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Battery Cl. 802 trial (tri-mode)

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reddragon

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Hybrid cars don't have near 1/3 of their range removed, and are also able to conveniently refuel at petrol stations - refuelling a train is not quite so simple...

Penzance round trips should still be feasible, but may get a little tight on fuel and require special attention to ensure that the battery unit doesn't find itself on a route where it'll run out of fuel part way through

The train will not have 1/3 of its fuel removed as the battery will absorb and re-use energy so 1/5th but as a pair of units as is used on this line 1/10th so no big deal.
 
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Domh245

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The train will not have 1/3 of its fuel removed as the battery will absorb and re-use energy so 1/5th but as a pair of units as is used on this line 1/10th so no big deal.

It will have a third of it's diesel removed though, and with the best will in the world I don't believe that the battery will make up that short fall. A full tank of diesel (1550L) is ~15500kWh of energy, so assuming it's a 1MWh battery you lose over 90% of the energy storage in the converted vehicle. Yes it'll recover some energy through regen, but for it to only lose a fifth of the energy would require sufficient regen harvesting to completely charge the battery 5 times. I'm doubtful, but happy to be proven wrong

I agree that it isn't likely to be a big deal, though that is dependant on how much fuel units on a penzance diagram are coming back with already. Don't forget though that neither power or fuel is transferred between units, so you can't rely on the other 5 car in the formation (assuming there is one - based on some posts you'd think that it's always 5 cars!) to pick up the slack if the battery unit ran out of energy
 

AM9

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Sounds promising, it'll be interesting to see how it works out. Based on what they've said about the way these'll operate the limiting factor will become range - removing an engine (and fuel tank) and replacing it with a battery will effectively reduce the range by a third although I suppose if it was going to be an issue they wouldn't be proceeding with it. It'll also be interesting to see what the net effect of the batteries on CO2 across the journey is - weight wise I expect they'll be heavier, and I wonder if the other engines will be worked harder - where the train might normally coast with the engines idle the battery may still require charging (less an allowance for regenerative braking) and result in engines working harder between stops.

If it works though, there's definitely an argument to be made for swapping out the engines on the 801s at LNER with these - those engines are there for last mile limping, something that one of these batteries should be capable of handling.
Interesting thread. A question (for anyone here), does this trial allow for the battery power to supplement the diesels at any time? For instance, clearly the energy used by the motors ultimately comes from burning diesel, however some of the total burn would be wasted in resistors as has been pointed out. In addition, on a route suchh as the GWR south west route, there is no shortage of inclines, - many of them just where trains start out of stations. So given the ability of the motors on the 80X to deliver much more non-continuous power than the diesels can provide, a 1MWh battery like hwl suggests, could be configured to provide this additional boost, not only to the motors under the same car, but if bussed*, it could be charged from all tractioned axles and provide a short term boost to all of the other generators in the set. That could even result in a hybrid with an improved carbon profile that effectively retains the range of an unmodified unit.

* I presume that a whole set bus would be beyond the current trial but a useful development.
 

reddragon

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Interesting thread. A question (for anyone here), does this trial allow for the battery power to supplement the diesels at any time? For instance, clearly the energy used by the motors ultimately comes from burning diesel, however some of the total burn would be wasted in resistors as has been pointed out. In addition, on a route suchh as the GWR south west route, there is no shortage of inclines, - many of them just where trains start out of stations. So given the ability of the motors on the 80X to deliver much more non-continuous power than the diesels can provide, a 1MWh battery like hwl suggests, could be configured to provide this additional boost, not only to the motors under the same car, but if bussed*, it could be charged from all tractioned axles and provide a short term boost to all of the other generators in the set. That could even result in a hybrid with an improved carbon profile that effectively retains the range of an unmodified unit.
Exactly!

The battery also reduces the fuel use in the other powered cars a lot thus compensating the loss of 1/3 fuel capacity
 

hwl

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The train will not have 1/3 of its fuel removed as the battery will absorb and re-use energy so 1/5th but as a pair of units as is used on this line 1/10th so no big deal.
The 20% includes being fully charged before leaving the wires, the recovery element is less than 20%...
 

