Institution news
The first, from Railway Division Chair, Rebeka Sellick, noted that:
In 2023 rail delivered 8% of transport mileage, yet only produced 1.5% of transport carbon emissions.
Rebeka wants having a large carbon footprint to become socially unacceptable, driving transport choices, and infrastructure investment.
Rebeka emphasised the need for more connected transport systems to encourage freight and passengers to switch to rail for lower carbon emissions. Seamless journeys should be provided with integrated transport which includes last-mile, door-to-door.
For a 200-year vision, she therefore offered seamless connectivity, with autonomous vehicles coupling to (and uncoupling from) continuously moving trains. Core benefits of this model are reduced stopping and starting, therefore lower energy consumption, cost and carbon, plus flexibility to meet emerging rail customer demand.
In the next presentation, HS2’s Systems and Route Wide Delivery Director, Iain Smith, explained the huge scale of the current HS2 project. The railway will not be operational for some years, yet, since HS2 received Royal Assent in 2017, the West Midlands has seen 66% more planning applications and 484% more new homes planned.
Altogether, HS2 is expected to add £10 billion to the local economy within ten years, including over 30,000 new jobs.
Iain considers that economic modelling underplays these regenerative impacts.
HS2’s purpose is to provide additional capacity, although currently only between London and Birmingham.
Iain was proud of the way that HS2 is pushing the boundaries of railway engineering. For example, he described the use of on-site factories to build tunnel and bridge segments to reduce costs, carbon emissions and traffic impact. Who knew they were planting seven million new trees?
Director of Research for Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB), Luisa Moisio opened her presentation with an AI-produced graphic of Darlington station in 2225 where small flying saucers provide last-mile transport to the station, demonstrating that AI needs to be used with care.
She proposed that society needs rail to do what it does best: heavy haul, intercity and suburban commuting. The Rail Technical Strategy priorities will remain relevant: easy to use for all; freight friendly; low emissions; efficient and reliable assets; and optimised train operations. Luisa suggested that:
Historically the railway attracted the best engineers of the time and it needs to continue to do so.
Andy Mellors, Managing Director, Avanti West Coast, presented railway engineering as a force for good. Until the internet, no other technology has had such a transformative global impact on human society. And railways can still deliver transformational benefits such as the Elizabeth line.
The RSSB’s Rail Social Value tool is one way to convince decision-makers. It shows that, amongst other benefits:
Britain’s railways generate £41 billion gross value added, earn £2.50 for every £1 invested and provide 640,000 rail-related jobs.
Andy observed the industry’s aging workforce is having to swap spanners for laptops. On attracting new talent, in his experience once people were in the industry they wanted to stay.
The Stockton and Darlington Railway soon learnt it needed someone in overall control. 200 years later this lesson has now been relearned with the creation of Great British Railways which Andy considered to be a great step forward.
The evening concluded with a Q&A session with suggestions including that railways should better advertise their benefits; that carbon and social value should be more heavily weighted, so that prices incentivise preferred decision-making; and advocating long-term, stable public-private investment strategy to enable the best railways 200 years from now.
If you missed the event, you can watch the on-demand recording on IMechE YouTube.