There are two significant differences between India and the UK when it comes to a rolling programme of electrification. First, the UK Government is not entirely convinced and is still hoping bionic duckweed will render the wires unnecessary. Second, apart from being the Department for Transport’s creature, the Network Rail Board is not totally enthused either.
This is not to criticise the Board. Decarbonisation is just one of the many plates Chief Executive Andrew Haines and his team are trying to keep spinning in this testing time of change. And the political fallout from the implosion of the Great Western Electrification Programme (GWEP) is turning out to have a long half-life.
Perversely, some of the lessons from GWEP are not being applied universally. In fact, following the contrition in the immediate aftermath of the deferrals and cancellations (Modern Railways July/August 2016 issues), there is a school of thought among younger engineers that the failures were due to circumstance rather than lack of competence.
Note the extract from the Interim Project Completion Report. This can be translated as ‘the patient died on the operating table, but our surgeons learned a lot’.
And still lurking at the b…
