UK’s railways can no longer cope with the effects of the climate crisis

[Struner]

Britain’s railways can no longer cope with the effects of the climate crisis, a senior rail executive has warned.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...e-with-effects-climate-change-warns-rail-boss

Britain’s railways can no longer cope with the effects of the climate crisis, a senior rail executive has warned.

Extreme weather events including heatwaves, storms and flooding have damaged infrastructure and halted thousands of services across the UK this year.

Alex Hynes, the managing director of Scotland’s railway, said more investment would be needed to future-proof the railway against rising temperatures.

“The railway in this country can no longer cope because of climate change,” he said.
Calling for more to be done on decarbonising rail, he told the Railway Industry Association conference in London: “We have a vested interest in making this work.”

In July, hot weather forced trains to run at maximum speeds of 20mph (32km/h) on parts of the railway network, resulting in many services being cancelled and rail operators telling people not to travel.
Trains were slowed due to the risk of tracks buckling in the heat and causing a derailment. Extreme temperatures can also result in overhead electric lines drooping and being damaged by trains.

Hynes said the rail industry needed to build tracks resilient at 40C (104F) in the rest of the UK and 35C in Scotland. Steel in rails is currently stress-tested at 28C.

More than 1,000 trains were cancelled in Scotland alone due to record temperatures in summer 2018. This was reduced to 200 in 2019 despite an even hotter summer, after a £4m investment in track resilience.

Hynes suggested the rail industry should see the commercial opportunity in the climate emergency and tell passengers when they are taking a greener form of transport. “There is money to be made … We need to tell people they are on an electric train,” he said.
However, Anthony Smith, the chief executive of Transport Focus, told the conference that according to the independent passenger watchdog’s research, most passengers would prefer an on-time diesel to a late-running electric train.
Although railways have long been susceptible to weather-associated delays, from snow in winter to problems with wet leaves in autumn, Network Rail is expecting to invest billions more to mitigate the effects of more frequent and extreme events.

Much of its most recent climate change adaptation plan was written in the aftermath of extensive flooding in 2015, including the closure of the Devon-Cornwall line after the track was washed away at Dawlish. Heavy rainfall and flooding remain the most significant problems in parts of the rail network, notably Wales.

However, Network Rail data for 2018-19 showed total delays ascribed to high temperatures surpassed the combined total of flooding, snow, fog and cold even before the more widespread disruption in July.

Plenty of work to be done then.

Edited to get rid of my tablet mess.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Yes some resilience now needs to happen at every upgrade/line electrified etc

 

[Crepello]

Too bad "global warming" hadn't been invented during the summer of 1976, else blank cheques might have been forthcoming earlier!

 

[TubeMapCentral]

Same old same old

https://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/geography/weather.html

Heat waves, storms, floods. All that has changed is the hysterical obsessive belief that a very special apocalypse is on the way

 

[gazzaa2]

It can't cope with seasonal weather anyway. Leaves on the line in Autumn, snowfall in winter/spring, heat in summer and any significant rainfall.

None of these are new things. We've always had rain.

 

[Leo1961]

But now every man and his dog has social media craving content to publish...

 

[MalaiseForever]

Good to see the climate experts on the forum are alive and well.

 

[lachlan]

I'm surprised at the number of climate change deniers on here, considering how important railways are for reducing the environmental impact of travel.

Ask yourselves: What if the climate emergency is false, and we build a more resilient, reliable railway for nothing?

 

[geoffk]

(I was going to start a new thread but saw this one had just been started).

As many of you know, heavy rain caused flooding in parts of Yorkshire and elsewhere yesterday, closing lines and many are still closed this morning. The Calder Valley line was closed by flooding at Walsden and there were no trains through Todmorden from around 14.00 hours. We can't do anything about the weather in the short term and no doubt Northern staff have been doing their best in difficult circumstances, but I agree more could be done to reduce its effects. I've lived in the area for only 16 years but this is becoming a more frequent occurrence.

Whenever the line is closed at Walsden trains from Leeds are turned back at Hebden Bridge. The resignalling introduced as part of the Todmorden curve allows trains from Leeds to turn back at Tod but this never happens. No doubt it's easier to get buses to Hebden Bridge station than to Todmorden but that is of no help when the A646 road between the two is also flooded, as was the case yesterday. I understand that the booking clerk at HBD asked Network Rail Control if trains could run to Todmorden since the York - Blackpools were running normally but no replacement buses could run, but his request was declined.

