Rail electrification must start now!
IT is now confirmed the eastern leg of the new HS2 line from London to the north will terminate at East Midlands Parkway. Although this station is close to East Midlands Airport, there is no straightforward link to the airport.
However, there are rail connections available from East Midlands Parkway to Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Worksop and Mansfield. It has also been announced the electrification of the Midland Main Line from London to Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield will re-commence, since it was stopped in 2017, and then permitted to proceed at a snail’s pace to Kettering/Market Harborough.
It seems obvious that in conjunction with this longawaited electrification, we should now take advantage of the additional benefits of electrifying other local lines, such as: (1) Derby, Nottingham and Lincoln Line; (2) Nottingham, Mansfield and Worksop; (3) Nottingham and Grantham; and (4) East Midlands Parkway and Leicester.
An advantage of this would be the improvement in east-west and associated local connectivity. There is no need to wait for the electrification to commence from Kettering/Market Harborough northwards. Electrification of lines around Nottingham and Derby should commence immediately, improving local employment opportunities.
People are becoming increasingly aware of the huge environmental problems caused by diesel and petrol engines, especially on the roads. There is a similar problem on the railways, and the continuing use of dieselengine trains in this part of the East Midlands cannot be ignored. On the railways, electrification schemes are better viewed as a linked-up network, and it would make sense to view the electrification of the Midland Main Line as part of an electrification system which includes most parts of the East Midlands.
Conversely, there is a cost penalty for having small parts of the network outside the electrification scheme, and requiring its own separate infrastructure.
The major difficulty with the current electrification plan for the Midland Main Line from London to the East Midlands and Sheffield is the timescale, quoted as within the decade. We cannot afford to wait up to 10 years.
So many promises have been made, and so little delivered, that it is now essential to start levelling up the railway system in the backwaters of the East Midlands. The cost of these electrification projects pales into insignificance compared with the cost of the now-abandoned HS2 project from East Midlands Parkway to Leeds.
John Flynn, by email