As you can see the June Informed Sources is bursting at the seams with a varied batch of items, so let’s get straight into the preview.
Virgin Rail’s announcement that it was looking to run its Pendolinos at 135mile/h, initially along the Trent Valley after the current quadrupling and resignalling is completed, both intrigued and puzzled me.
In a press release Virgin claimed ‘while speeds of 140 mile/h and above will require new trackside signalling linked to in-cab signalling equipment on the trains, trains can operate at 135 mile/h using existing signalling’. But, as a quick check with HMRI confirmed, the current situation remains, and I quote, ‘optical sighting of signals cannot be relied upon at speeds over 125m/h’.
It turns out that Virgin based its claim on French Railways, where TGV runs on classic routes at 220km/h. But there is one a very big difference – TGV is fitted with automatic train protection.
Surprisingly Virgin Rail hadn’t spoken to HMRI before going public, although they did ask Network Rail to have a look at the possibilities. According to Informed Sources Network Rail is going through the motions.
But this initiative is a reminder that the last decade has been the first time that inter-city journey times have got slower, although the West Coast has recovered with the arrival of Pendolino. All of which raises the question of whether speed is no longer a commercial issue or the railway has lost its way.
So, in addition to Virgin’s aspirations, this piece looks at technical developments, such as better braking and TPWS, which might allow line speeds to be increased above 125mile/h without cab signalling. It also outlines the concept of flashing green signals to provide a fifth aspect.
I hope this item will be the start of a re-evaluation of the role of speed in the passenger railway. Within the industry views are polarised. On the one hand there is the speed = progress school, while on the other are the new realists who argue that as road pricing and oil costs force people out of cars and planes, the railways won’t need to compete on journey time.
Inevitably, there is more coverage of GNER and the East Coast open access saga. I’m avoiding the perceived rights and wrongs of open access competition and focusing on the facts. These include parent Sea Container’s announcement that the auditors’ report on the 2005 results is expected to include an explanatory paragraph ‘raising substantial doubt about Sea Containers' ability to continue as a going concern’.
In the column you will also find details of Sea Containers’ financial guarantees to GNER, which are substantial, plus some more analysis on upward pressures on franchise costs – particularly electric power. And, thanks to a Freedom of Information request I banged in to DfT Rail, I have more on what bidders for the franchise were told about open access on the ECML.
After some nagging, I have also obtained a copy of the ICEC Franchise Agreement signed by GNER and this, too, has a section on open access operators. But I am not convinced that we have the full story yet and, of course, as I write GNER and its lawyers are pondering whether to take ORR to judicial review over the GCR decision
While the lobbying over the North/south high speed line gets more vocal, and the government wonders what to do about CrossRail, a much more immediate, not to say long overdue, project drifts in limbo. Yes, it’s Thameslink 2000.
The report of the Inspector’s follow-up Inquiry reviewing the changes to the original scheme following its initial rejection is now worryingly overdue. Even so, someone should have been thinking about how the scheme will be funded by now.
Some digging in the inquiry papers has unearthed a recent cost estimate and analysis of this shows where some of the boiling frogs live. In modern money Thameslink 2000 was originally costed at £825 million. The table of current costs in this month’s column shows how the Ford Factor can be 3.75 or 2.5.
I think this is the most explicit demonstration of the impact of extraneous factors on major project costs yet published.
When then Times picked up that the Class 458 fleet had been denied six month’s standby use backing up SWT’s Class 450 Desiros, DfT Rail was forced on the defensive. It helped that the Today programme ran an interview with me which got John Humphrys spluttering with outrage. ‘If necessary the decision will be reviewed’ conceded a DfT Rail spokesperson, but, of course, the Class 458’s were not the real issue.
I was invited to speak at a conference on disability legislation in May, opening the post-lunch debate with something provocative. So I used the Class 458 shock horror to point out that the real issue was the requirement for all trains to comply with the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations by 2020. With a nominal 35 year life this means that any train build after 1985 and before the RVAR coming into effect in 1998 could be retired early if modifications for compliance are too expensive or physically impossible.