At the western end, a crossover north of Littleborough at Summit West allows trains from Manchester to turn back there but, as it's worked by hand from a ground frame, it only gets used in an emergency. Local groups have been asking for years to have this fully signalled to allow regular turn-backs; this requires changes to Preston Power Box. It could have been done when the Tod Curve opened but now Network Rail may be reluctant to disturb it for a relatively infrequent event. The previous one was on 16th March.

So when the line floods at Walsden or in Summit Tunnel trains don't run between Hebden Bridge and Rochdale. Of course the real need is keep the water off the railway at Walsden where the river crosses underneath by Winterbutlee Tunnel.

Northern staff all seem sympathetic to these requirements and it’s clearly one for Network Rail to address. The Yorkshire Tiger bus from Rochdale to Halifax via Ripponden comes into its own when these events happen but it runs only every 70 minutes!

 

[Kingspanner]

Same old same old

https://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/geography/weather.html

Heat waves, storms, floods. All that has changed is the hysterical obsessive belief that a very special apocalypse is on the way

You please yourself. Maybe you'll be OK.
https://xkcd.com/1732/
What has changed is the rate of change.

 

[DarloRich]

Surely the article is about:

• rail stressing
• drainage
• decarbonisation

But then senior railway executive suggest higher rail stressing temperature in Scotland and a bit more work on drainage isnt quite as sexy a headline!

But now every man and his dog has social media craving content to publish...

Or, perhaps, a national newspaper reporting about a senior railway person addressing the Railway Industry Association conference on, I suspect, resilience.

 

[gazzaa2]

I'm surprised at the number of climate change deniers on here, considering how important railways are for reducing the environmental impact of travel.

Ask yourselves: What if the climate emergency is false, and we build a more resilient, reliable railway for nothing?

It's clearly a major issue for the railways to address but any weather slightly out the ordinary causes chaos anyway.

 

[sikejsudjek]

As someone who experienced the flood of 2007 in Gloucestershire where we ended up without power, mains water or even basic transport for a few days, I can tell you that our infrastructure is a lot less resilient than you might think. Climate change is real, and it will increase the frequency of extreme events. Think it won't effect you ? Good luck on that one....

 

[Lee_Again]

Good to see the climate experts on the forum are alive and well.

Might be worth understanding the difference between weather and climate. All people are doing on here is suggesting that the weather we experience is no different to weather experienced over the past 50 years. And they would be right. This does not make them 'Climate Change Deniers'.
Now it might be that they are deniers, they'll speak for themselves, but please don't get all anxious because somebody dared to have a different view to you. And even if your view is ultimately proved right, and we are experience drastic climate change, the change will be gradual. The world will not end next year, the year after that, or indeed in any year. Climate changes have been affecting this planet for 4 Billion years. The only reason we are an island is due to climate change. The climate is and always will be changing. But gradually. Weather does not equal Climate.

 

[Western Lord]

Whatever you believe about climate change, do not under estimate the effect of inadequate drainage due to more land being concreted over, inadequately maintained drains and inadequately maintained rivers. You could also take into account that there are far more people to be affected by floods than a hundred years ago and that everyone has a camera and instant worldwide communication and 24/7 news outlets craving material. A hundred years ago local floods would not have made the national press.

 

[Hughby]

You please yourself. Maybe you'll be OK.
https://xkcd.com/1732/
What has changed is the rate of change.

That xkcd cartoon is a great non-technical way of showing that whilst climate has changed gradually over time, it is changing quickly now and there seems a quite obvious correlation with the start of the industrial revolution.

If you've not spent a few minutes reading it I urge you to do so. I'm an engineer but hadn't really thought too much about climate change apart from a general "there's probably something in it" attitude. The first time I read the cartoon I had a real "Oh S***!" moment when I got to the end.

Another good xkcd is https://xkcd.com/radiation/ - a different subject but a great way of getting a perspective on a controversial issue.

 

[Kingspanner]

Might be worth understanding the difference between weather and climate. All people are doing on here is suggesting that the weather we experience is no different to weather experienced over the past 50 years. And they would be right. This does not make them 'Climate Change Deniers'.
Now it might be that they are deniers, they'll speak for themselves, but please don't get all anxious because somebody dared to have a different view to you. And even if your view is ultimately proved right, and we are experience drastic climate change, the change will be gradual. The world will not end next year, the year after that, or indeed in any year. Climate changes have been affecting this planet for 4 Billion years. The only reason we are an island is due to climate change. The climate is and always will be changing. But gradually. Weather does not equal Climate.

