AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Mark 3s at Cork , originally uploaded by rowanC82 . The railways in the Republic of Ireland have for decades kept going with a fleet of rolling stock, mostly locomotive-hauled, composed of a mixture of vehicles ancient and modern. This demonstrates good housekeeping. Major acquisitions were the so-called "Cravens" in the early 1960s, 80 British Rail mark 2 coaches in the 1970s, 132 British Rail mark 3 coaches of British Rail design at the end of the 1980s, and 14 vehicles based on the Eurostar for the Dublin-Belfast service. Then came the 67 mark 4 coaches built by CAF, which entered service on the Dublin-Cork route from 2006. One might have expected that the replacement and renewal programme in Ireland would have gone at about the same rate as in Britain or elsewhere, with the mark 3 fleet running for at least another 30 years. But then came a huge investment under the Irish Government's Transport 21 Plan, with all the mark 3 fleet being replaced by a large fleet of d...

There is an alert about threats of terrorism from religious extremists. The picture above is of a notorious hotbed of religious extremism in Sussex. Known as St Hugh's, it is seemingly peaceful and innocent, but do not be fooled. It is occupied by Catholic monks belonging to the Carthusian order, who take the teaching of the Catholic church to an extreme and live lives of great austerity, devoting most of their time to prayer. Beware.

Most people who have travelled on trains in Britain will be familiar with British Rail's Mark 3 stock as these are the carriages in an Inter City 125 train. They have served the railways well and proved a remarkably good investment. The first came into service in 1972 and over 800 were built for service in the UK and a further 120 for the railways of the Irish Republic before production ceased around 1990. In addition, the design was the basis of many types of electric multiple unit trains as well as the International train illustrated in the masthead of this blog, a commercial venture by British Rail Engineering Ltd. It is well described in the Wikipedia entry but there is more to be said. The 23 metre long bodyshell is a steel monocoque structure, with reinforcing top-hat sections welded on to 3 mm sheet steel. The horizontal members are welded direct to the sheet steel shell and the vertical ones are joggled to fit over the horizontals. There are substantial box section reinfor...

wild winged pigo'fisho'duck facing a legged egg a.k.a. WHEN PIGS CAN FLY! Originally uploaded by ☂ bitzi took his umbrella and left ✈ As the election campaign cranks into life, it seems as if the future lies in porcine aviation.

Lessons of a Mass revolt was the title of an article in the Guardian today. It turned out to be about an election in Massachusetts. Disappointing. With that headline I thought it was going to be another article about religion, on how more and more Catholics prefer the old Latin Mass now that the Pope has removed the restrictions. A bit a language confusion here.

I had no idea that Haiti was in an earthquake zone until it happened. The last big one was in 1842, so it was bound to be unexpected. But the pictures are familiar - concrete buildings collapsed in piles of rubble with people trapped between the heavy slabs. In wealthy countries in earthquake zones, modern high-rise buildings are constructed using special devices to minimise the effects when the earthquakes happen. But this is not the only way to prevent loss of life in earthquakes. Traditional Japanese buildings were constructed of lightweight materials. These were vulnerable to fires and storms, but they were low buildings and nobody got squashed under the paper panels. There seems to be a need to develop low-tech and inexpensive methods of earthquake-resistant building construction. Shooting the looters A disturbing feature of the present catastrophe is the number of people who are being shot for looting. Do the authorities take the view that the protection of property should t...

Sometimes it is worth considering first principles. All transport systems require the conversion of chemical or atomic or potential energy into mechanical energy. The preferred method of doing this is to carry out the initial conversion at a central location such as a power station. This has been realised since almost the beginning of railways, first with the use of rope traction, then with the atmospheric railways in the 1840s, and eventually with the development of electric traction. But electric traction means that the railway must be provided with a fixed supply of electricity, usually in the form of an overhead contact cable or conductor rail. This is a mature technology and the preferred option where traffic densities are high and the cost of installation can be justified. On routes where traffic volumes are low, the conversion of chemical energy to mechanical energy must take place in a prime-mover vehicle of some kind. The chemical energy can be converted into electrical energy...

In this photograph, a Eurostar train is about to enter the Channel Tunnel. When Eurostar began running in 1996, a new terminal was built at Ashford and many trains called there. This was not particularly useful as connections from Ashford are poor, and when the St Pancras terminal was opened in 2007, the revised timetable cut down the number of trains that stopped at Ashford, so most Eurostar passengers go through London. But what if Ashford was developed as a hub? If connecting lines were improved, trains could run direct to Brighton, Reading and Peterborough via Cambridge. Many more passengers would then be able to catch a Eurostar service without going in to central London, and an hourly trains to Paris and Brussels would pick up a worthwhile volume of traffic at Ashford. But that is not all. Train services fanning out from Ashford would provide useful travel opportunities for everyone living in the South-East - not just Eurostar passengers, since they would give good connections be...

