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INFORMED SOURCES July 2007

Electrification – driving back the forces of reaction

Government is institutionally Luddite when it comes to electrification – but that only makes the battle more rewarding

Here's a scandalous fact extracted from Network Rail's preliminary results published in May: the company spent just £1million on research and development on 2006-07. I make that five hundredths of one percent of turnover. Even in its final year British Rail spent £18million, divided between new work and applications, on a turnover of £3.1bn. Do the math and weep.

But some railway research is still being done, funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) and managed by the Rail Safety & Standards Board (RSSB). And since safety research is subject to diminishing returns, RSSB has expanded its remit to cover pretty well all aspects of the railway. One of these projects is a ‘Study on further electrification of Britain 's railway network', now in its closing stages.

In a sane world you might imagine that the obvious thing to do was to update the magisterial 1982 Joint report on main line electrification, prepared by the combined forces of the civil service and British Rail, and have done with it. But then we are not in a sane world and something new, albeit not so rigorous, will offer less scope for the reactionaries to cavil over.

RSSB's draft report should have been published by now, having been circulated for consultation in March. But pending the final version I can provide an outline of the findings.

Elements

There are five elements to the study: a cost model to establish the capital investment involved; an economic model to examines the business case; an environmental assessment; and amylases of five ‘exemplar routes'.

Yes, that last one is genuine. And there were, I am told, sighs of relief in certain quarters when the draft report concluded that a case could be made to renew the overhead line at the end of its useful life. Bonkers, I know, things really are as bad as that.

Anyway, of the serious propositions, a case could be made for extending the wires from Bedford on the MML under the ‘KDR' strategy. This was a new abbreviation to me: it stands for Key Diversionary Route .

KDRs have to be able to maintain services with the minimum of special provision. So where they provide alternative routing for electrified lines, electrification avoids the need for laying on diesel haulage.

A classic KDR is Crewe-Kidsgrove which was electrified as part of the West Coast Route Modernisation (WCRM). An electrified MML would be the ultimate KDR since it could relieve both the East and West Coast Main lines, depending on how far the wires went. To this, of course, should be added the commercial and operational benefits of electric traction to MML services themselves in terms of performance and reliability.

While a case cannot be made for Cross Country ‘in general', infill is considered a possibility. This highlights what seems to be an omission in the RSSB study.

Network

Back in 1982, the Joint Review was hot on ‘network benefits'. In other words, the more route miles you electrified the bigger the gains.

Considering Cross Country as a route may well not produce a case, but wiring the central core – say York-Sheffield-Derby-Birmingham-Bristol – would do wonders for a future electrified network. Bristol , of course, brings us to the Great Western where the study suggests that electrification could also be justified if the service was ‘optimised'.

Here we see another strength of the 1982 Joint Review. It looked not at individual routes, but at rolling programmes. On top of that the options were categorised by both extent and speed of implementation. You can find a copy of my article updating the Joint Review in the archive section of Alycidon Rail (www.alycidon.com).

Predictably, a case could not be made for the Chiltern Line and you wonder why anyone specified it in the first place place. Which is not to say that it would not gain from being part of a rolling programme

RSSB emphasises that the current study is but a first pass. The routes where electrification offers benefits will be subject to more detailed analysis.

In addition, more routes will be investigated for electrification potential. These include more diversions, in-fill schemes, which are being promoted by ATOC, and replacement of the third rail.

In parallel the extended study will also consider dual mode trains with both electric traction equipment and a diesel power car. Oops, sorry the ‘D' word slipped out, that should read ‘self propelled'.

Anyway dual mode will be studied with particular reference to Cross Country and the GWML. Actually, the more I think about it the more the idea of hauling around 80 tonnes of diesel power car under the – hopefully – extending wires is intellectually indefensible. And DfT Rail's predilection for five car dual mode IEP units is as mad as a box of frogs.

Technology

Technology has moved on since 1982. In particular regenerative braking is now possible on 25kV ac electrified lines . But, ac now has a major advantages compared with dc.

