If you could create underwater tunnels for rail travel...

[LE Greys]

I'm still intrigued about this obsession with purely London-Dublin travel. With HS2 in place, there would be plenty of other opportunities for travel. Currently this is not done for Eurotunnel as A: The trains have to pass/change through London anyway, B: they lose the time advantage vs jets, and C: passport control, which would not be the case for the Ireland link.

Again, the other destinations:
Passenger Numbers for Belfast int'l '(in thousands)
L'pool.........422
Stanstead...356
Gatwick......341
Heathrow....289
Luton........144

Then there is Belfast City:
Heathrow....522
Stanstead...328
Gatwick......215

that's an extra 2.6m people who could potentially use the tunnel (and at similar travel time as air travel).

Never Mind the Other UK destinations that are served from here, and Dublin (Brum 540, Manc 520, Bristol 323, Liverpool 308), there is another 1.6m people.

So we have just found another 4.2m people who could use the route...sorted.

I've said that a few times. London may have a lot of people, as does Dublin, but there is a much greater UK than that. Assuming the common travel arrangements still exist, there would be far more opportunities with connections through Birmingham, Crewe, Preston and Carlisle (Galloway route), Birmingham, Liverpool and Chester (Anglsea route) or Reading, Bristol and Cardiff (Pembrokeshire route) than just through London. Apart from anything else, it takes a lot of pressure of Euston or Paddington and allows the train to serve somewhere other than its ultimate destination.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I know it's a controversial subject but imagine a situation where we had to scale back air travel due to global warming, or energy consumption, or something like that, feasibly you could have trains running from Dublin to Heathrow that have luggage coaches that interchange in the same way that plane to plane luggage works (there's not much difference between a train and a plane's cargo holds once they're on the ground and in an airport, surely).

This begets a further question. What replaces aircraft on intercontinental travel? I'm tempted to start another fantasy thread on the return of the ocean liner, which is capable of moving people with about one quarter of the seat-emissions ratio of even the most efficient airliner, although it would cost far more and thus limit the market by effectively ending cheap inter-continental travel (barring people travelling by freighter).

 

[HSTEd]

This begets a further question. What replaces aircraft on intercontinental travel? I'm tempted to start another fantasy thread on the return of the ocean liner, which is capable of moving people with about one quarter of the seat-emissions ratio of even the most efficient airliner, although it would cost far more and thus limit the market by effectively ending cheap inter-continental travel (barring people travelling by freighter).

40 knot nuclear powered ocean liners....
2656 nautical miles via an ocean route from Plymouth to Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia.
66 hours transit time with the remaining distance covered by High Speed Rail.

Or perhaps build a rail link to Labrador to shorten the slower ocean crossing section.

51 hours from Labrador to Stranraer

 

[LE Greys]

40 knot nuclear powered ocean liners....
2656 nautical miles via an ocean route from Plymouth to Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia.
66 hours transit time with the remaining distance covered by High Speed Rail.

Or perhaps build a rail link to Labrador to shorten the slower ocean crossing section.

51 hours from Labrador to Stranraer

I'd love that, it goes right past Halifax and I have friends over there. Thing is, we would have to do something about public attitudes to nuclear technology. The NS Savannah was supposed to be a cargo-passenger liner, but hardly ever had any passengers because people were nervous about travelling aboard a ship with a reactor.

That's also oddly similar to Canadian Pacific's old model. Ship from Liverpool to Quebec City, train to Vancouver, ship to Tokyo.

 

[Holly]

... This begets a further question. What replaces aircraft on intercontinental travel? I'm tempted to start another fantasy thread on the return of the ocean liner, which is ...

Still larger aircraft.
A380? We ain't seen nothin' yet, oh yeah.

In 1898 the first international urban-planning conference convened in New York. It was abandoned after three days, instead of the scheduled ten, because none of the delegates could see any solution to the growing crisis posed by urban horses and their output. ...
Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one writer estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure. ...
Of course, urban civilization was not buried in manure. The great crisis vanished when millions of horses were replaced by motor vehicles

It no use looking for solutions to problems that will not exist.
The earth is overpopulated, already way way beyond sustainable levels. We humans are doing nothing to fix that problem so mother nature will fix it for us. There won't be nearly so much need for intercontinental travel.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Fishguard- Roslare (London-Dublin 2 1/2 hrs)
You go South, and you need to build a high speed extension (what is the current line speed beyond Swansea?) all the way to Fishguard (80m), as well as road links, then a brand new rail route all the way up from Wexford to Dublin (which I don't think there is huge demand for) (both road and rail required) and on to Belfast (200m). This route would also become difficult for any cities in northern England (with their large Irish communities). However, it would support a business case for high speed travel to Swansea.

