Year-end is a most disorienting time on Modern Railways. Because we publish on the fourth Friday of the month preceding the cover date, the January issue usually comes out just before Christmas: I am now planning and researching the February 2008 column.
It’s even more complex this year because the fourth Friday falls between Christmas and the New Year so, strictly, in our seasonal greetings we should be hoping that readers enjoyed a happy Christmas and will have a prosperous new year.
Fortunately e-Preview goes out on Christmas Eve, so that I can wish all subscribers the compliments of the season.
On 20 December the ORR wrote to the Transport Secretary and the Scottish Ministers with the initial assessment of the ‘likely affordability of the high level output specification’. The good news is that ORR reckons that the HLOS for
So the HLOS and the SoFA balance, and the same is true in
In terms of Network Rail’s income needed to meet the HLOS, ORR makes the range £19.8 billion-£22.8 billion (I’ll try and explain the link between the SoFA numbers and income in February). But if you slogged through my analysis in the November issue you will know that the Network Rail Strategic Business Plan costed the HLOS at £24.6 billion. So the gap is somewhere between £1.8 billion and £4.8 billion. I made it £3-5 billion which, given the mind-numbing complexity, opacity and sometimes irreconcilable nature of the numbers involved was close enough for sensible discussion.
Full analysis next month. setting the scene for the railway cost battle which will rumble on throughout the coming year – against a backdrop of growing financial crisis.
January is Modern Railways’ traction and rolling stock issue with the Informed Sources Annual Fleet Reliability Review setting the scene. This is the only train reliability analysis using the official National Fleet Reliability Improvement Programme (NFRIP) figures. And this year’s review shows that NFRIP is certainly working, with reliability improving all round.
I won’t spoil your enjoyment of finding out who’s hot and who’s not, but I will draw your attention to the Intercity operators, where one figure was so impressive that it won one of Captain Deltic’s champagne challenges.
I declared a moratorium on electrification for the remainder of 2007 in the October column and stuck to it despite some readers wanting me to keep up the pressure. The wisdom of keeping quiet emerged when the traditional brown paper envelope brought me a copy of a joint letter from Network Rail and ATOC to Department for Transport Director General Rail and National Networks Mike Mitchell. It was signed for the two organisations by Network Rail Chief Executive Iain Coucher and Chairman of the Association of Train Operating Companies Adrian Shooter.
It was such a powerful repudiation of the negative approach to electrification in the ‘Sustainable railways’ White Paper that I have printed it in full as the manifesto for the electrification movement. And it wrong-footed DfT Rail totally. As one of the signatories said to me ‘they didn’t expect us to go “boom”’.
Mike Mitchell replied on 9 November and as you can imagine I have a lot of fun deconstructing his letter. I hope you enjoy it too.
It opens defensively, refuting interpretations of the White Paper as ‘anti-electrification’. Subsequently Transport Minister Tom Harris accused ‘some commentators who believe rail’s environmental future lies in further electrification’ of suggesting that the White paper ‘blatantly dismisses this option out of hand’.
This is the first of multiple weasel sightings in the letter. The serious railway commentators argue on the basis that an electric railway is a better railway, with the environmental benefits coming free.
But when you emerge from the thickets of the defensive screen, it is clear that DfT Rail is on the back foot. I certainly didn’t expect to see Mike Mitchell write ‘I understand that part of the basis for cost reduction will depend on continuity of work, so that some form of “rolling programme” is likely to produce business advantages for Network Rail’. Nor to add, ‘these developments should form the foundation for the next stage, in which we should look in more detail at the business basis for infill schemes and new route electrification, in both cases using rolling stock renewal and cascade, and resignalling as opportunities to maximise cost-benefit’.
On the basis that you reinforce success, Network Rail and ATOC will be stepping up the pressure in 2008. And as you can read in my Blog, I have been doing my bit with the theme ‘infill in CP4 - main line in CP5’. Iain and Adrian have to be my joint ‘Men of the year’ for 2007.
DfT Rail issued the Invitation to Tender (
When I did, I was soon firing off sequentially numbers queries to the DfT Rail Press Office. When these reached Number 7, it was suggested that I might find a conference call with the men behind the project helpful. It was, indeed, and means that if you find your eyebrows climbing up your forehead at certain passages, I’m not making it up.
Bearing in mind that IEP was originally intended to be an IC125 replacement (HST2) the tables of fleet sizes and delivery schedules published in the column show that this is no longer the primary role. IEP is suffering from what they call ‘mission creep’ in defence procurement. It’s latest, of many, missions is replacing the Class 350 Desiro EMUs on the West Coast Main line and taking over Kings Cross-Kings Lynn services
Flexibility is all, and ‘bi-mode’ in the new big thing. The way to get your head round bi-mode is to think of IEP as an EMU with its own mobile power station. Some of us think it potty, and not very green, to haul a diesel ‘power house’ round the electrified core routes – not that the ‘D’ word appears anywhere in the specification.
