AN OUTSIDE VIEW

What a difference fifty years makes , originally uploaded by seadipper . The end of the year, especially one ending in zero, is a time to look back. Here is London St Pancras in 1960. Who, when the picture was taken, would have imagined that fifty years later it would have been possible to catch a train from the same place, that would get them to Paris in three hours? Yet only few years ago, carriages of the same design as those in the train on the left were still in front line service. Change happens in ways that we cannot expect, but long-lived pieces of capital equipment like trains, on the drawing board today, are likely to be still in use in 2070. What will the world be like in 2070? No-one can know. We can be certain that it will be very different. Energy will be relatively much more expensive. Fewer people will be able to afford cars and air travel, which means that the railways will not have to compete with the alternatives in the same way. Probably too, the train operators of ...

I fell into an argument yesterday with a friend from Derby who was brimming with enthusiasm for the high speed line. The conversation went like this. "How often do you go to London?" "About four times a year" "What is your most common journey?" "From Long Eaton into Derby" "How often do you make it?" "Several times a week" "What is the service like?" "Crap" "So how would the high speed line help?" It did not take him long to realise that this investment will do nothing to improve his daily travel. I then went on to explain that the high speed line could not provide an affordable walk-on service and he would have arrange to arrive long in advance to be sure of not missing the journey he had paid for. He is then likely to spend the time drinking coffee or looking at the magazines in W H Smith. In other words, he would have been better served with a slower but affordable walk-on service.

Twyford station , originally uploaded by seadipper . The vacillations over the Great Western main line electrification are a good illustration of the confusion that reigns over rail policy in Britain. In 2009, electrification of the routes to Cardiff, Bristol, Oxford and Newbury was approved by a Labour minister. Now the project has been cut back to Oxford and Newbury, which are London commuter routes. One factor is the major rebuilding of Reading station and the adjacent junction, a scheme which will continue until 2016 and restrict the amount of traffic that can use the line whilst the work is in progress. Clearly, the electrification project needs to be integrated with the developments at Reading and for this reason it may be that other routes would be better placed in the front of the queue for electrification, of which the most obvious choice is the Midland main line, but another possibility is the Chiltern route to Oxford via a new junction at Bicester. But the aim should neverth...

The projected opening time for the high speed line to Birmingham is 2026. In the meantime about £25 billion will have been spent without a single passenger travelling on any of the route. The interest charges on this sunk investment are horrendous. Compare this to, say, the alternative of upgrading and electrifying the Chiltern line to Birmingham, where the pay-back would begin as soon as the wires had reached High Wycombe, with further gains as the electrification included Bicester and Oxford, and more again when it got to Banbury. Add in a possible electrification from Basingstoke to Oxford and Banbury, and the approved electrification of the Great Western route from Paddington to Oxford, and the gains add up to a significant enhancement of the national network of electrified routes. And all of these generate returns on the investment as each stage of the project is completed.

This memorandum to the House of Commons Select Committee on Transport is a concise useful critique of the decision-making process that underpins the policy to proceed with HS2.

As is well known, the British loading gauge is notoriously tight. But some designs of train do not make the best use of the room that is available. A common complaint is that passengers sitting next to the window cannot put both feet on the floor straight in front of them, due to the lower bodyside curve, and a skirting duct, which take away the space. The obvious explanation is that the lower bodyside curvature is to fit inside the loading gauge, but this cannot be the case as the steps stick out beyond the bodyside itself. All that space could therefore be inside the train, to the benefit of the passengers. As for the step itself, this could more usefully be made to extend when the doors opened, so that there would be no need to mind the gap. The lower bodyside curvature on this Swedish train is needed as some platforms are high, some are low, and this part of the vehicle is the low-floor section in the centre car of the 3-car X31 unit. The odd thing is that both trains come from the...

For sheer awfulness, the present British government surpasses even the previous one. They give the impression that they are driven by the prevailing anarcho-capitalist ideology, whilst at the same time not knowing what they are doing. Democracy in Britain is failing to deliver the sort of government that people want. Or perhaps, on the other hand, it is a precise reflection of the British people and their attitudes. If it is not, why, I ask myself, would newspapers like the Daily Mail sell more than a handful of copies. I regularly come across people parroting the views expressed by its journalists, which suggests that they are catching and shaping a widespread popular mood. Which is even more worrying. In the meantime, a generation of young people is becoming radicalised - something that has not happened since the 1960s. There will be blood on the streets next year. Underlying these movements is the same issue that Plato talked about in the Republic. The first qualification for being ...

As I discussed in a previous blog, the most practical way of running trains over routes which are only partly electrified is to do what was done on the Waterloo to Weymouth line when the electrification ended at Bournemouth. A suitable fleet would be composed of electric locomotives or powered sets, and trailer sets. The powered sets would have a streamlined driving vehicle at the London end for 125 mph running (which might be an electric locomotive) and a gangwayed (possibly, but not necessarily) driving vehicle at the country end. The trailer sets would have a streamlined driving vehicle at the country end, for 125 mph running, and the gangwayed driving vehicle at the London end, something like a class 375 Electrostar. Down trains would be propelled from London to the end of the electrified route and would then split, with the trailer vehicles being hauled to their final destination by a diesel locomotive and the electrically powered portion remaining to form a return working to Lon...

