Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan

Well hidden in the pre-Christmas rush, the startling news came that the Scottish Government's 2035 rail decarbonisation target is to be extended by 10 years. Announcing the extension on 17 December, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop, explained that the reasons were firstly a lack of money, and secondly that passenger disruption needs to be minimised so the electrification projects must be spread over a longer period - the truth is the money is being spent elsewhere.

The Scottish Government's financial arrangements are extremely unusual, perhaps unique for a country's government, relying on a calculated block grant from the UK Government, over which it has no control, and having very limited powers of borrowing for capital projects. It has to 'live within its means' in a way other governments don't. This resembles household budgeting, but with a rule that you can't take out a loan to buy a house, or a car.

Unfortunately, politicians' instinctive desire to hide unpalatable facts from the electorate means that the announcement made no mention of the impact of spending at least £5,000m on unnecessary road widening in the Highlands on the availability of funds to do essential railway infrastructure upgrades.

There may however be a silver lining here. The unrealistic targets set in the past for 'decarbonisation' seemed to be causing a headlong rush to electrify the single track intercity routes before providing them with the essential capacity enhancements to achieve the government's modal shift policy, and to establish enough capacity for the diversions which are inevitable whilst electrifying.

Perhaps the ten-year extension will allow for this to be done first on all the Highland railway routes, to enable the running of the kind of services people will actually forsake their cars to use.

The news in September that HST replacement units are to be procured can now been seen in this new context. All the trains operating the Highland services to/from Inverness need to be replaced very soon, and if this means secondhand, but comfortable, diesel units on the intercity routes and the FNL and Kyle Line, no-one will mind.

At present many people simply choose to drive, and the recent shockingly bad performance of the FNL is a good example of why. The government needs to prioritise tackling the causes of this: it must provide the necessary capacity and source reliable rolling stock, it must also concentrate on removing the 'voluntary' element of train crew provision as soon as possible.

Once that is all done, electrifying makes sense as by far the best way to use energy to run trains. Fortunately using diesel trains in the meantime makes a minuscule contribution to Scottish CO₂ transport emissions, so there's no rush.

Great British Railways

Now that the new UK Government has settled in, the plans for Great Britain's railways are coming a little more into focus. In this issue you can read Lord Hendy's thoughts, as well as those of Louise Haigh, UK's previous Transport Secretary.

Of course, if you plan to completely unify the UK railway system and run it from Derby, it is all in Great Britain (apart from the Isle of Wight railway). So what are the plans for ScotRail?

Reading the Great British Railways Transition Team website we find:

National & Regional Partnerships

Delivering better for Britain's nations and regions

The legislative changes planned for rail and devolution play a significant role in delivering the UK Government's growth mission. This includes giving leaders in our nations and regions enhanced powers over local transport networks.

And further down:

Scotland

Scotland is a devolved nation, with Scottish government providing the funding framework and the specification of passenger train services.

We are focused on developing and aligning a proposal that will meet Transport Scotland's objectives to deliver a safe, punctual railway with improved capacity whilst delivering environmental benefits by cutting carbon emissions. We are also mindful that we need to improve efficiency and deliver value for money for the taxpayer.

Given that around half of Scotland's voting age population would like independence, and a large percentage of the other half are still proud of Scotland's separate character and culture, replacing the ScotRail branding with GBR might not be a clever move, although I suppose it might be useful for diverting blame when things go wrong.

The Williams Plan For Rail says:

"There will be a new brand and identity for the whole system, built upon the double arrow, with national and regional sub-identities."

Wondering about this, I wrote to Roger Ford, Industry and Technology Editor of Modern Railways magazine to find out his thoughts about how Scotland's railway will fit into GBR. His reply confirmed my suspicions:

"My working assumption is that it will be, in effect, Great English Railways and the devolved nations will do their own (similar) thing."

"There is talk of a common GBR brand, but even this is subject to the caveat 'we hope that Scotland & Wales will choose to adopt it' (fat chance in my view)."

Finally, there is the Network Rail question. For years the Scottish Government has been trying to persuade the UK government that the (already virtually autonomous) Network Rail Scotland Route be transferred to Scottish Government control. This has been refused, perhaps because of not wishing to be seen to contribute to greater independence for Scotland.