The Ham

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It will have a third of it's diesel removed though, and with the best will in the world I don't believe that the battery will make up that short fall. A full tank of diesel (1550L) is ~15500kWh of energy, so assuming it's a 1MWh battery you lose over 90% of the energy storage in the converted vehicle. Yes it'll recover some energy through regen, but for it to only lose a fifth of the energy would require sufficient regen harvesting to completely charge the battery 5 times. I'm doubtful, but happy to be proven wrong

I agree that it isn't likely to be a big deal, though that is dependant on how much fuel units on a penzance diagram are coming back with already. Don't forget though that neither power or fuel is transferred between units, so you can't rely on the other 5 car in the formation (assuming there is one - based on some posts you'd think that it's always 5 cars!) to pick up the slack if the battery unit ran out of energy

Whilst you can't transfer energy, longer units (such as pairs of units) need less energy than the same number of coaches split over two trains.
 

reddragon

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Putting all this very interesting debate aside, some clever people with the real data to go on have done their calcs and have concluded that it will work & needs testing to prove their theory.

I hope it works as well as they expect.

20%+ saving and 33% less fuel give 90% capacity remaining!
 

hwl

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Interesting thread. A question (for anyone here), does this trial allow for the battery power to supplement the diesels at any time?
Yes.
For instance, clearly the energy used by the motors ultimately comes from burning diesel, however some of the total burn would be wasted in resistors as has been pointed out.
The resistor banks are used on 802 on Diesel and Electric but for 800 just on electric if no regen is available to OHLE.
In addition, on a route such as the GWR south west route, there is no shortage of inclines, - many of them just where trains start out of stations.
The idea is that there is no diesel operation in / near stations
So given the ability of the motors on the 80X to deliver much more non-continuous power than the diesels can provide, a 1MWh battery like hwl suggests, could be configured to provide this additional boost,
Yes that is the idea,
not only to the motors under the same car, but if bussed*, it could be charged from all tractioned axles and provide a short term boost to all of the other generators in the set.
you need the busing from all 3 motored vehicles to get anything more than a small single digit % energy recovery overall.
That could even result in a hybrid with an improved carbon profile that effectively retains the range of an unmodified unit.
It won't. See my earlier comments. This really is a trial (as far easier than 9 car) to test mechanical electrical and software and gather real data before taking a bigger step. 9 car is much more interesting.
* I presume that a whole set bus would be beyond the current trial but a useful development.
Very much needed to get the recovery amounts!

Whilst you can't transfer energy, longer units (such as pairs of units) need less energy than the same number of coaches split over two trains.
Indeed the Davis equation v^2 coefficient increase for a 125mph 5car going to 10 car (as 2x 5car) will be around 45-50%. Longer (9car) with no / fewer engines removed gets very very interesting...
 
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reddragon

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Is the plan to use the CATL type batteries, the ones touted as million mile batteries? These are the ones with no cobalt, less lithium / Nickel but slightly heavier per kg. LFP instead of Lithium Iron used in cars / laptops etc

They are the ones used on buses, HGVs etc and in the shorter range Tesla M3
 

hwl

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Putting all this very interesting debate aside, some clever people with the real data to go on have done their calcs and have concluded that it will work & needs testing to prove their theory.

I hope it works as well as they expect.

20%+ saving and 33% less fuel give 90% capacity remaining!
The fuel saving isn't 33%, the other engines work harder to produce more power than they would with 3 engines, Hitachi put the maximum potential fuel saving at just 20%.
 

reddragon

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The fuel saving isn't 33%, the other engines work harder to produce more power than they would with 3 engines, Hitachi put the maximum potential fuel saving at just 20%.
Interesting point, but does that count the engines working less under load with battery support?
 

hwl

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Interesting point, but does that count the engines working less under load with battery support?
Yes but only for a small proportion of the time, but a lot of the time they will be working harder with at least 22% more fuel use per engine overall. @Domh245 is correct to worry about off wires range issues on some routes.
There are all the (surprisingly large) hotel loads to power as well that everyone has ignored so far, this isn't just about traction power.
 

reddragon

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Yes but only for a small proportion of the time, but a lot of the time they will be working harder with at least 22% more fuel use per engine overall. @Domh245 is correct to worry about off wires range issues on some routes.
There are all the (surprisingly large) hotel loads to power as well that everyone has ignored so far, this isn't just about traction power.

You clearly have the data to go on, so I can only wish you all the success in getting the systems optimised to obtain your 20% fuel savings!
 

The Ham

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A lot of people don't look beyond their plug socket. Where does the steel come from for wind turbines for example? Steel need fossil fuels to be produced. Every form of electricity has an environmental impact. Electric cars are not the only answer for a better environment.

