Archive for January 2018
Senior moments with Chris
Transport secretary Chris Grayling has ‘talked to senior people in the rail industry’ who believe that ‘there will only be one generation of diesel engines on the bi-modes, and the second generation will be hydrogen engines’.
[Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Secretary of State for Transport, at the House of Commons transport select committee, ‘Cancelled electrification’, 22 Jan 2018]
[CG:] We are now looking to get the first hydrogen trains on our network within a very short space of time, and the Germans are doing the same. The technology is really moving apace. Battery trains are becoming a real possibility. We have to focus on outputs rather than on the means of locomotion.
There is a “perfectly good and strong business case for electrification to Corby”, Mr Grayling informed the committee.
[CG:] The high value piece of the [Midland Main Line] modernisation programme and the electrification is the piece south of Corby.
That seems not to be the case, if the Beleben blog has understood the figures correctly.
The numbers say the entire MML upgrade, and all electrification north of Bedford, is materially impacted by HS2, so to speak, and the residual Bedford to Corby electrification has an apparent benefit-cost ratio of 0.99 (i.e., not “high value”).
Bedford to Corby could have been part of an unwritten policy to ‘support’ Carillion. Unfortunately, the questioning of Mr Grayling at the transport committee was of variable quality, which might be caused by a lack of technical support, or something else. Mr Grayling was also not asked
- why the September 2016 Midland Main Line electrification economic ‘update’ had been kept under wraps for months on end
- what planning had been commissioned by government on the feasibility of the hydrail traction which (he says) is coming ‘in a very short space of time’.
Council could nott borrow for Toton extension
Nottingham city council ‘will not pay out’ for a NET tram extension to the proposed ‘East Midlands’ HS2 train station. Its deputy leader, Graham Chapman, said any costs for a tramway to Toton HS2 would have to come out of the Government’s pocket (the Nottingham Post reported).
Councillor Chapman opined, “We don’t have the money for it. We could not borrow to extend the line because there is no rate of return.”
Après-pose advice
If Virgin Trains East Coast is having ‘revenue difficulties’ just three years into its franchise, what does that say about the ability to forecast rail passenger volumes and revenues much further into the future, for HS2?
According to journalist Tom Bower, when Richard Branson was planning to secure the renewal of the West Coast franchise, he advised then-transport minister Theresa Villiers to ignore the impossibility of accurately predicting future revenues over the length of a thirteen-year contract.
[Branson: Behind The Mask, Tom Bower, Faber & Faber, 2014, ISBN 978-0-571-29709-2]
The guaranteed profits and the opportunity to pose on engines for photographers roused Branson to plan his tactics for the renewal of the West Coast franchise in 2013, following the extension from 2012. To tilt the odds in Virgin’s favour, he visited Theresa Villiers, the new Tory transport minister. In the passengers’ interest, he told Villiers, the government should grant a long franchise in order to benefit from Virgin’s investment and experience. She should, he advised, ignore the impossibility of accurately predicting future revenues over the length of a thirteen-year contract, and also the certainty of disruption if construction started at Euston station for HS2, the high-speed train.
RB advises
Drawing erroneous conclusions
At the Commons Transport Committee on 22 January, secretary of state Chris Grayling stated that the reason that the Virgin Trains East Coast franchise had run into difficulties “is purely and simply about the revenue it has received to date”.
There was, in essence, a danger it would run out of money before 2020, and new arrangements might be needed sooner rather than later.
Propaganda delivery group
New research by Daniel Mahoney, and published today by the Centre for Policy Studies estimating that ‘the cost of Labour’s renationalisation plans would be at least £176 billion’, was featured on the Rail Delivery Group’s twitter.
As the RDG moves further into the political arena, lots of questions need to be asked about its role. The amalgamation of the former Association of Train Operating Companies with RDG seems to have resulted in the merged entity taking on the role of lobbyist for the maintenance of rail privatisation in its current, extremely unsatisfactory, form.
If Network Rail is part-funding RDG, that would mean public funds are being used for propaganda purposes. And of course, many of the member companies of RDG are themselves owned by the state-owned (i.e., nationalised) railways of other countries.
