Future of the Railways in Global Climate Change Conditions

[whole diary]

[Cynthia]

Thanks trainer, I must admit I'm very confused about the financial state of our railways, and their ownership.  Has Network Rail never had any shareholders/private investors?  I thought that's what privatisation was all about - attracting investment for the 'product' and apparently improving the service through competition.

Anyway, I'm still not entirely sure I feel confident about the future of the railways in the face of worsening climatic events, if the Exchequer is paying the bills!

[ellendune]

Thanks trainer, I must admit I'm very confused about the financial state of our railways, and their ownership.  Has Network Rail never had any shareholders/private investors?  I thought that's what privatisation was all about - attracting investment for the 'product' and apparently improving the service through competition.

Anyway, I'm still not entirely sure I feel confident about the future of the railways in the face of worsening climatic events, if the Exchequer is paying the bills!

Network Rail is a company limited by guarantee. It has members who have a role to hold the Directors to account, but they do not have a finaicial stake in the company.

[John R]

Thanks trainer, I must admit I'm very confused about the financial state of our railways, and their ownership.  Has Network Rail never had any shareholders/private investors?  I thought that's what privatisation was all about - attracting investment for the 'product' and apparently improving the service through competition.

Railtrack was the privatised company, until it was taken into administration ("Railway administration" no less, a curious status, which I presume was not seen before and is unlikely to be seen again).  Network Rail was the organisation put in place to replace it, and has always been effectively guaranteed by the government, in that money it raised in the capital markets (the Network Rail credit card, as it has become known) would in the final event be honoured by the government if NR^» (Network Rail - home page) was unable to pay.

[Southern Stag]

Placing Railtrack into administration was very much a political decision. In the wake of the Hatfield crash it was apparent that Railtrack needed significantly higher amounts of government funding to improve maintenance standards, and the Rail Regulator was, AKAIK, going to award a much greater level of funding to Railtrack before the Transport Secretary at the time, Stephen Byers, blocked the awarding of extra funds, which meant Railtrack was left with a massive funding shortfall.

[Cynthia]

Thanks for your input, folks.

I just wonder whether anyone had actually been able to read the Met Office website article to which I originally referred? I had trouble getting the article to open, but it seemed to working alright again yesterday.

There was a Hydrologist on Channel 4 News this evening casting doom and dispondency; saying that because of record rainfall this winter, all the aquifers were full, the ground was completely sodden and there was just nowhere for the rain to go. (Except for draining into rivers - which are already overflowing.  Ok, now tell us something we don't know....) Looks like the railway infrastructure will continue to suffer for some time yet, through subsidence, erosion of banks etc. 

What I didn't know was that dredging can do more harm than good in some cases, by undermining structures and causing erosion and such like.

[4064ReadingAbbey]

What I didn't know was that dredging can do more harm than good in some cases, by undermining structures and causing erosion and such like.

Hmm! As much of the Netherlands is kept dry by dredging the rivers and canals and pumping water at the right time and at the right places it is clear the man is talking nonsense. If the dredging is done incorrectly it certainly causes damage - the trick is to get it done by people who know what they are doing.

[Tim]

What I didn't know was that dredging can do more harm than good in some cases, by undermining structures and causing erosion and such like.

Hmm! As much of the Netherlands is kept dry by dredging the rivers and canals and pumping water at the right time and at the right places it is clear the man is talking nonsense. If the dredging is done incorrectly it certainly causes damage - the trick is to get it done by people who know what they are doing.

The problem in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is we like a simple answer to a complicated problem.  Dredging has drawbacks and fell out of fashion for perfectly legitimate reasons.  We then simplistically decided that all dredging was bad and stopped it even where it would have been useful.  We will doubtless start dredging again and some of it will be in the wrong places simply to placate simplistic demands to do something.  Like so many things in life the answer to the question "dredging bad or good" is "it depends".

[Cynthia]

Hmm! As much of the Netherlands is kept dry by dredging the rivers and canals and pumping water at the right time and at the right places it is clear the man is talking nonsense. If the dredging is done incorrectly it certainly causes damage - the trick is to get it done by people who know what they are doing.
[/quote]

The problem in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is we like a simple answer to a complicated problem.  Dredging has drawbacks and fell out of fashion for perfectly legitimate reasons.  We then simplistically decided that all dredging was bad and stopped it even where it would have been useful.  We will doubtless start dredging again and some of it will be in the wrong places simply to placate simplistic demands to do something.  Like so many things in life the answer to the question "dredging bad or good" is "it depends".