However the environmental impact of a wind turbine is low enough that it is typically only a year before it's recovered the carbon from construction through lowering carbon emissions from other sources.

Obviously in the UK it would be longer than this, whilst somewhere like Poland (most of the electricity there is from coal) the playback period would be shorter.

However it does illustrate much of a difference moving to EV's would have (and how using more efficient modes of transport, like rail would benefit this further) on our carbon emissions.

Given that land based transport is the largest source of emissions in the UK, then it's going to be an area where changes need to be made and rapidly.
 

Jozhua

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Travel should go through this decision tree:
- do we need to travel, if not then don't. (e.g. should I be looking to WFH more of I'm able or do I really need to go to the shops today and tomorrow?)
- if we need to travel is it suitable to walk it & if its not could there be something I could change to make it so that it was?
- if not could we cycle it & if its not could there be something I could change to make it so that it was?
- if not could we use public transport & if its not could there be something I could change to make it so that it was?
(By this point in the tree it should be theoretically possible that we've covered most of the travel carried out by most of the people).
- if none of those modes are practicable, could I share a vehicle with others to reduce the numbers of vehicles on the roads?
- then and only then drive

The problem is that rarely do we, as a nation, run through the questions and we often just jump in the car as we are lazy in our thinking as well as being fairly lazy in our actions.

For instance, do you really need to drive to a supermarket to get an extra pint or two of milk? Yes the cost is the milk is cheaper, but if you didn't drive a mile there and back (saving ~20p) it might be cheaper to walk to the local shop/garage and pay the higher price on the milk. Even if it's not cheaper, there's probably not much in it, which wouldn't be that big a deal for small top up shopping which should be fairly infrequent.

Now whilst there'll be some who wouldn't be able to walk/cycle/use public transport for the majority of their travel (especially if they can increase the amount that they WFH) rather than drive, a lot of them will be within groups which make up small percentages of the population.

For instance, those with disabilities (and many still can, for example hand cycles, mobility scooters, etc.) make up about 6%, those classed as living in a rural settlement (government definition of a population of less than 10,000; even then I do in a village of 9,000 and I've got the option of an hourly bus and a twice hourly train service) make up ~15% of the population.

Now I accept that is simplistic, in that you can't get to everywhere within a reasonable timeframe (for instance my wife's work would take 2 hours to get to by public transport) and the change needed to make that viable by public transport would be to move (then the problem is that closer houses would be much more expensive and would mean that I then couldn't walk/cycle to work).

However, by WFH an average of 1 day a week (she only works 3 days a week anyway) and limiting as much of our other travel to walking/cycling as possible, we only own one car and the miles we do in that are below average (average per car is ~10,000 miles, average per person is 6,500 miles).

If my wife changed jobs, so could walk, cycle or use public transport, then we would probably not really need to own a car (although would still need to hire a car for visiting family).

Often there's one or two main journeys which are why people keep a car. Given the ability to have supermarket deliveries for the big and heavy stuff (which gets delivered to at least your front door, so less heavy lifting than going and getting it yourself) then even that 1990's justification for car ownership isn't as strong as it used to be.

Yes there's some journeys which you can't do, for instance going to the household waste centre, without a vehicle. However, how often do you really do that trip (I've not been for the whole of 2020 and I've taken all the tiles off my bathroom walls, we just put a some in the bin each week)? Chances are you could get rid of most stuff in another way if you needed to.

Coming onto the main subject of the thread, having a OHLE/Diesel/Battery train is going to be, for the vast majority who use it, more environmentally friendly than nearly any alternative mode of travel that they could use instead of using it (nearly any, as EV's may win out if it's a daily trip with multiple people in the vehicle, likewise a very short trip which could otherwise be cycled wouldn't be better by train).

Yes there's a risk that electrification is delayed on the route, however there's still going to be a need for a lot more than there currently is before the gaps are short enough not to need the diesel engines. Even then chances are the case for shortening those gaps more would likely be fairly high.

What it may well allow is a faster roll out of electrification, in that it could be possible to have the wires up but they don't quite have enough grid feeds to run all the trains without help.

I'll give you an example, Weymouth, that's limited on the number of EMU's which can be running at any one time, if we had trains with a battery boost then chances are you could run more trains.

Now if we can reduce the number of grid feeds on some of our more rural lines then it could allow them to have the wires installed more cheaply than would otherwise be the case. It could also allow them to be added in at a later date, so that the delivery of grid feeds want such a time critical element of the project (although given the amount of planning required to deliver electrification, that's likely to generally be less of an issue).

