That’s… surprising. Here in Japan, over 26,000 km of the 30,000 some-odd km of track is electrified. Most of the fueled trains are for freight, which only accounts for less than 1% of rail traffic.

What prevented the UK from deploying electrification to that extent? Is it politics or logistics?

[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Politics. They privatized rail and the private companies don't like doing the investment.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Network Rail (who own and maintain the track/infrastructure) are state run.
It was privatised for about 5 years, it was a disaster, and it was brought back in house.
Trains are run by TOCs, though these are being gradually coming back to the state too.

The honest answer is, we have a fuckton of track, much of which has been there since victorian times.
Couple that with diesel-electric trains that run at 125mph already, a lot of track that doesn't get that much use, and the electrification number is low.

We're slowly getting there.
New lines are electric from the start, and electrification projects are rolling out.
It can be a pain in the ass though (GWML, for example. We had to order bi-mode trains to continue down to the westcountry, and while the electric part was completed.)

Plus the issue that any track that's busy enough to prioritise electrification on is going to be more complex because of the impact any downtime causes on a busy route.

[–] OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago

Yeah and all this is important because it means things won't get automatically better as the nationalization goes ahead.

Maybe the promised planning reforms will help, but anything where you have to modify a bridge or a tunnel in a city to make room for electrification is always going to be a pain.

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml -1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So are battery trains expensive in the long run and have worse performance, and only being used because they're immediately cheaper than electrifying more rail?

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 2 points 4 days ago

Pretty much, yeah. I also believe this is due to the infrastructure being run by different companies than the ones running the trains on them, so there's no incentive to invest in electrification.

[–] intelisense@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

Thanks for the numbers! I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad...

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 points 3 days ago

Bits of it are. Entirely depends where you are.

[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 days ago

Yeah, this is the real question

[–] intelisense@lemm.ee 3 points 4 days ago

Most of the UK network is electrified with a third rail. Some is overhead, but significant parts are not electrified at all.