[/quote]

Did we stop dredging because we decided all dredging was bad, or did we stop it because the government was starving the EA of funds?!

[ellendune]

What I didn't know was that dredging can do more harm than good in some cases, by undermining structures and causing erosion and such like.

Hmm! As much of the Netherlands is kept dry by dredging the rivers and canals and pumping water at the right time and at the right places it is clear the man is talking nonsense. If the dredging is done incorrectly it certainly causes damage - the trick is to get it done by people who know what they are doing.

The problem in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is we like a simple answer to a complicated problem.  Dredging has drawbacks and fell out of fashion for perfectly legitimate reasons.  We then simplistically decided that all dredging was bad and stopped it even where it would have been useful.  We will doubtless start dredging again and some of it will be in the wrong places simply to placate simplistic demands to do something.  Like so many things in life the answer to the question "dredging bad or good" is "it depends".

Did we stop dredging because we decided all dredging was bad, or did we stop it because the government was starving the EA of funds?!

Difficult - probably a mixture of both.  I suspect there was a report that said that at such and such a location dredging is not having any effect so is a waste of money.  The logical extension of this was then for all dredging programmes to be subject to a review.  However, since the review cost money and there was a need to save money, some civil servant who knew little of the subject used it as an excuse just to suggest to Ministers that all dredging was a waste of money and so they should stop all dredging. 

Dredging is not a panacea for all it works in some locations.  What the levels need is what they are now getting is more pumps (at Kings Sedgemoor Drain) and perhaps a tidal barrier across the Parrett to stop the sea coming up the river - with pumps to pump the flow at high tide.

[Cynthia]

The increase in the number of pumps operating on the Somerset levels is, according to the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) News this evening due to the arrival of some additional equipment from Holland.  This got me wondering about whether the Dutch do much to their drainage systems in terms of dredging?  Perhaps if the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is going to be subjected to many more severe weather events in the future, we need to start taking some lessons from the Netherlands.  I'm not sure whether the Dutch have been affected by heavy rainfall this winter, to the same extent as the UK, but you don't hear much about flooding there, in  land which is as flat as the proverbial pancake!

[4064ReadingAbbey]

The increase in the number of pumps operating on the Somerset levels is, according to the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) News this evening due to the arrival of some additional equipment from Holland.  This got me wondering about whether the Dutch do much to their drainage systems in terms of dredging?  Perhaps if the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is going to be subjected to many more severe weather events in the future, we need to start taking some lessons from the Netherlands.  I'm not sure whether the Dutch have been affected by heavy rainfall this winter, to the same extent as the UK, but you don't hear much about flooding there, in  land which is as flat as the proverbial pancake!

Firstly some background to what I am about to write! About 30 years ago I lived and worked in Belgium and, as one does, we took the opportunity to visit many places near us, and that included the Netherlands. On one of these trips we stayed near Naarden which is a magnificent star-shaped fortification built to protect the coast of what was then the Zuider Zee. Now it is well inland and looks across, not at the sea, but at the reclaimed land at Almere.

This got me interested in the Dutch coastal defences and so I did some reading and research into the history and techniques of such works. What I write is from memory which has obviously faded a bit and may not be exactly correct but in essence there are two main natural events the Dutch have to guard against. These are storm surges in the North Sea and high flows and water levels in the rivers feeding the delta, the main ones being the Rhein, the Maas and the IJssel. The Rhine carried the most water as it has a huge catchment area - it rises in Switzweland and carries not only the water from its tributaries draining areas such as the eastern side of the Vosges mountains in France but also the western side of the Black Forest massif in Germany as well as rivers such as the Neckar, the Main and the Moselle (yes, I also lived in Germany for some years!) but also the increased flow for the snow melt in the Alps in spring. The water volumes can be immense.

Defence against the storm surges is essentially to have high enough walls round the edge of the country to keep the sea out! It's actually a bit more than that, most of the coastal towns of any size a some way back from the coastline, except den Haag, allowing a surge to peter out before it reaches the sea defences.