One of the reasons given for building a new high speed line is that there is a shortage of capacity. Yet there are a several main lines that are well below capacity and could be reinstated without too much trouble. London to Birmingham The old Great Western route from London to Birmingham branches off the main line to Bristol at Acton, and then runs via High Wycombe and Bicester to Banbury, Leamington and Warwick to Birmingham Snow Hill. This was a shortening of the Great Western's original main line to Birmingham, which diverged from the Bristol line at Didcot and ran to Banbury via Oxford. The line via High Wycombe and Bicester has just been restored to double track. In the past, there was keen competition for traffic on the Great Western and West Coast routes between London and Birmingham, and there remains plenty of spare capacity on the Western route, which is not electrified. London to Manchester On this axis the competing routes were the West Coast route via Rugby and the Mi...

The ultimate yield management tool is the advance-booking bargain basement fare. These are promoted on railways in most European countries but they are nothing but a marketing gimmick. SJ, the Swedish national railway, was offering tickets for 95kr between Stockholm or Gothenberg and Copenhagen. Of course these could be used only on a particular train, sitting in a particular seat. Last year these tickets were being snapped up as soon as they were available and then auctioned on Ebay. SJ put a stop to it by insisting on identification but the whole concept of bargain basement fares for advance purchase is nonsense. It is unlikely to induce anyone to travel who would not have made the journey anyway. It encourages people to buy tickets and not make the journey, leaving empty seats. And when people book so far in advance, they may find that they are unable to make the journey when the day finally arrives. Reasonably priced walk-on fares are what is needed. People will accept some restric...

I have almost never sat in the seat that had been reserved for me when I made my booking. There is usually some snag. It may be that there is no space for my luggage behind the seat. It may be that the so-called "window seat" is not a window seat at all but is adjacent to a bit of plastic or a curtain. It may be that the seat is right outside the toilet. Or it may be broken, or the window has steamed up inside the double glazing, or the people in the adjacent seats may be playing their music loud or are just rowdy. A lot of other passengers seem think to think the same on this train between Cologne and Hamburg. Although more comfortable than a British train, people seem to be constantly changing places, as they find one to their taste and then someone else gets on with the reservation ticket for that seat and they have to move. Part of the problem is due to bad rolling stock design but it is not necessary to reserve passengers into particular seats on particular trains. At th...

One can travel by train all the way from London to Stockholm, and you will need these 24 tickets for the return journey. Many of them will be special offers of one sort or another, and you may get some real bargains, such as Copenhagen to Stockholm for less than £10. But if anything goes wrong on the journey, you will end up having to re-book and you may have to pay twice for the journey. I travelled from London to Sweden by train a couple of times but gave up after that. The last straw was when the Deutsche Bahn office in London made a mistake with the bookings and I was made to pay twice, as the official on the train did not want to know about his colleague's error. I got my money back in the end but it was a bother I could have done without. Dealing with the paperwork must have cost DB more than the amount involved. The authors of "Fast Forward" claim that people like advance booking. What kind of lives do they lead? Presumably they, and their children, and spouses, an...

Train hit by big wave at Dawlish Substantial investment will be needed just to keep the present network intact in the face of climate change. On a stormy November night, a Pacer is hit by a big wave as it arrives at Dawlish station, on the main line to Plymouth and Penzance. Ever since the railway here was opened in 1846, the civil engineers have been engaged in struggle against the elements. Over and over again they have had to strengthen the sea wall on which the line runs. How long can this continue? Sooner or later a new line will be needed, and it will be expensive because it will involve a long tunnel under the range of hills between Exeter and Newton Abbott. The Teignmouth sea wall route is probably the most difficult line in Britain to keep running in the face of the forces of nature, but there are many others, and investment will be needed to keep these ancient structures in order or provide alternative routes.

Waterloo International station was designed by Nicholas Grimshaw and won the RIBA Building of the Year award in 1994, when it opened to Channel Tunnel services. It had been finished the previous year but completion of the tunnel itself was delayed. It then remained in use until November 2007, when the service was transferred to a magnificent new terminus at St Pancras, where the station was extensively renovated in another prestigious scheme. Since then, the four platforms have been unused and there are no plans for the space. This should not be happening. Surely someone could find at least an interim use such as a flea market or a sports or entertainment venue?

