The folly of halting our railways’ electrification schemes

READERS may be interested to learn that the Whitehall government has a history of stopping the electrification of public transport outside London.

A constituent of the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923 was the North Eastern Railway (NER). Before the formation of the LNER it was probably the most technically advanced, forward-thinking and profitable railway in the UK.

Before the 1914 war the NER electrified the Newcastle suburban and the Shilden Newport (Middlesbrough) railways. Following the 1914 war the NER decided to electrify the York to Newcastle main line, freight and express passenger locomotives were built and proved on the Newport to Shildon line.

When the NER was about to start overhead line construction the Government asked the NER to stop work on the grounds they wanted to see a standard system throughout the country. Electrification came in the 1990s under BR thanks to the support of Scottish politicians for the Channel Tunnel Bill. Part of the deal was through trains to Paris, Brussels etc from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leeds which never materialised. Coaches for this service were built, but eventually sold to Canada.

In the early 2000s Alistair Darling turned down the Leeds Supertram scheme on the grounds of cost, but sanctioned massive infrastructure investment in East London as well as the Edinburgh tramway with massive cost increases due to lack of skilled people. This is now a subject of investigation.

Now we have Chris Grayling stopping Midland Mainline, trans-Pennine, South Wales etc electrification schemes and substituting electro diesel units which is not a new idea. BR had them in the 1950s. This is a repeat of the Pacer saga.

I would hope all MPs and councillors outside the SouthEast of England, no matter what their political colour, form a coalition to fight this stupid decision, which will make air quality worse and slow down the growth in rail passenger numbers.

Each day Leeds railway station handles a similar number of passengers as the Great Yorkshire Show attracts over three days and we all know the road congestion this creates around Harrogate and Wetherby and the car parking required.

Under BR management the Sheffield Woodhead to Manchester (Woodhead route) was de-electrified and eventually closed around 1980; this is now the subject of a re-opening campaign.