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Once again the railway holds the poisoned chalice of political expediency
We, that is the railway, really should get out of the habit of agreeing to patently uneconomic schemes simply to get politicians off the hook. And then catching the flak when it doesn't happen
Take the Channel Tunnel. Since it was a national project, the nation had to benefit, not just the soft Southerners. So under the Channel Tunnel Act 1987, BR had to prepare a plan, including the provision of international through services for various parts of the UK .
And in December 1989 BR reported on plans for ovber-night services from the West country and Wales , Glasgow and Edinburgh to Paris , Brussels and even beyond. There would be daytime trains down the East and West Coast main lines, out in the morning, back in the evening, serving both Brussels and Paris .
And when it went out to consultation, there was much muttering in the regions that major cities deserved an hourly service. Still, at the cost of the north of London Eurostars and the sleeper fleet which never turned a wheel in service until exported to Canada , the Channel Tunnel got grudging national support.
Come the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, and another financial crisis, and how better to justify national public sector financial backing for this private sector project aimed at getting international travelers through Kent as fast as possible, than earmarking some paths for high speed local commuter services.
Thus were the Kent local authorities squared. Thus did Richard Bowker find yet another hot potato, which this time he did not invent, landing on his desk.
Published in February, the SRA's consultation document on CTRL Domestic services provides 28 pages of relentless sloppiness. Appendix C on the financial and economic implications of the service options discussed, includes a table of net present values so impenetrable that copies should have been rushed to the gulf for use as appliqué tank armour.
You think I jest? It took a former merchant banker now in railway service two stabs to get his head round the table's six rows and five columns.
What sinks the project is the core option serving St Pancras, Gravesend (Ebbsfleet) Ashford, Canterbury West and Folkestone. reaching these two latter stations means building trains, which will run on 69miles of European gauge 300km/h high speed line, for operation on two 14 mile spurs within the Southern Region gauge and on 750V DC electrified lines.
No doubt to the great relief of the train builders, the SRA has cut them out of the procurement equation and invited the rolling stock companies directly to finance and procure the new stock. Since the core option needs only 33 five car units, you can imagine the cries of delight with which the OJEC Notice was greeted.
Fitting TVM 430 signalling, providing dual voltage capability, plus 125mile/hour EMU crashworthiness regulations, not to mention tunnel fire rating and train evacuation provision into a five car train of 20m vehicles which will be highly route specific spells high price and poor residual value. Equals even higher lease rentals.
It gets worse. According to SRA, 12 of the five car units are ‘likely' to be required for a start-up service in 2007. The remainder will be introduced in line with the build up in demand and delivery of the vehicles. As noted in this column, procurement is already late.
Some lateral thinking is already underway, with one ROSCO – the only one with a ‘p' in its name, proposing re-engineered Mk 3s with a 7.2MW electric loco on one end. Well, it sounds fun, but whether it could meet the specified 1 minute ‘maximum' station dwell times – extended to 1.5min at Ebbsfleet on up trains in the morning peak, is debatable.
Studying the options one feature stands out. The Core Option offers time savings over current services to Charing Cross and Cannon Street of 37 min for Canterbury West, 35min for Ashford, 29min for Gravesend and 27min for Folkestone West. While St Pancras may be further away from the place of work than the two Southern termini, this saving is pretty robust.
But when you start to build on the core option, the time savings are less attractive. A service for Maidstone West would save 14min. The ‘Medway Option' would give 7min savings for commuters from Chatham , Gillingham , Sittingbourne and Faversham – easily lost in a longer onward journey by bus and tube. Extending the Medway Option to include the Thanet Towns gives savings of 6 min for Herne Bay and 5min for Margate and Ramsgate.
For 10 car operation, the SRA costs the infractrure work needed at £65-70m for the Core Service option rising to £75-80 for the full Medway Option. Another £20million would be needed for 12 car operation. I doubt if there would be any change from £250million for the train fleet, with high rentals (say £25m a year?) tied to long term contracts.
Core option Peak Four trains/h London St Pancras-Stratford (alternate trains-Ebbsfleet-Gravesend Four trains/h London St Pancras-Stratford/Ebbsfleet-Ashford-Canterbury West Two trains/h London St Pancras- Stratford/Ebbsfleet-Ashford-Folkestone West
Off peak Two trains/h London St Pancras-Stratford-Ebbsfleet-Gravesend Two trains/h London St Pancras-Stratford-Ebbsfleet-Ashford dividing for Canterbury West/Folkestone West |
Not surprisingly, Richard Bowker is pretty non-committal about the whole idea. The consultation document, he comments in his foreword, ‘highlights the need to maintain services for the many thousands of commuters who have established their homes and employments patterns on the train services currently provided'.
On the core service and the options he is characteristically forthright: ‘none are cheap; none have absolutely robust business cares and none are funded within the SRA's budget'.
Of course the new CTRL Domestics are intended to be part of the Integrated Kent franchise, replacing Connex South Eastern from 2007. Just to make sure we have got the message Bowker adds ‘In the context of rising costs within the railway industry a significant challenge will be to develop a franchise proposition that is affordable and represents value for money'.
And in the document itself there is a warning against any irrational exuberance. Referring to financial appraisals it warns that where finances are constrained, as at present, ‘even projects showing a good financial and economic case may not be affordable', particularly when ‘higher priority projects or non-discretionary expenditure such as safety related investment, are taking ‘significant amounts of public resource'. Because of this, it should not be assumed that any of the options in the consultation document ‘have any certainty of funding'.
That makes this column sound positively cheerful. And the solution to the CTRL-DS conundrum is obvious. Let Eurostar, or some open access operator, run what it says on the can – domestic services on the CTRL - with connecting trains from Canterbury and Folkestone using the Regional Eurostars.
Full line speed running, bags of high class seating and a chance to suck it and see before committing to anything permanent. Sounds the cheapest option to me.