Holyhead-Dublin (London-Dublin 2 1/2hrs)
Currently the busiest Ferry route due to the shorter distance to Dublin and from Northern English cities.
Go North, and in Ireland, you only need Dublin-Belfast (which is relatively busy), and the rail route along North Wales (80m) needs upgrading. The road would need upgrading, but not to the same extend as Swansea-Fishguard.
This would also make travel from Northern England easier

If a rail tunnel to Ireland would require increased road capacity, then maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea. Would it need increased road capacity though? For the Fishguard route, if HSR comes into Wales at all, I'd stop it at Swansea. Through services to Ireland from east of Port Talbot I would have use the Swansea District Line to access an upgraded line to the tunnel mouth (while the linespeed of the south west Wales lines is no higher than 75mph currently, there are many sections straight enough for 90mph I think). If you are going to put cars on trains to Ireland, I'd suggest a single platform near the tunnel for loading local traffic, but put the main vehicle boarding point on the SDL near the M4, avoiding the need for new major roads further west.

It no use looking for solutions to problems that will not exist. The earth is overpopulated, already way way beyond sustainable levels. We humans are doing nothing to fix that problem so mother nature will fix it for us. There won't be nearly so much need for intercontinental travel.

Well said, the human population is probably too high already, and certainly will be if the growth in that population continues. However, they say mother nature always wins. I'm not so sure now, what I know is humanity cannot win against nature. As I see it, there are two scenarios:

• We introduce population controls and far more measures to prevent climate change to allow us to live within natures limits
• We don't do enough of the above. Nature kills us off with climate change, but not before we have doomed most of life on earth too, thus both mother nature and humanity lose.

We could destroy nature if we choose, but in doing so would get destroyed ourselves.

 

[NightStar]

I know this is a bit old now, But what the heck. Australia to New Zealand, Tasmania to Australia, Australia to mainland Asia.

Also all of Japan connected by tunnels and to mainland Asia. Then there is Africa to connect to the rest of the world.

Robert

 

[HSTEd]

Well said, the human population is probably too high already, and certainly will be if the growth in that population continues. However, they say mother nature always wins. I'm not so sure now, what I know is humanity cannot win against nature. As I see it, there are two scenarios:

• We introduce population controls and far more measures to prevent climate change to allow us to live within natures limits
• We don't do enough of the above. Nature kills us off with climate change, but not before we have doomed most of life on earth too, thus both mother nature and humanity lose.

We could destroy nature if we choose, but in doing so would get destroyed ourselves.

Human food production is nowhere near its theoretical maximum, for instance the world average wheat yield appears to be roughly 2.5t per hectare, whereas France achieved yields of approximately 7.5t per hectare last year.
This means current world wheat production could be trebled, and this was not a freak year, with France achieving comparable yields in previous years.

The primary limit on food production is energy, both for the production of nitrogenous fertilisers and for engineering artificial climate change in the Sahara, and for the production of pruteen-type artificial animal feeds that could replace tens of thousands of square kilometres of crops like soybean if people were willing to pay the relatively small premium.

Energy production is not as limited as people would like to believe, with fast breeder reactors of types already demonstrated using uranium based fuels that have also already been demonstrated even simple granite becomes a viable fuel source with an energy value an order of magnitude greater than coal by mass.

Food production could be maintained at current levels or higher almost indefinitely if people are willing to use currently unpopular technologies to achieve it.

Any population collapse will be our own fault because we will have failed to do what is necessary.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Human food production is nowhere near its theoretical maximum, for instance the world average wheat yield appears to be roughly 2.5t per hectare, whereas France achieved yields of approximately 7.5t per hectare last year.
This means current world wheat production could be trebled, and this was not a freak year, with France achieving comparable yields in previous years.

Aye, we could produce more wheat and such like. Ocean fish stocks are a different story, but my point of unsustainable population was more to do with the amount of energy we use, much of it coming from burning things and releasing greenhouse gases, more pepole means we need more energy. Fewer pepole = less energy use and hence it we wouldn't need as many wind turbines / hydro-electric dams / nuclear power plants to eliminate our fossil fuel burning habits.

The primary limit on food production is energy, both for the production of nitrogenous fertilisers and for engineering artificial climate change in the Sahara, and for the production of pruteen-type artificial animal feeds that could replace tens of thousands of square kilometres of crops like soybean if people were willing to pay the relatively small premium.