Yes batteries aren't great environmentally, but then it's better to build a few and put them in trains than thousands and put them in cars (even if the train battery is much bigger). Especially if they are only being used for parts of the journey being made by the train rather than all of way as it's the case with cars.

Such improvements should further reduce the need for so much diesel use within the railways, further improving the carbon emissions so that the average starts to beat (rather than the 2019 figures where they were broadly matching) the per person per km emissions of EV's (however that still smashes the average by road vehicles, even if you include emissions produced by cycles within those numbers).

It's likely, with everything (even with fairly limited electrification beyond what's already announced), that by 2030 rail should be able to be beating (as an average) EV's on emissions on a per person per mile basis.

Whilst there's likely to be still quite a lot of travel on diesel trains at that time, few using such services would actually be better off (in emission terms) from not using rail. As there's likely to be some travel that they do by rail which would be using electric (including battery) as the main power source, which would fairly rapidly reduce the per mile emissions. As well as the fact that they are more likely to walk/cycle the remainder of there travel than someone with a car, meaning that their overall travel emissions are likely to be lower overall.
Yeah, ultimately even diesel trains/buses have benefits versus the car. Especially when you consider the increases in space efficiency help us to reduce congestion.

With reducing travel, I think it is worth looking at. There are a lot of trips we take that don't necessarily add value to our lives, and we just do for the sake of. However, as I'm sure other people on the forum will agree, travel also adds a lot of value to people's lives, allowing them to see more friends and family, access more jobs and opportunities, explore and see different perspectives. So overall, with increases in WFH, I think we may see more optional travelling, less of the sort of traditional 9-5 commute. On the upside, being spread more throughout the day could help to reduce congestion and I think each trip will probably have a higher value-add. But relying on reduced travel as the main decarbonisation strategy will likely not work.
The flip side is that the infrastructure engineers see battery, hydrogen and whatever other bionic duckweed alternatives rear their heads, as a way of avoiding their part in decarbonising the railway. The cynic in me suggests it is buck passing to the operators: “not my problem”.

Electrification is the most efficient way of powering the railway - get on with it and stop making excuses!
Yeah, that's my worry. I think this technology is good, and in an ideal world I would fully support it, however, my main concern is that the beancounters will see this as an alternative technology, not as a complimentary technology.
Actually the infrastructure engineers are also quite keen on electrification.

It is the economists who want to see the best value for money solution. Batteries will be that in some cases. Therefore it needs testing. That should not stop electrification of routes with high speed / high traffic flows, as indeed is happening (albeit not visibly, much, yet)
The economists seem to miss the point that, in the long run, OLE will be cheaper and provide more benefits in maintenance costs, overall efficiency (no losses in charging & lugging battery weight around, something which wears rail more, reduces acceleration, reduces efficiency.)
One of the things not mentioned in this thread is that with a ‘last mile battery’ or whatever one could reduce the cost of Electrification projects by not needing to put up overhead into Depots, a not inconsiderable cost. Though I suspect one road in the Workshop may need overhead for testing after maintenance has been carried out.
Yeah, this is very true! It would probably make the depots safer too, not having engineers to work near uninsulated high-voltage cables all the time.
I agree.

In China, before batteries developed as well as they are now their buses were still electric, running on trolley wire in town on that network which already existed but for out of town they had power charge points at bus stops. Instead of batteries they used capacitors which charge up instantly and get the bus at least 2 stops down the road.
In Budapest, there are a number of trolley buses with batteries/capacitors so they can run away from the trolley network too.

Again, this is good, but should be seen as complementary instead of alternative.
Where does the lithium come from for the batteries? It is also mined.
So, with running lithium in trains, the batteries will be used on far more trips than an equivalent electric car. Plus, I have more faith in the rail operators having a more complete life cycle plan for the materials, so they can be properly recycled and re-used. Plus, the physical amount of raw material will be less than that of oil.

Again, with the caveat that it is no replacement for proper OLE in the majority of circumstances. It's a good stop-gap measure, it's good for some limited use cases where OLE is truly un-economical. But it is no permanent solution for the majority of lines. Unfortunately, it tends to be that "temporary stop-gaps" stick around in a more permanent way...*pacers*
 

Domh245

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The economists seem to miss the point that, in the long run, OLE will be cheaper and provide more benefits in maintenance costs, overall efficiency (no losses in charging & lugging battery weight around, something which wears rail more, reduces acceleration, reduces efficiency.)

