Modern Railways – April 2019

46 Modern Railways April 2019 http://www.modern-railways.com

Forum

to be electrified – ‘News Front’)

Market Harborough wing of the ‘Y’.

Of course, it is a growing town,

but otherwise why does it merit

such favoured treatment, apart from

the need to feed London’s greedy

maw? Will some trains proceed

northward as bi-modes to give

improved links to Oakham and

Melton Mowbray? If not, why not?

Or is it part of a policy of

regenerating old steel towns,

in which case hurrah! When will

we see the plans for the Redcar line

and which of Consett’s three routes

is to be rebuilt and electrified?

ALAN GODFREY

Consett, County Durham

RUNNING THE

RAILWAY IS KEY

With my infrastructure background,

I don’t always agree with Ian

Walmsley, but criticism of his

position on vegetation management

(‘Forum’, last month) is unjust.

The operational railway is hugely

susceptible to problems from nearby

vegetation, within and outside the

railway fence. Public opinion often

wilfully refuses to acknowledge the

issue: an MP who should have known

better called the leaf fall problem

‘risible’, and neighbouring residents

don’t mind tree management, ‘but

please not the one at the bottom

of our garden as birds nest in i t ’.

Better communication? Yes, but

don’t imagine many will be won over

by a patient and logical portrayal

of the facts. Positive environmental

work on non-operational land?

Well, yes, but there isn’t much

of that and the public won’t

necessarily make the connection.

Railway customers expect

an efficient service; some

environmental pressure groups

will not be silenced by being met

halfway, and for them railway

efficiency may be a low priority.

NIGEL OGILVIE

Former Director of Civil

Engineering, Railtrack

St Neots, Cambs

HYDROGEN FACTS

I always enjoy reading ‘Pan Up’ and

have learnt much from it; however,

Ian Walmsley’s features do sometimes

leave out key issues. His ‘the air

that I breathe’ article (last month)

makes many good points but omits

to mention the ever-increasing

amount of electricity generated

by renewables at reduced cost.

For example, the massive investment

in specialist ships together with

improved sensors and big data

analysis has resulted in 154-metre

diameter 7MW offshore wind turbines

that require few costly visits. The

result is that over six years the cost

of offshore wind power has reduced

from £200 to around £50 MWh.

This has significant implications for

rail traction policy. It strengthens the

already strong case for electrification

by offering potential zero-carbon

traction. Also, if surplus overnight wind

power is used, it also minimises the

fuel cost of hydrogen trains. It is no

coincidence that the first customer

for these trains was Lower Saxony,

Germany’s wind power state.

Mr Walmsley is right to point out

that hydrogen has a low energy

density, although if cleverly packaged

this can give a train with an acceptable

range of over 600 miles with no

significant reduction in passenger

space. He did not mention that this

volumetric energy density is still more

than twice that of traction batteries.

Another omission is that

hydrogen trains are hybrids that offer

regenerative braking, a rare thing for

a self-powered train. The required

battery is one of the reasons for their

extra weight. Another unmentioned

fact is that the low overall efficiency

of hydrogen trains is about the

same as diesel trains. The issue is

what is the best form of traction for

self-powered trains on lines where

there can be no case for electrification.

For the UK traction fleet, this is

probably around 1,500 vehicles.

Emissions may not be significant

on rural routes but, in future,

will it, for example, be considered

acceptable for a diesel train arriving

at Queen Street from Oban to be

the only such vehicle in the city

when Glasgow has a low emission

zone? I would suggest not.

Like all technologies, hydrogen

trains should only be used as

appropriate. Could I commend to

your readers the recent IMechE report

on hydrogen trains, of which I was

co-author? This further explains the

benefits of hydrogen trains. It also

makes clear that they should not be

used as an excuse for not electrifying.

DAVID SHIRRES

Editor, Rail Engineer

Linlithgow, West Lothian

TIMETABLE PLANNING

Richard Harper’s article ‘In praise of

the train planner’ (p60, last month)

is notable in that it very effectively

describes an aspect of railway

work that has never received the

journalistic attention it deserves

and is welcome for its emphasis on

the complexity (and sometimes

stress) facing the staff involved. The

multi-dimensional problem is indeed

more complex than Sudoku – and

I share the author’s satisfaction in

addressing that intellectual challenge.

