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COMMENT


FOR THE STARS AND HIT


‘WE AIMED THE MOON’


Cardiff’s joy, Swansea’s disappointment and the future case for high-speed rail to Wales


Dr Elizabeth Haywood, director of the South East Wales Economic Forum, discusses the Government’s electrification announcement and what should happen now.


T


he Secretary of State for Transport used St David’s Day to give Wales


some good news. He ‘let a little sunshine into our souls’, as I remarked in my last article, and finally announced electrifica- tion of the Great Western Main Line from London to…Cardiff.


Mr Hammond also demonstrated unex- pected enthusiasm for the idea of electrifi- cation of the south east Wales Valley lines to Cardiff in CP5 (rail funding Control Period 5, from 2014-2019), which I’d mentioned in my last article but thought we’d have to fight for once GWML electri- fication was achieved. If he remains per- suaded by a robust business case, a similar programme for Valleys lines to Newport could be worked on in parallel, perhaps for CP6 (other than the Ebbw Vale link, which should be incorporated into CP5).


The electrification programme to Cardiff will deliver a journey time to London of 1hr 42 mins. This is not all down to elec- trification, but also to other welcome im- provements such as those at congested Reading. It should have the added benefit of speeding up the thaw in relations which has developed through our Great Western Partnership between Cardiff, Newport and Bristol at the same time as providing faster services, opening new opportunities for economic development of a ‘three cities region’.


We had sought to persuade the Government to keep to its predecessor’s commitment to electrification all the way to Swansea, and remain slightly baffled as to why they keep telling us there is no business case for it since the Treasury (notoriously difficult to please) approved the business case to Swansea in 2009. So we will keep plugging away, hoping to get the additional 40-mile stretch approved before the programme


reaches Cardiff in 2016, although it may be a struggle to get it included in CP5 if the Department for Transport really drag their heels. Unless they have found some genu- inely new data which makes the extension to Swansea uneconomic, it seems churlish to leave them out in the cold for the sake of £140m.


It is true that Swansea will also benefit from shorter journey times as a result of electrification to Cardiff, but perception is important for attracting business invest- ment west of Cardiff, and a shift to ‘third world’, environmentally unfriendly diesel there – a comparison made even more stark once an electric metro system is up and running in the South Wales Valleys – will be an unnecessary negative.


Mr Hammond said the business case for electrification is “heavily dependent on the frequency of service” and that, off-peak, there is only one London-Swansea service an hour, insufficient to justify electrifica- tion.


But if services were increased to two per hour, wouldn’t passenger numbers and therefore the farebox (which is what this is all about) increase significantly? His state- ment ignores the fact that Arriva Trains runs other services along the route as part of the Wales franchise (just as the Valleys lines are, and due for renewal in 2018).


“Perception is


important for attracting business investment west of Cardiff, and a shift to ‘third world’, environmentally unfriendly diesel there will be an unnecessary negative.”


This is commuter-land, and an electric metro service here – using the same trains to be introduced on the Valleys lines – in addition to the intercity route would en- courage greater east-west traffic. So elec- trification will bring new traffic, which requires more trains, which increases fre- quencies and (further west again beyond Cardiff - Swansea) offers new connection opportunities.


So – we aimed for the stars and hit the moon. In electrification we have taken a very important step forward in our long- term argument for a dedicated high-speed route between South Wales and London. We know that campaign will require de- tailed research for a strong business case, which probably cannot be made until elec- trification increases services and passen- ger numbers in South Wales. Ours has to be an incremental approach. So where do we go from here?


Firstly, we need to ensure that what has been announced is actually delivered – Mr Hammond made it clear that (despite his nod in the direction of Valleys electrifica- tion) the business case will have to stack up, just as more needs to be done to secure electrification between Cardiff-Swansea.


The key to the latter may be nailing down the ‘geometry of the line’ issues Mr Hammond referred to on that stretch when he said electrification would not make journey times any faster. Is the Government saying the Cardiff-Swansea upgrade would be too costly (i.e. more than the £140m approved by Treasury in 2009)? Or that – using only intercity pas- senger figures – it delivers insufficient val- ue for money? Or that there are genuinely insoluble geological and topographical problems (which seems unlikely)?


rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 11 | 23


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