What we needed, I argued, was to apply tolerances to non critical measurements, such as push button heights, and focus the money on what is really importance to the disabled. And I got a remarkable response from DfT Rail’s Disability Enforcer on what happens after 2020.
It looks as though commonsense may be breaking out, not through rational argument, I hasten to add, but by the prospect of large scale action replays of the 458 media storm. Making sure that common sense continues to reign in the face of the disability advocacy groups (a new PC phrase I picked up at the conference) is going to be a long campaign. Don’t expect a count down to 2020 though!
Many subscribers won’t believe this, but if the blockade between Cheadle Hulme and Crewe is lifted on 12 June as excepted trains are likely to be running under absolute block. The blockade, for resignalling between Sandbach and Wilmslow with Ansaldo’s ACC computer based interlocking, was originally scheduled to run from 10 December last year to 26 March. Then, in February, Network Rail announced that it was being extended to ‘early June’.
Ansaldo told me they were ‘pushing hard’ to ensure that ACC would be able to provide fixed block working from June. Further functionality will be added progressively and current thinking at Network Rail is that full signalling functionality will be introduced over the Christmas-New Year shut down.
According to Network Rail one reason for the latest delays with ACC are differences of interpretation of UK signalling principles on a safety critical software platform designed for European principles. This involves hundreds of test logs. Network Rail’s John Armitt used a civil engineering term to describe this work - ‘balls-aching’.
After all this, I had to introduce some light relief for readers and a query from a top-man at Network Rail provided the very opportunity.
‘How much of the latent heat in a trainload of coal is used by the electric locomotive hauling it to the power station’ he asked?’. I won’t tell you the answer here, but it surprised me. I also did the sums for British Rail’s last freight steam locomotive. And, no, I’m not proposing the return of steam in a coal fired economy
Finally, for technically inclined readers, and policy makers, there is an analysis of dual mode options for HST2. Actually, I now think that we need a new name, as HST2 is unlikely to be a 21st Century version of the iconic 1970s universal high speed train.
I analyse three options in detail – a dual mode power car (an electro diesel in other words); a dual power Class 22x DEMU with an additional trailer car with pantograph and underfloor transformer in place of the diesel engine raft; and a hybrid power car, similar in concept to the Toyota Prius car.
Of these, the best bet technically is the dual power Class 22x, since it already has electric transmission and a power line down the train which allows cross-feed between cars in the event of one diesel power pack shutting down. The hybrid, on the other hand, demonstrates that automotive technology does not necessarily scale up to high speed traction power ratings, and that you would have to drag several tonnes of batteries around.
It’s been fairly busy since the last e-preview. Stagecoach had an evening reception where Brian Souter promised that he would not be putting a red-mist win-at-all costs bid for the South Western Franchise. In honour of the World Cup South Western is officially the Franchise of Death.
In the same week I peeled off from the disability conference for a briefing on the latest RSSB annual Safety Report over sandwiches. Lot’s of positive news to report, especially on the reduction in SPAD risk which is now so low that ERTMS is no longer a safety issue. More on this in the next column.
After that there was the Young Member’s Evening organised by the Railway Division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Three varied papers – the winner covering the topical issue of low sulphur fuel. Sounds boring? Well, it’s a big issue if you have a diesel powered franchise with both cost and performance affected.
Finally, there was the launch party for Andrew Dow’s pioneering Dictionary of Railway Quotations. Among those present, as they say in the gossip columns, was the son of that legendary railwayman Sir Sam Fay and my old friend Richard Hardy, Divisional Manager Kings Cross in Gerard Fiennes time and even then noted for firing any steam locomotive he could travel on.
‘Still firing, Dick’, I aside? ‘Yes, but I can only manage 25 miles at a time now’, he replied. Not bad for 82.
As always, feedback is greatly appreciated to roger@alycidon.com.
Roger