You are right, the world will not end. in the sense that the planet is not in trouble. But we, and a lot of large mammals and other species could be erased in a remarkably short time. The consequences of temperature rise include rising sea levels, extreme weather events including drought, mass migrations of animals including us to escape famine, new and enlarged ranges for disease bearing creatures such as mosquitoes.
Where we have seen desperate migrants trying to get into Europe via the Med will pale into insignificance. What if the UK ends up with little rainfall and is desertified? What if we end up with a climate like Seattle? What if the Gulf Stream switches off and we get a climate like Finland? In any event we won't be growing food anything like we are now. It will be our turn to go cap in hand to other countries, we will be the refugees.
I personally don't want to chance it.

 

[Darandio]

What if the Gulf Stream switches off and we get a climate like Finland?

Or even colder. Many still automatically assume that if things keep getting warmer then we will follow suit here, it might not be the case. As you say, melt the ice and reduce the salinity then comes the risk of it shutting down. After all, it's happened before....

 

[Dunfanaghy Rd]

Might be worth understanding the difference between weather and climate. All people are doing on here is suggesting that the weather we experience is no different to weather experienced over the past 50 years. And they would be right. This does not make them 'Climate Change Deniers'.
Now it might be that they are deniers, they'll speak for themselves, but please don't get all anxious because somebody dared to have a different view to you. And even if your view is ultimately proved right, and we are experience drastic climate change, the change will be gradual. The world will not end next year, the year after that, or indeed in any year. Climate changes have been affecting this planet for 4 Billion years. The only reason we are an island is due to climate change. The climate is and always will be changing. But gradually. Weather does not equal Climate.

Where's the 'Like' button when you need it? Planet Earth doesn't give a damn about us, anymore than the Mammoth or Trilobites.
Pat

 

[DarloRich]

Where's the 'Like' button when you need it? Planet Earth doesn't give a damn about us, anymore than the Mammoth or Trilobites.
Pat

Correct. However we as modern man have a greater capacity than the Mammoth or Trilobites to cause the earth harm.

 

[Mag_seven]

climate change is real, and it will increase the frequency of extreme events.

Nah, you're talking rubbish mate - that Nigel Lawson says so and lets face it as an ex Tory Chancellor he must know more about climate change than lefty university professors.

 

[Western Lord]

Correct. However we as modern man have a greater capacity than the Mammoth or Trilobites to cause the earth harm.

The problem is. and increasingly will be, too many "modern men" (and women and children) on this planet. I've often wondered if anybody has calculated the effect of body heat from an increasing population on the global temperature (I'm old enough to remember when big old cinemas were only warm when there was a full house). It seems that many people have decided that they like the planet, more or less, in the state it is now and that we should engineer things to keep it that way, as if it is as easy as adjusting the central heating. Unfortunately, nature may have other ideas.

 

[bastien]

Might be worth understanding the difference between weather and climate. All people are doing on here is suggesting that the weather we experience is no different to weather experienced over the past 50 years. And they would be right. This does not make them 'Climate Change Deniers'.
Now it might be that they are deniers, they'll speak for themselves, but please don't get all anxious because somebody dared to have a different view to you. And even if your view is ultimately proved right, and we are experience drastic climate change, the change will be gradual. The world will not end next year, the year after that, or indeed in any year. Climate changes have been affecting this planet for 4 Billion years. The only reason we are an island is due to climate change. The climate is and always will be changing. But gradually. Weather does not equal Climate.

I smell a canned response here, given that it isn't really a reply to the quoted post which didn't mention the 'd' word at all.

 

[gazzaa2]

Might be worth understanding the difference between weather and climate. All people are doing on here is suggesting that the weather we experience is no different to weather experienced over the past 50 years. And they would be right. This does not make them 'Climate Change Deniers'.
Now it might be that they are deniers, they'll speak for themselves, but please don't get all anxious because somebody dared to have a different view to you. And even if your view is ultimately proved right, and we are experience drastic climate change, the change will be gradual. The world will not end next year, the year after that, or indeed in any year. Climate changes have been affecting this planet for 4 Billion years. The only reason we are an island is due to climate change. The climate is and always will be changing. But gradually. Weather does not equal Climate.

