Jeremy Candfield, director general, Railway Industry Association
ELECTRIFICATION is back on the industry’s agenda. There has been a rapid growth in interest since last summer. Cross-industry groups are meeting; there are signs that the business case may be significantly stronger than had been thought; the environmental issues are becoming more prominent all the time; Government is sounding more interested.
RIA would welcome seeing more of the railway electrified. Scotland is moving strongly in that direction. Elsewhere the decision has not yet been taken, but it is looking increasingly possible that it will be. And, as the organisation representing the supply industry – manufacturers, consultancies, contractors, leasing companies, specialist service providers – we want it to be delivered as efficiently and effectively as possible.
That means planning: thinking through the issues that, if addressed now – or very soon – will make a big difference to programme, cost, quality and risk in a few years’ time. Much of the rolling stock supply industry was devastated in the mid-1990s by lack of planning in the way trains were ordered: virtually three years with not a single main-line car ordered, then four thousand ordered in the few years immediately afterwards.
Feast and famine is hugely inefficient for the entire sector, as supply companies – and the people who work for them – already know to their cost only too well. On current projections, we do have time to plan how electrification should best be done. It is vital that we do so, and it is for railway professionals to say so: it is no good blaming politicians or other decision-takers when it is too late.
Despite the fresh look at the business case, the cost of overhead electrification remains an issue. RIA members – small and large companies – are responding very positively to a challenge from Network Rail: drive down the cost of electrifying lightly-used route sections, especially around the big cities, and cut the disruption to the railway caused by installing it.
It’s a good call. Like many others – including Network Rail – we think there’s much that can be done by changing processes and specifications and simplifying some of the ways we do things. So far the work looks promising. We hope that it will lead to a demonstration project as part of planning for a wider programme.
But planning is really important for another reason too: to ensure that the skilled workforce and the plant it needs are there and available when they are needed. Outside Scotland, little new overhead electrification work is currently programmed and skilled people have left the sector. Yet a good many diesel multiple units will fall due for replacement in the next decade, either by more DMUs or by electric trains. And there may well be a good case before then for main-line electrification as well, or more infill.
Growing our ability to electrify the railway means increasing the number of skilled people available, including the project managers needed to ensure that staff work efficiently. There are other businesses outside the railway that want those people, and a lot of demand for specialist skills to help in the rapid expansion of railways in many other countries.
So it’s important that we develop a qualifications structure to encourage training, and we are looking at that with Network Rail. Companies and their people do, however, need more than a qualifications structure alone: they need a reasonable degree of confidence that the work will come through, especially against the fairly volatile demand we have had in the past.
The need, then, is for a steady and managed increase in workload as part of a rolling programme – a continuing baseload that gives employers the confidence to recruit and train and employees the confidence to participate. Without that confidence, the easy solution is all too often to poach staff and drive up costs in the process, to the loss of the railway as a whole.
Generating the momentum for a full programme in a few years may mean having another look at the industry’s investment plans before then. We don’t know yet, but it is possible. It will depend on the size and make-up of the renewals programme, whether it will produce the skills needed for new work and, of course, on the timing. But pro-active management and planning of the supply chain will be essential. It is too important to repeat the mistakes of the past.
- Based on a presentation by Jeremy Candfield given on 15 April at the Railway Forum/Railway Engineers Forum ‘Choosing Sustainable Power’ seminar and available at www.riagb.org.uk.