Replacing ageing Scotrail HST fleet is like A9 pledges
The announcement that Scotrail’s ageing inter-city fleet is to be replaced was amongst the most bewildering and vague I’ve heard for years – and maybe even deliberately so.
As soon as it was issued, I spent a fair amount of time trying to establish the full picture. A week on, and after repeated requests for clarification from Transport Scotland, I’m pretty much none the wiser.
The nebulous statement was all the odder because of persistent rumours since the fatal Carmont crash in 2020, which involved one of the fleet, that an interim replacement would be found. Pressure for that came from train drivers’ union Aslef, which had vowed to boycott the trains by the third anniversary of the derailment a year ago.
The other peculiar thing was that the trains, which are leased to 2030, were originally to have been the last of three of Scotrail’s fleets to be replaced. That process appeared to have stalled after manufacturers had expected to bid to build the others, including battery trains for Fife and Borders, two years ago.
Pretty much all that Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop has announced is that a procurement process to replace the 25 near halfcentury-old “High Speed Trains” (HSTS) will begin in a few weeks for Scotrail’s Edinburgh/glasgow to Aberdeen/inverness Inter7city routes.
Transport Scotland has been unable to tell me whether these will be temporary or permanent replacements.
In its Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan 2020, the new trains were to run on electrified tracks by 2035 as part of one of the world’s most ambitious green rail schemes. However, Ms Hyslop has repeatedly said the plan is to be “refreshed”, which sounds very much like the dates will be pushed back. That would be a surprise to no one, considering work at Christmas 2022 simply to clear the way for the line between Edinburgh and the Forth Bridge to be electrified was shelved by the-then transport minister Jenny Gilruth and has still to be rescheduled.
The other line north to Aberdeen and Inverness is electrified only as far as Dunblane. It’s beginning to sound like the SNP’S pledges on dualling the A9.
Scotrail’s HSTS were introduced as a surprise element of former operator Abellio’s winning bid for the franchise from 2015.
Although not the cause of the Carmont crash, the HSTS’ relative fragility in not meeting modern crashworthiness standards led to Aslef and Labour to call for their removal.
What we’ll get in their place remains a mystery. However, with the slow pace of electrification, I wouldn’t bet on as green a replacement as ministers envisaged four years ago. Industry experts reckon it’s more likely to be a hybrid that can run on diesel and electric power – like the Azumas, which replaced LNER’S HSTS on its Aberdeen and Inverness services five years ago.