How railway integration can be a power for good

At the root of the reform of the railways is the notion that an integrated railway..

At the root of the reform of the railways is the notion that an integrated railway, one in which decisions on all aspects of operation and management, offers a more efficient structure than any other. At times Labour ministers have struggled to find ways of putting this concept across to the public. It all sounds a bit technical and, frankly, dull, and it is hard for them to set out clear examples that have an impact on the fare paying public.

Indeed, articulating key messages has been a fundamental failing of the Labour government. Sustainability, affordability, efficiency….all these words slip off politicians’ tongues but fall on deaf ears. That is partly our fault. We need to listen more, be more discerning, to look at the broader picture and to try to understand the direction of movement.

So dear reader, here is an excellent example of why a railway with a single guiding mind and a long term unified strategy is better than the slop we have had to the past 30 years. But there is no easy slogan or single phrase to explain how and why rail integration and the creation of Great British Railways will reduce Network Rail’s £1bn annual bill for electricity and lead to greater use of sustainable forms of power. It is complex and technical but astonishingly worthwhile. Stay with me.

The story starts with Leo Murray, a climate activist – it was he who thought up the Trump baby balloon to welcome Demented Don to the UK during his first term – and social entrepreneur who was working on a project to bring sustainable power to the Sussex village of Balcombe, famous for its railway viaduct and which had just fought successfully against a fracking scheme There was space for a solar farm but it was the wrong side of the railway line and this got Murray thinking. The railways are the biggest users of electricity in the UK and therefore could make use of power generated through solar or wind right next to the tracks. Rather than being fed into the national grid, why could the railway not use the power directly – behind the meter as it were. It would reduce the need to take the expensive grid electricity.

Murray obtained a government grant to fund a test project on a platform at Aldershot and this proved successful. Trains running through the area are partly powered by the solar power generated next to the tracks. It seemed a win win. Not only would the electricity be cheaper – about a third less than power supplied through the grid – but it would also boost the proportion generated sustainably. Moreover, new connections to the grid are very hard to obtain with long waits because there is not enough capacity in the system. What was there not to like? The concept needed upscaling to deliver significant levels of new power. The potential savings were enormous as the price of electricity, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine has soared. The Aldershot scheme was tiny, just demonstrating a proof of concept, and he took the idea to Network Rail. The engineers loved it, the sustainability people loved it, the local rail managers loved it – but Network Rail’s commercial arm effectively vetoed it.

The problem was that there was no incentive for Network Rail to take on the idea. Under the privatised system, the train operators paid for the electricity through Network Rail which could not charge a mark up or a reduction. The amount per unit was fixed and there was no reason for Network Rail to try to reduce the cost.

Now with the integration of operations and infrastructure, bringing both train operators and Network Rail under the Great British Railways umbrella, the incentives will be aligned. Money saved through buying cheaper electricity can be recycled for investment or enhanced maintenance. Thanks to the efforts of Murray and other activists, Network Rail is now taking the issue seriously the benefits are apparent. Already a large solar farm has been created in Norfolk whose total output will be bought by the railways. More are likely to follow, though inevitably these things take time.

There is, too, another way that the creation of Great British Railways will lead to greater sustainability of the electricity supply. Under the old system there was no incentive for the operators to generate any of their own electricity through, say, solar panels on rooves because the rate of return for such schemes is between seven to ten years, and the franchises were always too short to make that worthwhile. Now that too will change. The only station with a significant number of solar panels is Blackfriars where they were included in the rebuild of the section of the station over the Thames. But the potential for far wider installation of the panels across the railway estate is enormous and, again, there is now renewed interest in tapping this resource, something that would have been impossible under franchising. Possibly wind turbines may also pop up alongside the tracks on old railway land.

There are many other potential benefits of having an integrated railway with a single profit and loss account. As I have long argued, railways are inherently a natural monopoly that is best run in an integrated way. My only concern is whether the personnel appointed to head up Great British Railways will have the imagination, the freedom and the ambition to ensure that developments like electricity generation are seen as part of their function. The railways have to become an emblematic part of British society, involved in many aspects ranging from engineering and architecture, to power generation and sustainability. Great Briths Railways should be the vehicle through which many positive policies promoted by the government are channelled.

Northern disappointment

The long awaited and trailed Northern Powerhouse plan ended up being the dampest of all squibs. The announcement contained a mish mash of unfunded projects that may or may not happen in the next decade, with no overall vision or strategy. It was a political announcement designed to appease a few local interests in the North rather than a plan for the future of rail in the region. The headline in the previous issue of Rail magazine said it all: ‘NPR benefits ‘to be felt from early 2030s’. That’s hardly reassuring or indeed a vote winner.

In a way this whole episode, kicked off by former Chancellor George Osborne who was a northern MP and launched the concept of Northern Powerhouse Rail more than a decade ago, mirrors the more wider failings of the Labour government which has never tried to provide a narrative for what it is doing or where it wants to go. I have always argued that what railways in the North need is fast electric trains linking all the main towns and cities, a kind of Network SouthEast for the region. Instead we get a patchwork of schemes including an unnecessary high speed link between Liverpool and Manchester that won’t be completed until the 2040s and a weird refusal to address what to do about the railway between Birmingham and Manchester, which desperately needs more capacity, Yet, any policy which suggests reversing the scrapping of HS2 between the two cities is deemed to be out of bounds by the Labour government which, in turn, means the issue is simply not being addressed. Yet, without a solution, HS2 remains as the Acton to Aston shuttle, the most expensive useless railway in the world.

As for money, the announcement included £1bn for more preparatory work but that is both unnecessary and a total waste. The whole paraphernalia of business cases and consultation is simply a way of kicking schemes into touch and adding to their cost. As I was quoted saying in the Daily Telegraph recently, ‘it’s another £1bn before a spade gets on the ground’. Ministers seem to have taken the wrong lesson from HS2 – it’s not that there should be more checks and bureaucracy, but rather that there needs to be a clear overall strategy that guides schemes and puts them in the bigger context.

Thank you for your support.