The Friends of the Far North Line
Cairdean Na Loine Tuath
the campaign group for rail north of
Inverness - lobbying for improved services for the local user, tourist and freight
operator
Its willingness to spend money on roads rather than railways may prompt Transport Scotland to consider discontinuous electrification, allowing BEMUs to provide intercity services. This may prove to be a useful 'stopgap' solution, but carrying heavy battery equipment is hardly a sensible use of scarce resources.
A Hitachi Class 802 unit had one of its diesel generators replaced temporarily with a 700kW battery. It was able to run on battery alone for 70km and achieved 140km/h (87 mph).
It is important that this promising news on progress with intercity battery trials doesn't tempt the cash strapped Rail Directorate to consider discontinuous electrification to be the answer to financial constraints.