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917
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / You can't do that with OHLE!
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on: February 27, 2021, 11:37:09
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Nor with third rail..  Even in a suburb of Montreal that’s well versed in dealing with winter storms, inclement weather can still overwhelm basic services like power, an issue with which millions of people in Texas are still currently struggling. After an especially bad ice storm in 1998, the mayor of Boucherville, Quebec, had a clever idea to borrow a diesel-electric locomotive and use it as a super-sized emergency generator. Story continues... |
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921
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Journey by Journey / London to the West / Re: Dawlish Sea Wall
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on: February 16, 2021, 12:22:34
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How were Victorian railways expected to cope with this section? Or was it simply accepted that they wouldn't run in bad weather?
I don't know of any steam locomotive that ever had a brake resistor mounted on its roof. But that's only the latest, model-specific problem. There have been problems with waves and high water encroaching the tracks there for much longer. I remember reading about flooding problems there in the 1990s. |
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923
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All across the Great Western territory / Looking forward - after Coronavirus to 2045 / Re: Working from home - an opportunity, or a risk of jobs going offshore?
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on: February 14, 2021, 16:34:52
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Always remember too that living in rural locations is not necessarily a bed of roses all the time, Definitely. Poland is an interesting example here, which I'm familiar with. Before WWII▸ only a quarter to a third of the population was urban, and almost everyone in rural areas was engaged in agriculture either directly or in serving it in some way. After the war the urban population gradually grew as government policies developed industries and also favoured towns in various ways from education to transport. The country reached urban-rural equilibrium at the end of the 1960s and at the start of this century about two-thirds of the population was in towns and cities. But over the last 15 years or so, there's been a slow movement back to villages. Factors such as rising car ownership, faster public transport, new roads, all made it easier to live in a village and have access to city facilities when needed. Factors such as changing retail patterns, mobile phones, internet, and improved public services from water to rubbish collection to better schools, meant it wasn't even so necessary to access the town. The urban population is now down to around 60% of total (before Covid) and might even continue to fall. |
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924
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Journey by Journey / London to the West / Re: Dawlish Sea Wall
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on: February 14, 2021, 14:12:50
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The planning documents for the Marine Parade section reckoned a 100 year design life.
The drawings for the section just started, (Coastguards to Colonnade), also include a predicted mean high water level (MHWL) in 2115 of about 90 cm above the 2017 value.
How much sea level rise has there been in the 150 or whatever years since the railway was built? How were Victorian railways expected to cope with this section? Or was it simply accepted that they wouldn't run in bad weather? |
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926
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Journey by Journey / London to Reading / Re: Trainspotting at reading during 3rd lockdown
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on: February 14, 2021, 13:54:02
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I'd suggest that while walking on a route which crosses or parallels a railway line constitutes exercise, standing on a platform does not. Furthermore, none of us should really on station premises unless we're actually making a justified journey or working there.
I live about ten minutes' walk from one of the stations on the Beach line and as that station is in a park, I often walk past it. Surprisingly often, I see trains there (but I couldn't tell you numbers cos I'm not a spotter). But I haven't been on the platform or approached the building since... I can't remember when. Probably March last year.
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927
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All across the Great Western territory / Buses and other ways to travel / Re: Combining parcel and passenger journeys into the same transport?
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on: February 12, 2021, 12:21:13
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I do have to wonder if containers of parcels could arrive at (say) Bristol Temple Meads on long distance trains and go into a sorting area just off the platforms / main station for delivery within the city on cycles and even on foot, with those local delivery people bringing the parcels back in for departure on later trains, again having sorted them depending on where they are going. Perhaps one of the carrier businesses around would like to add this to their repertoire - perhaps the Royal Mail who already have some experience of very local delivery might like to rise up to this new challenge  You could build a sorting office just next to the station with connections to the platforms...... Oh - Perhaps not just like the one they just demolished! By "container" are you referring to an ISO container, which would have to arrive on a goods train, or a pallet load of parcels, which could be transported in a guards van (if such things still existed – or could be reintroduced)? |
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928
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All across the Great Western territory / Looking forward - after Coronavirus to 2045 / Re: "Climate campaigners should block road-building not HS2"
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on: February 11, 2021, 20:23:42
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Getting us back to HS2▸ - see - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56017605, and in particular the following quote- Green MP▸ Caroline Lucas called it a “vanity project”. She says travel patterns have been revolutionised during Covid, and won't return to previous levels. And she complained: “It’ll take decades for the project to have even a chance of becoming carbon neutral because of the emissions from building the line. Which brings to mind something that often occurs to me when looking out over the North Sea from the North Norfolk coast, where there are now large turbines as far as the eye can see - what is the carbon cost of all that steel that has been used to create those turbines, and transporting them to site, creating the foundations and commissioning them? Will it be recovered in the lifetime of the turbines (if the ones in southern Spain around Tarifa seem to be failing at 20-25 years, how long will they last out in the cold, wet, windy North Sea) - and don't forget there's carbon being created (and disturbance to wildlife too) by the constant traffic of maintenance vessels. Then there's the environmental cost of extracting, refining and transporting the rare earth metals that are now a vital part of the generation equipment. And we mustn't forget the network of transmission cables to get the power onshore. I have raised the energy cost of generating hydrogen for transport use without ever seeing an answer, but wonder what the real "whole life" cost of off-shore generation is? Well they're kind of made for windy places... As for the carbon emissions from their manufacture and servicing, this is a valid point and I don't know how much. But as a point of fact, their blades are, I've read, not steel but fibreglass. |
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929
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All across the Great Western territory / Buses and other ways to travel / Re: Combining parcel and passenger journeys into the same transport?
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on: February 11, 2021, 20:11:36
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Cities ... and concerns at the number of delivery trucks / vans / lorries running around. I was thinking ... of the bus operator acting as an agent or subcontractor to existing suppliers, in the more remote parts of the UK▸ .
A lightly used local bus could easily drop off half a dozen packages to the local pub.
I think we need to decide whether this is a city proposition or a rural one. IMO▸ it's far more practical in sparsely populated areas. The Scottish Highlands have already been mentioned by Stuving, and other examples can be found in Sweden, Finland, some parts of the Alps, the Australian outback. In some cases these are more lorries with a few seats than buses that carry parcels. In cities you'd have far more problems of capacity, timetabling and a general lack of need; there already are distribution services. And as for cargo bikes and delivery riders: Deliveroo is the obvious one! For larger parcels there is eg: https://www.facebook.com/CoopCycleBristol/ (sorry for the Facebook link but they don't seem to have an actual website). They obviously can't carry a couple of tons like a van, but for individual parcels in city centres they seem to be competitive on cost and time. And in Indian cities cycle rickshaw is the standard way to deliver furniture, so maximum weights are more than you might think. |
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