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INFORMED SOURCES August 2000

ICEC - Virgin hangs tough

Did Sir Alastair really think that Virgin would hand over their big idea and enter a sarnie beauty parade for the ECML?

Virgin Rail's proposal for a new 330km relief line as part of its InterCity East coast franchise replacement bid was a brilliant way of nullifying incumbent GNER's advantage on customer service. This advantage can be summed up as Virgin now having some good days but GNER having occasional off days. Certainly Virgin's train catering must be the only organisation able to make mozzarella and tomato salad look unappetising.

But 20 year replacement franchises need 20 year strategic thinking and despite some readers preferring ciabatta sandwiches now to a new line in the next decade, I still think the Red Team's vision is what a modern railway should be about.

Of course, the SSRA, (the second ‘S' allegedly standing doe ‘Strategic') found the concept of a franchise including a 330km/h High speed line (HSL) by-passing the East Coast Main Line between Huntingdon and York, too difficult. So it asked Virgin and GNER to make their best and final offers on the basis of the Railtrack capacity upgrade.

Whoever won this cut-down competition would then be an ‘active participant' in an ‘SSRA-led Railtrack supported study' of the prospects for an HSL to link London and the north ‘early in the next decade'.

Aggressive

But Virgin and 49% partner in Virgin Rail Stagecoach didn't get where they are today by being bound by silly conventions (count the ties in the Branson and Souter wardrobes). So when their ‘best and final' was unveiled on 3 July, Virgin Rail was still ‘firmly committed' to the HSL. On reflection make that ‘aggressively committed'.

Virgin Rail Executive Director Richard Bowker dismissed the current ECML upgrade developed by GNER and Railtrack as dealing only with the short term. ‘At the end of the first 10 years the ECML would be back to where it started in capacity terms' he told me.

Bowker also reckons that increasing the long term capacity of the existing infrastructure would be more expensive than building the new line. According to the Virgin Rail studies, the cost would be ‘£570million for each hourly path'. Hmm, that sounds a lot.

Anyway, for a 20 year franchise Virgin reckons the HSL is a must. But because the SSRA wants to decouple the HSL from the current bidding, Virgin has restructured its offer to bring forward capacity improvements in the first decade.

Lots of trains

This starts in 2004 with the IC225 fleet refurbished with Pendolinoesque interiors and a 4000hp diesel power car replacing the driving van trailer for added acceleration (worth 7min off London-Edinburgh). In 2005 18 ‘Super Vitesse' electric high speed trains arrive, increasing services in and out of Kings Cross to five trains an hour. The composite IC225s then replace the nine IC125s in the ICEC stud.

Super Vitesse would be a UK derivative of an existing high speed train. Last time round Virgin had artist's impressions of Edinburgh full of Virgin Red TGV clones. This time the photo-montages feature ICE3s in GNER blue in Kings Cross.

Next, in 2007, eight diesel powered versions of the Super Vitesse would be introduced. Like the rival GNER diesel tilting trains, the diesel Vitesse would have a 4,000hp diesel generator car at each end supplying electric power to traction packages along the train.

Finally, 2009 would see ‘at least' an additional 12 Super Vitesse electric trains entering service. Should the HSL go ahead, a further 10 diesel Vitesse and 24 electric Super Vitesse trains would be ordered.

Virgin would use this claimed 40% increase in seating capacity to provide additional Inverness/Aberdeen services, more London-Newcastle trains, a new London Harrogate through service and an extra train to Hull.

Tilt? No thanks!

There was also some fine stiletto work on the GNER proposals which include the introduction of 25 140mile/h tilting trains, including ‘the world's first 140mile/h diesel powered tilting trains for some Scottish services'. Leaving Captain Deltic to grapple with a diesel powered Class 91 clone for either bidder, Virgin dismisses tilt as ‘not the answer on the ECML'.

Virgin's computer simulations show that ‘only London-Edinburgh is faster with tilt and then by only 15min'. Savings on other ECML journeys are described as ‘nominal'. So British Rail was right then?

Anyway Virgin calculates that it would cost ‘£900m-1000m' to raise the line speed on the ECML to 140mile/h plus another £190million for tilt. ‘It's not worth doing, I would be surprised if the Shadow Strategic Railway Authority backed the idea', I was told..

Besides which if the HSL is available during the second half of the 20 year franchise ‘investment in tilt will be wasted'. So there

Table 1

Virgin's traction plan

Love in

But while GNER's franchise bid is rubbish, Virgin loves their management team and what they have achieved. Honestly. So much so, that should Virgin win the franchise, it would ‘build on the existing GNER management and not seek to integrate it'.

‘We like the GNER team', Virgin Director and Modern Railways reader Will Whitehorn told me. Brushing a tear from his eye he added, ‘We will not make changes for change's sake, we want to build on the work (by GNER and Railtrack) on the ECML. Virgin will bring investment skills and customers will get the best of two worlds'.

So most of Railtrack's proposed capacity upgrades <ital>will<ital> be retained including the new parallel freight routes and the Welwyn Viaduct quadrupling with its associated grade separated crossing at Hitchin. Virgin has a cheaper at-grade solution for crossing freight traffic at Peterborough which, it claims, would save £100million on the proposed dive-under.

New in the latest Virgin proposals is a ‘six track railway south of Hitchin' which would extend ‘as far south as possible'. A further £47m would also be ‘committed' to deal with what are termed ‘priority black spots' at Newcastle and Doncaster

Continues.........