Insight from Richard Lungmuss
This week’s opinion piece has been inspired by the ORR’s 22 Oct report on Rail Infrastructure and Assets, which “highlighted” that almost 40% of the UK rail network is now electrified, with 50.8km of electrified rail added in 2026. (This puts the UK ahead of Denmark and Ireland in Europe but lagging well behind other major European countries such as France (60%); Germany (62%); Spain (66%) and Italy (74%). Even more astonishing is that only around 10% of UK rail freight is hauled by electric traction! [This is now proving a very costly shortfall, with rail diesel costs rising 40% in 2026 by around £132m and predicted to be £154.9m more than if the railway was fully electrified.]
The fact too that the new GBR headquarters is going to be situated in a city on an unelectrified piece of rail infrastructure, served by the UK’s poorest performing train operator, is a rather sad indictment of the state of UK railways in the 2020s.
Whilst there are many reasons for the lack of a national electrification strategy it is very hard to look past politics and the cost of electrifying rail in the UK as the major reasons, coupled with the capability of bi-mode trains that allowed the curtailment of electrification projects, whilst still delivering new rolling stock. [I will return to solutions not requiring full electrification later]
Electrification in Europe costs around £0.75m to £1m per km compared to £2.5m to £3.1m in the UK and European overheads are around 50% compared to 150% in the UK. The reasons for those differences have been extensively explored and include the “feast and famine” approach to electrification on the UK rail network due to the poor cycle of funding and the lack of a consistent political support for delivery cf. Germany with 250 – 300km annually. The UK also has Victorian era Infrastructure restrictions which require significant changes (although UK innovation has reduced the amount of these).
Finally, and probably most relevant, especially to the Great Western Electrification Project (GWEP) that went from £874m to £2.8Bn (>200%+), are ultra conservative engineering standards of the kind that required 10m piling to support the masts holding the overhead electrification and the resulting overwhelming difficulties of delivery which led to the escalating costs. Scotland, under Transport for Scotland, appears to have adopted a different, and more cost effective, method of delivering electrification where by operating a devolved non-stop rolling programme of electrification they have reduced their cost per km to between £1.5m to £2m.
A cursory look at the overhead infrastructure on the Edinburgh to Glasgow (EGIP) route compared to that on leaving Reading gives a good idea of the pragmatic approach that Scottish engineers have taken to delivering electrification North of the border, which made delivery of it a far more practicable proposition.
Some of the reasons for our issues in the UK might also be “cultural” and a couple of anecdotes from my own experience. In 2016 I was working for Northern as their Head of Project Delivery. There was a plan to electrify the Oxenholme to Windermere line, ostensibly to ensure a seamless journey from Manchester Airport to Windermere for Chinese tourists to visit Beatrix Potter’s house etc. The 11km single track line has passing places at the stations on the route. Some 30 people assembled in Manchester, from various agencies, to discuss the requirement. A presentation was produced and I was shocked to see that a “steel tunnel” a la Great Western was being proposed through this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Those present seemed totally unfazed by this and I eventually made myself thoroughly unpopular by stating how ridiculous I thought the whole idea was, how ridiculously expensive it would be and how this solution was complete overkill. Frankly the line could have been delivered by a simple tram style railway from Oxenholme, operating on line of sight. [As might be imagined the cost of this solution proved prohibitive, rising from £16m to £35m before a spade had been put in the ground and eventually scrapped on costs grounds.]
In 2016 I was working with a contractor who had been approached by a European Overhead Line company with extensive experience of delivering major electrification programmes across Portugal, Spain and Italy. They had read about the UK’s issues with costs and were keen to offer their expertise in devising cost effective solutions. I arranged a meeting with the Head of the TRU Programme (much smaller back in 2016 than it is now!) and we travelled to York. The Head of Programme entered the meeting room accompanied by his Alliance partner for overhead line. The latter then proceeded to give a myriad of reasons, including bureaucracy!, as to why European solutions were inappropriate for the UK railway. I was left with the feeling that costs were a very secondary part of what was being delivered and that we were dealing with some very “closed minds” when it came to looking at other options.
[I will cover TRU in another opinion piece but at present the original £289m project, due for completion in 2019, has expanded in scope and cost to between £9 and 11.5Bn and will not be benefitting passengers until the mid-1930s. Rather shockingly £190m has been wasted on design and development work that was not required. To be fair the addition of ETCS and track, freight and station upgrades will make a huge improvement to the line but it is NOT Northern Powerhouse Rail, it will still not deliver the original Transport for the North journey time specification between Leeds and Manchester and I can only hope the wait is worth it.] Having seen the electrification at Church Fenton, which looks far more like Great Western than the Edinburgh to Glasgow line, I do wonder whether lessons are really being learnt despite claims that our electrification is now very efficient.
I have already mentioned the increased cost of diesel in 2026 and how this has affected running costs. The original Hitachi Azuma trains in the IEP programme were designed to have an auxiliary diesel engine to “get them home” in case of de-wirings etc. Adding additional diesel engines to some trains gave them a truly bi-mode capability and an operating envelope similar to their electric counterparts, allowing for some electrification schemes to be curtailed whilst still delivering new trains. From a politicians’ perspective the classic short term fix, allowing for shiny new trains whilst removing further costly electrification. [My own line between Paddington and Plymouth “benefitted” from these bi-mode trains, with electrified lines running out at Newbury and a journey time improvement for the route of….6 minutes!] However, inevitably there are longer term implications.
We have already seen the punitive cost of diesel, but factor in the increased carbon footprint and the increased wear and tear on the track of heavier trains and suddenly maybe not quite so cost effective. With renewals apparently to be reduced [ORR’s 2026 paper] in favour of more track maintenance for budgetary reasons – this could be a double whammy. TRU and DfT are now promoting Battery trains to deliver stretches of the TRU that are difficult to electrify. Presumably these trains too will be heavier than their electric counterparts with the resulting wear and tear on the infrastructure? Battery trains will also be very infrastructure specific and unable to be transferred around the network. I remain to be persuaded, but at least they aren’t diesel!
From all of the above what is clearly required is a long term strategy of UK Rail electrification planned now, and then put beyond political interference for decades to come. Electric trains are the way forward and yet the UK still lags far behind the rest of the World in electrified railway. With so much knowledge gained on high profile electrification failures and some high profile successes (EGIP) there must surely be a place now for a rail Electrification Task Force, given an annual target mileage for electrifying the railway and tasked to drive costs down through properly integrated programme management and processes, pragmatic engineering, budgetary certainty and a determination to match our European rail counterparts. The fact that electrification to Bath and to Swansea was abandoned amongst others, the fact that there is no electrification to Plymouth and the West Country, and crucially the fact that the Midland Mainline to GBR’s new headquarters in Derby is not electrified, should inspire everyone in the rail industry to get to work on this strategically vital enhancement to the UK rail network!