I received this from my MP, who is the only Green Party Member of Parliament. "My position on high speed rail is that in principle I support it, provided there is clear evidence of greenhouse gas reductions. I also want to ensure that any rail investment is progressive and does not end up simply benefitting the most well off in society. I think it is critical that any projects are genuinely sustainable, by which I mean they must not cause any environmental degradation such as loss of habitats, for example, and the local communities affected must be properly consulted. I am opposed to the current plans to run a high speed track through an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty like the Chilterns. Insufficient consideration has been given to alternative routes and there is local opposition to the plans, which I fully understand. The Secretary of State will be making an announcement about High Speed 2 next week and please be assured that I will be doing what I can to instea...

4REP unit 3014 leaving Waterloo , originally uploaded by 74009 . What to replace the fleet of Inter City 125 trains with continues to be a headache. The Hitachi dual-electric/diesel concept is dead partly because of the cost and complexity of the concept, and partly because its performance would not have been up to the task. One wonders why the Japanese wasted their time on the project. But the underlying problem has not gone away. There are many routes in Britain that are electrified for only part of their length. The alternatives are either to run diesel-powered trains on electrified lines or to change the motive power where the electrification comes to an end. Locomotive changes are awkward and undesirable as they involve shunting in congested locations. There is, however, a long-established technique that gets rid of most of the inconvenience. It was employed on the line between London and Weymouth, which was electrified as far as Bournemouth. The four cars at the London end of the...

In a short commentary about the terrorist attack in Stockholm, Bishop Anders Arborelius encourages everyone to distance themselves from all violence that is done in the name of God. The full text is as follows... "We are all shocked by what has happened amongst us: that a young man has blown himself up in the middle of Stockholm and perhaps planned to drag others to his death. "It is deeply tragic that he should have done this from religious motives, as is now being claimed. All of us, whether Christian, or Muslim or belonging to some other religion, must say yet again: we distance ourselves decisively from all violence and especially from violence carried out in the name of religion. "Such actions are actually an attack on God Himself, a blasphemous action directed against God and a denial of God and His love. At the present time it is also important to pray for God's help and protection, so that nothing like it will happen again and that no innocent people will, in...

I came across this from a friend on Facebook... "It's time for the secular, post-modernistic and atheistic Europe to wake up about Islam. Islam's role model is "prophet" Mohammed. It's time that we study his life. Then we will stop being naive about Islam and its political goals for slumbering Europe." The followers of all religions have done both good and bad things. The difference between Islam and the others is that when Buddhist and Christians do bad things. they are going against the teachings of the religions and what they are doing is the opposite of the actions of those whom the religion venerates eg Buddha, Jesus. When Muslims do bad things, they are following in the footsteps of Mohammed. The prophet IS responsible for the evil doings of Muslims. We need to be clear about this. Islam has only ever spread itself by violence.

I see its protagonists have been at work for the first time in Stockholm.

The jeans I am wearing in the picture below are old ones I got from a market stall or charity shop. Apparently, the worn-out look is fashionable, though I reckon that clothes in that condition belong in the dustbin. I would never pay good money for a pair of "new" worn-out jeans. It now turns out that the fashion is deadly. The worn-out look is achieved by sandblasting, and the factories where it is done are full of dust. As a result, the workers have been getting silicosis, the lung disease that used to be common amongst coal miners. The practice has been banned in Turkey since 2007, but not before many factory workers became incurably ill. The manufacturers have moved production to other countries in the world, which has simply shifted the problem. DO NOT BUY WORN-LOOK JEANS

I picked up this comment from "Thomas the Tank" in the Guardian's Comment is Free... "If there is a capacity problem on the West Coast line we should let Deutsche Bahn know quickly as they're proposing to bankroll new Scottish services utilising some of this non-capacity. But keep the capacity options between Rugby and Birmingham quiet or they'll want that too. And if you want even more capacity just spend a bit of time standing in the quiet on Banbury station to see where that might come from as well. "Still more? Then we'll electrify and upgrade this line through Banbury too. And after all that, if we still aren't satisfied then connect the West Coast to the old Great Central at Rugby and reopen that for freight and as a diversionary route. (amazingly, HS2 would destroy this valuable future option). "Still not content - then let's reopen the Peak line north of Matlock (perfectly feasible and relatively short) which would rest...