They're not missing those points though, the issue is either that
a) over whatever time period they are considering, running bimodes still works out cheaper
b) the fragmented nature of the railway means that the costs are deliberately missed - but seeing as it all comes back to the DfT I'd be surprised if it were this
 

Bald Rick

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The economists seem to miss the point that, in the long run, OLE will be cheaper and provide more benefits in maintenance costs, overall efficiency (no losses in charging & lugging battery weight around, something which wears rail more, reduces acceleration, reduces efficiency.)

Not at all. As an example, maintaining the battery on a fleet of battery trains is far, far cheaper than maintaining an electrification system. Many EMUs carry ballast to help adhesion and for other reasons so are carrying the weight already, which can be removed and batteries installed instead. Energy transfer from grid to batteries to wheel for batteries is (I’m told) far more efficient than third rail from Grid to substation to rectifier to con rail to train to wheel.

To be frank, what many people are missing is that, in the long run, for some lines batteries are cheaper and provide more benefits in maintenance costs, and in some cases, overlap efficiency.
 

The Ham

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Yeah, ultimately even diesel trains/buses have benefits versus the car. Especially when you consider the increases in space efficiency help us to reduce congestion.

With reducing travel, I think it is worth looking at. There are a lot of trips we take that don't necessarily add value to our lives, and we just do for the sake of. However, as I'm sure other people on the forum will agree, travel also adds a lot of value to people's lives, allowing them to see more friends and family, access more jobs and opportunities, explore and see different perspectives. So overall, with increases in WFH, I think we may see more optional travelling, less of the sort of traditional 9-5 commute. On the upside, being spread more throughout the day could help to reduce congestion and I think each trip will probably have a higher value-add. But relying on reduced travel as the main decarbonisation strategy will likely not work.

I wasn't suggesting that reducing travel would be the main part of the strategy to decarbonise, rather it's a part of it. However it does has to be the first question which had to be asked on deciding how to travel.

Clearly there's going to be travel which is still required (such as children visiting grandparents or those who love watching live sports), however there's likely to be some travel which could be reduced which doesn't add value.

For instance, even those who enjoy being in the office when working would likely agree that they could WFH some of the time without that impacting on their work/enjoyment overly much but could gain then other benefits (such as having more leisure time or more money, enabling them to do other things that they enjoy).
 

Jozhua

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They're not missing those points though, the issue is either that
a) over whatever time period they are considering, running bimodes still works out cheaper
b) the fragmented nature of the railway means that the costs are deliberately missed - but seeing as it all comes back to the DfT I'd be surprised if it were this
The time periods are likely that of the incumbent administration...
Not at all. As an example, maintaining the battery on a fleet of battery trains is far, far cheaper than maintaining an electrification system. Many EMUs carry ballast to help adhesion and for other reasons so are carrying the weight already, which can be removed and batteries installed instead. Energy transfer from grid to batteries to wheel for batteries is (I’m told) far more efficient than third rail from Grid to substation to rectifier to con rail to train to wheel.

To be frank, what many people are missing is that, in the long run, for some lines batteries are cheaper and provide more benefits in maintenance costs, and in some cases, overlap efficiency.
That's 3rd rail though. Realistically, these are in place of OLE electrification. They're in place of a brand new OLE system, with all the advancements that brings.

I don't see how a battery fleet will be cheaper than OLE. Right, so these are hybrids, so range is less of an issue.

OLE has a somewhat high upfront cost, but the designs of modern pantographs and posts are much more resilient than their old counterparts. Indeed, a lot of research has taken place, including the panto-cams to make it this way. So maintainence is less of an issue.

But fully battery is another story. It would require a lot of downtime for charging and make existing diagrams unworkable. You'd need massive numbers or spares due to charging time.

On hybrids, you have to pay for the diesel engines, and the batteries. It's a stop-gap, or gap-filler at best. I agree for some lines battery probably makes economic sense, but a high speed IC line, less so...
I wasn't suggesting that reducing travel would be the main part of the strategy to decarbonise, rather it's a part of it. However it does has to be the first question which had to be asked on deciding how to travel.

Clearly there's going to be travel which is still required (such as children visiting grandparents or those who love watching live sports), however there's likely to be some travel which could be reduced which doesn't add value.

