lot of new building.
Over the years, I’ve seen Cambridge station change from a simple station, where staff had to work hard to juggle terminating and through trains to maintain a decent service into a major rail interchange with the following platforms.
- Two very long through platforms; 1 and 7, capable of taking the longest trains on the UK rail network.
- Platform 1 is actually bi-directional and can be used as two shorter platforms; 1 and 4.
- Two London-facing bay platforms; 2 and 3 capable of taking eight-car trains.
- Two North-facing bay platforms; 5 and 6, capable of taking six-car trains from Ipswich, Norwich, Peterborough and the North.
- A twelve-car platform; 8, that can be used as either a through or a bay platform.
Is there another regional station in the UK with such a comprehensive layout?
Cambridge station and its new sibling a few miles to the North are certainly ready for all the rail developments planned to happen in the next few years.
- Thameslink arrives in 2018
- Greater Anglia’s new trains arrive in 2019.
- The East-West Rail Link could arrive in the mid-2020s.
I would not be surprised if Cambridge created the Trinity by starting the proposed new Cambridge South station at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in the next couple of years.
After all, a third station, will give Cambridge one more station than Oxford.
The Future Of East West Rail
There is an article with this title in Rail Technology Magazine.
This is the opening paragraph.
Shortly before the end of last year, transport secretary Chris Grayling announced unprecedented proposals to create a new and independent East West Rail operation tasked with designing, managing and running services between Oxford and Cambridge.
After the opening of the first section of the route, from Oxford to Bicester and on to Marylebone, which I wrote about in Oxford To Marylebone Opens For Business, things seem to be moving on.
- The Government has announced that the East West Rail Link could be privately financed, built and run.
- This article in Rail Magazine, which is entitled Verster to leave ScotRail for East West Rail, states that Phil Verster from ScotRail will head up the East West Rail Project.
Let’s hope it all means full steam ahead.
Cambridge Thinks About More Stations
This article in the Cambridge News has a headline of Support for re-opening South Cambridgeshire railway station is gathering pace.
It talks mainly about the reopening of Fulbourn station between Newmarket and Cambridge.
This is said.
The Reopen Fulbourn Railway Station group is calling for the station to be reinstated as part of a drive to boost rail connectivity in the area.
Later in the article it says that the Council also wants to open a new station at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and reopen the closed station at Cherry Hinton.
A station at Addenbrooke’s Hospital is pencilled in for the East West Rail Link and the other two stations are on the Ipswich to Cambridge Line.
Wikipedia says this about a previous attempt to reopen the station at Cherry Hinton.
Reopening of the station was proposed by Cambridgeshire County Council in May 2013 as part of an infrastructure plan to deal with projected population growth up to 2050. A proposal to reopen the station had previously been made in 1996 but 70% of residents who responded to a Council questionnaire were against it; in any event, a new station was not considered viable at that time.
There are some cynical comments to the article as well.
But circumstances have changed since 1996.
- Cambridgeshire County Council has more responsibility for this type of spending.
- As I said in Will We Be Seeing More Railway Stations?, it looks like design, technology, new trains and costs are making it easier to make a good case for a new station.
- Greater Anglia will be running new high-performance trains through Fulbourn and Cherry Hinton in a couple of years.
- Network Rail are removing level crossings in East Anglia and there are several in the area, including one at the site of Cherry Hinton station.
The level crossings could be the clincher, as there is a lot of opposition in some places to their removal.
Would Network Rail duck the problems and leave everything as it is?
Levitation Magic
How do you raise a 200 tonne masonry arch bridge by 900 mm, so that you can fit overhead electrification and freight trains with large containers under the bridge?
You used to call in Paul Daniels, but now he’s gone you have to use other forms of magic!
If finesse doesn’t work, you resort to the brute force technique that IK Brunel used to launch the Great Eastern – hydraulic power.
This article on the Freyssinet web site, describes how the bridge was lifted.
For an encore, the engineers then lowered the bridge by 465 mm.
Why raise a bridge like this?
Surely, to use a simple method, like explosives or a large hydraulic breaker and rebuild is a lot easier.
The trouble is it isn’t as this method disturbs the working railway much less and is quicker.
Network Rail also have five hundred bridges like this that need to be raised.
It would certainly make an interesting live stream from the Internet. Perhaps, a fee could be charged to watch for a charity like Cancer Research UK.
Brunel, who played the showman at times, would have approved of that!
Why Grayling’s Proposal For The East-West Rail Link Could Be Right?
I’m not saying it’s right that one company will build the line and then operate it, but I do think it could have advantages.
Track
With the exception of a few short lengths of existing track, most of the construction is a green field site or one where there is just rusty worthless track from decades ago.
This must give opportunities to design a future-proofed route, that in say the 203os or 2040s could run trains much faster, frequent, heavier and longer, than envisaged today.
The route can also be optimised for what is mow believed to be the likely scheduled service.
Stations
This line could have stations optimised for the modern level of working, that the line will.use.
Nothing should be ruled out in station design, if it makes for a more efficient railway.
I would also hope that stations could be modular, so that improvements and new stations could be added by the operator as ttaffic changes.
Get the design right and the company, passengers and staff will benefit.
It would be easier to get the design right, if all stakeholders are in the same team.
Electrification
Parts of the route are electrified and it will have connections to existing electrified lines at Bedford, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Oxford and Reading.
I believe that there could be considerable savings to be made, by designing the electrification so that it is integrated with the trains bought for the line.