Rickmansworth - electric traction takes over , originally uploaded by seadipper . The recent bad weather led to widespread cancellations of trains on routes south of London, electrified on the third-rail system. As a result, it has come under criticism, with calls for it to be replaced by overhead electrification. That is not, of course, going to happen and would be a waste of money even if the cash was available. The third-rail electrification system is fundamentally robust and needs little attention most of the time, by contrast with overhead systems which need regular adjustment and can be brought down be a faulty pantograph. During a similar spell of cold weather in the 1980s, a railwayman told me that the CIGs were nowhere near as good as the older stock when the weather was icy. The difference was that on older trains, the pick-up shoes were attached to massive timber beams like those in the trains in the picture. This enabled them to smash through the ice on the conductor rail. ...

A reminder that railways are about more than whisking businessmen from city centre to city centre at 300 kph or more. It has to be said that these Soviet era TE-10 diesels always seem to be throwing out clouds of black smoke, which means that they must be wasting fuel.

not the only shooter on the beach , originally uploaded by lomokev . Got up early to take pics of the Brighton swimmers going in the cold sea. I have not been going in myself as I have got a bad tooth and have been drugged up, also have been expelled from Brighton Swimming Club, which is a long story in itself.

One of the great unanswered questions concerning HS2 is what kind of rolling stock will run on it? British rolling stock is lower and narrower than standard continental stock. And standard continental stock is too tall and wide to run on existing railways in Britain. Will there be a small fleet of continental-sized stock that will be confined to the new lines? And will it be necessary to build a special, and therefore expensive, fleet of British-sized high speed trains that can run on existing routes? This raises yet another question. Continental stock actually varies in size from one country to another. Scandinavian trains are wider than those anywhere else, which makes for added comfort, or alternatively, more seats can be fitted into the carriages. And would also be possible to build the line large enough to accommodate double-deck trains that did not have low curved ceilings like those in most of Europe apart from Finland, where the gauge is slightly wider. (1525 mm instead of 1435...

As the project gathers momentum, it will become increasingly unstoppable. That a good case has been made to show that the economics of the project are based on dubious assumptions seems to cut no ice with the politicians.

The principal focus for opposition to HS2 is the HS2 Action Alliance (see link on right). Naturally, the opposition has arisen amongst those who stand to be worst affected, which is people in the areas of the Chilterns through which the line passes. However, having a vested interest in something does not invalidate an argument. The more the economic case is considered, the worse it seems. One wonders why HS2 has survived the cuts.

An effective standard system of Selective Door Operation (SDO) must be one of the keys to increasing capacity on the railways. The lengthening of station platforms to accommodate longer trains can be prohibitively expensive at some locations and is unnecessary at others. The solution is to fit every door on every train with a detector linked in to the door-actuating circuit, to prevent it from being opened unless there is a station platform alongside. It might take the form of a light and photocell on the train, with the face of the platform being fitted with a strip of reflective material like that on car number plates. Or it could use some kind of sonic or infra-red device - the principle is the same. In the long run this would be a good investment as all trains could stop at all stations. It would be fail-safe, automatic and do away with the complexities of GPS location finding, which requires the train to "know" where it is.

Last year, the Department for Transport commissioned consultants W S Atkins to consider alternatives to HS2. Referred to as the High Speed 2 Strategic Alternatives Study , it comprises four separate reports. It looks at a range of road and rail interventions between London and the West Midlands, which could effectively increase passenger capacity in line with forecast demand. The documents are available for downloading here . The Rail Interventions Report concentrates on upgrades to the West Coast Main Line and the Chilterns route to Birmingham and in case of the latter, an interesting list of interventions are postulated. Amongst the options discussed is the possibility of running much longer trains on the WCML. But this is dismissed in the following sentence: " However, operating a fleet of 400 metre would require platforms at every station served by WCML “fast” services to be lengthened. Selective Door Opening (“SDO”) is unlikely to prove acceptable or workable. " This c...

I came across this in the Guardian's Comments is Free The annual external costs of road use in the UK have been estimated as follows... Air pollution £19.7 bn Congestion £17.5 bn Accidents £9.4 bn Noise £2.6 bn Road damage £1.5 bn Climate change 0.1 bn (Road building not included) Total £50.8 bn. This contrasts with the revenues obtained by the exchequer from motorists via fuel taxes and duty (Fuel tax: £12.5 bn, Excise duty: £3.6 bn; Total: £16.1 bn) Thus motorists are being subsidised by an amount three times larger than the taxes and duty they pay. http://www.basden.demon.co.uk/G/facts/road.costs.html

Experimental train 1986 , originally uploaded by seadipper . This experimental train built in 1986 was one of the more attractive products of British Rail Engineering Ltd. It was eventually sold to the Irish railways and re-gauged. Most of the vehicles were scrapped in 2009. A couple were brought back to the UK and used for bombing practice. Nice to know that a proper value was put on these assets.

