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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/02/12/minister-reveals-plan-shunt-every-diesel-train-tracks-2040/ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/02/12/minister-reveals-plan-shunt-every-diesel-train-tracks-2040/)

And I thought things couldn't get any more ludicrous with Mr. Grayling in charge...

He'll be pushing up the daisies most likely by then....

If only there was a way to replace diesel trains using technology that already exists...

I heard the report on dear old Auntie Beeb. The words used were, "phase out diesel only trains ..." which I interpreted as diesel as the only means of propulsion, diesel by-modes ok, diesel battery ok petrol only ok, petrol by-modes ok, petrol battery ok, etc, and so it seems Mr Hammond will have to give the Treasurys Cheque Book an airing and write an open cheque, " Pay Railway Investment". Strikes me there is a land beyond that known as "Cloud Cuckoo, Cuckoo"

This is the brother of the chap who I recall promising £350 million for the NHS, right??   But it's wise to remember that we need to work with him and his ministerial colleagues, and that the promises of the older brother don't transfer to the younger brother.

There is sense in diesel electric trains being able to collect their electricity from overhead cables or line side extra rails where available, of course ... and to have a battery charging point using tidal energy at Pilning, where a crane can lift a discharged set of batteries off and load on a fresh set of charged ones on every diesel electric train that call at the station there on its way through to Wales.

Or, using a marvellous new invention I'm hearing about called 'wires', move the electricity thus generated to a stabling point where the batteries could be recharged in situ... ;)

Indeed they don't There's no sign that Jo has developed the same overwhelming urge to poke his father in the eye with a sharp anti-Eurpean stick on every possible occasion that Boris displays.

We ought to wait for the full text to be released; as a major speech by a minister it should be. It may say something a bit different.

For the record, he was speaking (scheduled at 9:45-10:15) at the opening plenary session of the "Knowledge Quarter Conference 2018: The Future of Knowledge". That subject is expanded as "the future of Knowledge in an age of untruth".

If you want to know even more about that subject, it goes on: "Knowledge may be the last imperishable currency, but it’s a currency under threat of devaluation. From expertise to echo-chambers and from fact to falsehood ‘The Future of Knowledge’ will mine the uncertainty that underpins our anxious age, exploring the challenges that face the knowledge economy in the early twenty-first Century."

That usage if "mine" is a puzzle - I've given that sentence a severe kicking, and it refuses to reveal any useful meaning. Perhaps it just implies that the organisers (Eventbrite) are commercially exploiting the current unease created by not knowing what counts as knowledge any more.

Ye gods. Who wrote that? Malcolm Tucker or Sir Humphrey?

I ran it through https://readable.io/text/ (https://readable.io/text/). it scored pretty high for unreadability.

In the absence of a list of the organising committee, the obvious name to name is Roly Keating, Chief Executive of the British Library and Chair, Knowledge Quarter'. As head of this ... whatever it is, he had responsibility for approving that kind of stuff, though the conference organiser herself may have written it.

Way too few expletives for Malcolm Tucker...  ;D

The text of Jo Johnson's speech has now been published by dfT (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/lets-raise-our-ambitions-for-a-cleaner-greener-railway). Here's the most relevant bit:


So it is rather more measured than it was reported to be, and later he does say that step one is to ask the industry to draw up a plan - which should slow things down a bit. (Though his actual words were to "provide a vision", sadly.) That will presumably include a more concrete dated proposal for the retirement of all the older (pre-NRMM IIIB) diesel trains as a first step.

Maybe in his youth Mr Johnson had a train with a key coming out of it, and thinks it can be scaled up!

Lot of that about at the moment.  Planning buys you more positive column inches per pound than actually doing!

The end of internal combustion cars (on new sale) announced for the same date was a non-announcement as technological development means only niche cars (Ferraris, for instance) will have any use for petrol or diesel engines by then. It happens regardless of ministerial announcements. With trains, the technology is also here, but depends on government investment (or a radical rethink of rail privatisation).

The response of The Guardian is that if there is no electrification and diesels are to be phased out then it is back to steam:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/diesel-steam-trains-rail-electricity (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/diesel-steam-trains-rail-electricity)

The comments are terrific.

That may be so, but there is still a false equivalence being drawn between the last sale of IC cars and the last withdrawal, of solely IC trains, even more so given the longer lifetime of a train.

But in practice, it's not so different from what the industry has being forecasting. Last year's rolling stock strategy document scaled back the rate of replacement of diesels by electric trains a little compared with  earlier ones (and note that in that report bi-modes count as electric). The forecast numbers for 2044 (as at 2015, pre-Hendy) or 2046 (as at 2017) were:
2044: 1234 diesel out of 22031 (6%)
2044: 2460 diesel out of 21136 (12%)
(both are the middle of three forecasts for different levels of increase).

Both forecasts assume that every diesel engine not meeting NRMM IIIA or B will never be replaced, and all such trains (i.e earlier than classes 800 and 68) will be scrapped before then.

