GWML Electification

[talisman56]

I used to take the 08:35 Haywards Heath to Seaford train (as far as Lewes) when I first started work. The stock for this (usually a 4Vep or a pair of Bulleid-style 2-Haps) came out of the siding between the up slow and fast lines on the high embankment north of Haywards Heath station. While waiting for the stock to be driven to the platform wasn't a particularly chilly prospect whatever the weather, on a cold and frosty winter morning, one took the skin off one's palm when taking hold of the door handle to open the door, and even then if the frost was deep enough the door would be frozen shut!! And when eventually you got in and sat down, it took until roughly the site of Uckfield Junction for the temperature to get to reasonable levels...

[Mike Storey]

As a matter of interest does anyone know where all this steelwork is made? I know this overhead is to a Swiss design but is the steel Britain's finest or is it all imported?

 

The bulk of OLE steel for GWML is being made by a firm in Loughborough, Adey Steel, and all new rails come from Scunthorpe. Don't know about the signals.

[Mike Storey]

T'was ever thus Mike!

 

Where would we be today without 'media' hyperbole!  

 

It's not the media hyperbole that worries me - that's been going on for centuries (eg The Thunderer raging against trains being allowed to travel at over 25 mph etc etc).

 

It's the cynical NR bashing that seems to be coordinated across all the present government's MP's at every opportunity, justified or (usually) not. Are they warming us all up for re-privatising NR (to get it back off Mr Osborne's credit card - no other reason), and probably breaking it up. Despite its many faults, this would be disastrous - anyone remember Railtrack?

[St. Simon]

It's the cynical NR bashing that seems to be coordinated across all the present government's MP's at every opportunity, justified or (usually) not. Are they warming us all up for re-privatising NR (to get it back off Mr Osborne's credit card - no other reason), and probably breaking it up. Despite its many faults, this would be disastrous - anyone remember Railtrack?

Hi Mike,

 

This is one thing that worries me about Network Rail, having experience of trying to deal with privatised companies, it would be in my view a disastrous move to break NR up, the railway would never work at all if if that were to happen.

 

Although sometimes it feels as though the government is forcing moves on NR to make this happen.

 

Simon

Edited January 24, 2016 by St. Simon

[96701]

Hi Mike,

 

This is one thing that worries me about Network Rail, having experience of trying to deal with privatised companies, it would be in my view a disastrous move to break NR up, the railway would never work at all if if that were to happen.

 

Although sometimes it feels as though the government is forcing moves on NR to make this happen.

 

Simon

Exactly what 'devo max' is about in my view.

[phil-b259]

Hi Mike,

 

This is one thing that worries me about Network Rail, having experience of trying to deal with privatised companies, it would be in my view a disastrous move to break NR up, the railway would never work at all if if that were to happen.

 

Although sometimes it feels as though the government is forcing moves on NR to make this happen.

 

Simon

 

Which is why I continue to take on NR bashers on this forum. Like any business NR has its faults - and I readily admit the GWML programme has suffered form quite a few mistakes but even with that its miles better than the Railtrack days when engineering played second fiddle to shareholder profits and the company reputation in the eyes of city investors - people should remember that. Continued NR bashing only encourages the Politicians that 'something must be done' - breaking up NRs 'monopoly' in the name of 'grater competition lowering costs' being a favourite one.

 

As for the Government, well its hardly a secret that at heart, the Conservatives have always been hostile to railways - they require a high level of subsidy and remain a stubbornly difficult thing to flog off to the private sector in the way that other utilities have been. While I welcome the current Governments investment in various schemes that does not blind me to the fact that NR is regarded by the Treasury as an abomination that needs to be 'dealt with' as soon as they can find an acceptable way to break it up that doesn't interfere with the EU requirements to separate trains & track or involve something similar to the PR disaster of Railtrack.

 

Network Rail, is a good employer and one I am proud to work for. It treats the safety of its staff and the public highly plus invests heavily in bringing new talent into the industry through its apprentice schemes. It is full of dedicated staff who do a very good job in trying to keep the nation moving despite much of the infrastructure ruining at or beyond its design capacity. It is good at responding to emergency situations such as the Dawlish washout or the Lamington Viaduct problems and deserves better than to be kicked about by Whitehall to cover for political errors (Like an overly ambitious electrification plan that took no account of the lack of staff available to deliver it).

