Beeching

[A0]

No, I'm saying that the M11 is an alternative route for to the North if you are in that part of London that's what you would use. If you are in North West London you can use the M1. Public transport is also an option. There is not likely to be a major upgrade between Baldock and Alconbury unless there is a major change of government policy so people should use an alternative route or public transport. If you did upgrade the route it would likely result in more traffic wanting to use it and possibly less people using more sustainable transport. Right now if it's a case of sitting in the traffic or having a fast journey on the train then the train would be the option people would go for.

So what about if you're in the area between the A1 and A10? Enfield perhaps or Barnet - you go out of your way to use either the M11 or M1 - why should they have to put up with sub-standard journey times to the north owing to the deficiencies of the A1M?

And your wrongly claiming public transport is a viable option - it isn't.

A totally random example: Cheshunt (Herts) to Rotherham.

The AA route planner reckons it's 160 miles and will take about 3 hours.

National rail reckons almost 3 1/2 hours and 3 changes.

So you can add the time of getting to and from each station and that could easily become 4 hours (15 mins each end).

And if you've got the family in tow or luggage, the train gets even less attractive.

 

[Zoe]

And your wrongly claiming public transport is a viable option - it isn't.

It's an option that will get you to your destination, it may take longer than car but it's still a valid option.

why should they have to put up with sub-standard journey times to the north owing to the deficiencies of the A1M?

The days of building your way out of congestion are over, If a road is improved it just encourages more cars to use it. If public transport is improved to help with the modal shift away from cars then road improvements may not be needed.

 

[Greenback]

There are more considerations than just speed of journey when choosing a mode of transport.

 

[A0]

It's an option that will get you to your destination, it may take longer than car but it's still a valid option.

The days of building your way out of congestion are over, If a road is improved it just encourages more cars to use it. If public transport is improved to help with the modal shift away from cars then road improvements may not be needed.

Some of the changes needed to the A1 are minimal - remove the roundabouts and make grade separated junctions for example - this would improve traffic flow and therefore capacity.

Simply burying your head in the sand and not adding capacity hasn't worked - after all it was the policy the last Labour government pursued and look where it's got us.
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There are more considerations than just speed of journey when choosing a mode of transport.

Quite - hence my comments about luggage and family in tow.

 

[Metroland]

Actually the Conservative government before scrapped a lot of road building too.

The problem with road transport energy consumption is the sheer scale of it, it's not very easy to just switch it over to non-oil based transport fuels. Rail is quite a minor consumer of primary energy, and some capacity improvements can be had quite cheaply - often simply adding coaches on trains.

However I do actually wonder if the road and air lobbies do hang about this forum, there are far too many far too keen on promoting other modes on a rail forum.

Actually we need a decent multi-modal solution, and just sometimes rail is better at going between A and B.

 

[A0]

Yes, I had a feeling that you would bring up hydrogen! Producing it, and producing it cheaply, may well be a bigger problem than building a car that runs on it.

Even if we suppose that a car running on hydrogen can be produced cheaply, is safe, and so is the fule that it runs on, that still doesn't mean that cars and lorries are going to be as prevalent as they are today.

It's comforting for all of us car owners to believe that we wills till have the indivudal freedom and flexibiltiy that the car gives us, but I think we have to look at this realistically.

OK - you've chosen to overlook my comment about technology, so let's give some worked examples.

Before 1950, nuclear power stations didn't exist. Now 60 years later they generate 15% of the world's electricity.

In 1950 the first jet powered passenger aircraft (the Comet) had flown a handful of times. It seated fewer than 50 people. Compare that with the Airbus A380 which can carry up to 850 and has far greater range than the Comet did.

In 1959 you could buy a new Ford Anglia 105 with a 1 litre engine which would have barely reached 60mph and probably did 30mpg. A new Focus with a 1.6 diesel engine will do double that speed and return c 50mpg.

In the 1960s Liquid Hydrogen was used to send man to the moon, now some 40 years later we're looking at using it to power cars.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Getting a cost effective way to produce hydrogen will be found and it will address many issues along the way.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Actually the Conservative government before scrapped a lot of road building too.

The problem with road transport energy consumption is the sheer scale of it, it's not very easy to just switch it over to non-oil based transport fuels. Rail is quite a minor consumer of primary energy, and some capacity improvements can be had quite cheaply - often simply adding coaches on trains.

However I do actually wonder if the road and air lobbies do hang about this forum, there are far too many far too keen on promoting other modes on a rail forum.

Actually we need a decent multi-modal solution, and just sometimes rail is better at going between A and B.

True - but the Conservative government suspended many schemes as there was an economic downturn in the early 1990s. Had they won in 1997 and enjoyed the economic boom Labour did, then some of those schemes would almost certainly have been resurrected.

I agree that for some journeys rail makes sense e.g. getting into London / Manchester. What I don't agree with is that you can force people to make change - they only resent it if you do - and that rail is the only solution.

And, as I've pointed out before, some journeys don't work particularly well on public transport and the investment needed to make them viable makes no practical sense.

As for the moving from oil-based to non-oil based. That could happen over 20 years once a viable energy source is on-stream. Your average family car has a life of circa 12 years / 150,000 miles. Commercial vehicles tend to have a shorter life. Now, that kind of changeover time is realistic and is comparable with the rail network's move from steam to diesel / electric in the 50s and 60s.

I can assure you I'm not a member of any particular transport lobby. I have an interest in all things engineering (from a personal interest point of view).

 

[Metroland]

If we can dream it doesn't mean we can do it, there's a hell of a lot of technical hurdles to overcome before we get truly beyond fossil fuels.

Depending which scientists you speak to, the biggest problem right now is overconsumption of just about every resource and decimation of the planet's eco systems - which support all life. Economists, with no scientific training, will tell you, this doesn't matter because we'll come up with the solutions. We may well do, but it's by no means guaranteed and we might have to scale back our mobility, as it's one of the biggest consumers of resources there is.

 

[A0]

If we can dream it doesn't mean we can do it, there's a hell of a lot of technical hurdles to overcome before we get truly beyond fossil fuels.

Depending which scientists you speak to, the biggest problem right now is overconsumption of just about every resource and decimation of the planet's eco systems - which support all life. Economists, with no scientific training, will tell you, this doesn't matter because we'll come up with the solutions. We may well do, but it's by no means guaranteed and we might have to scale back our mobility, as it's one of the biggest consumers of resources there is.

Well a better way forward would, somehow, to get the focus on the currently emerging economies such as China and India to develop lower energy consumption into their development. On current form anything either the US or Europe does to improve is being more than outweighed by the extra demands from emerging economies. That's not to say we do nothing, but it's pretty hard to fill a bucket with sand if somebody else keeps drilling holes in it.

 

[IanXC]

Does anyone know of a trial of a hydrogen powered train anywhere in the world? Strikes me that the particular advantages are plenty of space for the equipment (often described as a problem for cars) and, for a given service, only a small number of fueling points (also often described as a problem for cars).

 

[Greenback]

OK - you've chosen to overlook my comment about technology, so let's give some worked examples.

Before 1950, nuclear power stations didn't exist. Now 60 years later they generate 15% of the world's electricity.

In 1950 the first jet powered passenger aircraft (the Comet) had flown a handful of times. It seated fewer than 50 people. Compare that with the Airbus A380 which can carry up to 850 and has far greater range than the Comet did.

In 1959 you could buy a new Ford Anglia 105 with a 1 litre engine which would have barely reached 60mph and probably did 30mpg. A new Focus with a 1.6 diesel engine will do double that speed and return c 50mpg.

In the 1960s Liquid Hydrogen was used to send man to the moon, now some 40 years later we're looking at using it to power cars.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Getting a cost effective way to produce hydrogen will be found and it will address many issues along the way.

Your confidence is inspiring. Basically, you appear to be saying that it is bound to happen because we need it to.

True - but the Conservative government suspended many schemes as there was an economic downturn in the early 1990s. Had they won in 1997 and enjoyed the economic boom Labour did, then some of those schemes would almost certainly have been resurrected.

There is no way of knowing what they would have done.

I

agree that for some journeys rail makes sense e.g. getting into London / Manchester. What I don't agree with is that you can force people to make change - they only resent it if you do - and that rail is the only solution.

I agree. Rail is not the only solution. There will always be bicycles, horses, carts, and walking for local journeys. Oh, and a few cars for the super rich!

And, as I've pointed out before, some journeys don't work particularly well on public transport and the investment needed to make them viable makes no practical sense.

As for the moving from oil-based to non-oil based. That could happen over 20 years once a viable energy source is on-stream. Your average family car has a life of circa 12 years / 150,000 miles. Commercial vehicles tend to have a shorter life. Now, that kind of changeover time is realistic and is comparable with the rail network's move from steam to diesel / electric in the 50s and 60s.

Apart from the viable enrgy source argument, which we may just have to disagree about, what happens economically during that changevoer period? As fossil fuel prices go through the roof? The changeover may not be based entirely on when your car or lorry comes to the end of its life.

Still it's all irrelevant if the energy source can't be made to work in a way that is safe, affordable and practical.

If we can dream it doesn't mean we can do it, there's a hell of a lot of technical hurdles to overcome before we get truly beyond fossil fuels.

Quite. It's nice to see some realism!

The planet is over populated, and that is not something we can design, invent or build our way out of.

Well a better way forward would, somehow, to get the focus on the currently emerging economies such as China and India to develop lower energy consumption into their development. On current form anything either the US or Europe does to improve is being more than outweighed by the extra demands from emerging economies. That's not to say we do nothing, but it's pretty hard to fill a bucket with sand if somebody else keeps drilling holes in it.

I do believe that you are so desperate to find ways to continue our reliance on fossil fuels that you are proposing solutions that are about as likely as me finding gold in my garden just as Katy Perry walks past and says she is going to buy the house next door so that she can have a secret affair with me.

Seriously, it;s simple. Even if the world as a whole reduced it's consumption of fossil fuels by 25% immediately, it would make little difference to the main problem that thye will run out. Of course, the argument is linked to the assumption of where there's a will there's a way, in that it gives more time for the scientific breakthroughs to be made, which I am unsure will ever happen.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Can anyone remember what this thread was about?

 

[Buttsy]

As the Somerset and Dorset has been mentioned....

What do we think of Beeching? Given the facts that confronted him - that is, that BR was losing large and increasing amounts of money, and that the Government did not accept the idea that railways should receive a general subsidy (it took until the Transport Act of 68 for this to be accepted) - what sort of report SHOULD he have written?

Should he actually be seen as a defender of the railway for saying that it may be possible to run the system at a profit, by concentrating on inter city passenger, containers and bulk loads rather than saying that the railways were a hopeless case and should be converted to roads? In pure financial terms, might this have been a more logical conclusion?

This was the first post...

 

[Loggie]

No, you have to electrolyze the water first into hydrogen and oxygen. This process uses quite a lot of energy so hydrogen is not a good option.

So, it does run off, hydrogen ( after electrolysis), and water is a by-product.
With water one of the scarcest natural resources, and the most important after air, is there any sense in depleting it further? And what would be the long-term result of pumping billions of tons of extra oxygen into the atmosphere? Seems to me a less viable option than nuclear energy, which, properly managed, could fuel the power stations for electric trains...

To get back to the Beeching theme, he was chosen as the most draconian of several candidates precisely to wield the biggest axe possible. Railways in 1963 were grimy, dilapidated Victorian ( and pre-Victorian) concerns still largely steam operated and incapable of integrated innovation. Customer friendly they were not. Cars, like garlic bread, were the future.

 

[Zoe]

With water one of the scarcest natural resources

There isn't a shortage of water in general, it would not be sourced from drinking water.

 

[LE Greys]

There isn't a shortage of water in general, it would not be sourced from drinking water.

A lot easier to source it from seawater, just about the commonest substance on the face of the Earth. It would also contain a small minority of heavy water, which might be useful for nuclear fusion if you could extract the deuterium (one model of a fusion economy) but would produce a lot of by-products, including lots of sodium and chlorine. Still, both have industrial uses. There are a lot of other dissolved salts as well.

This strikes me as a good use for gas platforms on worked-out fields. Mount wind turbines on or wave generators around the platform, extract the hydrogen by electrolysis and send it ashore using the existing infrastructure. Cool it for cryogenic storage when onshore.

 

[yorksrob]

I agree that for some journeys rail makes sense e.g. getting into London / Manchester. What I don't agree with is that you can force people to make change - they only resent it if you do - and that rail is the only solution.

The motoring community would probably resent being forced to change their lifestyle, yet public transport users have been forced to change over and over again due to cutbacks of one sort or another.

 

[Greenback]

Motorists and public transport users ar enot necessarily mutually exclusive! We use car, train and bus depending on where we are going, for what purpose and at what time!

Using the ca ris becoming more and more expensive, although we have cut back from a petrol guzzler to a city type car which uses a lot less petrol, is much cheaper to tax/insure and easier to park!

If we want, or need, to encourage a shift away from car use, and I suggest it;s the latter, then we do need to make public transport more attractive to use, which is more diffcult than it should be due to the fragmented nature of the bus and rail industries.

 

[142094]

At the same time there are a lot of car drivers who subscribe to the thought that "if I don't use it I don't want to pay for it", and will still use their car no matter what. I'm sure there was a scheme in the Netherlands where for a time they introduced completely free travel and didn't have a high take up/modal shift from car to public transport.

IMO road pricing is the way to go - you pay for what you use where you use it.

 

[Greenback]

I am in favour of raod pricing replacing car tax, or whatever it is called! The main obstacle to introducing this is the fact that people would not trust the system. There is a widespread belief that anything that is changed or introduced is doen so purely to raise more tax revenue.

Whether that is actualyl true or not I don't know, but I can almost guarantee that there would be a furious media protest regarding the 'fact' that almost everyone will pay more under road pricing!

I'm not so concerned about pricing when I mention making public transport mor eattractive. I am thinking more of frequency, conenctions, and times of operation.

 

[Zoe]

There are privacy concerns with road pricing as all vehicles could be tracked. The other issue with road pricing is that some of the rich people that can afford to drive the cars with high CO2 emissions will just pay while poorer people will be forced off the road.

 

[Greenback]

It may well be that only the richest people will be able to afford to drive one day in any case.

I don't see a privacy problem with vehicle tracking myself. Would it not help to locate stolen cars?

 

[142094]

Privacy is a good point, although there will be ways around this. Not all forms of road pricing include something that has a car-based tracking device (e.g. it could follow the same example as the London Congestion Charge and have ANPR monitors).

As for those who would be rich enough to drive - monies raised would go towards subsidising public transport and offer both a disincentive to travel by car and a further incentive to travel by public transport.

 

[Zoe]

As for those who would be rich enough to drive - monies raised would go towards subsidising public transport and offer both a disincentive to travel by car and a further incentive to travel by public transport.

The issue here though is that as I say the people that drive the cars with some of the highest CO2 emissions will just pay extra and continue to drive them. Road pricing will not get them off the road and they will continue to drive these gas guzzlers that emit a lot of CO2. Road pricing is also not likely to be a very popular policy for any government.

 

[Greenback]

If CO2 emissions fall overall, isn;t that better though? People with money are always going to be able to do things that those without cannot, such as have a bigger carbon footprint through higher levels of air travel!

 

[Zoe]

If CO2 emissions fall overall, isn;t that better though? People with money are always going to be able to do things that those without cannot, such as have a bigger carbon footprint through higher levels of air travel!

So it's a great idea to force people that rely on their small cars off the road then and let the rich people drive their gas guzzlers on quiet roads all to themselves? If we want to reduce car usage then there needs to be a change in the way everything is done, moving shopping back into the town from out of town retain parks, running buses in the evening and on Sunday in most areas and also possibly reducing the need to travel in general. In London there is a congestion charge but this only covers the central area, the buses outside this area are well used even though there is no road pricing.

 

[radamfi]

I think it is assumed that CO2 emissions from cars will fall in the medium-long term due to electric cars replacing petrol cars and electricity production being converted away from fossil fuels. If that is the case then congestion will be the main issue with cars. That could in turn be remedied by automatic driven cars which would effectively make urban bus and car use irrelevant as automated taxis could be provided on demand at very low cost.

 

[Zoe]

That could in turn be remedied by automatic driven cars which would effectively make urban bus and car use irrelevant as automated taxis could be provided on demand at very low cost.

Yes, driverless cars would be a much more efficient use of resources as they wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing most of the time but are still not likely to be as efficient as a bus. Driverless cars would have much fewer accidents than cars do now so there is certainly a case for pressing ahead with this for safety reasons.

 

[radamfi]

Yes, driverless cars would be a much more efficient use of resources as they wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing most of the time but are still not likely to be as efficient as a bus.

Automated buses could substitute taxis depending on demand with people being picked up and dropped off along the way. No doubt there would still be a good case for continuing to provide fixed route transport on high demand corridors with automated taxis being used as feeders.

 

[Greenback]

So it's a great idea to force people that rely on their small cars off the road then and let the rich people drive their gas guzzlers on quiet roads all to themselves? If we want to reduce car usage then there needs to be a change in the way everything is done, moving shopping back into the town from out of town retain parks, running buses in the evening and on Sunday in most areas and also possibly reducing the need to travel in general. In London there is a congestion charge but this only covers the central area, the buses outside this area are well used even though there is no road pricing.

It depends on what objective there is in reducing car use. The thing about road pricing is that it can be tweaked in many ways.

For example, rural roads where there is low population density could be charged at a a much lower rate than those in towns and cities.

You could also tax heavy fuel users in other ways, such as through a surcharge whenever certain makes of vehicles are sold or bought.

The buses outside of the charging area are well used. This backs up my point about making public transport more attractive through frequent services, a wide ranging network and extended operating hours. Sadly, as we have discussed quite a few times, places outside London are not so well served.

 

[radamfi]

My fear about road pricing is that it will encourage rural living if quiet country roads are charged at low rates.