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Unread 18-06-2019, 18:37   #4
ACustomer
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Join Date: Jan 2006
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James Shields: You are right - moving people (and freight ) from road to rail is important. But this means that rail system capacity needs to be increased radically. No mention of that in the Climate Action Plan, other than vague references to another strategic rail review. Compared with the very detailed and radical proposals for cars and home heating the potential of rail is virtually totally neglected.

On electrification, the moral of the story is to look to Europe, not England, which has made a total horlicks of electrification (e.g.see the GWR fiasco). Scotland has a long-term programme which seems to deliver good results. The key to this is to have a steady annual programme running over decades. (e.g. Germany, and more recently Scotland). England by contrast has had a series of big projects producing investment feasts and famines. For a really good look at this see: https://www.railengineer.co.uk/2018/...ication-right/

Electification looks expensive up front. But as a long-term investment when you factor in the recurrent benefits (greater effective capacity, greater reliability, cheaper running costs, cheaper rolling stock pruchase price, etc etc) then the upfornt costs get put in perspective.
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