Varsity Line sent down!

Good news for fans of Scorched Earth Policy.

Following his swift departure from the Tory leadership election, Grant Shapps has now announced the demise of East West Rail.

This via Cambridgeshire News:

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps says the remaining stages of the East West Rail project should be cancelled. He made the statement during an interview with LBC...

When asked what he would do if he was in charge, he said: "I would cut East West Rail on what's called two and three, the second and third stages. The charges of it, it would save £3-5 million."

This genuinely exciting new cross country railway, aims to restore the lost direct route linking Oxford to Cambridge, serving growing regions in-between and offering new direct connections between the GWML, WCML, MML, ECML and East Anglia 

"Oxbridge" are famed university cities, with global reputations for research, innovation and world beating future technology.

So DfT will restrict the first part of the newly reopened route to errr... diesel traction!

With the smallest of vision, the first part of this new railway reconnecting Oxford and Bletchley, might also have offered a simpler, better railway to passengers and Railfreight customers from across Britain, especially those seeking a direct route between East & West - avoiding congested routes into and out of London?

In happier news, post reshuffle, Pilot Michael Green can always swiftly fly to speedily address audiences in both Oxford & Cambridge, as well as points in-between; aerodromes and traffic allowing.

Just as well, as Eye hears Senior Common Room invitations may now be less abundant...

The future is diseasel - stuff you!

Good news for fans of diminished Air Quality!

This image graces the cover of the Great Western Rail Franchise consultation, published yesterday.

Granted Penzance was not an electrification priority, but surely showing one of these expensive new trains under the wires might have shown that DfT still takes the benefits of electrification seriously?

They're not even trying now, are they?

EGIP expands railway footprint

This from a Mr Euroland…

Spotted just outside the railway, outside Stirling. 

EGIP's obviously going well....

Pointless signs - Emergency Electrification!

A welcome return for Eye's occasional series of Pointless Signs!

This from Steady as She Goes…

Emergency electrification?

Has someone just discovered 'the Reading area' needs to be juiced?

Benefits of bi-modes over electrification illustrated

This from Reginald Trumpet…

The likely first public diagrams for GWR's new IEP trains have appeared on the RAIL website:

I wonder if the 09:54 ECS trip to Stoke Gifford is get more fuel to see it through the rest of the day?

The wires that came in from the cold.

This from George Smiley...

Russia's influence in Western politics continues to spread.

Expect Transport Secretary Grayling to employ a version of the long-standing Soviet military deception technique of maskirovka when he ventures north to Manchester tomorrow to defend his deferment of the Trans-Pennine electrification.

Instead of repeating claims for the discredited 'innovative' use of bi-mode trains, Grayling will seek to wrong foot his critics by declaring that Manchester-Leeds will become a digital railway, in one stroke overcoming all known problems.

And creating a few more, starting with who will pay for the resignalling and the cab fitment. And Grayling's strategic adviser in the DfT, recognisable by the snow on his boots and known as Commissar Aleksandrovitch, seems to have overlooked the report by David Waboso's Early Contractor Involvement team debunking the 40% capacity gain claims made by the former Digital Railway regime.

As our Russian friends might say: "Net sigary, tovarishch!"

Nicky Morgan shoots two ministers!

Interesting fact!

Nicky Morgan was tasked by the last Government with assembling views from East Midlands MPs on the new EMT franchise.

This from the dim and distant past.

In fact the 12th January 2017:

Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South): This time two years ago, when the Blackpool North electrification scheme faced delays and the rail Minister was a Back Bencher, he rightly demanded answers from Ministers. There is now real concern that the electrification of the midland main line will be further postponed or even cancelled north of Corby and Kettering. Will the Minister provide the House with the clarity that he sought for his constituency and give an unequivocal assurance that this key Conservative manifesto promise will not be broken?

Paul Maynard: We are continuing to work towards the key outputs that matter most to passengers. I recognise the importance of the network, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) will work on a cross-party basis to identify the key regional priorities that we want to be reflected in the new franchise. I look forward to working with the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood).

Presumably this tweet, from today, is completely unconnected?

So, electric cars good but electrification of the whole of the Midland Mainline is unaffordable and scrapped..!  https://t.co/32nPjOchxQ

— Nicky Morgan MP (@NickyMorgan01) July 26, 2017

Outstanding!

Good effort.

Outstandingly good effort!

Rail minister races to reassure the Supply Chain!

Good to see that the art of the non-answer is alive and kicking in the Department for Transport.