An unsung design classic The BT10 bogie is fitted to mark 3 Inter City stock, including the HST trailer cars. Introduced in the mid-1970s, some units have now been in service for 35 years. These were amongst the first to be fitted with disc brakes and for several years there were complaints about the smell. But once this had been cured, they proved to be exceptional, giving a smooth and steady ride at high speed on indifferent track. Recent tests have shown them to be superior to more recent designs, as well as being significantly easier on the track. I was discussing this with a colleague recently who has been involved recently in the maintenance of vehicles fitted with these bogies. Apart from a few minor details, he told me that there are no fundamental weaknesses in the design - such as areas prone to fatigue - and after three decades in service they would have shown up by now. The elegant simplicity of the concept is revealed in the diagram.

I have to admit that Pendolinos look really good from this angle, pretty, even. Pity about the insides and the tiny windows which have made them Britain's most unpopular train. I see that the new generation of continental Pendolinos have better windows.

I cam across this on Ebay just now. ***Transportation of ink and toner cartridges by air is restricted*** Following recent incidents with improvised explosive devices, the Secretary of State for Transport has issued a directive prohibiting the transportation by air of ink or toner cartridges, to any destination inside or outside the UK. This directive comes into effect immediately. To avoid any doubt, an ink or toner cartridge is defined as ‘a cartridge weighing more than 500g designed for use in printing equipment such as printers, photocopiers and fax machines’. What is bonkers about it? It isn't clear whether it applies to stuff purchased from one's usual computer consumables supplier such as Dabs or Misco, but all it means is that anyone with malicious intent will in future conceal explosives in something other than a printer cartridge. There must be an infinite number of objects that could be filled up with explosives and turned into bombs. It is a strange response to b...

F SNCF 72571 Manosque 31-07-2009 , originally uploaded by peters452002 . This really looks a mess. The trouble is that there are two different aesthetics in conflict with each other. Or has the cover fallen off the gubbins? If it hasn't, then it is pointless giving the train a sexy front end. These trains below, with simple, functional front ends, have exactly the same coupling so there is no necessity for the thing to look so awful .

Last night I heard a story about a man with an ASBO who was called for a health test to try to get him off his benefits and into - what, exactly? The trouble is that attending the test will put him in breach of his ASBO as he is not allowed to be in that part of town where the health checks are done.

Rail operators will have to rely less on subsidies to increase train capacity and the transport department should require new operators to provide enough carriages for passengers, a report by the British Public Accounts Committee said on yesterday. The problem is a combination of a shortage of carriages, poor seating capacity in the carriages themselves, and short platforms in some stations, which prevents the running of longer trains. The troubles go back a long way. One of them is that the rolling stock itself is too expensive. A mark 1 coach cost about £5000 in the 1950s. That is about £200,000 in present-day money. But a new hauled vehicle cannot now be purchased for less than £600,000, and self-powered electric or diesel multiple unit (EMU/DMU) vehicles cost at least twice that amount. And in the 1950s - and right up to the late 1980s, EMUs were usually powered with recycled the electrical equipment which was very robust and was often decades old already. Such recycling is unh...

Mini-Tram Brighton , originally uploaded by david.sewell46 . This mini-tram was on trial in Brighton in 1994. An example of the Parry Peoplemover, it came to nothing and the streets are still choked with cars.

I switched on Radio 4 this morning only to find that the usual news programmes had been replaced by a much more interesting documentary. Which makes me wonder if we really need all this urgent-sounding gabble pushed into our homes morning, noon and night. It could be good for the nation's equanimity and sense of proportion to have regular breaks from the endless stream of matters of the immediate moment, of no lasting consequence. They serve merely to make people anxious.

Ex London buses being shipped to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) at a London dock in the 1950's. , originally uploaded by LEDLON 89 . After the war London Transport ordered a new fleet of buses, mostly with AEC engines but some with Leyland also. The latter being non-standard, even though there were more than 1600 of them, they were quickly disposed of. They were apparently not popular with the drivers but one would have thought that a programme of modifications would have sorted out the problems. What a waste though, when there was a surplus and then the trolleybuses were to be replaced which was another waste and a mistake as well. And for that matter the previous tram replacement programme was also a great mistake but that happened all over Britain. Why the British tramway operators never bought new standard fleets from the continental manufacturers is an interesting question, the answer to which would probably not reflect well on those responsible for this failure in policy.

Containers on ship's deck , originally uploaded by seadipper . It is a beautiful view - early morning on the North Sea. But it is not a view I can enjoy. Every moment it is taking me further away from the place that has become my home, to where I do not want to go to. Only one more time, I hope just for a short stay and after that it will just be for a brief annual visit to catch up with friends.

Leica has just brought out this special titanium version of the Leica M9 digital camera. Launching the limited-edition model, Leica states, " The exclusive special edition Leica M9 "Titanium" is the result of a collaboration with Walter de'Silva, the prominent automobile designer. Responsible for groundbreaking design concepts for the latest models from the Volkswagen Group, the chief designer and his Audi Design Team have re-interpreted the design of the LEICA M9 just as he envisaged it. The outcome is a unique camera with a new interpretation of the characteristic features of Leica rangefinder cameras, which lends precision engineering, unique style and solid titanium to extraordinary formal design ." At a price that is intentionally outrageous, this is obviously aimed at the super-rich extravagant consumer and not intended to be a professional's workhorse in the way that the M2 was, in the early 1960s. The latter is still regarded by many as the b...