Taking electric trains onward where the wires end by coupling on a diesel locomotive seems a simpler solution. DfT Rail point to the problems coupling Class 57 Thunderbirds to Pendolinos for the run to Holyhead, but that was a case of using a coupling intended for rescue and diversionary duties, for timetabled services.
Weights, widely regarded as unachievable by the engineers with whom I mix, have been eased slightly. The expected energy savings are also down, and, because of the comparators used, are not that demanding.
What I haven’t had the chance to do is work out notional vehicle weights which can be done by comparing the diesel, bi-mode and electric specifications and making assumptions on the mass of a diesel ‘power house’ – essentially an IC125 power car, less traction motors. Like electrification IEP will run and run in 2008.
First of all, apologies to those who went to second day of the CILT While Paper conference on 28 November expecting a paper from me on electrification. What happened was that I was invited to speak and offered a slot at the end of the second day. I thought electrification was a bit more important than that and volunteered to open the afternoon in the post lunch slot – which some speakers don’t like but I enjoy.
Deal done in the draft programme. But just as I was firing up PowerPoint to prepare the presentation, I got the final programme and found that I was last but one again – having been shunted to make room for the Conservative shadow transport spokeswoman.
Having checked with a couple of respected speakers that this was, indeed, a bit off, I withdrew from the conference. In the event I was not missed because Iain Coucher and others made electrification the talking point on the first day.
Otherwise November ended on a high. The ERTMS conference on the 20th was an absolute cracker, while the Fourth Friday Club meeting at the end of that week, which includes presentation of my Golden Spanners awards was so popular that we had to move to a larger venue and even then had to squeeze in another table.
On 29 November I had my second cataract operation (and thanks for your good wishes). With two bionic eyes I am typing this without glasses!
A week of solid writing followed, until I went to give a talk on electrification to the Railway Forum over dinner. Well, I thought I was there to give a talk but Chairman Richard Brown soon disabused me. This was a serious meeting over dinner to plan the forum’s strategy to promote electrification.
Fortunately, my talks always seem to end up telling people what to do, so I was well prepared. It was a very productive meeting, from which I learned a lot. The ball really is rolling.
Two days later it was the Rail Freight Group’s Christmas lunch, a rich mine of informed sources and old-fashioned gossip. Oddly I found myself talking more about IEP and Smartcards in the pauses between courses when people wander between tables.
Last week I had been invited to the opening session of a DfT Rail seminar on innovation on the Tuesday. I thought about going but, as the press were to be slung out after the introductory 10 minute presentations from the great and the good decided to preserve my early morning resources for the next day when I would be up before the dawn chorus to catch the 07.30 Eurostar for a trip to
Next day I should have been at the Modern Railways staff dinner on the 17.00 from
Next month gets off with a bang. The Transport Select committee has invited me to give evidence as part of its inquiry into the White Paper.
No prizes for guessing my specialist subject. When the inquiry was announced I made a submission on the White Paper’s treatment of electrification. I’ll be giving evidence alongside Greengauge and the Railway Forum.
Next day it’s up even earlier for a day out in
To mark the start of Informed Sources Silver Jubilee year, e-Preview subscribers are invited to take part in Captain Deltic’s Silver Jubilee Prize Quiz. And what a prize!
Do you want to be the envy of your colleagues? Then you will want this Limited Edition Department for Transport Interoperability mug on your desk.
All you have to do is identify the units missing from the numbers below and e-mail it to me with the subject header Captain Deltic’s jubilee quiz (closing date 14th January 2008). Specify the units, for example vehicles delivered per week. And thanks to Philip Crook who did all the research. In the event of multiple correct answers the winner will be drawn out of the Deltic piston.
‘The Marquess of Salisbury, Arthur Balfour, Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Herbert Asquith together managed 13. Stanley Baldwin and Ramsey MacDonald upped the number to 18. With the aid of Neville Chamberlain, Ramsey Mac and Stan the Man achieved a creditable 45.
Sadly, Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden could only manage 9 But then the two Harolds – MacMillan and Wilson - plus Sir Alec Douglas Hume produced a staggering 83. Edward Heath, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan slumped a bit at 37.
Enter Margaret Thatcher who on her own gets the top score of 86. Sadly, her successor John Major flagged with 11. But that was a massive achievement compared with Tony Blair with a pitiful 2.2 in his time as premier’
Have fun.
Roger