For instance, even those who enjoy being in the office when working would likely agree that they could WFH some of the time without that impacting on their work/enjoyment overly much but could gain then other benefits (such as having more leisure time or more money, enabling them to do other things that they enjoy).
Yeah, I agree. I just see too many "greens" go "WE DON'T NEED BETTER PUBLIC TRANSPORT, WE JUST NEED FASTER INTERNET"... which kinda misses the point. Most households have fast Internet (fast enough to stream video), yet continue to go to a place of work...
 

BayPaul

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One of the things not mentioned in this thread is that with a ‘last mile battery’ or whatever one could reduce the cost of Electrification projects by not needing to put up overhead into Depots, a not inconsiderable cost. Though I suspect one road in the Workshop may need overhead for testing after maintenance has been carried out.
And also a very significant cost reduction if going for a valleys style discontinuous electrification, avoiding the expensive demolition of listed bridges, rasing of clearances in tunnels etc that seems to be half the cost of a lot of electrification schemes, and the reason that otherwise obvious schemes like Crewe-Chester aren't considered. It can also mean that lightly used platforms, diversions etc could be left unwired. I must say this feels like a fantastic and long overdue plan, and I hope that we see a rapid rollout of the tech.
 

The Ham

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Yeah, I agree. I just see too many "greens" go "WE DON'T NEED BETTER PUBLIC TRANSPORT, WE JUST NEED FASTER INTERNET"... which kinda misses the point. Most households have fast Internet (fast enough to stream video), yet continue to go to a place of work

There's something like 600,000 homes (out of 24 million, so about 2.5% of all homes) which have broadband speeds of less than 10mbs.

Yet a lot of people, when complaining about spending on railways, will highlight this as a major concern and that the spending should be on broadband speed increases.

However upgrading broadband is fairly cheap, as the government is looking to speed £4bn over the next 5 years (£1.2bn commited) to get gigabit broadband rolled out rather than £27bn on roads and about £10bn on rail enhancements.

The average speed of broadband is over 50mbs, which is about 1/2 the speed that many business had as their network speed not that long ago.

If anything, the less we travel (something which is cited as what we need to do, even though a lot of travel would still need to happen) the more we're going to need to use public transport, as car ownership only makes sense if we're using then a lot.

As if you only use a car for 100 miles a year and it costs you £700 a year then it's not really worth owning a car, as it would be cheaper to hire a car, maybe even use a taxi. Conversely if it costs you £4,000 a year and you do 25,000 miles then car ownership would make sense.

If you do 8,000 miles a year and live 12 miles from work then about 2,500 miles are not linked with commuting. As such something which would help us reduce our car use would be to WFH one day a week.

However, even just reducing our travel by car by walking and cycling more would make a big difference.

Combined, it would also reduce traffic where you live, making walking/cycling more attractive to others and then reducing reducing traffic further where you live.

And also a very significant cost reduction if going for a valleys style discontinuous electrification, avoiding the expensive demolition of listed bridges, rasing of clearances in tunnels etc that seems to be half the cost of a lot of electrification schemes, and the reason that otherwise obvious schemes like Crewe-Chester aren't considered. It can also mean that lightly used platforms, diversions etc could be left unwired. I must say this feels like a fantastic and long overdue plan, and I hope that we see a rapid rollout of the tech.

Agreed, even with bridges being replaced with suitable clearances for the last several years there's still going to be a lot of bridges which still have a lot of life left but could be replaced over time without being needed to be replaced early due to an electrification scheme.

As such, not only should it make it cheaper, it should be quicker to get the wires up along more lines than would otherwise be the case as you don't need a years worth of engineering works replacing bridges before you can start on the wiring of lines.

It will of course make the electrification scheme more complex if you have to break the electrification at every bridge, and making future replacement of those bridges more expensive (as you've got to rewire around the bridge).
 
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Bald Rick

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I don't see how a battery fleet will be cheaper than OLE.

Of course it will - on some lines - where there is part electrification. I don’t think anyone is arguing for pure battery operation.

What none of us know here is how much it will cost for a rail application of a 1MWh battery (say), once in regular production. Given that you can buy 1MWh of road application battery for £700k, and that comes gift wrapped in 10 luxury cars, it’s reasonable to assume that you could get a 1MWh Rail battery for £1m. For that price you can electrify, at best, 500 metres of single track.

So, for an already part electrified route that needs, say, 20x4 car units units, with 1 battery each, at a total of £20m, or 60 single track km of electrification at well over £100m, someone is going to need to find a lot of benefit for that extra £90m.
 
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