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Simon Jenkins article regarding cancelled electrification schemes: Is this serious?

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snakeeyes

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Does the journalist know anything about railways?

"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/diesel-steam-trains-rail-electricity"

Simon Jenkins said:
New ministers always go a little mad in the early days of the job. The new railways boss, Jo Johnson, will make a speech proposing to “phase out” all British diesel engines by 2040. He calls it an “aspiration”.

But diesel accounts for a third of all Britain’s trains. The only alternative form of traction is electricity, and Johnson’s ministerial predecessor postponed or abandoned Network Rail’s electrification plan – including the Welsh and Midlands mainlines. British railway traction is in the dark ages. What does Johnson have in mind, horses?

There are murmurs that trains might be hauled by hydrogen or batteries (which would need to be the size of a train). As with cars, that is pie in the sky. But is Johnson about to cause a sensation, and revive the age of steam....?
 
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Bromley boy

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It's clearly a tongue in cheek critique of failed electrification schemes. A rather good one.

Sadly lost on some posters here!
 

Juniper Driver

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To be honest I thought it was yet another railway bashing exercise so I really couldn't be bothered to continue after the first few lines.
 

Bromley boy

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Oh sorry.I don't read the Guardian.Too posh for me.

No idea what that's supposed to mean!? He's linked to the article.

To be honest I thought it was yet another railway bashing exercise so I really couldn't be bothered to continue after the first few lines.

Bashing incompetent political decisions and short termism I don't mind so much.
 

lejog

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I would hope so - he was once a non-executive director of BR!

For over 10 years IIRC, also a director of London Transport.

He's no fan of Boris Johnson, nor it seems his younger brother. I must admit when I first read the article, it did take a second read to realise it was a piss take.
 

theironroad

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Clearly not serious, but as Jo Johnson is Boris's brother who knows??? Remember Boris threw lots of taxpayer money at his personal vanity project of modern routemaster buses rather than just ordering established modern buses.
 

pemma

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Remember Boris threw lots of taxpayer money at his personal vanity project of modern routemaster buses rather than just ordering established modern buses.

More to the point under Ken Livingstone the traditional Routemasters were replaced by bendy buses and Johnson insisted bendy buses had to go from all routes because they were a danger to cyclists, despite a lack of evidence and the fact that the bendies finished up cascaded to non-London routes where they were less suited than the London routes they were originally on.
 

squizzler

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I must admit when I first read the article, it did take a second read to realise it was a **** take.

I don't think this was meant as an attempt at trolling the guardian readership. The author is a bit silly to imagine the formerly "regional railways" business could move wholesale to steam which might just be because he never rides those sorts of train. I suggest he could go for a few trips over the rural social railway in winter season and imagine the cost of furnishing every sparsely ridden train with a steam loco and footplate crew.

On the other hand we have seen specific examples such as the West Coast "Jacobite" and the timetables steam service when the Settle and Carlisle was opened after extended closure from landslip. Steam can be used to cast a "halo" over the rest of the railway.
 

AlterEgo

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I don't think this was meant as an attempt at trolling the guardian readership. The author is a bit silly to imagine the formerly "regional railways" business could move wholesale to steam which might just be because he never rides those sorts of train. I suggest he could go for a few trips over the rural social railway in winter season and imagine the cost of furnishing every sparsely ridden train with a steam loco and footplate crew.

On the other hand we have seen specific examples such as the West Coast "Jacobite" and the timetables steam service when the Settle and Carlisle was opened after extended closure from landslip. Steam can be used to cast a "halo" over the rest of the railway.

Are you suggesting the article is serious then?
 

lejog

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I don't think this was meant as an attempt at trolling the guardian readership. The author is a bit silly to imagine the formerly "regional railways" business could move wholesale to steam which might just be because he never rides those sorts of train. I suggest he could go for a few trips over the rural social railway in winter season and imagine the cost of furnishing every sparsely ridden train with a steam loco and footplate crew.

On the other hand we have seen specific examples such as the West Coast "Jacobite" and the timetables steam service when the Settle and Carlisle was opened after extended closure from landslip. Steam can be used to cast a "halo" over the rest of the railway.

Are you serious? The article is just a piss-take. Apart from being an ex-director of BR, Simon Jenkins is not any old columnist, he's an ex-editor of The Times. A less silly man its difficult to imagine (although he can be a bit of a contrarian). I wouldn't think for a moment he's suggesting any movement to steam whatsoever.
 

XDM

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Are you serious? The article is just a ****-take. Apart from being an ex-director of BR, Simon Jenkins is not any old columnist, he's an ex-editor of The Times. A less silly man its difficult to imagine (although he can be a bit of a contrarian). I wouldn't think for a moment he's suggesting any movement to steam whatsoever.