"Fast Forward" suggest that... A variety of funding sources could be available to fund a high-speed line. The beneficiaries of HSR extend well beyond HSR users and include freight as well as passenger, the short-haul air sector as well as road users and rail passengers on the existing network too. In addition to direct Government funding other sources might include: Farebox revenue from HSR users; hypothecated charges on road or aviation users, businesses rates and environmental charges; capital grants from strategic beneficiaries such as airports; regional funding – but which is unlikely under current arrangements to stretch very far. Interestingly, it continues... There is also likely to be some scope to realise major property value uplifts in the vicinity of HSR stations and these could be used to defray some of the capital cost. The extent to which property gains will materialise is largely dependent on the availability of developable land at station locations as well as ...

"Fast Forward", the promotional book produced by Greengauge, argues that the key features of the HSR service would be... Modern easy booking systems, allowing passengers to book in advance, take advantage of frequent traveller programmes, print out their own tickets and plan their whole end-to-end journey effectively; Easy ways to access HSR, with dedicated platforms at modern stations, new interchanges with other modes of transport; High-levels of customer service at stations and on trains, with staff on hand at all times providing attention to the details that count; Sleek modern and clean new trains, with communication and entertainment facilities on board to make good use of travelling time; Dramatically reduced journey times compared with today, providing a competitive alternative to short-haul air travel. Express limited-stop rail services between Britain’s major towns and cities; Ultra-high levels of punctuality, beating delays on the congested road network. Greengauge...

In an earlier post I suggested a core list of lines which ought to be in an electrification programme spread over twenty years of so. This leaves a residue of routes which it is unlikely will ever be electrified. This include for example All lines beyond Glasgow, Stirling and Aberdeen All lines west of Exeter and Swansea All lines west of Chester Shrewsbury - Chester Everything not listed in my previous blog - electrification plans only scratch surface   Some of these routes carry main line services to London and other cities on parts of the network that are already electrified or included in electrification plans. Others are self contained and others carry light traffic - less than a dozen trains a day. The current plan is that main line services will be operated with the hybrid trains on order from Hitachi, but this is a costly, wasteful and ineffective solution. The performance of the trains will be inferior to the present Inter-City 125 trains on non-electrified lines and the ...

Britain has one of the lowest percentages of electrified line in Europe. It comes after Macedonia and before the Czech Republic. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because lines with light traffic should not be electrified, but some of the busiest lines in Britain are not, such as London to Bristol. The latter is one of the routes to, which last summer, the government gave the go-ahead for electrification. The plan is for electrification of the lines from London to Oxford, Newbury, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea, and between Liverpool and Manchester. But this only scratches the surface of what needs to be done. There is a long list of lines where electrification would fill in gaps and provide network benefits. These include (in no particular order of priority) Gospel Oak - Barking Ashford - Hastings Lewes - Hurst Green Reading - Basingstoke Basingstoke - Salisbury and possibly Yeovil Junction and Exeter Oxford - Birmingham Leamington - Coventry Marylebone - Banbury Amersham - Aylesbury...

There has been an epidemic of broken limbs due to falls on the ice. Councils have been blamed for not clearing the streets. But most of the accidents would not have happened if people had been wearing the right footwear. In the south of England, at least, people are not used to snow and ice and so are liable to being caught out. These spikes slip on to any shoes, like galoshes. They give a good grip on ice, but are not to be trusted entirely and it is a good idea to use a spiked stick or pole, or pair of poles as well, as used by Scandinavian hikers. Another suggestion is to wear wool socks over one's boots . I didn't try that but another thing that worked quite well was soft fabric boots . With these, one can feel the ground under one's feet and get extra grip with one's toes. But they only work if the temperature is less than about minus 5 and no salt has been put down to melt the ice. In our Nanny State, one might have thought that the authorities would have...

This is Ford Junction, Sussex. For want of the short section of route shown as a dotted red line, when the Brighton main line is closed, trains are diverted and have to run into Littlehampton and out again, reversing at the terminal. If this line was put in, the diverted trains would be at least 20 minutes quicker. This is just one of a long list of railway improvements that could be made at relatively low cost in just this area. Others urgently needed or worth considering include Restoration of the direct line from Brighton to Hastings at Polegate. Doubling and possible electrification between Ashford and Hastings Reinstatement between Uckfield and Lewes Electrification between Hurst Green and Lewes Reinstatement between Shoreham and Horsham Reinstatement between Horsham and Guildford Reinstatement between Havant and Hayling Island Completion of quadruple track between Three Bridges and Brighton Completion of electrification between Tonbridge and Reading Construction of flyover at Red...