Regeneration on a dc power supply depends on other trains on the route being able to use the regenerated current. The classic example was Manchester-Sheffield-Wath. The technical term for the ability to accept regenerative braking current is ‘receptivity'

Clearly, receptivity will vary. At Clapham Junction, where a lot of trains are running or braking it will be high – up to 15%. But on the Shepperton Branch with a half hourly service it can be low to non-existent.

But with the latest three phase traction, ac electrified lines are fully reversible, with regenerated current not used by other trains being returned to the grid. With almost infinite receptivity , the Pendolino fleet is saving 17% through regenerative braking. This is pretty good for an intercity service, but the real benefits from regen' are achieved urban and suburban railways with frequent station stops.

Earlier this year c2c switched all of its Class 357 Electrostars to regenerative braking. Experience in the first two weeks suggested a 15% saving. With more service experience on which to draw, the provisional saving is now 21%.

Black hole

You might think that this level of saving could only strengthen the case for more electrification in a long term energy strategy. But you would be wrong.

On 23 May the Government published alongside its Energy White Paper a supporting document outlining the associated ‘Low carbon transport innovation strategy'. There was the usual lip service, and pretty tight lipped at that, to rail's ‘relatively low' carbon emissions at around 1% of the UK total. But, we were adjured that, as with all modes, rail needs to ‘play its part' in improving energy efficiency and carbon emissions profile.

And, Government is committed to working with the rail industry ‘to support and facilitate' the introduction of more energy efficient technologies and operational practices.  ‘Avenues being explored' range from the vague ‘optimising the rail network for energy efficiency', to the specific trialling of hybrid trains and identifying techniques for reducing train mass.

So, no mention of the proven potential of electrification to improve energy efficiency? No, of course not. But there is a reference to ‘considering the longer term role that hydrogen fuel cells could play.'

Moonshine

Last month I used a senior civil servant's faith in fuel cells to illustrate the condition known as Vertical Disorientation Syndrome (VDS). But, blow me down, Network Rail's outgoing chief Executive John Armitt subsequently picked up the same line.

At a Rail Research UK seminar John parroted almost word for word Mark Lambirth's argument. On electrification mr Armitt warned that the rail industry must ‘think carefully' about electrification as installation could be completed just in time for hydrogen power to take over.  John added that the Japanese already have a hydrogen powered train.

Now I know John is a civil engineer by training, but the laws of physics apply to all disciplines. And as I keep saying, hydrogen is not a fuel, it's a vector for transmitting energy. And compared with the national grid the trackside sub-station and the overhead line it is very inefficient means of transmitting energy.

Let's see how this efficiency translates into the real world. According to ATOC, the UK rail network uses 460 million litres of diesel a year.

If you convert the energy in the oil this to kilowatt hours and allow for the 60% of the energy which goes out of the exhaust or through the radiator, you get the energy at the wheels. Working back gives the hydrogen would have to provide to keep the diesel trains running.

As last month's table showed, when gas is produced by electrolysis,liqueifed and used in a fuel cell the hydrogen cycle is around 24% efficient. I calculate that producing the hydrogen to power today's diesel services would require one percent of Britain 's current total power generation capacity.

But John was talking about fuel cells replacing electrification. So let's do some more sums.

According to the latest figures the electrified network currently uses 0.4% of national generating capacity. So the implications of Mr Armitt's caution is that just as we'd got the wires up, the government would think it a good idea to take them down in favour of hydrogen fuel cell power traction which would consume four times more energy at the power station.

Just for reference, the back of an envelope suggests that if we replaced petrol power cars overnight with fuel cell vehicles, producing the hydrogen would take up about half the national electricity generating capacity. For a reality check on fuel cell can I recommend http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/h_scam.htm ?

Meanwhile I have added a line of my own to the University of Lancaster comparison of electric traction and hydrogen fuel cell power. Note that I have been conservative with regenerative braking savings. Also, further research suggests that the fuel cell efficiency is too high.

Honda claim only 60% for their latest fuel cell car which also features hybrid operation with a lithium ion battery. I suspect my chums at Lancaster over egged the fuel cell and understated electric traction to pre-empt the nit-pickers.

Source: University of Lancaster

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