. , originally uploaded by Reportdigital.co.uk . In the 1940s men in white coats who worked in laboratories were called "Boffins". They were very much sought after. They were as important as the generals in helping to win the war. After the war, they were still sought after as it was recognised that they were essential to industry and to provide the things that we all use, that rely on sophisticated technology to keep them working. Later on, people realised that there were easier ways of making money, by moving it around at watching it grow. Nothing was actually produced in this process and industry was spurned. After that, the value of boffins were not recognised so much and the pejorative term "Nerd" was applied. But now matters are even worse, as these boys (it is usually boys and men) are now considered to be mentally deficient or even ill, and get diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome. If you want your computer fixed or you have a problem with your web si...

With a new leader elected, some people are suggesting that Labour could make a come-back sooner rather than later, as the government's policies start to unravel. At the moment, Labour has no credibility but to judge from the way the £ is tumbling, outside the UK there is a lack of confidence in Britain, regardless of who is in charge. The exchange rate went up after the election, reflecting expectations that have not and probably cannot be fulfilled. We are all in this together is true in the sense that the boat is going down. People will start to notice as prices in the shops start to soar. Fisherman's Friends will not save the country Anyone who thinks it is helping imports is deluding themselves. The only British products in the shops in this part of the world are a few sweeties - Fisherman's Friends are curiously popular but they are not going to save the country. From a bigger perspective on could say that it is the result of the country's moral failure ...

As a supporter of Israel, I despair at times. I was sorry to see that the moratorium on settlement in the West Bank was allowed to run out. I have no great expectations of the talks between Israel and the Palestinians, nor of the Palestinians' ability to run a peaceful and stable state. But the Israelis need to be careful not to put themselves in the wrong. The moratorium should have been extended and the Israeli government should have had the courage to stand up to any opposition. It seems that the settlers are mostly "orthodox" Jews from the USA and it would not be unreasonable to describe them as religious fanatics, with much in common with the US Protestant Christian religious right. This kind of worship of land has nothing to do with traditional orthodox Judaism as it has been understood for the past 2000 years. It is little more than a pernicious and dangerous form of idolatory.

Direct action: opening blocks putted by the Israeli army. Shufa. Palestine, 10/5/2008. , originally uploaded by activestills . Most people alive today where not even born when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began. Too much comment is made without an understanding of the background.After 1948, the Gaza area of Palestine was annexed by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan. This was the situation until 1967. After the 1956 war, a contingent of United Nations troops was placed in Gaza, in a buffer zone between Egyptian and Israeli territory. In the early part of 1967, the Egyptians built up a concentration of military forces in Gaza and then asked the UN force to leave. The aim was an invasion of Israel. Considerations of sheer numbers made it certain that the Israelis would be wiped out, with an invasion from the Jordanian side to deliver the final blow. It is said that there was some kind of agreement made with the Jordanians that they would not attack Israel, the rational...

DSC_5763 , originally uploaded by abcharlie . Last night I saw the premiere of a film about Israelis who protest against the occupation of the West Bank. They are a handful of people who are making a brave stand against the Israelis, often at considerable personal risk. The film showed the degrading conditions the Palestinians are having to endure with the constant security checks at an increasing number of barriers where they are caged in whilst they wait to be searched and have their papers examined. And to add to their problems are the settlers, often from the USA, who are stealing land and then abusing the local Arab population - even the young children of orthodox Jews in Hebron are behaving in this way. And then there is the hideous concrete wall. The trouble is that the Israelis have not done this for no reason at all. The draconian security is largely a response to the suicide bombings that were a regular feature of Israeli life before these measure were introduced. One difficu...

A few months ago, I wrote that it ought to be possible to produce a camera with a much reduced specification that will do most of the things the Leica M9 will do at a fraction of the price. It would incorporate a bright optical viewfinder like that on the M, but with a simple fixed projected frame. The sensor would be between 20mm and 25mm square and somewhere around 12 to 15 megapixels - no more. The lens would be fixed and wide-angle, with an equivalent focal length of about 30mm and an aperture of f/2.8 or f/2. It looks as if Fuji has come up with a camera that comes close to this specification, and will presumably be followed by others. It is not precisely what I was proposing, which was for a square format sensor, and it has power-focussing, which I am not keen on, but it appears to provide most of what I have been looking for in digital cameras. And at a price of well under £2000, it should give Leica something to think about.

The Pope has duly come and gone, and seems from this distance to have made a good impression. The aggressive atheists duly made their protest and seem to have made little impression at all. But what kind of impression is the Catholic church as such making? We have plenty to say about sexual morality, abortion, euthanasia and so on, and we need to because no-one else is making a stand. It sets us well apart from the mainstream secular way of thought in modern Europe. You cannot win a debate about the immorality of abortion with someone who thinks that an embryo is just a blob of jelly. If you argue that the individual comes into existence at the moment of conception, they will look at you with blank incomprehension. Mention of the human soul cuts no ice at all. So this not a useful way to conduct discourse. Yet adultery, abortion, homosexuality or contraception have consequences that are readily discovered by empirical observation. There is no need to invoke revelation. Then there is Ca...