As the rivers reach the flat lands near the coast the water speed falls and the slit being carried in the flow starts to settle out. If the rivers slit up too much then the flows get so slow that the low lying areas near the rivers are not completely drained by the end of the summer. The point about the Dutch method of water management is not so much to dredge the main rivers so that their cross section is big enough to take all of a surge (because of the quantities of water in question this is absolutely impossible) but to allow the rising rivers to cover designated low lying areas. To make the capacity of these low lying areas as big as possible the water levels in them has to be as low as possible by the time the rainy season begins. This is done by limited dredging of the smaller rivers which drain them. In fact in the Netherlands the major rivers are also dredged but there is another reason for this - to permit shipping on the inland waterways of Europe. Vessels up to around 3,000 tonnes can reach Switzerland so the navigable channel is quite deep - although I don't think anybody is suggesting dredging the Brue or the Thames to this extent!

By giving the flood waters coming down the major rivers somewhere to go the extent and severity of any flooding can be limited. The Dutch also have defence in depth - bunds and dykes around villages, towns and farms which limit the extent of excessive flooding in extreme conditions.

Even the Dutch do not claim to have eliminated flooding - but they can and do limit its extent and severity. And as they were instrumental in draining the Fenlands and part, at least, of the Somerset Levels, it would have been wise to continue what they started and not to stop dredging because it is 'policy'.

[JayMac]

Dredging is not a panacea for all it works in some locations.  What the levels need is what they are now getting is more pumps (at Kings Sedgemoor Drain) and perhaps a tidal barrier across the Parrett to stop the sea coming up the river - with pumps to pump the flow at high tide.

What the levels also needs is for the upland rainwater catchment, of the rivers that flow onto them, to be vastly improved. To much upland farmland has been cleared of woodland. Too many water meadows are permanently drained. Meanders have been straightened.

DEFRA should stop paying farmers to clear land for livestock and crops and instead pay them to replant woodland.

[ellendune]

Dredging is not a panacea for all it works in some locations.  What the levels need is what they are now getting is more pumps (at Kings Sedgemoor Drain) and perhaps a tidal barrier across the Parrett to stop the sea coming up the river - with pumps to pump the flow at high tide.

What the levels also needs is for the upland rainwater catchment, of the rivers that flow onto them, to be vastly improved. To much upland farmland has been cleared of woodland. Too many water meadows are permanently drained. Meanders have been straightened.

DEFRA should stop paying farmers to clear land for livestock and crops and instead pay them to replant woodland.

Agreed

[Cynthia]

What the levels also needs is for the upland rainwater catchment, of the rivers that flow onto them, to be vastly improved. To much upland farmland has been cleared of woodland. Too many water meadows are permanently drained. Meanders have been straightened.

DEFRA should stop paying farmers to clear land for livestock and crops and instead pay them to replant woodland.
[/quote]

Well said, BNM, especially as fallen trees are a global warming accelerant; the less trees, (and of course they're being blown down now,as well as cut down!)the less CO2 being absorbed.  However it'll take years for replanting to reverse the process.  As you may guess, I continue to worry about whether the climatic changes have passed the 'tipping point'.  Having watched a rather worrying report on Channel 4 News about recent world weather events, it looks as though we're in for a rocky ride for some time to come.

[Phil]

An excellent, balanced argument (which I have to say up-front does rather chime with my own views, so it may not be as "balanced" as I'm making out!)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10639819/UK-weather-its-not-as-weird-as-our-warmists-claim.html

Of particular note to my mind is the following,

... same Met Office that, back in November, was predicting that ^precipitation^ for the three months between December and February was likely ^to fall into the driest of our five categories^, and would more likely than not take the form of snow ... the same Met Office that in March 2012 was assuring us that April to June that year would be drier than average, with April the driest month, just before we enjoyed the wettest April ever...

Ever since a colleague who transferred to the office I was then working in after a lengthy career in the Met Office explained his what sounded to me entirely rational professional reservations about the direction the organisation was heading in back in 2011, I've been using, on his recommendation, the Norwegian Met Office's website for my weather guidance, and I have to say it's noticeably more reliable - and I mean REALLY noticeably so. Try it yourself:

http://www.yr.no

(obviously the first thing you'll need to do is change the language to English in the top right corner - after that though you can drill down to UK towns and even villages)