Q: Please could you briefly explain your role and experience with regards to the seminar topic?
Rich Fisher, Great British Railways Transition Team (RF): I lead the team in the Great British Railways Transition Team working with Network Rail and the Department for Transport to look at future traction decarbonisation.
Neil Dinmore, RSSB (ND): I am a Principal Engineer in the Rolling Stock Standards Team at RSSB. Within my remit is fire safety, which is a key aspect of both conventional and novel traction systems.
Richard Stainton, Network Rail (RS): My role in Network Rail is to develop opportunities to reduce the cost of electrification. This involves working with universities, test houses and suppliers to create new solutions and integrate these into our company standards and designs.
David Horton, Great Western Railway (DH): I am Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Fast Charge Battery Train Trial (FCBTT) at GWR. The trial currently involves a single 3-car Class 230 battery train and its first-of-a-kind ground-based automatic ‘Fast Charging’ system, which is powerful enough to recharge the train in a matter of minutes. The system is suitable for branch lines and secondary routes where direct electrification is unlikely to be viable and there isn’t a high volume of mixed traffic (different types of train using the routes). It is a means of decarbonising the fringes of the rail network, which currently rely on diesel trains. The system also brings other benefits such as air quality improvements, and reduction in noise, through the elimination of diesel trains.
The trial started life under Vivarail Ltd which went into administration at the end of 2022. GWR, with the support of the Department for Transport (DfT), provided funding to continue with the trial; this involved purchasing assets and intellectual property from the administrators of Vivarail.
At Vivarail, as now at GWR, my role was to provide technical and team leadership with respect to the design of the battery train, the integration and modifications and testing required to make it compatible with the Fast Charge system, then to get the train approved for use on the UK rail network.
Q: What do you believe are the biggest obstacles to delivering novel traction power technologies on the railway?
RF: The UK rail industry needs to understand how to operate this new technology reliably and cost efficiently. This will require a change to operational practices and maintenance processes, and possibly the timetable we operate. A national deployment plan to set out how we gain this experience to enable widespread deployment across the network is needed.
ND: Certainly, in the UK our predominantly Victorian infrastructure presents space envelope challenges. Beyond that there is the perceived reluctance to innovate, not least because rolling stock is generally designed for a 30–40-year operational life, during which time technology can change massively.
RS: The cost of electrifying the railway is too high and too disruptive for our funders. If we can reduce the scope of route clearance works and the cost of electrification, we can make electrification more attractive to funders and work to decarbonise the railway.
DH: Speaking from my own experience, the approval process for getting our Fast Charge system on to the railway, which isn’t even a particularly novel traction power technology (it uses well-established battery technology), has been long and hard work. To some extent this is necessarily the case, because the railway rightfully has a reputation for being very safe, and that position has been hard won over nearly 200 years. But on the other hand, the effort involved in trying to do new things, to get something like our Fast Charge system approved for use, may put others off from trying. The approval process involved the Office of Rail and Road, at least two committees within Network Rail, one in GWR, an Independent Assessment Body, and an Independent Competent Person, plus questions from other affected parties. Often it felt like ten people asking questions for every one person doing the work. Scrutiny is essential, but whether this is the correct balance of people ‘doing’ and those scrutinising, needs to be reviewed, in general, across the industry. It sometimes feels like Engineers are not trusted to do their job professionally!
Q: What will your presentation cover and what are you hoping delegates will take away from it?
RF: Outline the long-term view of how the network should address traction decarbonisation alongside other objectives. Also the near-term opportunities to make progress using battery train technology.
ND: The role of standards in promoting innovation: We aim to help the industry with the what (requirements) and why (rationale) of standards, and to give guidance while allowing freedom with the how. We also need the industry to understand that we need their input.
RS: My presentation will cover the existing developments in electrification, and I hope the delegates will gain an appreciation of the opportunities available for new schemes.
DH: My presentation will cover the evolution of the Fast Charge project, what we are aiming to achieve, and what we have learned so far. I hope that delegates will take away a better understanding of the system and its capabilities; this may inspire others to think about deploying it on their train fleets or their railway routes and give inspiration for others to try new things.
Q: How important is collaboration in realising the potential for alternative traction source?
RF: We need whole system solutions to be most cost effective – balancing the need for infrastructure alongside the right traction solution. E.g. how big a battery vs. how much electrification?
ND: It’s absolutely vital! No single person or organisation has a monopoly on providing solutions to the global challenge of climate change. We need to work together in research, development and standardisation, towards achieving the goals of net zero and sustainability.
RS: It is very important to have the right commercial drivers for the electrification project. At the moment there is a lot to learn from other countries.
DH: Absolutely vital. We would not have been able to deliver the Fast Charge project without the collaboration from DfT, Network Rail, GWR, and other partners.
Q: Which other presentations are you most looking forward to hearing?
RF: Richard Stainton's presentation titled State-of-the-art in electrification: How Network Rail is looking to reduce the cost of electrification.
ND: From a technology perspective, the presentation on Ammonia as a fuel interests me, but also the first few papers setting out where we are now provide an important backdrop to the innovations.
RS: The presentation from Neil Ovenden, Head of Engineering at Rail Partners: Fleet renewals & cascades – the train operators’ perspective.
DH: I am looking forward to hearing more about the state of the art in electrification. Although I am passionate about what we are doing with the battery train and the Fast Charge system, ultimately, I still believe that the best way to decarbonise the majority of the rail network is to electrify it through the 25kV overhead line (OLE).
Direct electrification is really the only game in town when it comes to the mix of heavy freight, high speed passenger and intensive interurban services that you get on most main lines in the UK. No amount of hydrogen or batteries will ever come close to the performance of direct 25kV electrification. Electrification combined with Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) makes trains cheaper to build, cheaper to operate and maintain, accelerates end-to-end journey times, leads to greater reliability, and doesn’t constrain a particular fleet of trains to a particular route because of the bespoke infrastructure required to charge battery trains or refuel hydrogen trains.
However, the costs of electrification have famously sky-rocketed in recent years, which has driven a cart and horse through the economics of electrification and has created a perhaps understandable aversion for it in government circles. Fundamentally, electrification is still the best way to transform most of the railway for the better and to help achieve our national Net Zero goals, but clearly the cost of it needs to be driven down to make it viable, and I look forward to hearing more about that.
Q: Why is it important for railway engineers to join this seminar?
ND: Not since the demise of steam and ‘dieselisation’ has the industry been at such a critical stage of development. Whether you’re just starting out, hoping to retire soon, or somewhere in between, this event should serve to inform and inspire.
RS: The recent innovation in railway traction means that there is far more choice than before, so it is important to understand all available options before making a decision.
DH: To understand that the railway industry is still a fascinating and exciting place to work, that there are more than enough challenges to keep railway engineers busy, and that there is plenty of room for continuous improvement.
Join this seminar to:
- Be updated on the current state of railway electrification, and the implications on requirements for other traction sources
- Identify and overcome the barriers to implementing different technologies, including safety, cost, and technical requirements e.g. power density
- Hear on the progress of use cases applying different power sources, including hydrogen, batteries, and ammonia, comparing and contrasting the relative merits of the solutions
To book your place, please visit the event website.