And there lies more problems. Our energy consuption would be increased to make farming even more intensive to feed the growing population. We may well be able to feed everyone, but in doing so we'll still wreck the climate, and then the crops might fail etc.

Energy production is not as limited as people would like to believe, with fast breeder reactors of types already demonstrated using uranium based fuels that have also already been demonstrated even simple granite becomes a viable fuel source with an energy value an order of magnitude greater than coal by mass.

Yes, there are cleaner ways of generating energy. You could move to these cleaner ways quicker if you needed less energy in total.

 

[HSTEd]

While more people would use more energy, more people also means a larger economy and thus the ability to build more reactors more quickly.
I think the effect largely cancels out.

And as for fish stocks, we are getting close to being able to produce various carnivorous fish species like cod using closed cycle fish farms that are completely independent from the sea.... give it ten years.

But to quote a climate scientist who's name I can't remember, we need to electrify everything we can and build reactors as fast as we can.

 

[phil8715]

I would like to see a Fleetwood- Larne or Fleetwood-Belfast tunnel. Although I'm sure some Irish republican extremist group will try and blow it up like they do on the Belfast to Dublin route.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Waverley125]

also, the tonnage of grain and vegetables fit for human consumption produced per square km is much greater than the tonnage of meat produced per square km. Food output with current yield averages can be doubled if all meat crops were replaced with vegetables.

So yeah, we can grow 6 times as much food as we currently are doing, with the right intergovernmental action.

Back on topic though, I'd actually hope to build all three UK-Ireland tunnels. The Fishguard route would serve for:

London-Dublin, London-Cork, Bristol-Dublin, Bristol-Cork, Cardiff-Dublin, Cardiff-Cork, Swansea-Dublin, Swansea-Cork, Cork/Dublin-Continental Europe & Car transporter trains. The Car transporter terminal could be built either at Swansea where the M4 currently ends, or in Pembrokeshire, at the end of an upgraded A40. Also Eurofreight services from the Continent to the proposed new Atlantic container port on the Shannon Estuary.

Holyhead route would serve for:

Liverpool-Dublin, Manchester-Dublin, Leeds-Dublin, Newcastle-Dublin, Sheffield-Dublin, Birmingham-Dublin. Possibly also all the above cities for journeys through to Cork, and car transporter trains.

Galloway Route would serve for: London & all UK cities-Belfast, Glasgow/Edinburgh/Dundee/Aberdeen-Dublin/Cork, plus car transporter trains to Northern Ireland.

There would also be the Ireland-only service on the Belfast-Dublin Airport-Dublin-Waterford-Cork route, end to end journey time: 2.5 hours.

 

[tbtc]

Human food production is nowhere near its theoretical maximum, for instance the world average wheat yield appears to be roughly 2.5t per hectare, whereas France achieved yields of approximately 7.5t per hectare last year.
This means current world wheat production could be trebled, and this was not a freak year, with France achieving comparable yields in previous years

I don't doubt your figures, but France has a climate suited to crop production - you can't simply replicate this high yield over the rest of the world (where crops are harder to produce).

Back on topic though, I'd actually hope to build all three UK-Ireland tunnels

I'm struggling to see justification for one tunnel - three though? The market just isn't there. A tunnel from Essex/ Suffolk to the Netherlands, on the other hand... a much bigger potential market...

 

[Waverley125]

I don't doubt your figures, but France has a climate suited to crop production - you can't simply replicate this high yield over the rest of the world (where crops are harder to produce).



I'm struggling to see justification for one tunnel - three though? The market just isn't there. A tunnel from Essex/ Suffolk to the Netherlands, on the other hand... a much bigger potential market...

Busiest air route in Europe.... etc etc ad nauseam. Really getting tired of this now.

As for Essex-Netherlands, no chance. a much cheaper option, and better value for money, is a new HSL between Calais and Antwerp via Ghent.

 

[Yew]

Sheep can live on a mountainside, however its hard to harvest corn there. Not all meat need or should be eliminated. Personally I see a future where meat may only be eaten once or twice a week by msot people, instead of daily as is common now.

 

[jon0844]

Looking at the weather related thread(s) today, it seems many existing routes are now underwater!

 

[ReverendFozz]

Would any of the following ideas here ever work

Under the Solway Firth

http://m.flickr.com/lightbox?id=7552030104

Under Morecambe Bay

http://m.flickr.com/lightbox?id=7551958206

From South Wales to North Cornwall, either of those

http://m.flickr.com/lightbox?id=7551991590

How about a Irish Sea Tunnel, surfaces on the IoM then tunnels on to Northern Ireland

http://m.flickr.com/lightbox?id=7552063564