A report paid for by a train operator finds taking the train most favourable.
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How green are Trains ?
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hexagon789
Veteran Member
I think it's about 30.
Impressive.
We learn from our mistakes. Or at least I hope I do!
I have a problem with simply taking for face value research paid for by any industry seeking to benefit from such research.
Same can be said for how ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ is the product of Kellogg’s research. Or how the sugar industry paid scientists to find in their favour.
What’s interesting is that for all the stats, whether correct or not, there’s not a single reference. At least something like the LNER calculator will explain where they get their numbers from.
Actually, it was slightly more impressive than I remembered. The distance was shorter (Bushey to Euston) but the train started from a stand and arrived only a few minutes late! Thread here: Train driver 'freewheels' broken down train 13 MILES to London Euston after a power cut
hexagon789
Veteran Member
Oh, only 13 miles - not so impressive compared to all the way from Tring! Though from a stand it's quite good I suppose.
Wonder what sort of speed they got up.
Just over 31 1/2 miles Tring to Euston. I have spoken to drivers who shut off at 110 whilst in the cutting north of Tring, and were still doing 80 at Willesden.
Where did I mention a dispute on numbers?
DanDaDriver
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I know some of the older hands refer to the big viaduct at Sundon as “Saviours Bridge,” because that’s when the fireman had finished his heavy shovelling.
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
Had a runaway class 58 (light engine Toton to Willesden back in the day - about 1996) , a bit of a shambles really with the engine off servicing and when the driver attempted to check down around Tring in the middle of the night , found he had no working brakes.
Driver managed to raise the alarm verbally going through Watford Junction , a combination of an alert platform staff and quick thinking by the local PSB's took the view on routing him - away from Euston - but round the corner to Camden Road (thinking of the steep Camden Bank) , other traffics cleared anyway - they took the chance of putting him over at North Wembley - driver retreated to the back cab and got some retardation by handbrakes and he came to a grateful stand in Kensal Green Tunnel. Warm feelings all round and the prompt action of all staff was noted and rewarded.
Off topic I know , but shows how far you can roll into the London basin , and presumably elsewhere on the network.
DerekC
Established Member
The following chart is from the Rail Industry Decarbonisation Task Force's report in January this year. The figures date back to DfT's 2007 White Paper, so presumably nobody has redone them since then! Since 2007 cars, planes and electric trains will have improved a bit - cars and planes through better fuel efficiency and electric trains because coal has largely gone from the generation mix and been replaced by renewables.
The notes are worth reading: Data assumes the following load factors: urban bus 20%, intercity coach 60%, intercity rail 40%, all other trains 30%, domestic airlines 70%, and cars 30%. Road, air and diesel-powered rail vehicles’ emissions have been increased to take account of refinery losses and electric powered vehicles take into account losses in the grid.
grams CO2 per passenger km
-----------------------------------------------50--------------100--------------150------------200-------------250
The notes are worth reading: Data assumes the following load factors: urban bus 20%, intercity coach 60%, intercity rail 40%, all other trains 30%, domestic airlines 70%, and cars 30%. Road, air and diesel-powered rail vehicles’ emissions have been increased to take account of refinery losses and electric powered vehicles take into account losses in the grid.
grams CO2 per passenger km
-----------------------------------------------50--------------100--------------150------------200-------------250
hexagon789
Veteran Member
Wow, Super Voyagers are dreadful - all those large engines?
I love how much better 'old' HSTs are!
jagardner1984
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Amazing graph - very informative.
Don’t we need some sort of really simple, legally enforced indicators to show the current efficiency level ? Something like the traffic light system on food. It would be interesting to know what stopping patterns all of the above are based on. It would be interesting to know how many domestic flights are as low as 70% load factor (none of the ones I’m on). It would be interesting to know what account is made for cargo travelling with passengers. It would be interesting to know the difference between a Flybe Dash Q400 Turboprop and a jet aircraft. It would be interesting to see the difference on a BiMode Train, such as the Azuma, the difference in performance south of Edinburgh and north of Edinburgh. It would be interesting to see the difference 12 years of regenerative braking on rail, huge efficiencies in CO2 in small cars (pursuing lower tax bands), and aircraft fleet entirely replaced since 2007 on the basis of lower emissions (largely for Airbus A320 series on domestic flights). So many permutations it is hard to elaborate much beyond the “Plane Bad, Megabus good” mantra we are all instinctively aware of these days.
