Off track: Railway industry warns sluggish pace of railway electrification jeopardises net zero goals
Figures that reveal just 179 kilometres of railway were electrified last year, as Mayor of London unveils to unlock public land for electric vehicle charging
The slow pace of electrification across Britain’s rail network threatens to derail the country’s new zero target, industry professionals have this week warned.
Statistics published by the Office for Rail and Road yesterday reveal that just 179 kilometres of rail track were electrified last year, less than half the 448 kilometres annual goal experts maintain is required to meet Network Rail’s target of delivering net zero emissions railway by 2050.
David Clarke, technical director of the Railway Industry Association (RIA), urged the government to pick up the pace of electrification, noting that the current slow rate of progress threatened to undermine the country’s climate goals.
“The Railway Industry Association has long called for a sustainable, cost-effective programme of electrification, alongside support for battery and hydrogen powered trains, in order to meet the government’s net zero target by 2050 – an approach which was endorsed in the government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan in July,” he said. “Yet, at the current rate, we are unlikely to meet that target.”
Despite Network Rail calculating that the UK must electrify 13,000 kilometres of railway by 2050, there are currently no major electrification schemes in the pipeline, Clark said.
As such, he predicted the rate of electrification would slow down even more next year. “With no major schemes coming down the line, we can reasonably expect that there will be less work, not more, in the coming year,” he said.
Clark stressed that a shortage of electrification projects was contributing to a growing skills shortage within the sector. “The industry is also losing expertise and capabilities whilst schemes are stalled, meaning it will be harder to deliver the considerable amount of work needed if and when new projects are started,” he said.
The figures from the Office of Rail and Road reveal that 37.9 per cent of Britain’s railways are now electrified, and that three mainline stations opened last year, bringing the total number of train stations to 2,569.
The government has pledged to remove all diesel-only trains from the network by 2040 as part of its plans to deliver a net zero railway system by 2050. In the Transport Decarbonisation Plan published earlier this year, it set out its plans to deliver “sustained carbon reductions in rail” through investments in the electrification of railway track and the addition of new hydrogen and battery trains to the UK’s fleet. It also promises to build extra capacity on the rail network to meet growing passenger and freight demand – such as through HS2 – in order to support a broader modal shift from road to rail.
