Research produces a possible saviour of electrification

Natural insulator: that’s beech on the top there. The one nearest the camera is the innovative design. Courtesy Moxon
Iadmit I scoffed back in 2014 when, as electrification programmes lay dying all around, the only research project on the subject was for ‘aesthetic electrification masts’. I am all in favour of things looking better, and it would be difficult to imagine anything looking worse than Great Western electrification, but surely the priority was to make it cheaper, or there would be no electrification at all.