 

The one comfort in all this for the likes of Simon and other recent entries to the industry is the country needs railways and its an industry that has proved remarkably resilient to political attempts to get rid of it. As such I would say to them don't be disillusioned and remember a true railwaymans allegiance is not to whatever companys name appears on their contract of employment - your allegiance is to the railway system as a whole and the passengers or freight that gets transported by it. Its a concept completely lost on Politicians and indeed much of society at large but one that still survives in the wider railway family.

Edited January 25, 2016 by phil-b259

[Zomboid]

Without wanting to go near politics, it's just an observation that rail electrification in recent years has only happened under conservative governments. At one point under the 1997-2010 administration NR was told to investigate de-electrification of Newcastle to Edinburgh, whilst since 2010 there's been a rash of projects that has far exceeded the rail industry's ability to deliver.

Which suggests to me that the current administration isn't really "anti rail". BR got more electrification out of Thatcher than NR got from Blair/Brown...

 

Of course that doesn't mean that our collective memoires shouldn't also include the bungling of privatisation, just that I'm not so sure it's an ideological hostility to rail.

[locoholic]

Which is why I continue to take on NR bashers on this forum. Like any business NR has its faults - and I readily admit the GWML programme has suffered form quite a few mistakes but even with that its miles better than the Railtrack days when engineering played second fiddle to shareholder profits and the company reputation in the eyes of city investors - people should remember that. Continued NR bashing only encourages the Politicians that 'something must be done' - breaking up NRs 'monopoly' in the name of 'grater competition lowering costs' being a favourite one.

 

As for the Government, well its hardly a secret that at heart, the Conservatives have always been hostile to railways - they require a high level of subsidy and remain a stubbornly difficult thing to flog off to the private sector in the way that other utilities have been. While I welcome the current Governments investment in various schemes that does not blind me to the fact that NR is regarded by the Treasury as an abomination that needs to be 'dealt with' as soon as they can find an acceptable way to break it up that doesn't interfere with the EU requirements to separate trains & track or involve something similar to the PR disaster of Railtrack.

 

Network Rail, is a good employer and one I am proud to work for. It treats the safety of its staff and the public highly plus invests heavily in bringing new talent into the industry through its apprentice schemes. It is full of dedicated staff who do a very good job in trying to keep the nation moving despite much of the infrastructure ruining at or beyond its design capacity. It is good at responding to emergency situations such as the Dawlish washout or the Lamington Viaduct problems and deserves better than to be kicked about by Whitehall to cover for political errors (Like an overly ambitious electrification plan that took no account of the lack of staff available to deliver it).

 

The one comfort in all this for the likes of Simon and other recent entries to the industry is the country needs railways and its an industry that has proved remarkably resilient to political attempts to get rid of it. As such I would say to them don't be disillusioned and remember a true railwaymans allegiance is not to whatever companys name appears on their contract of employment - your allegiance is to the railway system as a whole and the passengers or freight that gets transported by it. Its a concept completely lost on Politicians and indeed much of society at large but one that still survives in the wider railway family.

To counter this, as someone who (thanks to Dr Beeching) lives dozens of miles from the nearest railway station & hardly ever travels by train, it appears to me that Network Rail is part of a transport system that soaks up a staggering amount of subsidy from the government (much more than BR), but which is far more vulnerable to bad weather & technical failure than the road network, and is utterly irrelevant to a very large percentage of the UK population. When you remember that most of the UK rail network was built (the expensive bit) with private capital, but now cannot even survive without govt subsidy, let alone upgrade itself, I don't think it is safe to assume that the UK needs (or can actually afford) the railway in its current form. Mismanagement of projects like the GWML just adds to the perception that the railway is dysfunctional, and yet every solution involves throwing even more money at it, or accepting delays and a poorer service.

[The Stationmaster]

Without wanting to go near politics, it's just an observation that rail electrification in recent years has only happened under conservative governments. At one point under the 1997-2010 administration NR was told to investigate de-electrification of Newcastle to Edinburgh, whilst since 2010 there's been a rash of projects that has far exceeded the rail industry's ability to deliver.

Which suggests to me that the current administration isn't really "anti rail". BR got more electrification out of Thatcher than NR got from Blair/Brown...

 

Of course that doesn't mean that our collective memoires shouldn't also include the bungling of privatisation, just that I'm not so sure it's an ideological hostility to rail.