So on that basis the industry is likely to say "So? What's the problem?".

True. Even if we assume the end of mass petrol and diesel car sales comes in 2030, there will still be plenty around in 2040 and there's no date set for their withdrawal from road use.

Interesting to see the figures.

Going... North?

Also going for an extended holiday in the west country.

Don't you mean a well earned retirement in the west country to continue to serve the retired passengers they served loyally during their more intensive working days.

I hope that BoJo never notices the railway heritage movement's continuing use of coal

Surely, you mean JoJo?

My immediate reaction to JoJo's statement was 'how are you going to reconcile this with your boss refusing to approve any significant expansion of the electrified railway network?'

Lack of joined up thinking by the government - no change there then.

A clockwork train! I like that. It's got green credentials. Now how often will you have to wind it up during the journey / day? ;D

Yes I do. 

Hydrogen see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19251.0 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19251.0)

Although how many fuel cells you'll need to generate 3800hp to replace a 68 I don't know.

What about diesel ships isn't shipping suppose to be very polluting?

There was a study a few years ago which, rather taken out of context, suggested that ships were much worse than they actually are. It was actually a thought experiment which compared the amount of SO_x potentially produced by a few of the biggest ships if they ran on the filthiest bunker oil, with the 'cleanest' diesel cars. As it happens, the pollution from ships has diminished since 2007 because they're all going slower to save fuel...

That's not to say there's no scope for improvement, of course... hydrogen fuel cells, anyone?

Carbon-based lever-operative propulsion system? Worked for the Greeks!

(http://maritimehistorypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/TRIHR003-150x150.jpg)

Who knows what counts as knowledge these days?

(This was rhetorical: please don't post the obvious answer!)


... with whom nothing rhymes...


"Row, row, row the boat
Gently down the rails
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Don't forget the sails."


BoJo and JoJo will enter the language like BoBo and CoCo.

A JoJo has two bogies each with 10 powered axles on each side?

Taking a step back on both this thread and the hydrogen trains thread at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19251 , it strikes me that the drive on all trains these days is electrical - the last trains which did not have electric motors were the bubble cars, I suspect.  I am subject to correction.

But - if I am right - are we not looking purely at how we get electricity to those motors, rather than at whether they are "electric" trains or not.  And then we have options ...
1. Continuous connection
2. Intermittent connection with short term storage and release / conversion
3. Occasional linkage in with signifiant storage and release / conversion
4. Local environmental sourcing of energy, probably with local storage

What do I mean by no. 4 - Solar panels on the roof and the side of the train, and/or wind turbines that they put up like pantographs at turn around stations and when parked up between duties / overnight, with battery and/or capacitor stores.   You could add a pantograph, an ability to run a cable across the car park to the car charging point ... and a little (max speed 30 m.p.h.) get-out-of-trouble diesel engine if all else fails.   

I am pretty sure all the 14x and 15x units have mechanical transmission,

Yes, automatic gearboxes with hydraulic transmission are used in most current DMUs, including 180s, even though IIRC they use the same engines as the Voyagers, which do have electric transmission.

Ah - OK - corrected then - but perhaps not a show-stopper to some of the principles / ideas

Indeed. There are retrofit hybrid traction systems being developed for buses, so this sort of thing may become an option for the more recent DMUs at some point.

You can still use Voith hydraulic transmissions with electrical power - you just need to drive the pump electrically rather than with an IC engine.

You can also run diesel engines on other fuels, such as CNG, with c8% added diesel to give ignition.

Or you can learn how to electrify economically.

OTC

I think that JoJo and BoJo will be wind-up trains.

Voith hydraulich transmission units are time proved units
After all I've had one fitted since the 1960s 😁

Electrically-pumped hydraulic transmission is right up there with electro-steam in terms of efficiency and apparent logic. Which isn't to say there'd never be a good reason to do it, but it's hard to see what it might be!

JoJo winds up the passengers, BoJo does the same but only past Calais.

The hydraulic pump doesn't know what's driving it; its power absorbed depends on its impeller speed and Q/H operating point. An inverter driven motor must be more agile than a diesel engine and might well have advantages over a direct motor drive to the bogie gearbox. It's still probably too complex to be a first choice, though.

OTC

Old topic admittedly but Grayling (SoS DfT) wrote to the RIA on 12/7/18 confirming that Transpennine electrification is still on for Manchester - York but with extensive Civil works to improve speeds, timings etc. on the hilly bits, with a £2.9Bn budget in CP6.

Also Jo Jo (Railways Minister) repeated the same to Hull MP in emergency Q's on 18/7/18,

Its in a Railway Gazette Article and was on the on-line Hansard video clip.

Leeds - York affects XC as well as TP, (and Yorks Metro) being a mirror of Manchester to N-le-W.

Sorry if there's a more appropriate topic.

OTC