Why are there so many diesel trains in the UK?
Posted by PodcastListener1234@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 193 comments
I am currently traveling from Newcastle to Birmingham in a Crosscountry diesel train. This seems like a rather important route, touching upon several large cities and tourist destinations. Is the line not electrified? I find it hard to believe, in continental Europe (where I lived before) you would only find non-electrified lines in very rural areas, not among major routes. Or perhaps is it just bad luck and other trains would be newer and electric?
(aside from being diesel, the train is also in a sorry state: broken, dirty, and badly designed, with no space for luggage, which is piling up everywhere)
Muted_Promotion_5488@reddit
Tunnels. Lots and lots and lots of tunnels. Most of which are fucking old and too small to run overhead lines. Our infrastructure in general is victorian.
Immediate-Escalator@reddit
Welcome to the wonderful world of privatised rail.
namur17056@reddit
Bold of you to assume it would be any better nationalised
CrossCityLine@reddit
What’s privatisation got to do with thousands of Victorian tunnels that are too small to run overhead wires through?
sihasihasi@reddit
Surely they could put a third rail in, though?
CrossCityLine@reddit
Network Rail have been moving away from 3rd rail for ages (decades) now.
Theyre have a low top speed and are far more susceptible to weather disruption, damage, and failure than overheads are.
It’d also require a nationwide fleet of new rolling stock.
sihasihasi@reddit
Fair enough. Down south, where I live, it's all we've got.
Sgt_Munkey@reddit
Because the money to upgrade the infrastructure has been plundered by shareholders instead of invested in adjusting or rerouting stuff. Hence why our rail service is old, shit and expensive
CrossCityLine@reddit
That’s not how it works. The rail infrastructure isn’t privatised, that’s the rolling stock and the TOCs.
Fantastic-Pear6241@reddit
It was privatised. And run so poorly it resulted in crashes with awful casualty counts it was quickly renationalised.
Toon1982@reddit
But if they were all under public ownership you could invest where it's needed
happyanathema@reddit
But the infrastructure is under public ownership and has been for years.
Ever since Railtrack got shitcanned and before that it was British rail.
Toon1982@reddit
Yes but they don't have the money from the train ticket sales to put back into the infrastructure because the private companies are taking the money out. If both aspects of the rail, trains and network, were publicly owned you could invest the profits wherever they're needed
happyanathema@reddit
They pay track access charges.
And basically the TOCs couldn't make sufficient profit either as a load of them ended up handing back franchises because they couldn't make them make financial sense.
Don't forget that before privatisation happened it was British rail and that wasn't any better.
Large public sector orgs just end up creating inefficiency everywhere and costing shit loads of money without delivering value for money.
jackboy900@reddit
Train ticket sales are subsidised, the rail network is not a net maker of money. The profits that the TOCs take is like 1% of the ticket revenue, that wouldn't make a dent in the cost of infrastructure.
frustratedpolarbear@reddit
Like 75% of TOCs are owned by the state these days. Great British Rail will eventually merge them all into one eventually I think. There’s been some talk about livery and uniforms but I’m not sure how much of that is rumours and nonsense
Pristine-Bar2786@reddit
If I remember correctly the previous labour government nationalised the network in the early 2000's (the minister with the massive eyebrows). So it was privatised for a while. However I don't know if the electrification of lines (or non electrification in this case) happen before or during this privatised period.
In my view the only reason to not electrify a major busy route with unsuitable tunnels would be short term cost savings. Because it would be cheaper in the long term. This to me a private mentality not a public one. But I am a Sinic.
Sgt_Munkey@reddit
Fair one mate. All I know is it's really expensive to stand up for long journeys that are frankly, shit
onionsareawful@reddit
Two causes:
1) More subsidies. We don't subsidise fares much, European countries do.
2) More complex pricing. Depending on when you go, trains are far cheaper: https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html . As mandated by DfT, trains are priced more like airline tickets -- far cheaper in advance, more expensive on the day.
Sgt_Munkey@reddit
All fair points mate, thanks. That being said, how come we can't have this utopia and why is nobody working towards genuinely driving down costs for customers? Advance booking is great but inflexible if your travel varies or is spontaneous.
bryan_rs@reddit
See the TGV - often held up as utopia, but on which you MUST book.
Sgt_Munkey@reddit
Fair points all previous commenters. I shall continue driving where possible in the uk since rail is too expensive and inflexible for me
Frequent-Contact-645@reddit
The best train journey is the one some other cunt is sat on whilst you are in your comfy car listening to your own tunes
wizpip@reddit
Base running cost is extortionate because our railways are all ancient. Around half the revenue (£11.9bn) from rail came from central government (taxpayer), with the other half (£12.2bn) coming from people who actually use the railway. Based on the numbers, total profit for operators only equated to 0.6%. If I ran a business based on a 0.6% margin, I'd sell it immediately. Supermarkets make around 3%, and tech companies make around 25%. Unfortunately, bringing the railways into public ownership isn't going to solve anything because that 0.6% is going to be immediately absorbed, and you still have the problem of a Victorian railway to deal with.
https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/increasing-fares-revenue-contributes-reduction-government-subsidy-railways
Sgt_Munkey@reddit
Interesting stats, thanks. The profit margin comparison is interesting.
bryan_rs@reddit
Because rail in Europe is subsidised much more.
OldEcho@reddit
Ah yes, and as you well know, we are somehow less capable of digging tunnels with nearly 200 years of technological development than we were then. That's why China for example was completely unable to build a modern and excellent cheap high speed rail service for most of its major cities inside the last 20 years.