The Great Western main line was once famous for high speeds. Brunel built the original line between London and Bristol to the broad gauge with the aim of running the trains as fast as possible. In the nineteen-thirties, the Castle class locomotives (above) held the title for what was for a short while the fastest train in the world, with record-breaking runs between Swindon and London. Then, in the 1970s, the Inter-City 125 (HST) trains (above) were introduced, maintaining the tradition of speed, with many trains running non-stop from London, with Bath as the only stop. What happened then? With the present timetable, trains stop at many places quite close together such as Slough, Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham and Bath. The population has spread out through Berkshire and Wiltshire, which has created a different pattern traffic of demand. The Great Western main line has become an inter-urban stopping service. These days, the HSTs are doing relatively little running at their top sp...

The typical inter city journey in Britain is between 100 and 150 miles. London - Birmingham is about 110 miles; Birmingham - Manchester about 90 miles; Manchester - Leeds 40 miles; Leeds - Newcastle about 90 miles; Newcastle - Edinburgh about 105 miles 100 miles at an average start-to-stop speed of 100 mph takes 1 hour. At 140 mph the journey time is 43 minutes - a saving of 17 minutes. What would people do with the 17 minutes if they did not spend it on the train, and what is the cost of saving this time, since energy consumption is more than double? And that is only the station to station time. Realistically, the door to door journey time is more likely to be 1 hour 28 minutes instead of 1 hour 45 minutes, a useful amount admittedly, but it could equally well be saved by local transport improvements or better connectivity, which would be of benefit for everyone making local journeys. That is not the entire story either. High speed rail services are not walk-on services, passengers w...

I read on the website of the Association of Train Operating Companies, (ATOC), that 700,000 photos of stations have been taken for a new web guide to make UK train travel easier. "Elderly and disabled people with mobility problems, parents with young children and passengers with heavy luggage will find it much easier to get around the rail network from today, with the launch of a new interactive web guide to stations in Britain, called ‘Stations Made Easy’. "In a national railway first anywhere in the world, over 2,500 stations in Britain were photographed to give passengers a step by step guide of how to get around when they travel by train. The photographs allow people to pick a route around a station that makes their journey as easy as possible. "The guide will also show interactive maps of every station in the country, pointing out where passengers can find all the facilities, such as ticket machines, toilets, taxi points, shops and bars. "T...

There is increasing concern about the radicalisation of university students. This apparently means students from Muslim families who become fundamentalists and might go on to join terrorist organisations. But the students that really need to be watched are Catholics who favour the traditional rite Latin Mass. They are the most dangerous radicals of all, especially if they will only attend celebrations by a priest who has been validly ordained by a bishop in full communion with the Bishop of Rome. That is heavy stuff since it means they have thought the matter through very carefully and are sure of their ground. They are at one with the Universal Church, the most enduring organisation in human history, against which the gates of hell itself will not prevail. This support can take seemingly innocent forms. Radical groupings can operate under the cover of activities like soup runs for the homeless, and musical groups for the performance of Gregorian chant and settings of the liturgy...

In today's Guardian is a sad story of an aspirational family with two children whose mother, pregnant with her third child, had a test for Down's Syndrome which came back positive. Being of the progressive persuasion, the possibility of a "termination" was thinkable. The father writes, " Our lives were overshadowed by the impending decision, but there never seemed any time for discussion. Instead we worried about it – or worried at it – separately. Having supported a woman's right to choose all my adult life, I could hardly waver now. There were practical considerations to weigh, too. I was the wrong side of 50, 13 years her senior, and would, in the normal course of events, be leaving her to deal with the most difficult – mature – years alone. Then there was the impact on the two children we already had... I was worried about her taking on an extra (and unknowably demanding) responsibility. She was the only person to judge whether she could cope. I made it...

Sensibly designed stock for Britain's railways would look something like this. It would be locomotive hauled, like the vehicles in the blog masthead (BREL's International train), and it would be constructed of corrugated stainless steel, for strength, lightness and low maintenance, like the Swedish X2000 tilting train, above. It would have a bay dimension of 1.9 metres and most of the seats would be arranged in facing pairs on either side of a window, as in the Alstom Adelante train in the lower illustration. Not more than one-third of the seats would be arranged airline style, and they would have a spacing of 95 mm. There would be ample space for luggage, mostly between the backs of the seats, though additional luggage shelves would be needed for passengers sitting in airline-style seats since these have not luggage space between the seat backs. All the seats would be corrrectly aligned to the windows to give an unobstructed view.

