Most important rail project...

[SprinterMan]

Sorry

What are you sorry for?

 

[O L Leigh]

CAUTION: Topic Drift.

Ah, Shippea Hill... *Gets misty eyed*

Mind you, I took a trundle up the A11 on Sunday and had a bit of a jolt when I saw a sign for Eccles station. Do either of these stations get any regular trains? Perhaps I should add Spooner Row to the list.

O L Leigh

 

[Cherry_Picker]

Prickwillow Parkway sure does sound interesting but for station renames Witton to Villa Park would be top of my list

Aston Villa actually asked Centro/Network Rail about this, and they said that they had no problem with it whatsoever, as long as Aston Villa paid for it. Seems it is a bit more expensive that just changing the signs at the station though, the amount of literature which needs to be reprinted and software which needs to be updated means it is actually a pretty pricey operation so it hasn't happened yet. Seems kinda pointless if you ask me, almost everybody knows that Witton is the closes station to Villa Park, and the worst thing that can happen to those folks who get off at Aston by mistake is that they have a ten minute walk to the ground instead of a three minute walk.

 

[Schnellzug]

I have an idea for a worthwhile project: why not spend a bit of time & money getting the existing signalling and power supply to work properly? Perhaps that might benefit a few more millions than High Speed Lines to get to Birmingham in 15 minutes.

 

[bnm]

Mass electrification and the necessary new build nuclear to support it.

 

[glbotu]

Oh, that's easy to answer!

It will start as coal mined in Poland, using a lot of diesel and electric plant, conveyed to port using a lot of diesel fuel, loaded into ships by diesel hoists, then carried by sea buring a lot of particularly crude/ dirty diesel, unloaded in the UK by electric hoists, carried across the UK by diesel locomotives, and dragged up into the boiler houses by electric motor. Meanwhile, the ships will return empty/ ballasted burning more of that dirty diesel.

But none of this ever stops people thinking that somehow 'electric is better'. The losses in electric power distribution alone are staggering.
Not that I have any objection to railway electrification; I just don't see that it brings much of the benefits that are popularly claimed. It will provide electricity suppliers with a high-useage committed customer, will provide electricity generators with choice over their raw fuel which their customers don't enjoy, and will tie rail operators into a single supply, both in terms of price and availability.
It will have doubtful impact on pollutants and efficiency when viewed globally.

Well, that's not strictly true. Although we do use coal power in this country (about 18% - comparable to how much Nuclear we use) the vast majority of energy is from Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants. In fact, the reason the UK is one of the few countries to hit its Kyoto emission targets is because it switched from a ton of coal fired power plants to CCGT. Yes, it's not perfect and will run out, but Nuclear New Build is currently underway (with massive issues of course, you can't build anything without ridiculous opposition, that would make all of this easy). Also, regulation states that all of the CCGT plants will have to be upgraded with Carbon Capture and Storage facilities, making it yet cleaner. By the time that CCGT isn't clean enough, hopefully we'll have found a way of using Nuclear Power as peaking plant, rather than baseload. That and improvements in nuclear fuel reprocessing technology. I guess when you refer to losses, you're talking about transmission losses? They aren't negligible, (especially in 25kV OHLE - even worse in 700V 3rd Rail - you really want to minimse current, by transmitting in 400kV power lines), but still generally better than using Diesel as primary fuel for something as small as a train (compared to a power station).

As such, that's where the energy for electrifying the UK rail network will come from.

 

[Schnellzug]

And will that guarantee that the wires won't come down every day?

 

[Rhydgaled]

Mass-electrification please. Given the threat of climate change, the governments current plans for a new order of Intercity DMUs (IEP) are totally unacceptable in my opinion.

 

[Schnellzug]

Mass-electrification please. Given the threat of climate change, the governments current plans for a new order of Intercity DMUs (IEP) are totally unacceptable in my opinion.

I really think that a fleet of trains designed to run on diesel for relatively short distances away from wires would make such a negligible difference to CO2 Emissions as to be barely discernible.

 

[Waverley125]

Giving every EMU an auxiliary diesel motor for shunting purposes would be very cost-effective, as you wouldn't have to wire depots, turnbacks etc. So something truly tiny, enough to take the train at 10mph max, would do.