Hour_Tour@reddit
Do you know how much cheaper it is to send in the povos to do the labouring manually with zero hazard mitigation, vs specialised modern equipment and workers who won't give up their life for the man?
OldEcho@reddit
Do you know how much more money we have? And over how much longer a period of time? The fact that we have done nothing to update critical sections of infrastructure since Victorian times almost beggars belief. All resources and power flow to the rich, half the time not even the rich in this country. We're basically being colonially exploited by America. Amazon didn't have to pay taxes for years to put the high streets out of business, and our politicians collected a tidy profit. They still don't pay their fair share.
It's probably the immigrants or something though.
Nolsoth@reddit
Bloody forward thinking Victorians! Building all the useful infrastructure and not planning for a bigger Future!.
Seriously tho the amount of shit the Victorians built around the empire that's still in daily use is a testament to their desire for a better future.
ctesibius@reddit
apart from Isambard Kingdom Brunel, as usual.
bryan_rs@reddit
Abject nonsense. The Victorians built railways for profit in a completely haphazard way that we’re still stuck with now.
AcceptableCustomer89@reddit
Oh it's just an easy fuckin answer that people with no understanding about the rail network say
Weird_Technician5338@reddit
Not an excuse, Hongkong and Japan had private railway too.
Sir_Madfly@reddit
The railway network is publicly owned and managed. The government makes all the decisions on infrastructure investment. The fact that train operators are private is irrelevant.
MoffTanner@reddit
The actual track infrastructure has been nationalised for pretty much the entire period since WW2 and in reality since 1914. it was only private 1992-2002.
Sir_Madfly@reddit
It was privately owned between 1996 and 2002. Railtrack was formed in 1994 but it wasn't privitised until 1996.
During the two world wars the railways were under direct government control, but they were not nationalised. The companies retained ownership and shareholders still got paid.
Between the world wars (and indeed under Railtrack) the railway network was under heavy government regulation, but still privately owned and operated.
Pricklestickle@reddit
People pointing out the track infrastructure is publicly owned are missing the point. The private train operating companies extract money from the system (in the form of dividends and executive salaries) that could have otherwise been spent on infrastructure.
AnonymousWaster@reddit
Government takes all cost and revenue risk for franchised / DFTO operators.
The only private companies extracting money from the industry these days are the Open Access vultures.
Pricklestickle@reddit
That might be the case now, but it wasn't for 20 years previously.
bryan_rs@reddit
And yet weirdly the privatisation era saw new trains and massive upgrades. Sorry to flag inconvenient facts. Some of us remember the horrendous service of British Rail.
Pricklestickle@reddit
I remember it too. British rail was bad. Privatisation was bad. Two things can be true at once.
The upgrades under the private system were not proportional to the astronomical increases in fares. A lot of money was extracted from the system.
bryan_rs@reddit
It’s simply not true that there were astronomical increases in fares.
Unique_Agency_4543@reddit
The underinvestment in the UK's railways goes back to the 1920s. I think the public sector has to take it's fair share of the blame considering it's been in charge for the majority of that time.
DrachenDad@reddit
LoL it's public owned.
insomnimax_99@reddit
The infrastructure is owned and operated by the DfT
The rail franchises are controlled by and have their budgets set by the DfT.
The only parts of our railways that are actually private are the rolling stock (owned by ROSCOs) and open access operators like Lumo and Hull Trains.
Not really a privatisation problem.
_MicroWave_@reddit
The track isn't privatised...
SuperTekkers@reddit
These trains were also diesel before privatisation by the way
Snappy0@reddit
Except of course that the railways are publicly owned.
OurManInJapan@reddit
The track network is owned and maintained by Network Rail, part of the DfT. It is not privatised.
kool_kats_rule@reddit
NR isn't part of the DfT.
gt94sss2@reddit
Network Rail is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Transport
beernon@reddit
Privatised rail is more to do with the trains themselves. Electrifying track is up to the government.
_real_ooliver_@reddit
For a decade NR has been public, and they decide on infrastructure upgrades with large changes supported by the government itself.
onionsareawful@reddit
Even longer. Rail infrastructure in the UK has been effectively government owned for over a century, and officially owned by the government since 1947, except for a short gap in 1994-2002.
ashyjay@reddit
Not just privatised but ancient rail, as most are still Victorian lines.
OhioRizzGyattSkibidi@reddit
Vast-Slip-@reddit
Oh my god it's Mr Northern Rail!
seklas1@reddit
If even the tiniest part of the rail has no electrification, they have to use diesel, and there is basically no electrification between York and Manchester (which they’re currently working on), so there are no electric trains between Newcastle and Birmingham.
Also, they ain’t cleaning train properly or at all, so yeah… they ain’t great.
onionsareawful@reddit
There are bi-mode trains, though XC haven't been allocated any.
evenstevens280@reddit
I like those Hitachi trains, they're quiet and spacious. I, however, abhor the seats. The old plastic chairs you used to get at school would be more comfortable.
alex8339@reddit
I like the seats for not overheating when the ac is broken and providing good lumbar support.
banisheduser@reddit
The issue was the last 10 years or more, the government has constantly given Arriva short term extensions to their contract to run the XC franchise.
Arriva wouldn't commit any money to new trains so they stuck with what they had from when Virgin ran it - the Voyagers.
