Why electrification of Yorkshire’s railways is needed more urgently than ever - Yorkshire Post Letters

CHAS Ball, of Zero Carbon Yorkshire, hits the spot calling for rail investment this decade (The Yorkshire Post, November 3).

When we come through Covid, the climate emergency will still be there, and decarbonisation of transport will just get more urgent.

Network Rail’s recently published interim Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy (TDNS) says the great majority of present diesel-only railways should be electrified. That includes most of the ones prioritised by the ‘Northern Sparks’ task force nearly six years ago.

Short branches or gaps could use battery trains. Just a few routes – often more remote, less intensive, lower speed – could get hydrogen trains.

But the multiple stages of making hydrogen, distributing it and the getting the energy back mean poor energy efficiency – maybe up to 70 per cent of the original energy lost, compared with less than 20 per cent lost transmitting purely by electricity. In a clean, green, future, we must minimise such waste.

At The Yorkshire Post’s excellent Great Northern Conference, I was able to ask Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, a question. Given the clear message of TDNS, would he now get on with a rolling programme of electrification, and acknowledge the limitations of alternative fuels such as hydrogen?

Mr Shapps admitted that hydrogen takes “a lot of power” to make – that’s the efficiency argument – and said (a little quietly, I thought) the Government would continue electrifying railways. There’s the glimmer of hope. Shapps gets the essential physics.

We need to campaign across the North for rolling electrification that will retain skills and, as the rail industry has reported, cut wiring costs by 33 to 50 per cent. Zero-carbon rail must be part of rebuilding better after Covid. We must not go back to sardine-can commuting but want public transport to become healthy, sociable transport serving the whole community.

Could The Yorkshire Post lead such a campaign?

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