This headline from the BBC web site is not quite right, as the trains in question are not new but in fact some of the oldest in Britain, dating from 1976. Originally used for local services in London, they are being transferred for South Coast routes, including Brighton to Portsmouth, a ninety minute trip. The trains have no toilets, which is unacceptable but people will just have to accept it. This is another one of the indications that Britain is turning into a third world country. At one time there were toilets on the stations, but these got vandalised and were closed. There were few complaints as there were toilets on the trains at that time. Putting toiletless trains on a ninety minute run is probably going to cause the train company more trouble than they bargained for as desperate passengers are going to use the gangways between the carriages to satisfy the call of nature. These use of stock is stupid, because there are trains used on short journeys in the London area, with toil...

A conference next week will discuss the threat from electromagnetic storms from the sun, which could paralyse high-tech infrastructure. The last such storm was in 1859, and blocked telegraph communication, then in its infancy. But the low-technology systems then in use were little affected. Electromagnetic storms are caused by solar flares but similar damage can be caused by electromagnetic pulses from nuclear explosions. Most affected will be - it is only a matter of time before this happens - extended power lines such as the electricity grid, and satellites and the systems that depend on them, including GPS. But the disruption could potentially be far more widespread, as heavy current surges in the grid would damage switchgear and transformers, and it could take years to get everything back into service. The most vulnerable services are the pumps that keep the water supply and sewage systems running. Failure would quickly lead to flooding, contamination and outbreaks of disease. Elec...

The Pope, on the first day of his visit to Britain, has warned of an aggressive atheism, and in particular, anti-Catholic emotion, at large in the country. That is certainly my impression. I have noticed this even with old friends. But if one is any doubt, take a look at the comments in the Guardian's Comment is Free page. There is plenty to criticise the Catholic church about, and anger is by no means out of place, but there is a crude, ugly and vicious tone to what is being written which suggests that something else is going on in the country. Britain is, of course in a bad way, with the public finances in a dire condition. That itself points to moral bankruptcy, since it indicates that politicians have been offering the voters goodies without regard to the cost, and that the electorate have failed to question how they are to be paid for. And underneath that has grown up a culture whereby people think they can make a packet by scrambling onto the housing ladder, thereby playing ...

Cardinal Kasper has been criticised for referring to Britain as a Third World country. In a critical article in the Guardian, Catholic progressive Catharine Pepinster hinted that it verged on the racist. I don't know what the meaning behind the statement actually was, but in my experience, Kasper was spot-on. I come into the country twice a year, at Harwich. You get overwhelmed by the smell of Jeyes Fluid when you step off the boat, the immigration officials are gratuitously offensive and the trains to London are carefully timed so that you have to wait an hour for the next one. Then one gets onto a cramped and uncomfortable train which is well overcrowded by the time it gets towards London. Definitely not First World any more.

This accident, with one fatality, appears to have involved a train and a heavy construction vehicle. The exact cause remains to be discovered. According to one report, the train was going too fast past a site where repairs were in progress. However, a union commentator has been critical of the practice whereby work is successively sub-contracted to the point that those actually doing the work are unaware of the correct safe working practices. Does that sound familiar? In the UK, track maintenance these days is usually done with a complete line possession, the trains being diverted or replaced by buses. Despite all the complaints this leads to, perhaps there is more to be said for the practice.

"Trams are very expensive to install, especially on UK streets. Where ever the track goes, the road has to be dug up and all the services (water, gas, elec, phone) have to be moved 50ft to one one side. For miles." You are talking about on-street trams. Outside the city centres, most of the mileage of tramways in many European cities is off-street anyway, the same goes for Manchester and Croydon. The expense of renewing services for on-street tramways must be compared with the alternative of underground railways. Buses can only carry a limited volume of traffic before they become inefficient and cause environmental problems of their own. Cities need tracked electric transport if they are go grow beyond a certain point and still flourish. Stockholm, with a metro, has also supplemented it with a new tramway, the first section of which opened last month. Many British cities have had, or will soon have, their underground services renewed anyway. If a decision is made to relocate ...

The spread of the Tea Party is a manifestation of the beast named ANARCHO-CAPITALISM (A-C). Its prophets are Ayn Rand, and its high priests are Murray Rothbard, Bruce L. Benson. The economic theory comes from the Austrian School via Chicago, and it is founded on the fallacious theory of property rights put forward by John Locke. This leads them, paradoxically, into the same trap that Marxists fall into - that land and natural resources is a form of capital or nothing other than capital. That particular error makes it impossible to analyse contemporary economic and social problems. A-C was the guiding principle behind Thatcherism, possibly having entered the political bloodstream via academics at St Andrew's University. Early UK advocates included Keith Joseph, and the principles of A-C underly the utterances of such as John Redwood. In a diluted form it was and remains a strong influence on both Labour and the LibDems. With Marxism discredited, there is nothing much el...