The current refurbishment of the units is also an interesting choice considering I'd expect within the next few years, the government will probably announce new Bi-Mode trains for the route.
Unsure whether Hitchai still have the jigs for the 800/801/802 shape so it might be the MML's 810 shape which makes sense as they're higher powered to keep up with Meridian (a better version of the Voyager) timetable.
EngineersAnon@reddit
Bi trains from Hitachi...
If you'll excuse me, I'll be over here being immature about that.
PDeegz@reddit
This is not true, there's bi-mode trains on the Transpennine Route even though a huge chunk is unelectrified like you say. XC just don't have any for whatever reason.
Sburns85@reddit
Most of Edinburgh routes aren’t electric
_real_ooliver_@reddit
That's not relevant for the XC ECML route, and also just is not true.
Newcastle - electrified Glasgow via Carstairs - electrified Glasgow via Shotts - electrified Glasgow via Airdrie - electrified North Berwick - electrified Dundee - not electrified Inverness - not electrified Fife Circle - not electrified
So, most are electrified.
Sburns85@reddit
Edinburgh to Fife not electrified, most going over the fourth rail bridge are diesel. Also Glasgow is a lot more modern railway network.
_real_ooliver_@reddit
Yes, one example
TheClnl@reddit
Can't be because they're prioritising their app/website
j_the_inpaler@reddit
Because the UK always chooses against common sense. Zero carbon ! Diesel trains help that ! But don’t get taxed like car drivers. Unless your on the payroll of the train companies
derloos@reddit
Because any new attempt to electrify has to go through seven rounds of reviews and three public consultations, only for the allocated spending to get cut mid-work, and all the specialized workforce gets sent home?
Realistic-River-1941@reddit
Electrification is expensive, and on recent times has been late and overbudget. There are more votes in spending the money on schools and hospitals.
phil8715@reddit
Because electrification is very expensive. They were supposed to electrify Paddington to Penzance , so far it's got as far as Maidenhead and Bristol Parkway and some of the Cardiff area. Not sure if it's fully electrified from Bristol Parkway to Cardiff.
neilm1000@reddit
We have crap rolling stock now. I grew up near Plymouth and all routes I went on were HSTs/125s. Comfy, luggage space, more toilets etc. I first went on one of the new Voyagers in the university holidays in 2002 just after they'd been introduced (to Bristol). I thought they were crap in comparison and still do. No luggage space, uncomfy seats, massive toilets but fewer of them and so on.
evenstevens280@reddit
HSTs were brilliant. There are still some floating around up in Scotland I think
Captain_Piccolo@reddit
Mhm. 26 of them. They’ll all be gone in about 18 months.
FelisCantabrigiensis@reddit
The Government, in particular the Treasury, is reluctant to spend money on electrifying railways (or almost anything else, but that's another topic). What funding there is tends to come and go instead of providing a reliable stream of funding (whatever size it might be) to continually electrify more of the network.
There are some engineering problems too, mainly with tunnels, but there are solutions to them. There are modern systems for running overhead power through even quite small tunnels (often involving a solid conductor bar on the tunnel roof rather than suspended wires).
kiddj1@reddit
Some of them might struggle with ULEZ /s
Illustrious_Bus8440@reddit
Because we are crap at literally everything in the UK. Look at HS2 as another example of not being able to do something that other countries do in 5 years not 20.
Teembeau@reddit
That's not the reason. The reason HS2 is a failure is because we don't really need it.
When you need something there is drive behind it. It makes a lot of sense to build fast railways between Paris and Bordeaux because it's a huge distance (375 miles). Same with Beijing to Shanghai (750 miles). They replace internal flights. Everyone cared about it being done.
London to Birmingham is 120 miles. It takes around 80 minutes. HS2 takes it down to about 50. But what sort of person really cares that much about it taking 80 instead of 50? Someone going to see a client for an occasional meeting? No. Granny going to see the grandchildren? No. Other than the people getting paid to build it, no-one really cares that much if it happens or not. And none of the predicted increase in demand for peak rail travel have happened and in fact, that's gone into decline because of online meetings and remote work.
So it's just this thing dragging on. Right now with no date for when it will get finished, which is just insane. It's going to take longer than it took to build the 19th century railways with manual labour. But of course, those were useful, there was drive behind doing them.
pollypetunia@reddit
The chief driver for HS2 wasn't speed, but capacity. There's essentially one track for most of the proposed route, used by both inter-city and local commuter services, and freight for much of the length. Building the full route (not whatever we have left of it now) would have released so much capacity on the older lines for freight (it's much more environmentally friendly to use trains rather than HGVs) and local commuter rail, which would have resulted in more local trains running, more people taking the train, less cars on the road, and less pollution. That's the real need for the project, but because it was dubbed HS2 people just focus on the speed gains- which we might not even get now.
I'm not saying it wasn't and isn't horrifically mismanaged, but we did and do need it. I just wish it was the whole length of the proposed track.
Teembeau@reddit
That isn't correct, and I will ask you to look at page 4 of the HS2 Outline Business case from 2013.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c2b6ded915d1d1741c8d6/hs2-economic-case.pdf
These are the numbers for Phase 1.:-
Time Savings £20bn
Crowding Benefits 4.1bn
(some other numbers)
Total £28.1bn
The original justification claimed that 71% of the benefits of HS2 were about speed.
RealLongwayround@reddit
Quite. It took five years from 1976 for the first section of the LGV (Paris-Lyon) to be constructed and opened.
jaymatthewbee@reddit
HS2 in full with the eastern leg would have improved this particular journey.
