Grayling sparks fury by scrapping rail electrification plans

Plans to make the railway network faster, greener and cleaner by electrifying lines have been scrapped by the government after massive budget overruns, prompting fury at “years of broken promises”.

The plans to modernise the line from Cardiff to Swansea, the Midland mainline and tracks in the Lake District were dropped on Thursday after Network Rail spent huge sums on engineering works, with costs in the Great Western region alone going as much as £1.9bn over budget.

Network Rail’s electrification works around the country, most notably on the Great Western mainline from London to Swansea, which started in 2014, were described as a vital upgrade that would bring cleaner, faster and more reliable services for passengers.

However, the government claimed on Thursday that passengers would benefit from “modern bi-mode trains” instead, and would no longer have to put up with “disruptive electrification works” and “intrusive wires and masts”.

Most of the 122 InterCity Express trains ordered from Hitachi at a cost of £5.7bn will now have to be bi-mode, fitted with diesel engines to run on non-electrified lines. The cost of the upgrade has not been confirmed, and the bi-mode trains are believed to be less efficient than purely electric due to the additional weight of the engines and smaller capacity.

The news was met with anger in Wales in particular, after the government had given repeated guarantees that work would be concluded despite the problems Network Rail had experienced on Great Western. The cost of electrifying the line has more than tripled from its original budget to £2.8bn. A Welsh government spokesperson said the “disturbing news ... amounted to years of broken promises”.

The government announced in 2015 that it was “pausing” electrification of the Midland mainline, but insisted the work would be completed. The announcement that the line to Nottingham and Sheffield will be served by bi-mode trains using diesel engines confirmed that Network Rail’s budget overruns will leave large parts of the country without the “electric spine” that the government had boasted would bring more capacity and increase jobs and investment.

The news will raise further doubts over the electrification of the TransPennine route between Manchester and Leeds, which was also described as “paused” in 2015, but had been seen as a critical part of the “northern powerhouse”.

The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, told the Commons in a written statement that the Hitachi trains – ordered in a deal first announced in 2009 – meant electrification was no longer needed.

“New bi-mode train technology offers seamless transfer from diesel power to electric that is undetectable to passengers ... This means that we no longer need to electrify every line to achieve the same significant improvements to journeys, and we will only electrify lines where it delivers a genuine benefit to passengers,” he said.

Labour said the news showed the Conservatives had been “taking people for a ride”. Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, said: “The decision betrays a promise to south Wales, and the transport secretary sneaking out the news on the final day before he goes on his summer holidays adds insult to injury.

“The Tories do not act in the interests of the whole UK. They have put their own survival, finding £1bn for a deal with the DUP, ahead of everything else and it’s communities like those in south Wales that pay the price.”

McDonald later led calls for Grayling to to defend the “disastrous U-turn” to MPs in the Commons, rather than sneaking out a statement which was “of massive economic detriment to the country.”

The incoming chair of the transport select committee, Lilian Greenwood, said the announcement was bad news for passengers and “raised serious questions about the government’s willingness to invest in the long-term future of our railways and their commitment to the decarbonisation of transport”.

The Department for Transport said passengers would now have newer trains earlier. The Hitachi trains will come into service on Great Western from the autumn, switching to diesel on parts of the route that Network Rail has failed to electrify. Hitachi said the bi-mode trains would still be more environmentally friendly than the existing fleet, whether running on electric or diesel.

In a signal that years of spending on upgrading the rail network could be coming to an end, the government has also declined to commit to any infrastructure enhancements in a document outlining a five-year plan for Network Rail.

The previous high-level output statement, from 2012, was the catalyst for what the government described as the biggest investment since Victorian times.

Lianna Etkind of the Campaign for Better Transport said: “It’s deeply concerning that when so much money is being poured into concreting over the countryside, rail expansion is in doubt.”