Station dwell time is the time a train stands at a station while the passengers get on and off. In the days of slam door trains (above), with ten doors on each side of the carriage, this could be less than 20 seconds. This was possible because passengers were well disciplined and closed the doors after them. Circumstances change and some time in the 1960s, the decision was made to replace slam door trains by trains with power-operated doors, a changeover that was finally completed about five years ago. One effect is that station dwell times have become a matter of concern, due to, amongst other things, the operating time of safety devices; for instance, plug doors do not open until 15 seconds after a train has come to a stand. When there are many stops on the route, the extra time builds up. Commuter trains normally have doors at the 1:3/2:3 positions, which is intended to give better access than the alternative end-door location, but this layout has disadvantages. When bodyshells are ...

An article in Göteborgs Posten recently referred to the growing list of defects occurring on the Swedish X2000 tilting trains (picture in blog title) and predicted that they would be replaced after a relatively short service life. New trains such as the Regina have better acceleration and bogies which are easier on the track, giving similar journey times without the need for the same top speed and the associated complications of tilting. There is probably a more effective alternative to premature scrapping. The X2000 trains could be provided with new bogies and the power cars rebuilt or converted to driving trailers. An off-the-peg type of locomotive such as the Bombardier TRAXX would provide the traction. This ought to offer very much better value for money.

Mary and Jesus , originally uploaded by bweston23 . The Koran is an unpleasant book. Some authorities have attributed it to an Arian Christian source. Arians were a heretical group of Christians who asserted that God did not become incarnate in Jesus Christ, which is the orthodox Christian doctrine and is one of the reasons for the spread of the image of Jesus as a child in the arms of his mother. Moslems venerate both Jesus and Mary, and follow the same teaching as the Arians on the matter, which suggests that there may be something in the view that there is a connection. In any case, ideas spread. But essentially, Islam is a religion of the book. In fact, in this respect, it differs not at all from the heretical version of Christianity followed by the mad pastor who wants to burn the Koran. Such an act will actually be counter-productive. If one wants to challenge the Koran, use the intellect, not the methods of half-literate street mobs.

marmite , originally uploaded by dontcallmeikke . I asked a friend of mine to bring a couple of pots of Marmite with him from Britain. They were impounded at Stanstead airport on the grounds that the jars contained more than 100 ml of fluid. This confiscation of property is unacceptable. In the first place, my friend would not have gone to the trouble of buying the stuff if he had been informed about the restriction, so the publicity was obviously inadequate. In the second place, the security officer could easily have ascertained that the contents was indeed Marmite and not something that could have been used to blow up the aircraft he was travelling in, so this is just the usual story of officials deliberately being awkward. In the third place, he should have been able to leave the offending item somewhere and retrieve it on return, or post it back to his home address. But the most worrying and serious matter is that the 100 ml limit is not sufficient to prevent anyone from doing seri...

A friend of mine mentioned how disappointed he was about the performance of the Christian Democrats. His objection was that they were too liberal, especially in relation to abortion and "gay marriage". He suggested that they had become too concerned with chasing votes and lost sight of principles. The two issues he referred to need a whole discussion in their own right, but there is a more general point, which is whether there is a place for parties which describe themselves as "Christian"? In some European countries, notably Germany and Italy, Christian parties are major political forces. In others, such as the UK, they have never gained a foothold and the idea is alien. In the UK, committed Christians of various persuasions have found a place in each of the three main parties. Amongst the most famous was Hilaire Belloc. In 1906 he ran as Liberal candidate in the marginal South Salford constituency where the electorate was overwhelmingly Protestant and Belloc’s ...

"As an atheist I will make this admission. God exists, but only in the mind of the believer. " That applies to the entire universe. What one actually knows about everything is a construct of the mind as it interacts and interprets bodily sensations. Even basic concepts like hot, cold, salt, red, blue, pain, pleasure. "There is actually no God out there in space," Of course not. But what is space? Nobody even knows how many dimensions it has. At one time, the figure was three, then Einstein came along and it went up to four, now cosmologists are coming up with all sorts of bids - eleven, if I recall. "What you believe to be true is true for you." No, that is when people are mad. If belief is out of line with experience and reality it is not true. One can believe in, say, Father Christmas but this being untrue, it has no interpretative value and it would be very foolish to lead one's life on the assumption that he exists.

Got stuck in a lift yesterday and had to be rescued by the fire brigade. There were six of us and though there was a notice saying "maximum load 6 people or 500 kg", the lift started and then stranded us between floors, with the LED display saying "excessive load". As I weigh less than 60kg and the heaviest was 90kg, I can't see how we could have exceed the limit, and there ought to be a margin of error anyway. We were there for 45 minutes. This was a good team-building exercise and funny in retrospect but if there was an emergency door-opener and a short ladder inside the lift, it would not have been necessary to call the fire brigade at all, at considerable expense to someone.