Sir_Madfly@reddit
Because for generations the UK government has absolutely refused invest adequate money in infrastructure. It's not even like we are spending all the money on roads. We basically stopped building motorways in the 80s. We just don't spend enough on anything.
PigHillJimster@reddit
There are some parts of the National Rail Network where there are too many physical or economic barriers to electrification.
For example, the section at Dawlish between Star Cross and Newton Abbot that runs alongside the sea wall.
You can imagine the high costs and difficulties of electrifying this section with high waves and salty sea water breaking over the line!
A lot of money gets pumped into this section just to maintain the sea wall and protect and rebuild the line continuously!
Why did they they build it like this? It was all down to IK Brunell and his wanting to give passengers the experience of being on a train travelling right beside the sea on the way to the English Riviaira at Torquay.
Necessary_Money_9757@reddit
We have limited rail electrification.
Rail in and around London is very electrified. While this might seem like regional inequality (it is), it's also because of the huge number of commuter trains there are. Rainham, a small town in Kent, sees a train nearly every 5 minutes to London in the peak, going through lots of residential areas. Those trains need to be electrified to protect air quality. Obviously the underground also needs to be electrified. Clapham Junction sees 200 tph in the peak, they definitely need to be electric otherwise that's a lot of diesel going on.
In the UK we also have two main types of electrification. Third rail (which is where the railway has a third rail delivering power) and overhead wires (which is pretty self explanatory). In South London and the counties south of London we tend to have third rail and everywhere else is overhead. I'm not sure why third rail isn't popular, it certainly looks nicer and can be built in tunnels.
Major lines coming from London are also electrified. The West Coast Mainline, connecting London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, and the East Coast Mainline, connecting London to York, Newcastle and Edinburgh, are both fully electrified.
Many other major lines are partially electrified. The GWR lines are electrified until Cardiff, but skip Bristol. The Midland Mainline is electrified until just before Leicester so commuter trains are electric but intercity ones are hybrid.
The route you're describing is the Cross Country route, which is not electrified. I think this is a mistake and electrifying it would be huge. The good news is the section from York to Edinburgh is the ECML so is already electrified. Birmingham is also electrified because of the WCML and local trains. If they finish the electrification of the Midland Mainline, that would take care of the section from Derby to Sheffield. Sheffield to York via Leeds could then be electrified, connecting the Yorkshire cities. That just leaves Birmingham to Derby, which might take a bit of convincing because no one cares about the East Midlands, but I think it would be a good idea because that would allow Derby to Birmingham commuter trains to be EMUs.
South of Birmingham however we run into a bit of a problem. Cross Country trains run from Penzance, up through Devon Bristol, then Cheltenham and Gloucester to Birmingham, and honestly I don't think any of that is electrified.
As a general point, lots of local lines are diesel only because they're so hated that they're lucky to even still exist. I'd love for there to be trains everywhere, but no one in the Treasury cares about these Northern lines that see one slow service a day in each direction. They can suffer with their one coach class 150s.
crucible@reddit
This image is often posted on various transit subreddits:
The UK has electrified barely 40% of its total rail network.
Infinite_Crow_3706@reddit
80% of passenger journeys so the remaining 60% of track has only 20% of passengers
crucible@reddit
well, yes, but also the main lines that aren't electrified stick out like a sore thumb. A lot of the Midland Main Line. North Wales Coast. Manchester - York (in progress). Great Western to Bristol - Bath and West of Cardiff. Didcot to Oxford.
JourneyThiefer@reddit
It’s 0% here in Northern Ireland lmao, for the little amount of trains we even have
crucible@reddit
Yes, although at least NI wasn't privatised like the rest of the UK.
EverythingIsByDesign@reddit
Hello, I am a railway electrification engineer.
In the United Kingdom our loading guage is far smaller than other areas of the world. Most of our railways were built by Victorians for mineral (and other freight traffic) which given the characteristics didn't need a large gauge. So we built narrow tunnels, low bridges, tight radius curves.
This legacy makes electrification incredibly expensive. The UK using 25,000V overhead line, which requires quite large electrical clearances between the body of the train and the OLE, and the OLE and the bridge. Great Western Electrification ran massive over-budget because they demolished virtually every bridge between London of Cardiff, lowered track through Victorian tunnels, remodelled listed stations to accommodate OLE.
There are definitely ways to make electrification cheaper. We have a massive obsession with completely over engineering the OLE and they've trailed "discontinuous electrification" in South Wales, which is steps in the right direction, but there is still lots to do.
PodcastListener1234@reddit (OP)
discontinuous electrification would be electrification of the "easy" part of the network + batteries for tunnels, bridges and tricky bits?
In Italy they use a combination of 25kV AC (for new high-speed lines) and 3kV DC (the legacy standard). Most trains are multi-tension anyway. Does 3kV DC require less clearance?
EverythingIsByDesign@reddit
Yes, that is correct. Discontinuous saves quite a lot in civils interventions.
3kV DC does require smaller clearances but comes with it's own issues. As your power losses are proportional to the square of the current then cutting the voltages drive up the losses, and the voltage drop mean more frequent feeding. Same reason we moved away from Third Rail in the UK.
PodcastListener1234@reddit (OP)
thanks, that was very informative!
Objective_Mousse7216@reddit
UK has a low percentage of electrified trains compared with European countries. This is what happens when you privatise something that should have remained state owned.
onionsareawful@reddit
Electrification is up to Network Rail, who are owned by the government.