Or so it seems judging from this clutch of hapless responses to Stephen Hammond's pertinent questions:

Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with Network Rail on ensuring that the railway supply chain receives a sufficient volume of orders through to the end of Control Period 6 to its maintain skilled workforce.

Paul Maynard Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport): We have regular discussions with Network Rail throughout the year on a number of topics, including supply chain capability. We are currently undertaking the biggest investment in our railways for over a century and our HLOS, published on 20 July, makes clear that we expect in the volume of renewals and that funding will be available to meet this increase, subject to further work to assure the costs of this activity. This signals to the supply chain that there will continue to be demand for their services in the current and future control period.

Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, which projects his Department expects Network Rail to complete in Control Period 6; and what the cost will be for each such project.

Paul Maynard Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport): Network Rail published an update to its Enhancement Delivery Plan (EDP) on 30 June 2017. This sets out the outputs, scope and milestones for the projects that Network Rail is delivering, indicating which schemes are due for completion in CP6.

No doubt readers and the supply chain will be reassured to note that schemes originally scheduled for completion in CP6 include the, now very dead, electrification of both the Midland Main Line and Cardiff-Swansea route.

Make it up, you could not.

Infernal combustion at the heart of government

So that nice Mr Gove has decided that diesel cars will be phased out by 2040.

Meanwhile that nice Mr Grayling has decided to 'phase out' further rail electrification immediately.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to joined up government.

How we used to live...

This from the 14th March debate in the Lords on GWML Electrification...

Reproduced now, only because My Lord Bradshaw made such an elegant but pointed observation:

Lord Bradshaw (LD)
My Lords, the Great Western railway electrification scheme was designed in the Department for Transport; it was specified there and the trains were ordered there. However, the new trains and the new system will not provide a faster or better service than was the case 40 years ago, when I was general manager at Paddington. In future, will the Government look very carefully at whether there are better design and procurement methods to ensure that we get a scheme that delivers benefits to passengers and saves the taxpayer money?

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I do not agree with the noble Lord’s premise. I believe that the new rolling stock that I referred to will bring passenger benefits. As I am sure he knows from his experience in and vast knowledge of the area, the IEP fleet, which is coming into service on the whole route, will run in both diesel and electric modes. That will provide flexibility in the delivery and appropriate scheduling of the electrification programme, which I accept is challenging.

'Challenging' is certainly one word for it. Others include... *REDACTED FOR REASONS OF TASTE*

A masterclass in avoiding the question...

This from last Thursday's Electrification debate...

Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
What steps he is taking to electrify the rail network to Swansea and further west. [900455]

The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her election to this House. Electrification work is continuing on the Great Western main line, but the good news for her constituents and others in south Wales is that the new generation of electric trains will arrive in Cardiff and Swansea this autumn, providing more seats and better journey experiences. That is good news for rail users in south Wales and the west country.

Remind me, what exactly was the question?

DfT opens the door to Room 101

This from The Times...

Transport secretary Chris Grayling is preparing to delay the electrification of huge swathes of the railway network amid a deepening funding crisis at Network Rail.

Plans to upgrade core stretches of track on the TransPennine, Midland Mainline and Great Western routes to run electric trains are set to be put back by years in favour of new “bi-mode” trains that run on both diesel and electricity.

Instead, the state-owned Network Rail will be told to focus on its day job of maintaining and repairing existing tracks, amid growing concern that this has been neglected in favour of “trophy” electrification projects.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Electrification benefits explained!

Good news for fans of electrification!

This from the Scotsman...

Plans to close Breich Station in West Lothian, used by just three passengers a week, have been announced by Network Rail. 

The move has been prompted by the £1.4 million cost of replacing its footbridge as part of electrification of the line, which would be saved. 

It is understood the station is likely to have stayed open otherwise.

The Sparks Effect, indeed!

Just imagine how many more of those annoying station things we could close if NR electrified the entire network!

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

If the clever traction engineers at Derby can fit an aluminium tube with seats and air conditioning and braking equipment and doors and bogies and lots of clever electronics and charge £1.2 million a throw for an Aventra vehicle how on earth can civil engineers justify £1.4 million for a footbridge? 

And does that include leaning-on-a-shovel-looking time?

Juicing the network whilst the lights dim...

This from the PM's spokesman in today's Lobby...

"The clear view of the Government is that the lights are not going out.

"We are confident there are adequate supplies available. Power is not going to be rationed. Lights are not going to be turned off.

"The fundamental questions here are: are the lights going to go out? No.

"Will power be rationed? No."

What an excellent time to be embarking on a major programme of electrication, eh?

Reports of the demise of diesel trains appear somewhat exaggerated!

DafT invests £27m and buys errr... nothing!

Exciting news from the ever-profligate Department for Transport.

This written answer from Cruella on the 1st February...

John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which companies his Department has contracted to carry out consultancy work on the Intercity Express Programme; what the total monetary value is of each such contract; and how much each such company has been paid to date.

• Email me when Theresa Villiers speaks
• Most recent appearances
• Numerology
• Full profile ...

Theresa Villiers (Minister of State (Rail and Aviation), Transport; Chipping Barnet, Conservative)

holding answer 18 January 2011

From the start of financial year 2005-06 until approximately 30 April 2010, the amount paid to companies carrying out consultancy work, rail industry advice, legal, financial, business case, technical, project management and procurement advice associated with both the Intercity Express and Great Western Electrification Programmes under the previous administration is as follows. These figures include the time spent by companies in response to Foster Review queries and expenses such as travel and meeting room hire, and exclude VAT and payments to individuals.

	£
Barkers HR Advertising	16,632
Capita Resourcing	431,218
Clifford Chance	1,606
Congress Centre	11,970
Ernst and Young	161,042
First Great Western	149,873
First Class Partnerships	5,913
Freshfields	5,644,844
Jim Standen Associates	10,620
Mott MacDonald	11,827,506
MWB Business Exchange	1,903
Nichols	2,938,071
GNER, NXEC and East Coast Trains	1,233,895
PricewaterhouseCoopers	2,791,582
Reed Employment	51,054
Steer Davies Gleave	1,235,628
Willis Ltd	13,615
Total	26,526,970

For the period from 3 May 2010 until 11 January 2011 the figures are as follows. Most of these costs constitute time spent by companies in response to Foster Review queries, and the continuation of the Great Western Electrification Programme.

	£
Capita Resourcing	7,842
First Great Western	22,261
Freshfields	27,242
Mott MacDonald	79,468
Nichols	178,368
East Coast Trains	46,574
Steer Davies Gleave	82,343
Total	444,098

The Department for Transport currently has live contracts with the following companies. The monetary amounts set out represent the maximum total authorised spend, not the amount remaining for each. As such, much of the work under these contract has already been carried out and invoiced for, and is included within the amounts in the previous tables.

	£
Freshfields	3,600,000
Mott MacDonald	15,000
Nichols	15,000
PricewaterhouseCoopers	25,000
Steer Davies Gleave	45,125
Total	3,700,125

Unbelievable!

How can you spend over £27m of taxpayers money and have nothing to show for it, apart from reams of paper?

If privatisation is such a good idea perhaps time to flog off Great Minster House and pretty damn quick, before it wastes any more of our hard earned cash?

UPDATE: This from the French Taunter...

Eye readers may be wondering why Cruella has bundled the electrification of the Great Western Main Line into a question about the Incredibly Expensive Procurement.

A glance at Rail Amateur reveals the following story posted yesterday:

Bi-mode Hitachi Super Express trains would operate the inter-city service, using pantographs to Bristol and under-floor diesel engines thereafter. Hitachi would build a final assembly plant at Newton Aycliffe in County Durham for the trains. The company says it would create up to 800 jobs.

Evidently the Department now has a cunning plan!

UPDATE: This from several people in the industry who wish to remain anonymous...

"These figures include the time spent by companies in response to Foster Review queries"

Folks get paid to respond to Foster!

Where do we send the invoice?

UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...

Could Cruella explain why GNER / NXEC / EC costs are 10 times those of Great Western, when the costs are supposed to relate to the IEP and GWML Electrification Programme?

UPDATE: This from D1039...

May I draw the bowler hat's attention to the following from PA, under the perhaps misleading heading "Hopes rise for rail electrification"

Welsh Colonial Governess Cheryl Gillan told MPs: "Whatever we are left with when an announcement is made, you can rest assured we have left no stone unturned in making the case for electrification into Wales. I remain optimistic about a good outcome."

If, as Rail Professional reports, wires will stop in CUBA*, how can it be a good outcome for Wales?

Is Wales the new Albania?

*CUBA = the County That Used To Be Avon eg Bristol, or in the case of Parkway, South Gloucestershire

UPDATE: This from Howard Wade...

Surely, the prospect of driving a stake through the heart of the Zombie Train and puncturing the Reality Distorting Bubble enclosing Great Minster House was reward in itself.

That Foster and his two old railway ramrods were seen of with ease by the bi-mode cabal suggests that we might as well have stayed in the office doing something which could be invoiced...

UPDATE: This from The Velopodist...

