INFORMED SOURCES e-Preview June 2007
I hope e-Preview subscribers have recovered from last month’s Intercity
Express Programme (IEP) blockbuster. It certainly generated a wealth
of feedback. Thanks as ever for your comments and I hope I managed to
answer at least some of your questions.
This month’s column can’t avoid IEP entirely, but otherwise returns to
the usual spread of subjects
Back to the future for IEP procurement
Hayabusa – hardware demonstrates hybrid credibility
Train leasing – ORR bottles out
Electrification – DfT poses nuclear threat
An insatiable demand for cash.
From last month’s technical and commercial specification, the June
column turns to the equally perplexing funding arrangements for the new
train. It’s very much back to the future, with the Department of
Transport (DfT) Rail looking to set up a 30-35 year private finance initiative
deal. Back in 1985, a similar 20 year deal covered the provision of
new trains for London underground’s Northern line As I write Alstom, the
funders and Tubelines, have been trying to restructure the deal for
over a year.
When you think that IEP could involve £3 billion plus of new trains,
let alone 30 years of maintenance provision, spares and mid life
rebuilds, the financial risk is huge. So a lot of DfT Rail’s efforts at the
IEP industry day went on providing what is called ‘comfort’ for the 35
financial institutions present.
What the Government hopes will attract the banks is the prospect of
long term asset finance based on a 30-35 year payment stream. Compared
with buying a fleet and getting your money back through a series of
leases, the return on your investment in IEP will be government backed.
Comfortable words include being ‘near’ to the government revenue
stream, a ‘bankable’ risk allocation and payment mechanism. The train Service
Provider’s agreement with the TOCs, will also be ‘underpinned’ by
government. Then there’s Section 30 of the Railways Act 1993, not to
mention a possible application of Section 54.
Despite this, there were doubters at Industry Day. Someone asked what
would happen if government policy changed? DfT Permanent Secretary
Sir David Rowlands replied ‘To quote Margaret Thatcher, there is no
alternative’. Now that really is scary
Hayabusa
Long experience tells me it is prudent to be sceptical about new
technology.. So I went off to Loughborough to see Porterbrook’s ‘new’
Hitachi/Brush hybrid Class 43 IC125 power car with some hard questions and
some hard numbers to back them up.
And, for once, not only did the answers convince, but the numbers added
up.
Hayabusa – Japanese for Falcon – uses 960 kg of Lithium-ion battery
which can store 48 kilowatt hours. What’s that mean in the real world?
Well the battery could give you 1 MegaWatt (1,340hp) for nearly 3
minutes. Of course, you wouldn’t do that often because it would rapidly
knacker the battery. But it does show that we are talking serious traction
power.
Hitachi alternating current traction motors, rated at 300kW each, have
been fitted to the power car. The battery plus the inverters which
drive the motors are mounted in, and underneath, a Mk3 coach coupled to
the Class 43. The new motors and inverters provide regenerative braking
the energy from which is stored in the battery and can be used to power
the motors.
And it was very impressive to see Hayabusa, coupled to two more Mk 3s
and another power car, accelerate away silently and return at speed. My
sums suggest that using Notch 2 Hayabusa can recover all the energy
released in braking the 70 tonne power car from 125mile/h to standstill.
So, pending further testing followed by service trials in the New
Measurement Train, hybrid traction works as advertised. And in the column I
give some examples of the benefits which go beyond simply saving diesel
fuel.
I reckon that Diesel Electric Multiple Units rather than locomotives,
are the most likely application. Hitachi has three hybrid DEMUs
entering service in Japan. If Hayabusa soars, how about a Meridien for the
next demonstrator?
ROSCO inquiry
As expected, on April 26 the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) confirmed
its ‘minded to’ decision to refer the leasing of rolling stock to the
Competition Commission for further investigation. And that’s it, really.
we now sit back and wait for two years while several millions are spent
by the Competition Commission and the ROSCOs who, I have to say, have
switched from grumbling to ‘bring it on’!
Of course, for connoisseurs of unintended consequences a veritable
feast is in prospect. DfT Rail argues that the market isn’t working, so
give us the money. ORR wants to know why the market isn’t working and
thinks that it’s more down to DfT’s franchising system rather than the
ROSCO’s exorbitant rentals.
It is a massive non-meeting of minds and it will be interesting to see
how the Competition Commission sorts it out.