(White) elephant in the corner
On 22 January, the Secretary of State Chris Grayling is “given the opportunity to produce the information previously requested by the [House of Commons Transport] Committee, explain his responses to requests for further information from the Committee, and outline the reasoning that underpins his decision to replace three rail electrification schemes with bi-mode trains”.
[House of Commons Transport Committee, 21 December 2017]
[…] In July, the Secretary of State announced that bi-mode trains would be used instead of rail electrification schemes on three lines:
* Midland Mainline (MML), north of Kettering to Sheffield and Nottingham
* Great Western Mainline (GWML), west of Cardiff
* And on the Lakes Line (LL) between Windermere and Oxenholme
The case of the Midland Main Line (MML) electrification is particularly interesting, because — incredibly — the original cost-benefit assessment pretended that the HS2 project did not exist.
Of course, the HS2 business case is predicated on transferring intercity journeys from existing lines (especially trips to and from London). When the Midland electrification assessment was very belatedly re-done to factor in the impact of HS2, the economic case collapsed.
The Transport Committee, other MPs, “stakeholders”, and the public were kept completely in the dark about this. One of the results of this secrecy was the embarrassing Commons debate on 7 November 2016, in which honourable members took turns to emphasise the ‘strong benefit-cost ratio’ of the MML scheme.
What is the thinking behind Northern powerhouse rail?
According to Transport for the North’s Northern powerhouse rail factsheet
[TfN (undated)]
Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) is a major strategic rail programme, designed to
transform the northern economy and meet the needs of people and business. It will transform connectivity between the key economic centres of the North. The programme promises radical changes in service patterns, and target journey times. By delivering NPR more than 40% of businesses identified as having the North’s prime capabilities would be within 90 minutes rail travel of four or more of the North’s largest economic centres, compared with only 12% today.Currently fewer than 10,000 people in the North can access four or more of the North’s largest economic centres within an hour. This would rise to 1.3 million once NPR is delivered. NPR would transform the job market, giving businesses access to skilled workers in larger labour markets and offer individuals the opportunity for flexible career development and progression, all within the North.
However, TfN’s January 2018 draft Strategic Transport Plan stated that “the North is home to 16 million people”.
It is entirely unclear why it would be worth spending billions of pounds, just so that 8 per cent of the population of “the North” could “access four or more of the North’s largest economic centres within an hour”.
John Armitt, of the National Infrastructure Commission, described TfN’s strategic plan as a ‘major step forward’.
Which says quite a lot about John Armitt.
Cahsr vastly underestimated the difficulties
The 77% increase above the original estimate for the Central Valley section of California High Speed Rail suggests the rail authority and its consultants have vastly underestimated the difficulties of buying land, obtaining environmental approvals, navigating through complex litigation and much else, the Los Angeles Times reported.
[California bullet train cost surges by $2.8 billion: ‘Worst-case scenario has happened’, Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2018]
Outside critics saw the rail authority’s defense of lower cost estimates as part of an effort to politically protect the project.
Treasury analysis of English regional transport expenditure
According to the Department for Transport, in 2015 – 2016, total public sector expenditure per capita on transport was higher in north-west England than in south-east England.
Massive expenditure for very little return
On 15 July 2015 the Beleben blog stated that “The HS2 stage two concept features dead-end stations in Manchester (new Piccadilly) and Leeds (New Lane), and attempts to adapt for ‘Northern connectivity’ are likely to involve significant additional expenditure for limited returns”.
Little surprise then, to find the proposals for Northern powerhouse rail in Transport for the North’s January 2018 strategic transport plan draft (which consider HS2 to be “a central part of the rail proposition for the North”) involve massive expenditure for very little return.
Consider, for example, the TfN proposal for a new-build line from HS2 into Liverpool.
[TfN]
Emerging analysis shows that a service from Liverpool to Manchester Piccadilly, via Warrington and Manchester Airport, could take around 28 minutes, compared to the current fastest service of 50 minutes between Manchester Piccadilly and Liverpool.
The fastest train service between Manchester and Liverpool is currently about 32 minutes, on the Chat Moss route. As the Beleben blog has pointed out, there is not going to be an economic case for spending ~£3 billion (~£4 billion, for captive 400-metre trains) on a new railway into Liverpool, to save 4 minutes on a journey to Manchester. It’s just lunacy.