Don’t we need some sort of really simple, legally enforced indicators to show the current efficiency level ? Something like the traffic light system on food. It would be interesting to know what stopping patterns all of the above are based on. It would be interesting to know how many domestic flights are as low as 70% load factor (none of the ones I’m on). It would be interesting to know what account is made for cargo travelling with passengers. It would be interesting to know the difference between a Flybe Dash Q400 Turboprop and a jet aircraft. It would be interesting to see the difference on a BiMode Train, such as the Azuma, the difference in performance south of Edinburgh and north of Edinburgh. It would be interesting to see the difference 12 years of regenerative braking on rail, huge efficiencies in CO2 in small cars (pursuing lower tax bands), and aircraft fleet entirely replaced since 2007 on the basis of lower emissions (largely for Airbus A320 series on domestic flights). So many permutations it is hard to elaborate much beyond the “Plane Bad, Megabus good” mantra we are all instinctively aware of these days.
Since '07, as well as the vehicle-related factors average loadings on most rail routes are likely to have increased, while average loadings on many provincial bus services may have decreased (though it's hard without detailed figures to hand to estimate what effect withdrawal or cutting back of many bus services would have on the average).
Meanwhile fuel economy of modern aircraft has improved, bus emissions are incrementally improved, and older (generally) higher emission cars are steadily taken off the road replaced by newer (generally) lower emission cars, consumer confusion over diesel notwithstanding.
Emissions per equivalent vehicle are generally improving in all modes, though the number of people living here has been increasing. Some people are travelling more often and for greater distances, for exampl longer commutes seem to have become more commonplace, whilst for others technology and flexible working have reduced the need to travel every day.
Clearly with all of these (and more) different factors it's hard for even individual people working in the transport field to get a full picture of what's happening, let alone the average person to make an informed decision on what mode they choose to take if they want to minimise their impact. It probably wouldn't take an inordinate amount of resources for a government department (DFT? DECC?) to compile and update public data to inform people on a regular basis.
Meanwhile fuel economy of modern aircraft has improved, bus emissions are incrementally improved, and older (generally) higher emission cars are steadily taken off the road replaced by newer (generally) lower emission cars, consumer confusion over diesel notwithstanding.
Emissions per equivalent vehicle are generally improving in all modes, though the number of people living here has been increasing. Some people are travelling more often and for greater distances, for exampl longer commutes seem to have become more commonplace, whilst for others technology and flexible working have reduced the need to travel every day.
Clearly with all of these (and more) different factors it's hard for even individual people working in the transport field to get a full picture of what's happening, let alone the average person to make an informed decision on what mode they choose to take if they want to minimise their impact. It probably wouldn't take an inordinate amount of resources for a government department (DFT? DECC?) to compile and update public data to inform people on a regular basis.
43096
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There’ll be an awful lot of trains not moving anywhere if your 22bhp/t is correct...Great Western Railway trains are Green.
One thing to remember is that trains do consume a lot of fuel but at the same time they carry a lot more people than cars/busses can at much faster speeds. Also trains are very efficient machines as they only require about 22 Brake Horsepower per Tonne to move which is must less bhp per tonne than even a very small car such as a Smart car.
DanDaDriver
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I was thinking that. An HST is slightly under 10BHP/t I think.
hexagon789
Veteran Member
About 9.5hp for a 2+8 IIRC
I wonder what the figures look like if you factor in all those Network Rail vans, 4x4's and even motorbikes used by MOM's and maintenance staff? You can also include all the hired vehicles - both short and long term - used by Projects and the like. Operating a railway is not just trains, there is a lot more involved than that.
That goes for anything. When I worked in a car dealer's workshop, there was a guy driving break-neck around south London most of the time in a van collecting needed spare parts. Buying them only as needed saved stocking them - minimised the capital and the cost of running the van and driver went straight to the customer. It's the "Just in Time" idea.
Mrs Lucan worked for a company in Bristol selling widgets. They did not actually stock any widgets, just bought them from similar outfits when they needed to fulfil an order. One particular day they got an order for fifty widgets from a company in Epsom (100 miles away). The boss phoned round and found a supplier in Ewell (2 miles from Epsom). He sent the van driver to pick up the widgets from Ewell and deliver them to Epsom. However, the driver stopped in a lay-by between Ewell and Epsom to peel the "Ewell" label off every widget and replace it with the Bristol company label, in case next time the Epsom company realised they could buy directly from the Ewell company. So a 204 mile journey instead of 4. And they say we need more motorways.
That sort of thing goes on all the time in trade. There is no knowing that the Epsom company and the Ewell company were not themselves middlemen in a longer supply chain with the goods being taken back and forth across the country. Mrs Lucan once accidentally saw paperwork showing an entire trail of middlemen during which the widget price went up from about 5p each to £30 each. Goodness knows what pittance the original maker in China got.
I can't take Western society's self hate over emissions seriously as long as this nonsense goes on. Napoleon said Britain was a nation of shopkeepers; these days he might have said warehousemen and road transport companies.