Among the ROSCOs the feeling is, to quote one MD, that the decision is
a ‘total cop out’ by ORR Chairman Chris Bolt. When I put this to Chris
he counterclaimed that it would have been very difficult to justify a
decision not to have made the referral.
But you have to analyse Chris Bolt’s words very carefully and I pass
this on for readers’ to ponder. The ability to implement the
Competition Commission’s conclusions will be vital and only the Competition
Commission has the powers to impose remedies. Had ORR kept the
investigation in house, it would have been limited to accepting undertakings that
had been offered voluntarily.
Possibly walking towards a door with a bucket balanced over it on the
other side, DfT Rail agrees that a price remedy would need to be
‘implemented, monitored and enforced’ by the Competition Commission, since
the ORR ‘is not in a position to comment on such factors’.
Be careful what you ask for, your wishes may be granted.
Sir Humphrey meets his master
I can’t preview this item without giving away an unbelievable piece of
civil service sophistry. So you’ll have to wait to read to fond what
links electrification, another Chernobyl and fuel cell powered cars.
A billion here, a billion there
Squeezed out by last month’s traction and rolling stock extravaganza
was Network Rail’s Business Plan, covering the remaining two years of the
current Control Period. This was spun as being all about enhancements,
but I growled ‘Bah! Humbug’ and dived into the cold numbers at the back
of the glossy publication. And what the figures show is worrying.
What concerns me is the mismatch between Network Rail’s falling
expenditure from 2009, as forecast in ORR’s Advice to Ministers, and this
table which shows income and expenditure rising.
Table 1
£m (nominal)
|
2006-07
|
2007-08
|
208-09
|
% increase
|
Grant + fixed TAC
|
4784
|
4911
|
4955
|
3.6
|
Grant + fixed and variable TAC
|
5183
|
5359
|
5437
|
4.9
|
OMR
|
5145
|
5600
|
5389
|
4.7
|
Source: Network Rail
Achieving ORR’s most generous estimate of Network Rail’s spending in
2009-10 would mean a cut of £1 billion on the 2008-09 figure, or 20% in
a year. Whether the SoFA will be big enough remains to be seen.
Also worrying is Network Rail’s rising debt. In the current financial
year (2007-08) interest tops £1bn for the first time. I can remember
when you could run a growing railway for that much subsidy a year and
electrify the East Coast Main Line.
Roger’s blog
Last month I signed off not knowing whether I would be allowed to
attend the IEP Industry Day. And after much badgering and lobbying by
industry colleagues, DfT Rail decided my place was outside the tent pointing
in. No matter I had live feeds from various chums inside the meeting,
debriefings from more chums afterwards and to their credit DfT Rail
ensured that I has a full set of power point presentations made during the
day and transcripts of the Question and Answer sessions have been
published.
That week ended with the President’s Address at the Institution of
Railway Signal Engineers followed by the annual dinner. I got to the
meeting, a few minutes late and sat down just as the outgoing President,
John Francis was finishing the end-of-session housekeeping. ‘We have
elected some new Companions and I would like to present his certificate to
the one who is here tonight’, he said. I had my pencil poised to write
down the name when John said ‘would Roger Ford please come forward’.
Companion is the highest honour the engineering institutions can award
to a non practising engineer. It was a complete shock and the audience
was highly amused to see me lost for words for once. The address by
the new President was that rare thing, a dispassionate look at the
European Rail Traffic Management system (ERTMS). More on this subject next
month.
I’ve written about the visit to the Great Central Railway to see
Hayabusa. The following week I had a session with ATOC on their top 25
enhancement schemes and last week there was an interesting evening with
Stagecoach at their summer reception.
Looking ahead I’ve got a week’s holiday in Scotland then June should be
lively with a whole string of conferences starting with Railfreight
2007.
Meanwhile, the ‘Electrify!’ petition on the no 10 web site is ticking
over but we need another push to get to the target of 5000 signatures by
the time the HLOS is published. Currently the total is just over
3,300. I expect most e-Preview subscribers will have signed up by now, but
if you can encourage colleagues to support the cause, every signature
helps
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Electrify/
Finally, we have given the Alycidon Rail Topical Rail Acronym Converter
(TRAC) a spring clean. MARA and TARA are in there and fans of Captain
Scarlet will even find a little joke.
Roger