Objective_Mousse7216@reddit
Source?
onionsareawful@reddit
Network Rail own all of the infrastructure.
jaymatthewbee@reddit
I don’t completely disagree with you, but I seem to recall in the early 2000s Virgin Trains were pushing for the West Coast Mainline upgrading with in cab signalling so they could run their Pendolinos as 140mph.
Snappy0@reddit
Which had the WCML infrastructure been private, it may well have been upgraded as such.
bryan_rs@reddit
It was private at that point. Railrrack couldn’t project manage it cost effectively. It went five times over budget, reached 125 mph instead of 140 mph and in cab signalling never happened.
Fern-Brooks@reddit
Not really sure what sourcing you want here, NR own the infrastructure, the train operating companies just run the trains
Objective_Mousse7216@reddit
Oh, so the track need electricity, but the 50 years old rolling stock stays diesel. Got it boss. What are you some kind of great mind?
onionsareawful@reddit
Who do you think deals with the rolling stock? The TOCs don't buy trains. They get allocated them by the DfT.
neilm1000@reddit
How much of the rolling stock is 50 years old?
Voeld123@reddit
Sourcing is not typically required or expected for well known, non controversial statements of fact.
Infrastructure hasn't been privatised since Railtrack folded in 2002.
It's ok to be angry about privatisation and it's faults but typically the government defines the electrification programmes and pays Network Rail to do it.
RealLongwayround@reddit
Here you go.
The sources are linked at the bottom of the page. Fill your boots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Rail
For future reference, statements like “rain comes from clouds” and “apples grow on trees” do not normally require sources. The facts are found by the most rudimentary of searching and are completely uncontroversial.
GrownDandilion@reddit
Haha love this
GrownDandilion@reddit
No point electrifying routes when the private companies say they wont upgrade to electrifying their trains without grants and incentives
Snappy0@reddit
You'll need to source that one big man.
EntirelyRandom1590@reddit
Serious lack of understanding here.
The private Train Operating Companies are just that. They operate the trains. They don't own the trains. Or choose the trains. When they take on the franchise they also take on the trains allocated to them.
One of the few exceptions is Transport for Wales, which are government owned.
neilm1000@reddit
Do you know how rolling stock procurement works? Because I'm not entirely sure that you do.
felloutoftherack@reddit
Which private companies have said this?
The trains used by the operators are owned by rolling stock lessors. Those lessors and their investment cycle and how stock is allocated to which operators is closely controlled by the government.
There is very little about the railway system that actually operates in a private manner. We have the worst of both worlds where the private sector is able to profit from our rail system, but the government is still on the hook for a large part of it.
onionsareawful@reddit
The main issue is that the government just won't commit to the schemes. They're consistently the first to go during cutbacks, as they take a long time and don't really show immediate benefits.
If we electrified the network, TOCs (or Great British Rail) would switch to electric trains as they're cheaper to operate. You don't even need to give them grants!
Less_Cauliflower_OK@reddit
How dare you come here using facts against the ill informed, erroneous, yet righteous average Redditor!!!
onionsareawful@reddit
Honestly, the more you learn about how the rail network in the UK, the more you get convinced nationalisation won't solve anything (except maybe reduce costs by a few %).
I can give another example. CrossCountry consistently run trains far too small for their demand. You might think -- reasonably -- this is because XC don't want to spend money on larger trains, but this isn't actually the cause. It's because the DfT decide which trains CrossCountry get, as part of the franchisee agreement.
Ok-Morning3407@reddit
In Ireland the railways are state owned, yet just 1% of our network is electrified! So I don’t think it is just down to privatisation.
banisheduser@reddit
No, this is what happens when the government see the railways as a business, not as a piece of vital infrastructure and thus do not invest.
The other issue is that large parts of European railways were bombed away in WWII. They could rebuild to be bigger and all electrified.
Our railways were not like that and the kinetic envelope is much smaller than in Europe. That, plus NIMBYs and cost mean we're stuck with is.
Roads are the same - they barely fit modern cars now but as streets can't really be widened very well, we're stuck with it.
I_ALWAYS_UPVOTE_CATS@reddit
Railway infrastructure in the UK is state owned.
KonkeyDongPrime@reddit
Political cycles don’t marry with economic cycles for sensible infrastructure investment. This got extra fucked by Gideon Osborne annihilating capital spending.
RIPGoblins2929@reddit
I'd like to ask a related askUK question: how do you feel about people from continental Europe saying shit like this?
edcoopered@reddit
Should check out the endless saga of trying to electrify to Bristol, blame for everyone involved.
TonyBlairsDildo@reddit
If it doesn't connect to London, it isn't important. The railway that connects Cardiff central to the literal Welsh Parliament building is diesel.
TonyBlairsDildo@reddit
If it doesn't connect to London, it isn't important. The railway that connects Cardiff central to the literal Welsh Parliament building is diesel.
invisibleeagle0@reddit
We led the world in creating rail infrastructure. As a result a lot of it is now old and difficult to electrify. Bridges need to be raised, lots of engineering works, etc.
PodcastListener1234@reddit (OP)
While this is true, many countries in Europe initially designed their railways for steam trains (a little after the UK, but still in the mid-1800s) but then electrified them (and changed the tracks to make them straighter, or doubled/quadrupled them to increase capacity, etc.)
