The Electrification Of The United Kingdom

Another petition worth signing, here.

In the 1980s/1990s, British Rail electrified quite a lot of railway lines:

Bournemouth-Weymouth
London-Bedford
Hitchin-Leeds/Edinburgh
Shenfield-Harwich/Norwich
Bishops Stortford-Kings Lynn
Leeds-Skipton/Ilkley/Bradford
Eastleigh-Fareham
Oxted-East Grinstead
Birmingham Cross-City Line from Redditch to Tamworth
Tonbridge-Hastings
Carstairs-Edinburgh
Glasgow-Ayr/Ardrossan

and probably quite a few more I've forgotten. Many hundreds of millions of pounds invested in upgrading hundreds of miles of route, resulting in a 'sparks effect' with increased mobility, economic boom, rising house prices (my Dad benefitted from this when the Norwich line went live in 1987 - I remember watching the masts go up from my grandparents' house). It's obviously a much greener way of doing things, particularly if you can bring in regenerative braking, which pumps energy back into the line from braking, and better acceleration actually increases capacity, which is the major issue right now (actually, it's the inability of the industry as currently structured to adjust capacity to demand that's the issue, but more on that elsewhere).

Since privatisation, Railtrack and Network Rail between them have managed about 8 miles of a diversionary route between Crewe and Kidsgrove, which isn't used except in emergencies. That's about it, except in Scotland where they're not only reopening railways but wiring them at 25kV AC at the same time. They, of course, are outside Westminster's control, which is why they can get away with it.

The redoubtable Modern Railways Technical Editor, Roger Ford, predicted that the privatised structure would lead to the death of electrification, as there's bizarrely no incentive for anyone to do it* He's behind the petition and it deserves a bit of backing.

* Operators have to get new trains, have to put up with the disruption for a benefit which may be exclusively for the following franchise holder, Network Rail have to compensate the operator for the disruption even though it's for the benefit of their passengers, plus a number of other esoteric reasons, like Railtrack being unable to control its costs. There are several stillborn schemes around the place for these reasons.