I wish I had posted this, it is exactly what I would gave written.
I am an ardent fan of Simon Jenkins. He is a great friend of railways & as well as having a superb writing career he was a member of the British Railways Board for years. Welcome in my cab(stationary) anytime.
 

B&I

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It is a concise comment on how, even within the ministers belonging to a single department, this government does not know what it is doing. It is expressed in satirical terms. The results of the last 3 elections rather suggest that satire is lost on a substantial (if declining) share of the British population.
 

Busaholic

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Oh sorry.I don't read the Guardian.Too posh for me.
Nor me, in my case because it's not posh enough.:lol:

Jenkins's book on British railway stations, published last autumn, was probably aimed more at the general market than the offerings previously published by Oxford University Press or the Oxford Publishing Company, but did reflect well on his love of railways, and not just the buildings.
 
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fowler9

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Brilliant article and clearly taking the mick. Some of the comments below the line on the Guardian website were hilarious though (Most unintentionally).
 

Harbornite

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I had a quick glance at this article earlier. I'm usually quite good at picking up on satire/sarcasm but I managed to fail on this occasion!
 

jopsuk

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I usually just assume Simon Jenkins doesn't know what he's talking about, he has a tendency to be wildly misinformed about a wide range of subjects
 

Tetchytyke

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I had a quick glance at this article earlier. I'm usually quite good at picking up on satire/sarcasm but I managed to fail on this occasion!

It took me a while, but it's there, and its subtle. I quite enjoyed it. But any opportunity to mock a Johnson.

Butbutbut...he actually has a point in there, somewhere. Look at when Northern stuck Tornado on the S&C, you were knee-deep in gricers.
 

yorkie

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I think if you know the author is an expert, then it becomes obvious very quickly that it is satirical. In fact, it is very good and you can clearly see the excellent point the author is making.
 
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D60

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Ok, so Simon Jenkins, yep there he has been popping up on our broadcast media as one of 'the great and the good', as a reliable filler on discussion programmes, often when he might have another coffee-table tome on a subject of architecture/conservation/heritage to promote.. and always with an opinion or several to proffer on subjects of public policy.. and me thinking "Why are you even saying this?", or "Why do you, or the producers of the programme, think any of us should be taking any notice whatsoever of what you happen to be saying or thinking?".

Thing is, it's been his life and livelihood for the last several decades to be coming up with thoughts and opinions on all manner of subject, it's what he gets paid for.
Always a deadline to meet, always another quota of words and thoughts to spew, week in week out, for decades now.

Quite happy to be the contrarian or controversialist, and prepared to argue that position, whether he necessarily even believes it or otherwise, who can ever be sure?
So in many respects quite similar to Boris Johnson.. who was quite capable of writing two opinion pieces of diametrically opposing views on the subject of Brexit, because at that point he still hadn't even made up his mind himself!

It never even occured to me until now that Jenkins has actually been taking the p!ss all these years, and that actually he's the great satirist of our times that Private Eye let slip by.

And Boris Johnson at least put himself up for public election, which I'm not sure that Simon Jenkins ever did? And I never actually knew that he'd served as a non-exec director of BR for a period! What particular specialist skills did he bring to that role? Legit question. Media presentation? PR? Dunno!

So yep, it's entirely legitimate to be putting Jo Johnson's pronouncements under critical scrutiny, as many on here are doing.
And it's legitimate to observe that heritage railways can command a premium for running steam trains.
And it's probably just as legitimate for Jenkins to be using his column to be indulging his particular individual sense of humour..

But anyway, thanks to the mods for sharing the article for those of us who cannot access the Guardian on our crappy old phone, and who aren't that bothered that we can't.. :)
 

MarkyT

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I think Johnson promised no more diesel-only trains by 2040. Bi-mode being acceptable.

Indeed and within the meaning of the statement you could buy a stonking big diesel as long as it has an electric shoe or pantograph on it then use it most or indeed all of the time on diesel yet still be compliant with the rule. The same could apply to a steam engine as long as it had similar electrical pickup contacts and a big 'kettle element' installed in the boiler

Note Swiss WW2 precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric-steam_locomotive

An electric-steam locomotive is a steam locomotive that uses electricity to heat the water in the boiler to create steam instead of burning fuel in a firebox.[1] This is a highly unusual type of locomotive that only makes economic sense under specific conditions. Normally, it would be much more efficient to build and use an electric locomotive. However, lack of time and resources (as during wartime), lack of coal or similar fuel, and the presence of relatively cheap and available electricity may make conversion of an existing steam locomotive into an electric-steam locomotive a viable proposition.

Was this the first bi-mode? It could also run on coal and had power storage like a 'fireless' in the form of the steam pressure built up in the boiler.
 

HSTEd

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Clearly need electro-steam locomotives based on the Leader class
 
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