Jason Ford
News editor
Announced earlier today in a written statement from transport secretary Justine Greening, the High Level Output Specification (HLOS) programme for 2014–19 represents £4.2bn of new schemes that include the creation of a so-called ‘electric spine’ running from Yorkshire and the West Midlands to south-coast ports. This would include completing the full electrification of the Midland Main Line out of London St Pancras.
Other proposals — hailed by UK prime minister David Cameron as ‘the biggest modernisation of our railways since the Victorian era’ — include fully electrifying the Great Western Mainline out of London Paddington, extending beyond Cardiff to Swansea; and completing the Northern Hub cluster of rail enhancements around Liverpool, Manchester and York.
The Department for Transport says the HLOS package will be funded in part from fare rises previously announced in 2010, plus ‘efficiency savings which projects [such as] electrification will have on the long-term operating costs of the railways’.
In her written statement, Greening said: ‘Previous governments have underinvested in rail. We will not repeat those mistakes. This is a government with a long-term vision for a modern and efficient rail system that supports growth and improves competitiveness.’
Ofgem too has announced proposals that would lead to the upgrading and renewal of Britain’s electricity and gas networks.
According to the regulator, the majority of the proposed £15bn investment would include the upgrade and renewal of the high-voltage electricity network in England and Wales, and the high-pressure gas networks across Britain; networks that are operated by National Grid.
The package would fund projects such as new sub-sea electricity cables linking England/Wales and Scotland.
The regulator adds that an estimated £7bn would help to ensure that low-pressure gas networks — supplying homes and businesses — remain safe and reliable. The money would fund the continued maintenance across Britain of the gas distribution network, in particular, the gas mains-replacement programme.
The Institution of Engineering and Technology has been in touch with a reminder that there’s still time to enter the organisation’s Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards (YWE).
IET says the awards are designed to ‘honour the most dynamic and inspiring young female engineers in the UK, highlighting their achievements while encouraging others to enter the profession’.
In publicity material, Linda Deleay, IET awards and prizes manager, said: ‘The recognition of the best young female engineers who have entered the industry through a variety of routes and secured a strong future for themselves will hopefully inspire other young women to strive for more and consider engineering as a worthwhile career.’
IET says the deadline for entries is Monday 30 July. The awards ceremony takes place on 6 December in central London and the winner will receive a trophy and cheque for £2,500.
The Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network is holding a one-day event this week entitled Nanotechnology — Partnership for Progress.
Hosted by the NanoKTN, BIS, Defra and SAFENANO, the event, taking place tomorrow at the BIS Conference Centre in London, will see David Willetts, minister of state for universities and science, and Lord Taylor of Holbeach, parliamentary under-secretary of state in Defra, talk about the government’s plans regarding nanotechnology.
Lord Taylor will open the event with his keynote presentation looking at the new governance arrangements for nanotechnologies, and how the government is working together with industry to set a strategic direction for nanotechnology in the UK.
David Willetts will deliver the second keynote talk focusing on how nanotechnologies will contribute to Britain’s future. There will also be opportunities for delegates to ask questions following talks from the ministers.
This Sunday sees IET Gloucestershire Network planning a visit to the Vulcan XM655 Maintenance and Preservation Society in Warwickshire, which is home to a restored Vulcan XM655 .
The 655 Maintenance and Preservation Society’s website informs us: ‘Avro Vulcan XM655 was third from last of the Vulcan bombers produced for the Royal Air Force, being delivered in late 1964, and was part of the UK’s nuclear deterrent force throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
‘It is now owned by Wellesbourne Airfield and is looked after by 655 Maintenance and Preservation Society (655MaPS), which is a volunteer organisation of Vulcan enthusiasts.’
In civilian hands, XM655 has had to endure certain indignities, such as being broken into and vandalised. The perpetrators damaged cockpit instruments and made off with the co-pilot’s control column.
The dedicated team of Vulcan restoration enthusiasts has, however, got the aircraft into a condition where it can be powered up and ‘exercised regularly’.
Now then, Briefing is supposed to be a look ahead to events taking place around the UK and sometimes beyond.
However, a gentleman called last Friday afternoon asking if I’d like to receive some news about an event that saw engineers give so-called City Boys a bit of a hiding.
Organised by Randstad, the event pitted sector professionals against one another to see who could rack up the fastest lap time in an F1 simulator.
Randstad, a partner of the Williams F1 team, tells us that as a sector, engineers managed the fastest average laptime of 1.57.482, beating the 1.59.678 set by the manufacturing sector, with construction employees finishing third. Bankers finished second bottom with a time of 2.17.528.
In a statement, Owen Goodhead, managing director of Randstad CPE, said: ‘The lap times threw up some surprising results and confounded some of the stereotypes labelled to certain City jobs.