Eye readers responding to the Rail professional IEP story are all commenting on the basis that the story is accurate.

I'm getting the phone equivalent of blank stares when I ask the people in Great Minster House about this story.

The Midland Main Line electrification looks a particulalry flimsy theory. On top of that, I'm far from sure that the bi-mode cabal have seen off the electric-with-diesel locomotives idea.

These points aside, it looks a super story.

Thursday is cancelled

Clearly Petrol-head and his minions are getting the hang of this railway malarkey.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody last Thursday's big interdependency announcement (HLOS, New Trains, Thameslink, IEP, Electrification, etc...) was errr... postponed.

Eye understands that it is also likely to suffer further delays this Thursday.

Whitehall watchers now claim that all will become clear next Thursday, although that too might be caped.

Therefore probably best not to hold your breath, unless of course you are rammed solid on an overcrowded train, owing to a shortage of much needed new rolling stock.

UPDATE: This from the Great Shunter Who Oversees All...

Surely you mean PINE?

Has DfT Rail policy actually left the station yet?

What with so many NOGO'ed vehicles (IEP, Thameslink, the 1,300 etc...) in the consist.

UPDATE: This from the Major...

If we're to dig out the BR code book, might I suggest that passenger managers telegram Marsham Street with:

REGUP

which, in case you've mislaid your copy, means:

'The undermentioned train is booked up. Can you increase our allocation to...........'

Do not, however, be surprised if the answer is a short NO.

CSR and new trains (or lack there of)

This from the DfT Transport Spending Review Press Notice...

The Government is currently considering revised proposals from Agility trains for the Intercity Express Programme. An announcement will be made in due course.

Because aspects of Thameslink and HLOS rolling stock programmes, as well as projects to electrify the Great Western Mainline, and the rail routes around Manchester and Liverpool, are interdependent with the IEP decision, a full announcement on all these programmes will be made at the same time.

Interesting.

This is the only mention of Thameslink in this document.

Meanwhile HM Treasury's Spending Review document makes no mention of Thameslink at all.

And whilst in DfT's Press Notice there is a vague reference to a project to 'electrify the Great Western Main Line' the Spending Review document refers only to 'supporting investment to improve journey reliability on Great Western Main Line services to Wales'.

So with both Thameslink and the electrification of the GWML in question new rolling stock on either route must seriously be in doubt.

Eye suspects that there are some very worried people in Derby and Tokyo tonight.

UPDATE: This from Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road...

This sounds as though DfT Rail's very own Mr Sisyphus has been awoken and told it's time to start pushing the Rolling Stock Plan back up the hill.

Sparks effect at risk of fizzling out?

This insightful contribution from Thomas Docherty MP (Dunfermline and West Fife, Labour) in yesterday's Commons Energy Efficiency debate:

One thing that brings a wry smile to my face is hon. Members talking of the need for more railways and electric cars.

Those are admirable suggestions, and I support them, but it is never explained where we will get the energy to power those new electric trains and cars.

If we compare our consumption statistics with our supply statistics, the result is worrying. At its peak in 1998, the nuclear industry provided approximately 90,000 GWh. In 2008, the latest year for which figures are available, that had fallen to 48,000 GWh, although it has risen again slightly since then. At the same time, many of our coal-powered stations are coming to the end of their lives.

By the end of the coming decade, all our Magnox nuclear power stations will have closed, as will almost all of the advanced gas-cooled reactor nuclear power stations and many of our coal-powered stations-either because of new European regulations on carbon emissions, which both sides of the House would support, or because they have simply come to the end of their lives.

I suggest that we need to understand that, although the aim of being more efficient in our energy consumption is laudable, we face a massive energy gap that needs to be addressed.

Eye fears that the greatest threat to further electrification may not be a shortage of money, but a lack of juice.

ConDems turn the juice off

More dark clouds over the previous government's electrification plans.

This from a Lord's debate on Tuesday 15th June ominously entitled Transport: Savings

Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Labour)
My Lords, I join those who have congratulated the noble Earl on his appointment and thank him for the courtesy he extended to me when I was sitting in the place that he now occupies. Perhaps I may start with an easy question for him. Does he agree that the maintenance of the commitment to electrify large parts of the railway system, as announced by my noble friend Lord Adonis, and the commitment to build High Speed 2, are both very sustainable and green forms of transport which the new Government will follow?

Earl Attlee (Whip, House of Lords; Conservative)
My Lords, we are committed to High Speed 2, but the noble Lord will understand the problems with expenditure on electrification in the current economic climate.

So that will be a "no" then?