DerekC
Established Member
Some very good questions and comments here. Apparently DfT doesn't have any up to date figures (otherwise presumably the national task force would be using them). I find that totally mindboggling - after all, this is not just a railway issue. You would have thought that a core piece of ongoing research for DfT would be to know how carbon-efficient all our various modes of transport are, and to keep the figures up to date. Time for a Freedom of Information request!
td97
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From the chart in post #42, the thing which most impresses me is that once there is a second person in the car (i.e. the load factor goes from 30% to 50%), the environmental factor of taking the bus/train instead virtually disappears. Even more so if you have to drive to get to a station in the first place, so your "train journey" becomes a hybrid. This is of course reflected in the cost, two people taking the train together is rarely a money-saver, unless your destination is one renowned for extortionate parking charges.
squizzler
Established Member
I am quite bullish about the untapped potential for improvement of rail technology. Non-rail vehicles have enjoyed the sort of commercially driven investment in product design that rail has only recently began to enjoy. Radically different running gear for instance offer enormous scope to reduce running costs. For example, Jacobs bogies or the Talgo system halve the number of wheels needed and reduce the weight of ironmongery under each coach accordingly. You couldn't halve the number of wings on a plane (aircraft engineers already made that advance in the 1930s when they did away with biplanes; it is not a trick they can repeat and expect similar benefits) or the number of wheels on a car (you could but it would then become a motorbike).
I presume the chart takes into account average load factors (Megabus is efficient because it is pre-booked and so the average occupancy is higher than the service busses also on the chart). This means the private car will contain more than one person to achieve the quoted efficiency. Drive alone and your mileage is probably worse than the plane.
Your mention of cost at the point of use, although not irrelevant in terms of motivating the choice of transport mode(s), is outside the scope of environmental considerations. What might seem cost effective now will likely need to be priced out of widespread use if it has an unsustainable impact on the environment, either local as might be the case for diesel, or global as would be for CO2 contributions.
thenorthern
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It's important to remember many environmental/green figures for things are misleading or don't give the full picture.
For example in 2007 there was a report out which said that the top 5 polluting companies in the UK contributed more CO2 than all the cars put together which is true although all 5 of them were electricity companies (the top at the time was EON). Now its easy to say EON is bad for polluting a lot but lets think about this rationally what is EON? Its a power firm that supplies consumers with electricity. Why does EON pollute a lot? Because its consumers want electricity and don't want to pay a lot for it (it's not they are burning coal for the sake of it). It's the same with lorries no driver in their right mind would drive through Central London for the sake of it they would take the M25 to avoid London if possible, nearly all the lorries that do drive into Central London do so to make deliveries and banning them would cause shops to run out of stock.
Then there is the evil scourge on our roads called the electric car which consumers think they are "doing their bit for the planet" by buying but in reality electric cars are highly inefficient, still contribute to CO2 and are destroying the economy but the government won't admit it.
For example in 2007 there was a report out which said that the top 5 polluting companies in the UK contributed more CO2 than all the cars put together which is true although all 5 of them were electricity companies (the top at the time was EON). Now its easy to say EON is bad for polluting a lot but lets think about this rationally what is EON? Its a power firm that supplies consumers with electricity. Why does EON pollute a lot? Because its consumers want electricity and don't want to pay a lot for it (it's not they are burning coal for the sake of it). It's the same with lorries no driver in their right mind would drive through Central London for the sake of it they would take the M25 to avoid London if possible, nearly all the lorries that do drive into Central London do so to make deliveries and banning them would cause shops to run out of stock.
Then there is the evil scourge on our roads called the electric car which consumers think they are "doing their bit for the planet" by buying but in reality electric cars are highly inefficient, still contribute to CO2 and are destroying the economy but the government won't admit it.
alistairlees
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The most interesting thing that could be added to this thread is some more up to date CO2 emissions data (for both rail and road) than is in that (very interesting and useful) DfT report, which is over 10 years old, quoted up thread. Technology has moved on very significantly since then, in both transport and power (electricity) generation.
Fact-free rants about stuff don't really add anything.
Fact-free rants about stuff don't really add anything.
alistairlees
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And in the pursuit of data, here is a similarly-interesting bit of data from 11 years ago (!)
http://www.aef.org.uk/downloads/Grams_CO2_transportmodesUK.pdf
A small car with two people was, at the time, almost exactly as 'green' as a train. Hard to say which has changed most since then.
http://www.aef.org.uk/downloads/Grams_CO2_transportmodesUK.pdf
A small car with two people was, at the time, almost exactly as 'green' as a train. Hard to say which has changed most since then.
How are electric cars destroying the economy? And they are zero emision (ignoring tyres) at the point of use, which in cities, is very helpful.
thenorthern
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They don't pay fuel duty or road tax which given the roads cost money to maintain unless road pricing or a electric car surcharge is introduced to an electricity bill the government would face a £27bn black hole in their budget for fuel duty alone if we all switched to electric cars. As fuel duty makes the government more money than it spends on transport this is another problem meaning taxes will have to rise in other areas.
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