Exactly. Heavy rain isn't a new invention. Neither are storms, leaves, heat and snow. Climate change itself wasnt the point. The UK climate has always been unpredictable and had its extremities since the railway was invented.

 

[scotrail158713]

Might be worth understanding the difference between weather and climate. All people are doing on here is suggesting that the weather we experience is no different to weather experienced over the past 50 years. And they would be right. This does not make them 'Climate Change Deniers'.
Now it might be that they are deniers, they'll speak for themselves, but please don't get all anxious because somebody dared to have a different view to you. And even if your view is ultimately proved right, and we are experience drastic climate change, the change will be gradual. The world will not end next year, the year after that, or indeed in any year. Climate changes have been affecting this planet for 4 Billion years. The only reason we are an island is due to climate change. The climate is and always will be changing. But gradually. Weather does not equal Climate.

Yes - Milankovitch’s Stretch, Tilt, and Wobble theory proved this. But what we now realise is we’re accelerating the change at a far greater rate than is natural, so something needs to be done.
Wow, for once, I agree with Mr Hynes on something.

 

[farleigh]

But if we are going to be wiped out we won't need a more resilient railway. Silver lining.

 

[yorkie]

Too bad "global warming" hadn't been invented during the summer of 1976, else blank cheques might have been forthcoming earlier!

Strange post, and it's unclear what your motives are but if they are what they think they are I will point out that extreme weather can occur at any time; this is not quite the same thing as climate.

People falsely claim or suggest that tracks didn't buckle in the hot summers of 1975/6, but this is false, as has been posted before on this forum:

Bit of corporate memory - 1975 , hot weather , buckled track. Derailment.

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoT_Sarnau1975.pdf

Note the parameters of "hot weather" and CWR seem to be a bit similar.

There have been numerous threads recently on the subject of temperature extremes causing problems for the track, here are a selection of pertinent posts:

But here’s the thing - the forecast a week out was for temperatures of up to 30/31C. Not 37/38C. The former is normal; the latter is not. Even as recently as Monday it was forecast a maximum of 34C, perhaps 35 in the usual hotspots (Heathrow, central London). You’ll have to trust me, but every degree matters.

the problem is the rail is going in over night at -1/-2 and is then subject to a 20 degree plus temperature swing during the day!

...no it isn’t possible to stress the rails to cover a wider range of temperatures. You can set to one stress free temperature (SFT) and the range around that is fixed. At a certain figure above that temperature (here, it is 32C above SFT IIRC) you risk track buckles. At a slightly less certain figure below the SFT (around 40C , but it varies) you risk a higher number of broken rails. It’s the laws of physics, and they apply universally. It is not a cost issue.

 

[Crepello]

I'm surprised at the number of climate change deniers on here, considering how important railways are for reducing the environmental impact of travel.

Ask yourselves: What if the climate emergency is false, and we build a more resilient, reliable railway for nothing?

To your first point - were some posts deleted? Climate change is as demonstrable a phenomenon as gravity; I didn't see anybody claiming otherwise.

To your second, I'd reply: Many millions invested sub-optimally, which could have generated much greater value elsewhere on the rail network. Hypothetical example: Let's suppose Mr Hynes' request were to be granted, in part, by de-funding the replacement of rolling stock on the Isle of Wight... yet the next 30 summers transpired to be washouts - quite possible, meteorologically. That might be tricky to explain in Hampshire...

Strange post, and it's unclear what your motives are.

Posted without motive. Why did you find it strange?

 

[MalaiseForever]

Might be worth understanding the difference between weather and climate. All people are doing on here is suggesting that the weather we experience is no different to weather experienced over the past 50 years. And they would be right. This does not make them 'Climate Change Deniers'.
Now it might be that they are deniers, they'll speak for themselves, but please don't get all anxious because somebody dared to have a different view to you. And even if your view is ultimately proved right, and we are experience drastic climate change, the change will be gradual. The world will not end next year, the year after that, or indeed in any year. Climate changes have been affecting this planet for 4 Billion years. The only reason we are an island is due to climate change. The climate is and always will be changing. But gradually. Weather does not equal Climate.

They aren’t right. Look at the facts. Look at the data. Things are getting worse. There is no debate to be had. This is happening. End of.

 

[MalaiseForever]

I smell a canned response here, given that it isn't really a reply to the quoted post which didn't mention the 'd' word at all.

Indeed, very bizarre response.