HLOS will allow freight to develop electric strategy

The Government’s £9 billion railway investment programme is the “tipping point” that will allow freight companies to focus on electric strategies, according to Rail Freight Group (RFG) policy manager Maggie Simpson.

Speaking at the Rail 2020 inquiry on Monday, Simpson said that the HLOS package, which includes plans to fully electrify the Midland Main Line and the Great Western Main Line, will accelerate the industry’s shift from diesel to electric locomotives.

Simpson said: “Today, If you wanted to go and buy a loco, diesel or electric, to run in the UK there is not one available because the diesel locomotives you can’t buy because the flexibility package of non-road mobile machinery, which was passed by the European Commission November last year, has still not been transposed into UK law and there are no electric locomotives, new ones, which have a certificate for the UK. So as we sit here today you cannot buy a new locomotive.

“So when people are looking at future strategies they have to decide whether principally they’re going down a diesel strategy or principally whether they’re going down an electric strategy and the joy to me of the HLOS is that it starts to move that decision, the tipping point for that decision, across to electric.

“It may be that there are no new electric locomotives for a decade, but at least it’s a decade and not 50 years because there is no doubt with fuel prices remaining at best volatile, the long-term move to electric traction has to be in the sector’s best interests.

“I think it’s terrific that it’s recognised in HLOS not just in the electric spine but in the paragraphs which talk about future electrification, CP6 enhancements, looking at other ports and such like into the future.”