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The Green Party and heritage traction

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alexl92

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I know railways politics has already been discussed in a thread on here but I was just wondering whether anyone has any idea what the Green Party's attitude to things such as Heritage Railways and coal-burning traction of any kind might be?

My train of thought is this: The Greens are obviously interested in protecting the environment, and one of their stated aims is to work towards a carbon-neutral economy.

Naturally, heritage railways are not particularly 'green', bearing in mind that they operate coal-burning steam engines, higher-emissions heritage diesel locomotives, and host galas/rallys where steam-powered lorries, traction engines and steam rollers come together.

So is there any risk that the Greens, in the highly unlikely event that they get into power, might try and restrict heritage railways or mainline steam in any way as part of their war on carbon emissions?

I personally think it would be foolish considering the contribution of the heritage industry to local and national economies, but you never know.

Interested to hear any thoughts.

Regards



n.b. I know the Greens aren't the only ones interested in the environment but as far as I can tell they're the only ones who'd go so far as to suggest that they want a carbon-neutral economy by 2020 or 2030 or whenever.
 
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NSEFAN

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I think that the environmental damage caused by heritage railway operation is minimal compared to the number of car journeys made every day. It would therefore be a waste of everyone's time to try and restrict steam and heritage diesel traction. Far better to introduce higher efficiency and emission regulations for new consumer products.
 

AM9

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I think that the environmental damage caused by heritage railway operation is minimal compared to the number of car journeys made every day. It would therefore be a waste of everyone's time to try and restrict steam and heritage diesel traction. Far better to introduce higher efficiency and emission regulations for new consumer products.

I agree, - it's probably the case that an average gala day means more envirnmental damage is caused directly by those attending the event than all the dirty coal/diesel burning on the railway, (including the transportation of the fuel to the event location).
 

D1009

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I agree, - it's probably the case that an average gala day means more envirnmental damage is caused directly by those attending the event than all the dirty coal/diesel burning on the railway, (including the transportation of the fuel to the event location).
Haven't they been using a Routemaster bus converted to run on recycled chip fat as their battle bus? Perhaps they'd want something similar with heritage railway stock.
 

asylumxl

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Haven't they been using a Routemaster bus converted to run on recycled chip fat as their battle bus? Perhaps they'd want something similar with heritage railway stock.

If they want to reduce emissions, perhaps they should use an electric bus powered entirely by renewable sources. Their solution seems like a cop out.
 

Essexman

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As a member of the Green Party who has stood twice at local elections I am not aware of and would be very surprised if the party has a policy on this or any intention to bring one in. The Green Party is not against heritage or people enjoying themselves - it seeks to achieve carbon neutral by dealing with far greater issues.
 

cool110

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It get more complicated when you consider the ones that (try to) run a proper service and how that compares to reduced car use. I know that the Ribble Steam Railway has said that the freight operation takes more than enough tankers off the roads to balance out the carbon emissions of steam.
 
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The green party are a load of airy-fairy dreamers - a sort of vegetarian and vegan socialists with the same dangerous ideas. They are quite likely to put a ban on steam locomotives. They will also look askance at some of the older diesels too. I can imagine some of them having a fit of the vapours looking at a "Deltic" climbing Holloway bank on a cold morning.
 

GatwickDepress

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The green party are a load of airy-fairy dreamers - a sort of vegetarian and vegan socialists with the same dangerous ideas. They are quite likely to put a ban on steam locomotives. They will also look askance at some of the older diesels too. I can imagine some of them having a fit of the vapours looking at a "Deltic" climbing Holloway bank on a cold morning.
:roll:
 

theblackwatch

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The green party are a load of airy-fairy dreamers - a sort of vegetarian and vegan socialists with the same dangerous ideas. They are quite likely to put a ban on steam locomotives. They will also look askance at some of the older diesels too. I can imagine some of them having a fit of the vapours looking at a "Deltic" climbing Holloway bank on a cold morning.

Having said that, the chances of them getting into power is about as likely as said Deltic running a service train to the moon. :lol:
 

alexl92

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why don't you ask them?

I did; the response I got was a link to their page on tourism which didn't specify anything about heritage traction!

As a member of the Green Party who has stood twice at local elections I am not aware of and would be very surprised if the party has a policy on this or any intention to bring one in. The Green Party is not against heritage or people enjoying themselves - it seeks to achieve carbon neutral by dealing with far greater issues.

Thank you for your reply. I didn't intend to portray the greens as some kind of killjoys - in fact I did consider voting for them, but have been put off by a few things.

Sounds like there's no real problem then; good to know.
 

alexl92

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Oh. Well in that case if they don't know and we don't know we best just get on with things ;)

Yep! The reply from them came through after I'd posted this; to be honest I wasn't expecting a response!
 
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