‘We all know bankers work at a high-octane pace, but they couldn’t translate that speed and intensity into a winning lap time.
‘It was engineers whose skills proved the most relevant and who were able to clock the fastest time.’
If, as reported in the media, all the rail investment results in is putting up the price of rail fares, then it is a waste of money, as far as the nation is concerned. Apart from the “trapped commuter” belt around London, which is already at/over capacity and will not benefit from patch’n mend policies, increasing rail fares will just result in less passangers and so a pointless waste of money. The only “efficiency savings” that make sense is to cut the number of railway staff and their remuneration!
How old are the railways now? It’s about time engineers put their heads together… I’ve (and we have) got plenty of ideas, but with an infrastructure as entrenched as railways what chance of change without a great “leader”.
There is someone out there who has been/ is being trained for this job… will we recognise the new “messiah” when they appear?
No need to increase rail fares – the Government should hop on the current Salvage/Recycling boom by collecting all the scrap currently littering the sides of the Network. You’d have thought they would have done this ahead of the Olympics however a trip out of Waterloo through Guildford by train yesterday proves basic housekeeping on the rail network is clearly not a priority. You can’t polish a t*rd. Sort the basics (put some pride into standards and housekeeping) and the rest will follow.
This talk about ‘investing’ £9 bn into railway upgrades strikes me as pure spin by the government to put out good news. Surely the planning for these investments have been going on for some years now, they don’t just happen overnight. The coalition is desperate to portrait themselves as improving the economy. The question surely is if these investments would have gone ahead irrespective of any government anyway. It is on the same line as the investment by BMW in their Mini factories and similar schemes.
This is a more preferable way of spending money on the railways than the wretched HS2. Of critical importance is to link up the various electrified principal routes to each other and to the various giant container ports on the Thames, at Avonmouth, Felixtowe, Southampton etc. There must be high capacity freight routes across London.
One concern, though, is that the cost of renewable electricity haulage may soon exceed that of diesel.
It might be the “bigest modernisation since the Victorian era”, but has anything changed ?
We still have Locomotives pulling long strings of carriages which run infrequently and miles apart.
We should use some of the things we keep hearing from the automotive sector. We could then have individual rail cars running close to each other. They could leave for each destination a few minutes apart if necessary. new llops at eah station could then mean that the main flow doesn’t need to slow down. The waiting time reduction would make HS2 redundant and we could lead the next railway revolution just like we did the previous one.
Year in and year out, the price paid to those that maintain the nation’s infrastructure, whether it be rail, the electricity grid, water etc. has gone up way ahead of inflation to pay for upgrades. That increase has compounded over the years and is still in place. It should be more than enough to pay for the improvements that are needed now.
What is never mentioned is that these improvements should be bringing about greater efficiency which should mean lower bills.
“Axle Load” (do a search) is the key ingredient to private, profitable transport of humans. Bicycles (no subsidy) carry 200 lb humans on 25 lb bikes. Railways carry 200 lb humans per 2400 lbs of carriage weight…all wrong. Extremely light rails, extremely light carriages (e.g. 100 lb aluminum per 200 lb human) must be engineered to take =human= rail transport off the dole.
The DFT SOS Greening may have said Network Rail will make 30% efficiency savings. If this is a condition precedent are these front line maintenance roles or performance analysts and depot management. The 30% after year on year reduction seems severe and possibly there is another 30% from public funds if this is not achieved or achievable.
The higher speed diesels will not become faster electric trains if wet spot are not replaced with deeper dig track beds. Half a review by politicians being poorly and partially briefed.
Investing in the railways is all very well but we must not forget the links to get people from where they are to the station and from the station to where they want to go! These are lamentable in many places and (for me at least) a major disincentive to travel by rail.
OK… let’s start designing then… Get rid of the current rail arrangement (no redundancy) and fit “captive” rails above and below. Use parabolic arched supports that keep the track off the ground… allowing the system to be easily modified and rerouted as circumstances change. The lighter weight cars can climb and fall without much penalty.
I imagine that the rolling efficiency will fall against steel on steel, but the flexibility will overcome the drawbacks. The major item that I’m working on is track junction techniques that are idiot proof.
Just think of the possibilities in improved physical transport… We just have to wait now to see if the interweb makes railways obsolete!
Maglev trains have to be the way forward and are destined to be the next transportation revolution.(http://www.transrapid.de).
Investing in the Victorian network we have now, which will undoubtedly be rendered obsolete in the not too near future when maglev system costs come down seems a bit short-sighted.
We should be investing in road trains, not 19th & 20th century rail trains, except maybe for goods. Fares will now go through the roof as the passengers will pay and then in a few years time only citydwellers will use the passemnger trains to go to other cities and airports. The rest of use need and will still need cars, so we will need road trains to maximise safety, maximise road space use and maximise efficient speed.