One scheme at a time

The Government recently made two announcements within a week or so: one that all road vehicles must be electric by 2040; and the other that all railways not already electrified must be diesel, which bearing in mind that the average life of a rail vehicle is 35 years, means until 2052.

I do not quite follow the logic of these contradictory statements, save for the fact that road vehicles are paid for by their users, whereas railway electrification is paid for by Government.

I appreciate that railway electrification has gone way over budget, but believe that this is largely because the Government failed to seek derogations from certain EC directives, notwithstanding the fact that Britain’s railways are different from the continent regarding clearances and the like (higher platforms, lower overhead wires), rendering the norm for continental electrification works quite inappropriate for British electrification.

Since we would appear to have missed the boat as regards derogations, perhaps the best thing to do would be to wait for Brexit and then promptly revert to British standards, which have been perfectly adequate for many years and which will substantially reduce the cost of future electrification.

Could I perhaps also suggest that rather than have three of four schemes being progressed simultaneously (Great Western, Midland Main Line, Northern Powerhouse and ScotRail), we should have one team progressing electrification of perhaps 50 miles a year? They would build up expertise and work on a continuous basis rather than ‘stop-go’, as has been the feature

in Britain for many years.

I believe that part of the problem with the Great Western electrification is that since no major schemes have been carried through for approximately 20 years, quite simply nobody knew how to do the job! R M Napier, Warrington