No-Championship9542@reddit
Ya because we dropped 700,000 tonnes of bombs in their railways
PodcastListener1234@reddit (OP)
I find it a bit hard to believe that railways having being bombed extensively is what helped with electrification.
bowak@reddit
The sheer level of damage to many continental networks helped massively with the cost-benefit analysis.
Whereas our network was run into the ground but effectively still intact.
No-Championship9542@reddit
Helped with all the infrastructure around railways which you need to make them; cost effective, efficient and generally worthwhile. Only 15% of Brits use the train, as the railways were bad, as a result their is no incentive to electricity or otherwise something that no one will use and will just lose money, the vast majority of people will just drive either way and if it's over 6 hours probably just fly for cheaper.
EntirelyRandom1590@reddit
But it's true... Tunnels and bridges were especially targeted.
EntirelyRandom1590@reddit
We can bypass much of that now by running bimode battery-electric. Allows you to avoid electrification of the most challenging parts of the route.
kjus13@reddit
It's not exactly the result of having led the world. That's due to neglected maintenance and modernisation afterwards.
gatoStephen@reddit
Battery trains are a coming thing though.
peldor@reddit
The overly simplistic reason, all UK train services are run by private companies and the upkeep/maintenance of the rails is on the taxpayer.
By design, it’s a system where the profits are privatised while the truly significant costs and expenses are a liability for the taxpayer.
The grim reality of this system is there’s no real ROI for the government to sink billions of pounds into rail infrastructure costs. The more they build out, the more it costs to maintain.
edhitchon1993@reddit
History.
Broad brush here but basically after the second world war Britain faced a choice when rebuilding its railways (same as much of the rest of Europe) and opted at that point to continue with steam engines (this was the 1948 Traction Plan) - this was probably mostly because Britain had a lot of coal and the over all national priority was minimising importing (to maintain a positive balance of trade) and maximising employment.
This decision was reassessed in 1955 when it was decided that we should instead undertake a programmed of dieselification with some strategic electrification (the West Coast Main Line from Euston for example). At this point the money available to the railways was starting to get tight. User ship (both passenger and freight) was falling and the government was increasingly broke. Major infrastructure investment wasn't really an option.
By the time of Beaching in the 1960s the railways were in serious decline. Money absolutely wasn't available. There is some discussion to be had about whether the fact the Minister of Transport (Ernest Marples) had interests in businesses involved in road transport might have influenced the terms of the Beaching reports and the lack of available money for railways.
Since then some further electrification projects have been undertaken (the wires now run up the whole of the West Coast Mainline to Glasgow, the East Coast Mainline, the south part of the Midland Mainline, parts of the Great Western Mainline) but it's been in fits and starts which means that every time we propose to start a project the up front training and equipment costs have to be added. If we had a rolling programme it would be cheaper BUT that requires a consistent political will to undertake electrification and... history loves to repeat itself!
The Cross Country route has its own unique issues here because it's not really a route as much as it's a series of bits of other routes which happen to eventually get you from Aberdeen to Penzance. There are now bi-mode diesel and overhead electric (and even tri-mode diesel, battery and overhead electric) trains available but the last time the Cross Country franchise had new trains was in the early 2000s when these weren't available (and, yes, there are multitude issues with the trains that were specified and built and which you are now riding on).
PodcastListener1234@reddit (OP)
Thanks this is a very informative answer. I have seen many people answering that it was because the UK built is railways earlier than any other countries. This seems to be the conventional wisdom, but while clearly there is some truth to it, it does not really explain the difference with other parts of Europe (which also built a lot of railway lines in the mid-1800s but have since electrified much of their network, certainly along its busiest routes).
Conscious-Rope7515@reddit
I'm afraid that many of my compatriots like to take refuge in the 'Britain was first' argument. It is correct so far as loading gauge (which is a whole separate topic) is concerned, but not when you are dealing with electrification. The failure to electrify is a political failure. While we're at it, the 'everything was bombed' argument is equally fallacious. Those who use it appear never to have been to Switzerland.
strattad@reddit
This needs to be the top answer, I am so sick of how many confidently incorrect people come out of the woodwork every time a rail-related question comes up on Reddit and just go "muh privatisation".
chicken-farmer@reddit
Because they rule
Timely_Egg_6827@reddit
Freight tends to be diesel and lot of inter-cites are electro-diesel. Due to gradients and victorian tunnels, it is not possible to cheaply electrify all the lines. The tunnels don't have the clearances for overheads and ducting for surface level power is expensive and would require lines to be shut for longer. The switch from over-head to third rail on Thameslink at Farrington/City Thameslink can be interesting as sometimes when the pantagram is dropped, it is still charged and you get a loud bang and flash and American tourists under the seats.
Having been unable to travel for 2 days because Thameslink blow a fuse somewhere in 40miles of track and couldn't work out where until they brought a special train down from Birmingham that has special detectors, I can appreciate why they have back-up systems. In fairness to Thameslink, someone fried themselves stealing the overheads and issue came up when they reconnected the wiring.
If you go further North, you get lines that are still mainly steam and terrifyingly priced as aimed squarely at tourists. Thankfully the train company gave locals 65% off tickets as it was a vital link for many.
Imreallyadonut@reddit
Because many lines, not just branch/local lines, were never electrified.
AndyOf77@reddit
I assume that it's some section of the route is not electrified, diesel for the win anyway. Nowt wrong with some electric trains though.
