Informed Sources
SHAPPS GOES FULL DUCKWEED
East West Rail revives 2007 policy
Hydrogen hype defers decisions
Rural route CO2 savings insignificant
It has been clear some time that the campaign to revive a rolling programme of main line electrification has been losing momentum. Although Network Rail’s Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy (TDNS – pp12-13, October 2020 issue) was one of several studies highlighting electrification’s dominant role in decarbonising the railway, optimism that rational analysis would lead to rational action was misplaced. I should have known better.
It was assumed that reinstatement of the Midland main line electrification, truncated at Kettering/ Corby following the Hendy Review of November 2015, would signal the Government’s intent. However, it is now clear that East West Rail (EWR) has, all along, been providing the most accurate indication of the Government’s, or rather the Department for Transport’s and the Treasury’s, attitudes to electrification.
VETO