 

[Cliveblackpool]

Mass electrification.
I think gas is too useful a fuel to generate electricity. Good for boosting supplies at peak times though.
Schemes to secure available of power like a Severn Barrage should be seriously considered. Improve navigation on the Severn & extra road and or rail crossing
Go down like a lead balloon with conservationists.
France has a smaller one on the Rance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station
Other locations, Wyre etc.
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Severn-Barrage-Tidal-Power.htm

 

[swtandgw]

Mass electrification, especially down in the South West (including Cornwall, as far as Penzance).

 

[LE Greys]

Mass electrification.
I think gas is too useful a fuel to generate electricity. Good for boosting supplies at peak times though.
Schemes to secure available of power like a Severn Barrage should be seriously considered. Improve navigation on the Severn & extra road and or rail crossing
Go down like a lead balloon with conservationists.
France has a smaller one on the Rance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station
Other locations, Wyre etc.
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Severn-Barrage-Tidal-Power.htm

The issues are probably solveable, but that would push costs up so much that it would leave the barrage unprofitable. An alternative might be smaller-scale tidal power, from turbines for example. Perhaps not the long-bladed versions (although I always wonder why they don't shape them more like a ship's propeller) but an omnidirectional or vertical-axis type perhaps. Doesn't mess up the tidal currents anything like as much.

 

[Rhydgaled]

I really think that a fleet of trains designed to run on diesel for relatively short distances away from wires would make such a negligible difference to CO2 Emissions as to be barely discernible.

Giving every EMU an auxiliary diesel motor for shunting purposes would be very cost-effective, as you wouldn't have to wire depots, turnbacks etc. So something truly tiny, enough to take the train at 10mph max, would do.

But IEP is planned to go quite far away from the wires, with the acceleration of an electric (if it wasn't there would be some time-saving from electrification to Swansea). Also, having underfloor engines mean you are stuck with them under the wires as well, meaning you accelerate less quickly or (more likely) use more electricity, and the increased noise degrades the quality of service beyond the wires. Having to take the diesel engines with you all the way under the wires also means you need more diesel engines in total (a mainly financial rather than enviromental cost) than if you had them in seperate locomotives so that they could be left behind when the train enters the electrified section. We probablly do need some bi-modes, but we have enough Intercity DMUs which could be made into bi-modes to cover that requirement already. By the time the last 222s are life-expired (about 2040-45ish) we should have all the Intercity network wired (except perhaps occasional services like the Pembroke Dock runs, hauled by diesel locos beyond the wires).

On power, I think the sites of all current nuclear power stations should have new stations when the current ones reach the end of their working lives and also think we need a lot of tidal power (underwater turbines as LE Greys suggests, not wildlife destroying barrages (whole point of stopping climate change is to save wildlife, and ourselves I suppose)). I also support wind turbines to a certain extent, but not the associated pylons for transporting the power (modern wind turbines look quite nice in most settings, though could ruin particular settings, but pylons are always awful).

 

[gnolife]

Shipping the pacers off to run things like GOBLIN and Waterloo - Bristol - give those southerners a real taste of Northern life

 

[SprinterMan]

CAUTION: Topic Drift.

Ah, Shippea Hill... *Gets misty eyed*

Mind you, I took a trundle up the A11 on Sunday and had a bit of a jolt when I saw a sign for Eccles station. Do either of these stations get any regular trains? Perhaps I should add Spooner Row to the list.

O L Leigh

Eccles Road and Harling Road receive 2 trains a day in each in each direction Mon-Sat with one Mon-Fri train being an EMT service to Liverpool (I was lucky to be on the only EMT service booked to call at them the other day, Harling Road still had Regional Railways signposts!). Spooner row gets 2 request stops per day in each direction mon-sat. Shippea hill gets 1 northbound request stop only Mon-Fri and 1 request stop in each direction on saturday. Lakenheath gets 3 request stops in each direction on sunday and 1 in each direction on saturday, but is closed mon-fri. All other stations on the Norwich-Ely line have a regular service.