Dumbshit Treasury brain stuff this: India and Denmark etc just said 'we would like to electrify our rail network, we will set up an arm of government to steadily do it all'. Their teams finish one project then go straight to next. In the UK we do it piecemeal with no future work guarantee, costs ££. - ThreadSky

jim.londoncentric.media • 19 days ago

Dumbshit Treasury brain stuff this: India and Denmark etc just said 'we would like to electrify our rail network, we will set up an arm of government to steadily do it all'. Their teams finish one project then go straight to next. In the UK we do it piecemeal with no future work guarantee, costs ££.

Reposted from Leo Murray

Indian Railways will be fully electrified next year (it’s at ~99% currently)
UK is at 38% with tentatively another 12-13% new electrification committed
Indian Railways is building a 7000km high speed rail network by 2047
We can’t even get ours all the way from central London to central Birmingham
😫

Comments

urbaneprofessor.bsky.social•19 days ago

In Scotland we've got a better approach, more like the Danish model, so electrification is happening quite swiftly up here

christopherathey.bsky.social•18 days ago

India has a different railway system and substandard safety expectations. No doubt you can roll out rail improvements by throwing money at a problem. You can't have very safe railways and pay train leasing companies lots of money to pocket.

darksatanicmills.bsky.social•19 days ago

We waste so much money every year trying to find savings.

bigx.bsky.social•19 days ago

I'm guessing the overhead powerlines will greatly reduce the capacity of the trains.

jpm1a.bsky.social•19 days ago

And its why its so much more expensive with a stop start approach. We need to always be investing in electrification/high speed/trams etc.

freewheeling.info•19 days ago

Absolutely right. Then when the costs spiral, we panic and cancel the programme. All the staff are disbanded and go overseas. A few years later, we decide to electrify the railways and assemble a team. They're inexperienced, and so the costs go up. Just as they've learned, we panic and cancel... 🔁🔁🔁

johnb78.bsky.social•19 days ago

Absolutely this!

oldtrotter.bsky.social•19 days ago

HMT has been fighting electrification for decades. Worth reading Christian Wolmar on the tactics adopted to get the WCML electrified https://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Rail-Christian-Wolmar-ebook/dp/B09HJSJ984/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JSfsk4kSHarB6rVpiiRqSCxEJairUK50tLlHGRtW6-32rbRCZCemvry3NZwi0ew6pvJ_zjkRVrntXwt6fbKGE5UOjYudhKm847oS2cflYsoA6FcpPsbMaEPiT1Cmp9DzjL9A_vtgldiWT7nnwsk4U8HxS6jutMvnJ5tMSgg-T6ZplzW_h33vonboEbVrUIKGyXJ4FPjLBprN3YMnutHr3TTgFnurCgu2ko9TZJ5oyqA.P1fIQsoc-gYjstokgMEejP0d8LtL_Hym1942GyVqpfM&dib_tag=se&qid=1738677594&refinements=p_27%3AChristian+Wolmar&s=books&sr=1-1

fwbury.bsky.social•19 days ago

The boom-bust cycle was supposed to be over to highways building, but somehow we didn't even manage that. This blog goes over it well.
https://www.roads.org.uk/blog/all-change

pavsmith.bsky.social•19 days ago

you mean our railways are split up into a number of private operating companies whose imperative is profit, and who don't (need to) cooperate; and the infrastructure is owned by a govt entity but has to use private contactors for any major works?

is that it?

johnb78.bsky.social•19 days ago

The operating companies have nothing to do with it, they do what the government pays them to do. Nor does it matter who employs the contractors NR uses - the problem is that at the end of each project management and engineering teams are disbanded, because government won't pay to keep them together

paulframe85.bsky.social•19 days ago

See Jim, we had it. It was called British Rail ....

johnb78.bsky.social•19 days ago

No we didn't, they were subject to exactly the same Treasury Brain problems; the WCML, KX Suburban, BedPan, ECML and GEML 25kV projects (the main BR electrification projects that weren't direct Board of Works ones) all wound up when completed and failed to pass teams or equipment onto the next one.

johnb78.bsky.social•19 days ago

*should have been "directly inherited Board of Works ones" but hopefully still coherent

trefeca.bsky.social•19 days ago

Turns out that there was a reason why C19th railroad companies thought it was essential or at least desirable to internalise as many functions as possible, and integrate their systems. Thirty+ years ago we took a wrong turn into a dead-end & now are unable to find a way out.

johnb78.bsky.social•19 days ago

Nothing to do with it at all - Network Rail could, if government had allowed it to, have set up a rolling electrification team in 2001 and electrified everything by now. The TOCs and ROSCOs (ie the private entities involved in rail strategy) have no involvement in track infrastructure

sachazarb.bsky.social•19 days ago

Tunnelling machines from Crossrail should have gone to Tottenham Hale and started the tunnels for CR2, instead all that knowledge just dissolves

danielphilips.bsky.social•19 days ago

Not sure it works quite the same way for tunnelling given we are doing a lot of tunnelling for HS2 right now.

paulusthewoodgnome.bsky.social•19 days ago

Has anyone asked Angela Rayner about Crossrail 2 lately?

https://www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/angela-rayner-make-sure-crossrail-25486504

shubbardo.bsky.social•19 days ago

Sounds good in theory, but a lot of tunneling machines get buried once their job is done. This isn't a UK thing it's standard practice, and often cheaper to build a new one than extracting them

franksc73.bsky.social•19 days ago

Danish traffic policies generally align with the interest of the motor car. Been like that since time remembered.

gordoncph.bsky.social•19 days ago

Spent many years in Copenhagen, travelling to other parts of Denmark as well. Never needed a car.

franksc73.bsky.social•19 days ago

True, you can get around in the greater Copenhagen area just fine without a car. I've done so my entire life.

It is also true, that inter-urban infrastructure massively favour the car. And one place that is visible is in the insufficient investment in rail

gordoncph.bsky.social•19 days ago

I used to find the bus practical in (say) Aarhus or Odense, and I used to do the Danish thing of taking my bike on the train. Also, train outside the main centres could be much improved. There is a good reason why Sønderborg feels to be at the end of the world ...

gordoncph.bsky.social•19 days ago

Also, it has to be said that Denmark was the most civilised place I have ever lived by a long way.

gordoncph.bsky.social•19 days ago

Just read you profile franksc73! Reminded me of many happy hours in the library of the University of Copenhagen....

evilceldrud.bsky.social•19 days ago

It is very simple. Our national religion is disjointed incrementalism with its primary tenet if it is possible to do something well don’t. Thought is heresy

johncpenny.bsky.social•19 days ago

Not to mention "you can't do it through Bath because it's too pretty"

bz2.bsky.social•19 days ago

And compared to Denmark, the UK has many, many more miles of unelectrified track, so the economies of scale would be even greater in the UK. Also: committing to electrifying all the mainlines would mean not having to invest in bi-mode vehicles.

pompoustakes.bsky.social•19 days ago

Same with recruiting construction / housebuilding capacity.

Do they just no understand the effect of risk on investment?

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply