AN OUTSIDE VIEW

The ultimate net zero lunacy is probably de-carbonising and trying to electrify the entire railway system.  In the first place, the railways in total are not a major consumer of energy. Secondly, a huge amount of energy used by the railways is embodied in structures, rolling stock and electrification equipment. Thirdly, any measures that make the use of railways unnecessarily expensive encourage the use of less efficient alternatives.  An immense amount of energy is used up in the manufacture of aluminium railway vehicles and the massive steel electrification gallows and goalposts used to hold up the copper wires, which also takes a lot of energy to mine and refine. Oddly enough the railways of sixty years ago were probably more energy efficient. Locomotives and rolling stock were kept in use for nearly double as long as today, passenger trains ran at 75 mph and freight trundled along at 15 mph on its own lines, the aim being to keep the trains rolling as far as possible on as...