 

To counter this, as someone who (thanks to Dr Beeching) lives dozens of miles from the nearest railway station & hardly ever travels by train, it appears to me that Network Rail is part of a transport system that soaks up a staggering amount of subsidy from the government (much more than BR), but which is far more vulnerable to bad weather & technical failure than the road network, and is utterly irrelevant to a very large percentage of the UK population. When you remember that most of the UK rail network was built (the expensive bit) with private capital, but now cannot even survive without govt subsidy, let alone upgrade itself, I don't think it is safe to assume that the UK needs (or can actually afford) the railway in its current form. Mismanagement of projects like the GWML just adds to the perception that the railway is dysfunctional, and yet every solution involves throwing even more money at it, or accepting delays and a poorer service.

I think we perhaps misread the political situation - neither of the major parties has had a consistently pro-rail record while in Govt and I recall well that it was a Labour politician speaking at a Raiiway Study association dinner back in the 1990s who said that all politicians, of whatever hue, would be glad to see the back of those parts of their regular postbag which moaned about 'the railways' hence at least some aspects of privatisation would never be reversed by even a Labour Govt.

 

In reality the 'awkward squad' are not so much the politicians but the in habitants of H/.M Treasury who seem to have a pathological hatred and fear of anything which actually requires investment or costs money - 'the railways' are perhaps a relatively easy target in that respect, as has been defence (until we again needed it), 'benefits', and even the NHS although for some reason the real eaters of money seem to have been rarely tackled.  Anyway that is where it stems from, that was where much of the practical philosophy of the financial structure of privatisation came from while the politicians in their usual incompetent manner seem to be as good at messing up The Treasury's ambitions as they are at upsetting voters.

 

The railway industry was offered a positive nirvana of electrification schemes and major investment by the present lot in power and, not unnaturally grabbed it (who wouldn't?) even if they didn't really understand how to implement it in detail - they presumably thought they could manage.  Clearly some parts of that much needed investment have gone fairly well, equally some other parts have for various reasons gone far from well and the most obvious of those is what has happened, or far too frequently not happened, on the GWML scheme.  I do not think it unfair to criticise the appropriate parts of NR's management for shortcomings on the GWML scheme - whether they failed to control the project due to lack of knowledge, inadequate budgetting, poor management of works, lack of detailed planning, poor supply of plant and material, or whatever is not absolutely relevant because all of those things were manageable in one way or another with the possible exception of late delivery of specialised plant which would impact on the rate of progress unless other arrangements were made in substitution of it.  One very simple point comes through to me time & time again - if I can take a train journey through the area where work is taking place and see things which do not appear to have been done, or clearly have not been done, which will obviously impact on later stages of work why on earth can't they?  To do that you don't even need an inspection special mind you one of those might enable them to see even more, even if it does cost a few £s.  

 

I sometimes wonder if somebody actually sits somewhere in a project office with a list like the one I offered in Post 1527 and thinks - if we finished the masts on so & so section we could then finish the booms?  And once all the booms are fitted we can go through in a single sweep fitting register arms etc instead of going in doing bits at a time; then we can progressively wire.  Does somebody sit there and actually think we have X number of crane lifts to do therefore we need Y number of possessions with Z number of worksites within those possessions?  I realise - possibly more than they do (or did until help was brought in from among the ranks of the retired) that some sites are potentially very difficult or awkward for the sinking of base piles and will require special attention and have a slower rate of work thus later stages in the process can go on elsewhere until the difficult sites are ready for steelwork.  All of this should be on Gantt charts or something similar - is it?  And progress should be monitored in detail so that outstanding problems can be quickly identified and dealt with - and if the budget isn't there the Project Manager has to bite the bullet and go back for further authority, yet another bullet it is essential to bite.

[Glorious NSE]

I also don't want to get too political, but I think there are a couple of factual errors above.

From memory the plan to de-wire the ECML was one of Railtrack's more batty suggestions, rather than being move by Government, and the GWML electrification was actually announced all the way back in 2009 when Labour was in power. 

Credit where credit's due - when the Conservatives came in they expanded the electrification programme dramatically though...
 

Edited January 25, 2016 by Glorious NSE

[Vanders]

To counter this, as someone who (thanks to Dr Beeching) lives dozens of miles from the nearest railway station & hardly ever travels by train...is utterly irrelevant to a very large percentage of the UK population.

That's a fallacy of "If I don't use it personally then it's not important" and it should be obvious why that argument doesn't hold any water.

[locoholic]

That's a fallacy of "If I don't use it personally then it's not important" and it should be obvious why that argument doesn't hold any water.

What percentage of the UK population regularly travel by train: around 5%, I believe, for journeys to work? So for the vast majority of the UK population, rail really isn't important. The real fallacy is rail enthusiasts believing the UK rail network to be more important than it actually is. The frequent line blockages recently show that big chunks of the UK can manage perfectly well without rail, which is why it's so important that Network Rail ups its game.

