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Norman Baker: Don't slam the door on hopes of electric rail boost to region
THE decision by the Government to restart a programme of electrification of railway lines some 15 years after it last petered out has rightly been widely welcomed. It is clearly a sensible strategic decision and affirms that railway growth is firmly back on the agenda.
Yet people in Yorkshire are unlikely to be among those cheering. Indeed, they may well feel that they were given a lottery ticket, only for someone to be given the prize.
For years, the Government argued that electrification was unnecessary and a waste of money that could be better spent in other ways. That was never a view that my Lib Dem colleagues and I took, so we were delighted when the Government finally performed a U-turn – never very easy with trains – and announced their conversion to
the cause.
And Yorkshire residents were doubtless delighted, when the then Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon, identified the two front runners – the Great Western Line out of Paddington and down to Bristol, and the Midland Main Line, from London beyond Bedford (where the wires presently stop) up to Nottingham and Sheffield. And with a Notts MP as Transport Secretary, surely the Midland Main Line was the front runner.
But it was not to be. The decision yesterday promised electrification for the commuter lines into Paddington, the inter-city line from there to Swansea, and the line between Manchester and Liverpool, but conspicuously not the Midland Main Line.
The Government says that this line is still under consideration, but local people may have justification in thinking that their moment has passed.
This is a huge pity. The success of electrification on the Airedale and Wharfedale lines shows what can be achieved.
The incremental costs of electrifying the Midland Main Line are, in fact, lower than elsewhere, given that the line already has wires as far north as Bedford.
The case for taking the wires north to Sheffield, both via Derby and Nottingham, is a strong one. Converting the section of route between Sheffield and Swinton Junction via Meadowhall and Rotherham would allow electric trains to run between Sheffield and Leeds, and allow this stretch to be used as a diversionary route for the East Coast Main Line.
And electrifying the Leeds-York line would enable electric cross-country trains to run between Scotland and Leeds, Sheffield and Derby.
The reality is that the state of the public finances is such that Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis is unlikely to wrest further large dollops of money for the railways out of the Treasury, and the campaign to secure a high-speed rail line to the North ~will have first call on any funds that are available.
The situation is, if anything, likely to be even less rosy if the Tories win power. Their Treasury team is busy behind closed doors working out what projects they can cancel, let alone looking for new ones to commit to. There is a real danger that, under the Tories, a large number of rail projects will be shunted into the sidings.
I should add, for balance of course, that the Lib Dems are committed to large-scale investment in the railways, including electrification, and we have set out how we will pay for that – for example, by negotiating investment from the train companies in exchange for longer franchises.
We will argue the case for rail investment very strongly if we have a hung parliament after the next election, which is looking increasingly likely.
The Transport Secretary will argue that these electrification schemes are self-financing, and it is true that the figures do show them covering their costs, albeit over 40 years.
This is because running costs are less with electric trains, compared with diesel, and they obviate the need to order new diesel trains.
(That latter advantage is only because there will be an opportunity to cascade other electric trains coming off the Thameslink route,
and that, of course, can only be done once).
But there is a further problem. Does Network Rail have access to sufficient numbers of trained workers to carry out this specialist work?
The signs are not good. You may recall the fiasco at Liverpool Street some 18 months ago when engineering works overran by days.
The cause was a shortage of individuals qualified to work on overhead works. Now some progress has been made since then, but is it enough to handle a major electrification programme? I have
my doubts.
There is, however, one glimmer of hope for those in Yorkshire wanting improved train services to London. The lazy assumption has been that the new high-speed line north will be routed via Manchester.
Actually, the more you look into it, the stronger the case in fact for a route via Leeds and up the east coast to Newcastle and then across country to Scotland. I know that High Speed 2, the company set up to work out an alignment, are seriously looking
at this.
Yorkshire may have missed out on this week's lottery prize, but the rollover beckons.
Norman Baker MP is the Lib Dem Shadow Transport Secretary.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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