I do however have to add a ‘but’.

After identifying the ninth

dimension – the business case,

Mr Harper rather briefly and uncritically

discusses the role of the Network

Code, which I would regard as a

tenth, seriously-constraining and

thoroughly opaque dimension. 

The Code is all about legal rights

and a sequential process. It requires

Network Rail to combine disparate

bids into a workable timetable, even

if that means excessive numbers of

trains, pushing capacity to or beyond

realistic limits, erratic intervals and

fudges such as pathing time and petty

adjustments to otherwise standard

hours. It allows pre-existing rights to

restrict desirable new timings. Despite

warm words about connections,

in practice little attention is paid to

securing sensible arrangements,

with the result that some journeys

involving an interchange have become

unattractively slow while the timetable

is littered with non-connections where

the interchange time falls a minute

or so short of the specified minimum.

Above all, the Code assumes that

the aggregated outcome will

somehow deliver the optimal offer

to travellers and the optimal use of

scarce capacity – an assumption that

has never been tested empirically.

These are fundamental flaws. For

that reason, I have submitted a paper

to the Williams Review that makes the

case for evaluating the benefits of the

practice commonplace in countries

such as the Netherlands, Germany

and Switzerland of a central authority

charged with designing the national

timetable (including arrangements

for wide-ranging consultation). It aims

to find the best possible solution,

taking all the dimensions into

account. Delivery is then contracted

through various forms of concession

while forward-planning shapes

the programme of infrastructure

enhancements (note the current

disconnect between these and train

planning, as shown by the news items

about Bow Junction and the Castlefield

corridor). The process would be one

role for the ‘guiding mind’ that is so

obviously required to help ‘reorient

the industry towards the customer’, as

Mr Williams proposes (p11, last month).

JONATHAN TYLER

Passenger Transport Networks

Yo r k

The March issue carries three articles

about timetabling. That on page 72

contains the staggering statistics that

timetable planning staff turnover

is 33%, that 112 new planners

have been recruited and that

200 have received salary increases.

I was peripherally involved in

the Swiss Taktfahrplan following

a letter from its principal architect

sent to me via Modern Railways in

1977. The Taktfahrplan had two
primary objectives, one being the
regular interval service, ‘invented’ by
Britain in the 1930s, and the other
being the maximising of connections.
As Herr Stähli’s letter said, once
a timetable has been planned for
an hour, it has mainly been planned
for a day, a week and a year, with
some peak hour additions and some
weekend subtractions. The Swiss
Taktfahrplan is also symmetrical – a
concept almost unknown on Britain’s
railways – so that if a train arrives at
Zürich at xx.54, its counterpart in the
other direction leaves at xx.06. Such
a timetable also reduces operational
mistakes by signallers and other staff,
while pinch points and conflicts are
quickly identified. Yes, Switzerland is
a much smaller country than Britain,
but the same principles apply.
In his perceptive column (‘Between
the Lines’), Chris Stokes suggests
the Taktfahrplan approach on the
East Coast main line, citing poor
connections at Newark, Peterborough
and elsewhere. However, such an
approach should not, as he suggests,
be confined to the ECML, but should
be nationwide. The key route to plan
first would be Exeter – Leeds/York. To
give a specific example, trains on that
axis should then govern Swansea –
Paddington trains so that passengers
from Wales could change into a train
to the north at Bristol Parkway (and
on the same platform), which would
be much superior to the experience
of changing at Birmingham.
One great advantage that the
British network has is that there
is a ‘free’ end at London termini,
where connections cannot be
made. This might lead to loss of some
time-honoured departure times,
such as xx.00 and xx.30 from King’s
Cross and Edinburgh, but these have
disadvantages: one is the conflict
between up Leeds and up Edinburgh
trains almost every half-hour at
Doncaster, which causes problems,
and again at Peterborough with a
Thameslink train, if the up Edinburgh
is more than a few minutes late, which
it commonly is. The much-heralded
Eureka timetable is not what it seems.
As for connections, while there
are numerous examples of poor
connections, one on my doorstep
happens throughout the day at
Leeds where the train from King’s
Cross is usually timed to arrive
between six and nine minutes
before departure of the Skipton
train. As the journey planner (itself
in need of major overhaul) requires

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