[Zomboid]

What percentage of the UK population regularly travel by train: around 5%, I believe, for journeys to work? So for the vast majority of the UK population, rail really isn't important. The real fallacy is rail enthusiasts believing the UK rail network to be more important than it actually is. The frequent line blockages recently show that big chunks of the UK can manage perfectly well without rail, which is why it's so important that Network Rail ups its game.

Some parts of the UK may do ok without a rail network, though given the fuss that was made over a remote and fairly unpopulated corner having it's link severed (Dawlish) I'm not sure where that would be.

The South East of England would collapse without the railway though, at least whilst people have to show up at the office regularly, and I suspect the northern metropolis' would need mass transit inventing if it didn't already exist.

[Reorte]

What percentage of the UK population regularly travel by train: around 5%, I believe, for journeys to work? So for the vast majority of the UK population, rail really isn't important. The real fallacy is rail enthusiasts believing the UK rail network to be more important than it actually is. The frequent line blockages recently show that big chunks of the UK can manage perfectly well without rail, which is why it's so important that Network Rail ups its game.

What proportion don't use it regularly but find it very, very useful when they do need it? Spread that amongst a much larger percentage and it adds up even if individuals' journeys are infrequent. Someting doesn't need to be used often for it to be important (although if it becomes too infrequent by too many it eventually becomes economically impossible to continue).

[jjb1970]

The transport balance in the South East of England (and no doubt other major conurbations) is very sensitive to quite minor modal changes. Whilst the numbers using trains and the underground may not look like the population is dependent upon them the reality is it is that percentage using trains and the underground which allows London to function and even relatively minor disruption has a huge impact on road congestion. As with a lot of things, absolute numbers can be deceptive and not really the main issue.

[Vanders]

What percentage of the UK population regularly travel by train: around 5%, I believe, for journeys to work? So for the vast majority of the UK population, rail really isn't important.

11% of all freight moved in the UK is moved by rail, and that figure is growing year on year. Somewhere in the region of 414 million individual passenger journeys were made by rail, which is another figure that is growing year on year.

 

Rail is important to the UK economy as a whole, and is therefore important to you as a UK resident even if you do not directly benefit from it. The "I'm alright, Jack" attitude is short sighted.

[96701]

Rail usage statistics here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/491531/rail-users-factsheet-2015.pdf

[St. Simon]

 

So for the vast majority of the UK population, rail really isn't important

 

Apart from the ~ 190,000 people who rely on the railway to put food on the table and a roof over their head.

 

Simon

Edited January 25, 2016 by St. Simon

[Glorious NSE]

Agree with all the above (though I'd expect that freight figure to plummet in the short term due to the sudden move away from coal...)

[Captain Kernow]

Agree with all the above (though I'd expect that freight figure to plummet in the short term due to the sudden move away from coal...)

Slightly more gradual decline, I'd say, although the steepness of that curve may be subjective!

[Captain Kernow]

In reality the 'awkward squad' are not so much the politicians but the in habitants of H/.M Treasury who seem to have a pathological hatred and fear of anything which actually requires investment or costs money - 'the railways' are perhaps a relatively easy target in that respect, as has been defence (until we again needed it), 'benefits', and even the NHS although for some reason the real eaters of money seem to have been rarely tackled.  Anyway that is where it stems from, that was where much of the practical philosophy of the financial structure of privatisation came from while the politicians in their usual incompetent manner seem to be as good at messing up The Treasury's ambitions as they are at upsetting voters.

 

 

 

If anyone wants to read in more detail about the political and civil servant manoeuvrings behind the scenes and the virtually institutionalised anti-rail bias in the 1960s/70s & 80s, I can heartily recommend 'Holding the Line' by Chris Austin & (Lord) Richard Faulkner. The book is sadly out of print at the moment, but if you can borrow a copy or find it on Amazon or Ebay, it's well worth a read. Similarly, their second book, just published - 'Disconnected' is another fascinating read, containing some follow-up information to the first book and also much detail on individual line closures etc.

[caradoc]

Every person travelling by rail is one less on the roads, so the railway benefits everyone, whether they actually use it themselves or not. However, to extend the 'I don't use it so shouldn't pay for it' argument, I don't see why I should pay a proportion of my taxes towards the Fire Service as my house has never gone on fire !

[Mike Storey]

11% of all freight moved in the UK is moved by rail, and that figure is growing year on year. Somewhere in the region of 414 million individual passenger journeys were made by rail, which is another figure that is growing year on year.

