25.08.17
Electrification ‘very unlikely’ to come back into EWR scheme
Plans to electrify the East West Rail (EWR) link between Oxford and Cambridge are “very unlikely” to come back into the scheme after the DfT instructed Network Rail to remove electrification from the scope of the Western Section, RTM has been told.
The DfT directive was included in the public consultation documents released in June for Phase 2 of the Western Section. It is also in line with the department’s scrapping of major electrification programmes in the north of England announced last month.
Asked what impact this will have on the project, Andy Free, head of engineering assurance at EWR Alliance, which is delivering Phase 2 of the Western Section, argued that “on the face of it, not a lot”.
“But actually, that was one of the big drivers behind our slippage to date for submitting our TWA application, because we had done the initial modelling for the environmental impact assessment based on some of the trains being electric. We have had to redo all of that modelling to provide an accurate model once the railway is an all-diesel railway,” he said.
“It wasn’t as simple as just, ‘don’t bother putting the electrification up – how much is the saving please?’ At this stage, it has cost money to do that, remove the electrification, to redo significant parts of the environmental impact assessment.”
The steer from the DfT is that wherever the Alliance is building a new structure it needs to be clear and suitable for electrification, “and we must do nothing that hinders future electrification, but it is not on the short- or medium-term horizon”.
“It is very unlikely that electrification will come back into the scheme,” added Free.
Before the EWR Alliance – VolkerRail, Atkins, Laing O’Rourke and Network Rail – submit the TWA application in spring next year, the latest feedback for the plans, which has been generally supportive, will be fed into the designs where possible and in the environmental impact assessment.
It is anticipated that the project will be open by 2023, but as it stands work is due to start on the route in September 2019 – 18 months after the TWA application is submitted, which would push the project close to the end of CP6. In order to overcome this, and get the team on site earlier, the EWR Alliance will also be submitting a number of local planning applications to construct new overbridges at the same time as the TWA.
The Western Section consists of two distinct phases of work. EWR Phase 1 was completed in December 2016 and involved the upgrade of the Oxford-to-Bicester Line, and a new section of track that directly links to the Chiltern Main Line allowing new direct services from Oxford to London Marylebone.
EWR Phase 2 includes upgrading and reinstating the Bicester-Bletchley-Bedford, and Aylesbury-Claydon junction railway lines. There will also be a new station at Winslow, new platforms at Aylesbury Vale Parkway and Bletchley stations, and platform extensions at Woburn Sands, Ridgmont and Princess Risborough.
The operation of the line and delivery schedule for the Central and Eastern sections of EWR is currently the subject of a scoping report. While Free wasn’t in a position to comment in detail on this, he told RTM: “The current plan is that they have chosen a preferred corridor for the central section and they are working at their plans to start consultation on what the alignment of that might look like. They plan to go public with them in 2018.”
A full interview with Free will be featured in the Aug/Sept edition of RTM – subscribe to receive your free copy here.
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