StagePuzzleheaded635@reddit
Operating diesel locomotives is cheaper than converting the entire network to electric.
evenstevens280@reddit
Surely not long term, though
StagePuzzleheaded635@reddit
I can’t confirm that, plus, there’s a practicality cost. Is it worth electrifying a route that almost never gets used?
evenstevens280@reddit
If it's a short branch line whose trains don't touch any other part of the network, then maybe not.
StagePuzzleheaded635@reddit
Maybe if we had combined mains and battery operated trains, it could work, but short term, it’s not cheap.
Fellowes321@reddit
Ask Chris Grayling. He cancelled lots of the northern electrification schemes. As trains are used for decades, it will be 2040+ before this changes.
StevenXSG@reddit
Many of the lines haven't significantly been upgraded since they were built (true also in Europe), they were just built in 1800 and something and not the mid 1900's
jaymatthewbee@reddit
Crosscountry trains are some of the worst routes. Heavily overcrowded and not enough capacity for demand.
Large sections of the Cross Country route aren’t electrified. Most of the routes that are electrified are routes that go directly into London such the West Coast Mainline from Glasgow to London, or East Coast Mainline from Edinburgh to London.
We have first mover disadvantage when it comes to a lot of our infrastructure. Our railway infrastructure dates back to Victorian times so upgrading it is a slow costly process.
PodcastListener1234@reddit (OP)
While it is true that the UK built most of their railways before other countries, many countries in Europe initially designed their railways for steam trains (a little after the UK, but still in the mid-1800s). Still, they then electrified them starting from the 1910s (and in time changed the tracks to make them straighter, doubled/quadrupled them to increase capacity, etc.).
What I find baffling is that these "bad routes" are those where there is a lot of demand (and hence, one would think a lot of motivation to invest and improve the line). I would understand if this were some rural link used by few people.
jaymatthewbee@reddit
A lot of Europe was more badly damaged in WW1 and WW2 than the UK, so they had an opportunity to rebuild from scratch.
Plus, post war Britain was financially broke but still sore itself as a world power, so what money we did have went on developing nuclear weapons and maintaining a large navy we couldn’t afford.
PodcastListener1234@reddit (OP)
I see the argument of having a huge navy and nuclear weapons costing a lot. The other, about rebuilding from scratch, not so much: certainly it's cheaper not having being bombed than being bombed, for the purpose of rebuilding infrastructure. But maybe it explains the lack of necessity/political will.
EntirelyRandom1590@reddit
If something has been bombed and already huge disruption, then you do avoid a lot of costs of clearing it...
jaymatthewbee@reddit
It comes down to necessity. A lot of Europe had to rebuild completely whereas the UK only really had to repair as far as the railways were concerned. So if you’re rebuilding you might as well modernise completely.
onionsareawful@reddit
The Cross Country route (Bristol to York via Birmingham) isn't really electrified. And CC are just a bad TOC, consistently running quite poorly maintained trains.
Pristine_Weight7850@reddit
Not to mention running knackered old short-formed Voyagers and commuters that are always crowded
Crazy how a local commuter service in Birmingham has nicer and longer carriages than a regional train going between Birmingham and Nottingham
evenstevens280@reddit
It will never fail to astonish me how XC often run 4 car pulls between Exeter and Newcastle. If you're lucky you'll get 2x4 cars joined together. Even then they're constantly rammed.
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:C75312/2026-04-13#allox_id=0
Absolute state of this.
A 9 hour journey, calling at 36 stations, including Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Derby, Sheffield, Leeds, York, and Newcastle
FOUR FUCKING CARRIAGES. THERE ARE 12 CAR PULLS GOING BETWEEN CAMBRIDGE AND BRIGHTON FFS.
XC, sort your fucking stock out man. It's embarassing.
onionsareawful@reddit
It's the DfTs fault. XC don't get to choose their rolling stock, they get allocated it by the government. They're getting a few more longer trains, but they're old stuff from Avanti (i think it's Avanti, but it's definitely old!).
I do agree though. If any of their routes went near Westminster they would surely have some better trains.
garethchester@reddit
And running those short-form from Aberdeen to Plymouth!
neilm1000@reddit
I miss a lot about living in Plymouth but the crazily short long distance trains is not one of the things.
onionsareawful@reddit
The government decides which trains the franchisee / TOC get, so as with many train issues, you can blame DfT.
Brickie78@reddit
Historically, the UK mined a lot of coal. Like, a LOT. So while a lot of Europe was electrifying its railways in the 30s and 40s, we were still building steam engines because why wouldn't we?
The rail network was very stretched during WW1, with lots of key workers joining up and being killed, and locomotives being sent over to France. So the 1920s and 30s were focussed on recovering capacity. And then in WW2 the network got bombed heavily too, so again in the postwar period the focus was on getting back up to capacity quickly (and cheaply because the country was broke).
And then there was the Modernisation Plan of the mid-50s which was such a colossal fumble that for the next four decades the received wisdom was "Don't give British Rail any money, they'll only waste it", even when you didn't have administrations that wanted to scrap trains entirely and just build roads (cough Marples).
dbxp@reddit
Some routes are electrified some aren't. Electrification in some cases requires lowering the track or raising bridges to make room for the wires
KiwiNo2638@reddit
It's this also why we don't have double decker trains like they do on the continent?
crucible@reddit
Yes, basically our “loading gauge” (the physical space around a railway vehicle) is too small to allow for the sort of double decker trains European countries enjoy
mk6971@reddit
Because the successive Governments have failed to provide enough money for electrification over the decades. Unlike France and Germany who took the opportunity, when repairing the war destroyed railway infrastructure, to increase electric. We were too obsessed with steam and diesel!
sjr0754@reddit
Cross-country is a mess in general, but what hurts their routes is that they don't serve London. If a transport route doesn't serve London directly in some way, no government will give any funding beyond the bare minimum of maintenance.
evenstevens280@reddit
Always found it funny that the planned electrification of Temple Meads was all set to go ahead and then... BAM. Pulled. Ordered a bunch of all-electric trains for GWR to use and then had to convert them to bi-mode.