Britain's fertility regulator is planning big changes to the strict rules governing egg and sperm donation in order to try to stop more childless couples from seeking treatment abroad. The sweeping liberalisation would see the most significant shift in policy governing sperm and egg donation since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) was established. The changes could see the amount paid to women who donate eggs rise from £250 to several thousand pounds – but experts have warned the move would see women donating eggs purely for money. Donated sperm could also be used to start as many as 20 families rather than the current limit of 10, despite fears such a move would increase the risk of half-siblings unwittingly marrying or having children together . The madness is that each year in Britain, hundreds of thousands of perfectly healthy embryos are lost through abortion. Why can't the NHS get its act together and arrange for pregnant mothers who cann...

It was confirmation day at Kristus Konungen Catholic Church in Gothenberg yesterday. Bishop Arborelius came to confirm what seemed like a huge mass of young people - I didn't count them but they must have been at least thirty. The church was very over-full, which these days can not be a cause of complaint. Services with a bishop present are a demanding test for the altar servers. The parish has a very competent team who rose to the occasion, and all went off smoothly, so congratulations all round.

Despite decades of collecting ergonomic data, seat design on public transport is as erratic as ever. The most comfortable train seat I have ever sat in was in a second class compartment in a carriage built for the North London Railway in the mid-1860s. This was a bizarre shape - the back of the seat had a cross section like half a pear. Which meant that it provided good lumbar support. I have sat in uncomfortable seats in first class inter-city trains, and comfortable seats, like the one illustrated, on commuter trains. The key things to get right are lumbar support ie of the lower back, and the angle of the cushion, which should slope slightly from front to rear. If lumbar support is absent, a rolled-up sweater will provide it. Once these two things are correct, the spine will adopt the correct position. Seats in British Railways mark 1 stock were mostly on the sloppy side, exept for the last of the type, introduced in the 1970s. Much research went into the seats on mark 2 stock, and ...

Never mind the gap , originally uploaded by seadipper . Retractable steps are standard on modern Swedish trains. This one slides out from under the floor. This probably pays for itself because people get on and off quicker and it presumably prevents accidents.

The actions of the Cameron government are best understood when one recognises that the driving force in contemporary political economy is Anarcho-Capitalism, A-C and nobody seems to have noticed. The beast needs to be named and revealed in the light. Its High Priests are David Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Bruce L. Benson, etc, drawing on recent sources such as Ayn Rand and much earlier ones including John Locke. The mark of an A-C advocate is their assertion that all taxation is theft and deification of "the market." "There is no such thing as society comes" from the same stream of thought. A-C notions are cropping up regularly in discussion groups such as the Guardian's Comment is Free, though probably most of those who are spouting them have no idea of their origins. The left has no answer to this which is why A-C is making the intellectual running at the moment and will continue to do do. It is very dangerous nonsense because it is grounded, partially, on famil...

I attended a Tridentine Mass this afternoon. Latin for the mass and readings, Swedish for the sermon. I was not in the most attentive of moods, I never am at that time of day, in fact I was pretty dozy and the effort of maintaining attention consumed more than my available energy. I did not really have much to bring to this particular party. The ceremonial was down to the bare bones, with no singing. However, even in these circumstances, it clearly does provide a more intense experience. Something special really is going on here. Objectively. I don't think it is my imagination.

Vigil Mass of St John the Baptist's Nativity , originally uploaded by Lawrence OP . St. Aloysius, the Oxford Catholic parish church for the centre of Oxford, is now served by the Congregation of the Oratory. It was originally a Jesuit parish, and the building, designed by J A Hansom, was completed in 1875. In the 1980s, the parish was taken over by the Archdiocese of Birmingham, and in 1990 the Archbishop of Birmingham invited members of the Birmingham Oratory to run the parish and found a new Oratorian community. In 1993, the Oxford Oratory was established as an independent Congregation. Since then, the congregation has built on the Oratorian tradition of fine liturgy, with the Sunday Solemn High Mass as its centrepiece, and in this way has built up a vigorous parish life.

Over the last few months I have come across a variety of languages in the liturgy. In England, I have encountered the new ICEL translation, which is soon to become mandatory, replacing the rather free interpretation dating from the late 1960s. An accurate translation of the definitive Latin text, it has a slightly antiquated style and I wonder how it will go down. Published with it have been the recommended musical settings, which we tried for a few weeks. We found that the notes do not fall naturally with the rhythm of the words and trip one up all the time. Someone familiar with the Gregorian chants needs to re-work the settings so make them easier to sing. It does not help either, that they were written out in modern notation instead of the four-line Gregorian notation, which is easier for inexperienced musicians to sing. Then I have been in Sweden, where the most commonly-heard phrase seems to be "what did you say?" About one-third of what is written is never voiced, and ...