The case for high speed rail in Britain is set out in this document , Fast Forward. It has been produced by Greengauge21, an industry consortium which describes itself as " a not-for-profit organisation which aims to research and develop the concept of a high speed rail network, and to promote its implementation as a national economic priority. "Founded by Jim Steer, one of the country's leading transport sector specialists, Greengauge 21 has been established to progress the debate on High Speed Rail and to promote it in the public interest. The organisation has been conceived as an umbrella under which all those with an interest in supporting and promoting a High Speed Rail network can come together and openly and publicly debate the merits of alternative routes, priorities and technologies, alternative implementation strategies and the economic and environmental benefits for Britain ." Jim Steer was a founder and until 2002, when he became Strategic Director of the...

Power companies awarded contracts to build 6,400 wind turbines off the British coast have warned that they will need a "super-grid" connected to Europe to guarantee a steady power supply. The government proposes that these wind generators should be built in locations far out in the North Sea. These politicians ought to spend a couple of weeks on a North Sea oil rig, or make a ferry crossing on a rough night (photograph). How do they think these things are going to be constructed and maintained? How would the workmen gain access to a generating tower? Unless each tower has a helicopter landing pad, maintenance crew will have to go by boat and somehow climb onto a landing stage, probably up a ladder or steps. Have the advocates of this project tried transferring from a boat to a vertical steel rung ladder - and back - in a heaving sea? What procedures would Health and Safety advise? How much energy will be consumed in building and maintaining these generators? How long w...

Extraordinary form Mass, St Mary Magdalen's Church, Brighton, Feast of the Epiphany

The British government is preparing a report on the future of high speed rail in Britain. A firm proposal is expected in the spring. Enthusiasm is growing, as more and more people become familiar with travel on high speed lines on the continent. But Britain is not the continent and the British railway network is not tied in to the continental one except through the Channel Tunnel. The case against high speed rail in Britain is strong, and it needs to be put, because investment in high speed rail could turn out to be bad value for money, especially bearing in mind how else it could have been spent. France, Germany and Spain, which have the best-developed high-speed systems, are large countries with cities far apart, separated by sparsely-populated countryside. Britain has a completely different pattern of settlement, with 80% of the population living in less than one-third of the land area, but relatively spread-out within that area, in low-density suburbs that are difficult to serve ec...

80% of Britain's population live within one-third of the country's land area. If you draw a line around and area that includes Southampton, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, London and Eastbourne, you have included 80% of Brtain's population. You have excluded most parts of the country with significant populations, the only substantial conurbations being Edinburgh/Glasgow and Tyne and Wear. This means that most inter city journeys are less than about 200km. High speed rail produces little worthwhile time savings at those sort of distances. Within the most densely developed regions, a structure has built up since 1950 which can most concisely be described as sprawl, and it is difficult to service by any form of public transport. Until this changes, the car will be the preferred method of passenger transport. The main changes will be relatively marginal and achieve through the development of park and ride schemes, tramways, and congestion charging....

Following the attempt by a Carthusian monk to blow up an aircraft on Christmas Day, there are various rows going on about the inquity of "profiling" for security risk, and more rows about what amounts to electronic strip searching. All they need to do to screen passengers is to hand out bacon sarnies and glasses of cherry brandy, preferably the sweet syrupy one made by the Dutch firm Bols. If they take one or the other, one can be completely certain that they will not blow up their aircraft. Think about it.

Illustrations from Dampflokomotiv- und Maschinenfabrik DLM AG This nice looking 4-8-4 has been proposed for a standard gauge continental commuter railway which carries little off-peak traffic and has been threatened with closure. It has tourist potential since it runs through attractive countryside. But such a locomotive could possibly be acceptable in the first instance for more general commercial applications, in particular, infrastructure trains, currently worked by GM class 66. These are are now falling foul of emission standards regulations as they are 2-stroke diesels, and there are also issues with noise in the cab. One typical inefficient use for class 66 is for trainloads of ballast. They are driven to the works site and then stay there for a whole weekend, often with the engine running all the time! A fleet of ten is used for infrastructure trains on the London Underground, if I recall, where they are obviously less than ideal in the tunnel sections. Transport for London...

What is fair? The Green Party has decided to run the idea of "Fair" as its dominant theme in its campaign in the constituency most likely to return a Green MP at the next election, Brighton Pavilion. Everyone is in favour of fairness, of course. But what about the story from St Matthew, chapter 20? At the beginning of the day, the landowner goes out and hires labourers, promising them one denarius for the day's work. As the day continues, he goes out several times again, and hires more, also promising one denarius for the remainder of the day. The story concludes like this. "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.' The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. When those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more, but each one of them also received a denarius. When they re...