Electric trains take power as it is generated and feed it directly into their traction motors without the need to convert energy or store it. Therefore, they will always be more efficient, more powerful, and cheaper to run and buy than self-powered traction. No amount of innovation can change this.
For this reason, except for the USA, railways throughout the world have electrified their core routes. Britain is another exception. On busy routes it has probably the world’s most intensive diesel passenger service and diesel provides 96% of the energy for its freight trains. For this reason, compared with other railways, the UK has a poor carbon record. Pre-Covid, UK rail’s CO2 emissions were amongst world’s worst with, respectively, 2.5 and 2 times the world average rail passenger and freight emissions.
For these reasons Network Rail’s Traction Network Decarbonisation Study (TDNS) recognised that electrification of at least 13,000 single track kilometres (stk) is needed to deliver a zero-carbon railway.
Yet despite the benefits of electrification, the Westminster Government is unwilling to invest in the electrification rolling programme recommended by TDNS. This is because it is not confident that electrification can be delivered at an affordable price. This is understandable given the cost overruns of the Great Western electrification programme which, despite a reduced scope, was delivered at three times the cost of the original estimate.
Thus, if there is to be a net-zero carbon railway the cost of electrification has to be reduced.
NEEP
Speaking at a PWI conference in October, Network Rail’s Andrew Haines stressed that “we must not underestimate the harm done by the horrendous costs and schedule over-runs on the GW electrification. The ball is firmly back in our court to show that we can deliver cost-effectively, and that we can be trusted.” He also noted that “we must remember that we are publicly financed and must account for our expenditure. International benchmarks are there and used to measure our success, so we must push further.”
At the same conference, Prof Andrew McNaughton, previously Network Rail’s Chief Engineer and HS2’s Technical Director, advised that UK electrification was probably double what it costs elsewhere. He felt the job of engineers was to avoid unnecessary work and do unavoidable work efficiently using standardised elements and a factory approach. As an example of the former he mentioned the unnecessary proposal to demolish Steventon bridge as described in our feature on the PWI electrification seminar.