 

Rail is important to the UK economy as a whole, and is therefore important to you as a UK resident even if you do not directly benefit from it. The "I'm alright, Jack" attitude is short sighted.

 

Actually, in 2015, it was 1.65 billion passenger journeys in the UK. The highest figure since before WW1, and more than double the total in the mid 1990's. London Underground plus London Trams are not far behind.

[Mike Storey]

What percentage of the UK population regularly travel by train: around 5%, I believe, for journeys to work? So for the vast majority of the UK population, rail really isn't important. The real fallacy is rail enthusiasts believing the UK rail network to be more important than it actually is. The frequent line blockages recently show that big chunks of the UK can manage perfectly well without rail, which is why it's so important that Network Rail ups its game.

 

It is actually 8%, more than once per week, which is c.5 million people. 59% of the population used rail at least once or more in 2014. 1.65 billion journeys were made last year, more than any year since WW1. The NHS it isn't, but sufficiently necessary to be classified as essential infrastructure under the terms of the new Infrastructure Commission, along with energy supply (another idea pinched from Labour by the way, but six years late). So clearly, not really important then.......

Edited January 25, 2016 by Mike Storey

[Mike Storey]

I think we perhaps misread the political situation - neither of the major parties has had a consistently pro-rail record while in Govt and I recall well that it was a Labour politician speaking at a Raiiway Study association dinner back in the 1990s who said that all politicians, of whatever hue, would be glad to see the back of those parts of their regular postbag which moaned about 'the railways' hence at least some aspects of privatisation would never be reversed by even a Labour Govt.

 

In reality the 'awkward squad' are not so much the politicians but the in habitants of H/.M Treasury who seem to have a pathological hatred and fear of anything which actually requires investment or costs money - 'the railways' are perhaps a relatively easy target in that respect, as has been defence (until we again needed it), 'benefits', and even the NHS although for some reason the real eaters of money seem to have been rarely tackled.  Anyway that is where it stems from, that was where much of the practical philosophy of the financial structure of privatisation came from while the politicians in their usual incompetent manner seem to be as good at messing up The Treasury's ambitions as they are at upsetting voters.

 

The railway industry was offered a positive nirvana of electrification schemes and major investment by the present lot in power and, not unnaturally grabbed it (who wouldn't?) even if they didn't really understand how to implement it in detail - they presumably thought they could manage.  Clearly some parts of that much needed investment have gone fairly well, equally some other parts have for various reasons gone far from well and the most obvious of those is what has happened, or far too frequently not happened, on the GWML scheme.  I do not think it unfair to criticise the appropriate parts of NR's management for shortcomings on the GWML scheme - whether they failed to control the project due to lack of knowledge, inadequate budgetting, poor management of works, lack of detailed planning, poor supply of plant and material, or whatever is not absolutely relevant because all of those things were manageable in one way or another with the possible exception of late delivery of specialised plant which would impact on the rate of progress unless other arrangements were made in substitution of it.  One very simple point comes through to me time & time again - if I can take a train journey through the area where work is taking place and see things which do not appear to have been done, or clearly have not been done, which will obviously impact on later stages of work why on earth can't they?  To do that you don't even need an inspection special mind you one of those might enable them to see even more, even if it does cost a few £s.  

 

I sometimes wonder if somebody actually sits somewhere in a project office with a list like the one I offered in Post 1527 and thinks - if we finished the masts on so & so section we could then finish the booms?  And once all the booms are fitted we can go through in a single sweep fitting register arms etc instead of going in doing bits at a time; then we can progressively wire.  Does somebody sit there and actually think we have X number of crane lifts to do therefore we need Y number of possessions with Z number of worksites within those possessions?  I realise - possibly more than they do (or did until help was brought in from among the ranks of the retired) that some sites are potentially very difficult or awkward for the sinking of base piles and will require special attention and have a slower rate of work thus later stages in the process can go on elsewhere until the difficult sites are ready for steelwork.  All of this should be on Gantt charts or something similar - is it?  And progress should be monitored in detail so that outstanding problems can be quickly identified and dealt with - and if the budget isn't there the Project Manager has to bite the bullet and go back for further authority, yet another bullet it is essential to bite.

 

I can see where you are coming from Mike but, if you haven't done so already, I strongly recommend you visit the RailForum thread on this, on which several members are clearly closely involved in the planning and execution of the programme. It will demonstrate they have a very clear grasp on the issues and a very clear plan.