For instance, I believe in a few years time that all new trains will have on-board energy storage, so could this be taken advantage of to perhaps?
- Enable regenerative braking on trains, rather than trackside
- Not put overhead wires in stations.
It could be difficult for freight trains and other electric trains, but there could be scope to simplify the electrification.
Signalling
Go digital to save money.
Operation
I have sat in the cab of a High Speed Train as it went between Edinburgh and Inverness. You see a lot and surely some that drivers see could be safety related.
Surely, if the same company is responsible for both trains and track, reporting and fixing problems must be much more direct.
Conclusion
Good design could really.make the railway cheaper to build and operate.
So if it’s one company, with everybody working to the same objectives, it must benefit that company, if someone has a good idea at any point.
If they have a bad idea, then hopefully it will.be ignored.
A Good Idea For The Railways?
I’ve just read this article on the BBC, which is entitled Trains and Track Come Together In Rail Management.
It could be a good idea.
If I take the railway I know best, the London Overground, the track and stations, may still be owned by Network Rail but TfL work strongly with NR in deciding what gets done and when it gets done. You could almost say that LO is the tenant and NR is the landlord, but that both bofies sit together on the same management structure. It seems to work well however they do it. But it’s mainly good management and probably good people too.
You might ask, why doesn’t LO own the tracks and have their own maintenance teams! But do you do all the work on your house yourself or call in a specialist?
But as with a block of flats having a central.focus gives all owners and tenants a central point to get something fixed.
As the BBC article says, Network Rail has split itself into the various routes. So in East Anglia, NR’s local team are responsible for tracks and Greater Anglia for trains.
I can see interesting possibilities opening up. Say you are a developer and you have obtained planning permission to build a large industrial park or thousands of houses on an old military site, that lies alongside the railway.
As the joint management now has all the assets and permissions to fit a new station into their network, the developer might get the new station they need to make their development very successful.
Some will argue that trains and track should be in one enormous nationalised industry, but how would the little man on the Felixstowe Class 153 get a handle on that?
An Understated Headline
This article on Business Insider is entitled A rail link between Oxford and Cambridge could help create a massive tech hub in the UK.
Could is not the word I’d use!
This page on the Government web site, contains a summary of the report, on which the article is based.
This is the second paragraph of the report.
The Commission’s central finding is that a lack of sufficient and suitable housing presents a fundamental risk to the success of this area. Without a joined-up plan for housing, jobs and infrastructure across the corridor, it will be left behind its international competitors. By providing the foundations for such a strategy, new east-west transport links present a once in a generation opportunity to secure the area’s future success.
As housing is so important to any development, this is crucial. The interim report makes a series of recommendations. This is the first.
- Government should go ahead with East West Rail’s initial phase, a new link cutting journey times by more than half on the route from Oxford to Bedford and Milton Keynes, ensuring it is delivered before 2024; and it should invest in developing as soon as possible detailed plans for both the next phase of East West Rail (which would complete the link to Cambridge) and for a new Oxford-Cambridge Expressway.
So why is the Government farting about?
I blame the following.
- The route via Bedford, contains lots of great-crested newts, in all the disused brick works.
- The name; East West Rail Link, doesn’t have North in it.
- Oxford doesn’t want a railway, that might encourage more visitors who would interfere with academic life.
- The Sir Humphries of this world went to one of two universities; Oxford or Cambridge. They believe the two academic cities shouldn’t be connected and certainly not via Milton Keynes.
- Addenbrooke’s hospital has objected, as it will bring lots of patients from the route to their world-class facilities.
- It doesn’t go near Islington for the Labour Party or Edinburgh for the SNP.
- Democracy
The Chinese would have built it last week or possibly yesterday, as it calls at Bicester Village!
A Level Crossing That Should Be Closed
One of my Google Alerts found this article in the Bicester Advertiser, which is entitled Tunnel could be dug under Bicester London Road railway line to keep route open.
So I found a Google Map of the crossing and Bicester Village station.
Bicester Village Station And The London Road Level Crossing
If you consider that when the next phase of the East West Rail Link opens in a few years time, the following passenger trains will be going through the station.
- 2 trains per hour (tph) from London Marylebone to Oxford
- 2 tph from Oxford to London Marylebone
- 2 tph from Reading to Bedford/Milton Keynes
- 2 tph from Bedford/Milton Keynes to Reading
That is 8 tph for a start and when you add in a few long freight trains, it is surely a good idea to close the level crossing and dig a road tunnel under the rail line.
Sometimes You Win Slow
Announcements on the East West Rail Link, haven’t exactly come thick and fast, the last one being the route of the section between Bedford and Cambridge, that I talked about in Is Cambridge University Being Pragmatic About The East West Rail Link?, was published in March 2016.
This article on Mix96 is entitled Winslow’s Station Is One Step Closer.
This is said.
Now a station for the town is one step nearer as Bucks County Council has paid £900,000 for a site to build it.
That looks like nine hundred thousand small steps to me.
Winslow station is to be built to the North-West of the town and this Google Map shows the location.
Winslow Station Site
The lower black scar contains a rusty single-track and is all that remains of the original Varsity Line
When open the station will have two services.
- London Marylebone to Milton Keynes Central via Aylesbury, Winslow and Bletchley
- Reading-to Bedford via Oxford, Winslow, Bletchley and possibly Milton Keynes Central.
Wikipedia talks about opening one train per hour on both services in 2019.
The Anonymous Widower 