If Bristol can't get electrification funding then the entire South West is destined to forever be unelectrified.
pizzainmyshoe@reddit
Governments can't implement a rolling electrification program. They don't want to do anything.
Capital_Shift871@reddit
It’s mostly down to the network not being fully electrified and some major routes still rely on diesel, especially cross-country ones like that
Important_Ruin@reddit
Have to run bi-modial on ECML has isnt enough power in the lines for all trains to run on electricity north of Newcastle either.
Joys of the chronic underinvestment across UK major infrastructure.
thepopmonkey@reddit
There are long stretches of track in the UK that are not electrified. The network was originally designed for steam trains, and unless you're in the South East, rail investment has been terrible even before it was privatised.
Cross country's network covers the largest area, but the majority of their routes are not electrified, so have been using diesels for a long time. Most of these trains have cascaded down from other operators, so are showing their age.
neilm1000@reddit
Yeah, its worth remembering here that when sectorisation occurred in the early-80s Regional Railways had costs four times it's revenue: for every pound taken they were spending four. No matter how much money NSE and Intercity made to cross subsidise it, it was never going to be able to cover costs and that only got worse when the sectors took over infrastructure. People say that public transport doesn't exist to make money and needs subsidy but you can't subsidise to that level and expect to have spare cash for infrastructure.
I_ALWAYS_UPVOTE_CATS@reddit
Early adopter penalty.
We were the first country to develop a rail network and consequently it was designed around the steam engine. This means most of our bridges and tunnels are too low to accommodate overhead wires, adding hugely to the cost and time required to convert the network. As steam engines fell out of use, diesel lomotives were simply much cheaper and quicker to get up and running.
Some lines - generally in southeast England (and of course the London Underground) - use an electrified rail to provide power instead of overhead cables. This eliminates the problem of low bridges, but third rail systems are much less energy-efficient than overhead wires, and trains using them cannot run as fast.
Teembeau@reddit
Many of the problems with our trains is that we built them back in the 19th century. When Brunel built Box Tunnel near Bath, the only thing that existed were steam trains. Electricity was a very new thing. So he didn't put in space above for cabling. Same as why we can't run double decker trains. Bridges and tunnels are too low. And changing it is a huge project.
Now in some parts of Europe they built a lot of it later and so thought about it at the time. Or, various air forces blew up tracks and bridges and after the war, they built them better. "you know, let's put the new bridge higher and so we can have taller trains at some point".
Subject_Ad1286@reddit
It requires capital investment, and that is politically unpopular in the UK.
tykeoldboy@reddit
When Europe began rebuilding after WW2 and replace steam trains, most of mainland Europe went for the higher initial outlay but long term benefits of electrification whereas the UK went short term cost (cheaper) and diesel trains
mhoulden@reddit
When British Rail replaced steam engines it was cheaper to buy diesels than to electrify lines. Not cheaper to run, but that was someone else's problem.
neilm1000@reddit
One of the nails in the coffin for British Coal was losing their single biggest customer totally by 1968. Had BR gone all in on the Modernisation Plan we'd have had more electrified rail which would have meant more (at the time) coal fired power stations.
MoffTanner@reddit
About 36% of the UK rail network is electrified. There is no funding to increase this materially as such a decision would need government approval and funding.
eat-my-rice@reddit
I think battery trains will take over diesel trains once feasible
Kientha@reddit
EMR already have tri-mode trains! Where they are diesel, electric, and battery
ReySpacefighter@reddit
We are the victims of being the first to do it- the massive amount of out rail infrastructure suits the standards of the 19th century, that's hundreds of rail bridges and tunnels, and electrifying all that now (rather than just having built electric like in other places) is an enormous undertaking.
snakeoildriller@reddit
Failure to invest in electrification - that's basically it.
RevolutionaryTea1265@reddit
I live in the East Midlands and the town that I’m in can’t easily electrify the rail due to being a unesco world heritage site and because route has narrow cuttings, old stone bridges.
Installing overhead wires and masts would require raising bridges or lowering tracks, which is incredibly expensive and often meets resistance due to the heritage status of this area.
The East Midlands main line was never upgraded like others in the 60’s and 80’s to electric and I suppose it’s now considered too costly. EMR are rolling out hybrid ‘aurora’ class trains now that will run on electric where the track is electrified and diesel for the rest of the leg.
QuestNetworkFish@reddit
Electrifying routes is expensive and causes significant disruption. Some routes have trains running basically 24/7 (overnight there are no passenger services, but some freight will still run as well as repositioning of trains for passenger service). Closing down the line for the time it takes to do the work is a massive undertaking.
Combine this with a lack of forward thinking from successive governments (because why would they care about large scale infrastructure projects that won't see benefits until long after they're out of power), and you end up with the sorry state we're in
SubjectiveAssertive@reddit
Cross country trains operate on a variety on lines, not all are electrified for their entire length
and Crosscountry also aren't known for cleaning their train interiors, i think part of that is they don't really just dwell anywhere for all that long
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