Work from home to beat Putin, says EU

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Where the stupidity lies, is, where travellers say I won't travel by plane.

So if the 500 odd passengers than arrived for the Quantas flight to Australia today, said we ain't travelling.

Would Quantas cancel the flight?of course not.

Airlines won't cancel flights on a day by day basis - but over time they will adjust route capacity to reflect demand.  I remember a time when I did a lot of London to LAX flights and there were 2 a day BA^» (British Airways - about), 2 a day Virgin, Air New Zealand, American, and (I suspect) a couple of others.  From that base of half a dozen a day, I can see benefit in there being fewer and with code sharing to help even out traffic and business.

The original suggestion at the start of this thread was to replace flights by train travel - clear not on for the LA journeys. However, in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and Western Europe arena, combined with the "free trains and buses" thread, there is a very interesting potential scenarios.   Probably so left field that I'll be laughed all the way you the asylum for suggesting it, and given a plethora of reasons it would not work.

[ellendune]

But would you really want to spend in excess of eight hours or more  travelling from the west country to scotland by train,when it can be done in less than two hours by plane?

Where the stupidity lies, is, where travellers say I won't travel by plane.

I have travelled from Swindon to Bonn by train in the same time as someone else at the same meeting who flew.  By the same token it ought to be possible to match that on Anglo Scottish routes.  I believe that is why they are building HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)). 

[eightonedee]

But would you really want to spend in excess of eight hours or more  travelling from the west country to scotland by train,when it can be done in less than two hours by plane?

If it was a short (day or two) trip, perhaps not, but if you are going for longer, why not? All that wonderful countryside to see on various stretches of all of the routes, none of the ordeal of getting to the airport (parking and courtesy bus, or expense of taxi and probably an inconvenient choice of public transport alternatives), and getting from an airport at varying distances from your destination city. And if you are not going to one of the major cities it could be quite a long and slow journey to your final destination (think Oban, Spey Valley for example).

Then there's the cramped seating in aircraft (and people complain about Voyagers), the time spent checking in, waiting to be called forward to board, waiting for your luggage at your destination, a limited view out even if you have a window seat, the battle to find a space for your cabin baggage and then to fit it in that space, waiting to disembark - there's an enormous number of reasons why a leisure traveller would let the train take the strain.

[TonyK]

If I can choose to "identify" as a woman, unicorn etc, is it possible to identify as 65? I certainly feel it some mornings.......

If I could turn back time...

Not certain if the advice about car air conditioning is correct though. At highway speeds, some reports state that the extra drag from open windows uses more fuel than air conditioning and closed windows. At low speeds the drag is minimal and open windows preferable to use of the air conditioning.

Whatever. Having recently had to clear a compliment from a passing seagull with serious digestive issues from the driver's door window, I am never going to drive with it open ever again.

[broadgage]

Airlines won't cancel flights on a day by day basis - but over time they will adjust route capacity to reflect demand.  I remember a time when I did a lot of London to LAX flights and there were 2 a day BA^» (British Airways - about), 2 a day Virgin, Air New Zealand, American, and (I suspect) a couple of others.  From that base of half a dozen a day, I can see benefit in there being fewer and with code sharing to help even out traffic and business.

The original suggestion at the start of this thread was to replace flights by train travel - clear not on for the LA journeys. However, in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and Western Europe arena, combined with the "free trains and buses" thread, there is a very interesting potential scenarios.   Probably so left field that I'll be laughed all the way you the asylum for suggesting it, and given a plethora of reasons it would not work.

I agree that less flying is good, ONE customer deciding not to fly is unlikely to help much as the flight will still operate, but if many customers choose not to fly then the number of flights will reduce.
For this reason I am opposed to any public money being used to subsidise flying unless on a very small scale and in exceptional circumstances.

Rail transport by contrast should be encouraged and if need be it should be subsidised. There is a lot to be said for making local public transport free to use. Both buses and trains. Increase taxes on cars and airlines to help pay for this.

I doubt that making long distance trains free to use would be viable as the demand would be almost unlimited. I would support lower fares, in particular at off peak times.
I stand by my earlier remarks, first made some years ago, that rail fares should be greatly simplified, with only three different fares for almost any journey.

"Peak fare" relatively expensive and payable for services that are reasonably expected to be very popular. Providing peak capacity is expensive and users of such services should at least partialy contribute to these costs.

"Off peak" payable on most services.

"Super bargain" payable on a minority of services that are very lightly used, mainly early morning or late night services and possibly rush hour journeys made against the main passenger flow.

It would be up to the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company), or whatever body replaces them, to decide which fare is payable on which trains, but subject to two overriding rules.

Firstly, no more than 25% of services may be "peak fare" and at least 25% must be super bargain.

Secondly, the operator may alter which fares are payable on which services, but only at timetable changes.

[broadgage]

The trouble with that is - you can't turn the chiller unit down, it only has two settings:  on or off. If you increase the temperature you set on the controls, it just mixes in more heated air from the engine to the cold air. It's possible to use thermostatic control of the cabin temperature to run the chiller a smaller fraction of the time, but that is limited in its effect unless the air heating/cooling is recirculating cabin air. And thermostatic control has not become standard on almost all trim levels while aircon has.

Electric cars, of course, are very different.

Agree, motor vehicle air conditioning is very inefficient. The compressor is almost always belt driven from the engine and has to be designed to give good cooling at a fast idle when stopped in heavy traffic, but not be damaged at maximum engine speed.

Some years ago the motor industry proposed to change the voltage of car electrical systems from the present 12 volts up to a 36 volt battery or about 42 volts on charge.
One advantage of the higher voltage was that electric air conditioning would be viable. A variable speed three phase motor would drive the compressor at the optimum speed to match the cooling demand. 42 volt input to the variable frequency inverter.
When this was first proposed it found little favour as 36/42 volts is too high for vehicle lighting. These days with LED lighting any voltage is fine for lighting.