Coal, for use on steam hauled heritage railways - merged posts

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

There are alternatives to flying or driving for leisure.
Either holiday in those parts of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and the nearer parts of Europe that can be reached by surface public transport, or stay at home.

With respect, I sometimes question whether you live in the real world.

Notwithstanding that there is more to "driving for leisure" than just holidays, Let's explore your suggestion and just take two popular areas as an example. Approximately 2 million people visit Cornwall each summer, and almost 16 million visit the Lake District annually.

How would you suggest that volume of people travel using "surface public transport"?

Or perhaps they should "stay at home", and consider the effect that will have on the economy of the areas concerned?

[broadgage]

Travel by train to Cornwall is a challenge at the moment due to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) being stuck in covid mode/cracked train mode, and the ongoing staff shortages.

However this wont last forever, and a reliable service of full length trains will presumably return.

Of the two million whom holiday in Cornwall, a reasonable estimate might be that half of these are in the ten week summer holiday season, with the remainder at other times of year.

One million in ten weeks is 100,000 a week, or just over 100 full length IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train), say about 15 trains a day. Certainly doable with more rolling stock and longer trains.

Even I do not expect ALL those who drive to suddenly change to rail. But I expect a gradual shift from road to rail. With rail improvements to match the increased demand.
A reasonable forecast for the medium term might be that of those driving to Cornwall, one third carry on as normal, another third adopt electric cars, and the other third go by train. 5 or 6 full length trains a day.

[IndustryInsider]

Of the two million whom holiday in Cornwall, a reasonable estimate might be that half of these are in the ten week summer holiday season, with the remainder at other times of year.

One million in ten weeks is 100,000 a week, or just over 100 full length IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train), say about 15 trains a day. Certainly doable with more rolling stock and longer trains.

Couple of questions…

How do your maths work out if:

1)  There’s actually at least 4-5 million visitors to Cornwall each year, as I seem to be finding in search engine results?

2)  You include passengers on Cornish bound trains who are not visiting Cornwall?  For example the many millions (10m+?) who visit Devon or Somerset but whom travel on the same trains?

[broadgage]

Restore to use the extended platform one at Paddington, formerly used for motorail.
Run from this platform a 9+9 IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train)* once an hour.
Run fast to Taunton which has a very long platform. Divide at Taunton.
Front portion fast to Plymouth, then popular stations to Penzance. Rear portion popular station to Plymouth and terminate there. Or some other combination as best meets passenger demand.

That would provide an extra dozen trains a day, in capacity terms, but take up no more paths in the congested London area.

*Or some better alternative but of similar length.

[eightonedee]

....and the relevance of today's posts on this thread to its subject matter (The End of Coal) is.....?!

[TaplowGreen]

Restore to use the extended platform one at Paddington, formerly used for motorail.
Run from this platform a 9+9 IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train)* once an hour.
Run fast to Taunton which has a very long platform. Divide at Taunton.
Front portion fast to Plymouth, then popular stations to Penzance. Rear portion popular station to Plymouth and terminate there. Or some other combination as best meets passenger demand.

That would provide an extra dozen trains a day, in capacity terms, but take up no more paths in the congested London area.

*Or some better alternative but of similar length.

Well, I'm glad that's that all sorted out!

Is someone going to mention it to Mark Hopwood?

[IndustryInsider]

Restore to use the extended platform one at Paddington, formerly used for motorail.
Run from this platform a 9+9 IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train)* once an hour.
Run fast to Taunton which has a very long platform. Divide at Taunton.
Front portion fast to Plymouth, then popular stations to Penzance. Rear portion popular station to Plymouth and terminate there. Or some other combination as best meets passenger demand.

That would provide an extra dozen trains a day, in capacity terms, but take up no more paths in the congested London area.

*Or some better alternative but of similar length.

Well, I'm glad that's that all sorted out!

Is someone going to mention it to Mark Hopwood?

What’s not to like? 

Well, apart from axing all direct trains between Reading and The West Country.  The logistics of the super length platform at either Paddington or Taunton being out of action for some reason.  The fact that leisure travellers generally want to travel at sociable times of the day with a heavy bias to certain days of the week.  The fact that all these extra passengers persuaded to travel by train instead of car will then need public transport to get them to and from wherever they are staying and to and from the attractions they wish to visit whilst there.

Oh, and not to mention furious potential Pullman customers who board the train and find themselves 18 carriages away from the restaurant.

[Lee]

Oh, and not to mention furious potential Pullman customers who board the train and find themselves 18 carriages away from the restaurant.

No problem, we could provide a trolley for them instead.

[Bmblbzzz]

Absolutely agree re motor racing by the way, an obscenely expensive waste of resources and damage to the  environment - put them in pedal cars and give them 75 laps of the Magic Roundabout in Swindon instead, it'd be fantastic entertainment!!! 

That would be a brilliant thing to watch!

[TonyK]

There are alternatives to flying or driving for leisure.
Either holiday in those parts of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and the nearer parts of Europe that can be reached by surface public transport, or stay at home.

With respect, I sometimes question whether you live in the real world.

I don't always. 

[grahame]

I have split the following post into a new thread - far too important a topic to hide within another topic.  See http://www.passenger.chat/25216

Having wandered off the subject of coal, the general gist of this thread seems to be that the railway, in its current form, is woefully inadequate to be more than a marginal substitute for road traffic and other transport modes that are making various parts of the world rather uncomfortable.

I get a similar message from others setting rail policy or running the railway.

Is it time to retire?

[TaplowGreen]

Absolutely agree re motor racing by the way, an obscenely expensive waste of resources and damage to the  environment - put them in pedal cars and give them 75 laps of the Magic Roundabout in Swindon instead, it'd be fantastic entertainment!!! 

That would be a brilliant thing to watch!

A great deal more entertaining than F1 too!

[TonyK]

I read in yesterday's (behind paywall) newspaper that the noted environmentally alert companies Shell and BP^» (Beyond Petroleum (Former name - British Petroleum) - home page) are amongst others queuing for a government handout, to fund further research into making carbon capture and storage into something more useful than the current PowerPoint presentation. The plan seems to be to burn lots more coal, oil and gas, remove the resultant carbon dioxide from the exhaust using witchcraft*, and pump it into holes under the North Sea, helping to force more oil out in the process. Whether, following an earthquake, the North Sea will be renamed the Fizzy Sea is not discussed. There is definitely free money for oil companies, though. I reckon coal could yet continue nice and safely if the heritage rail operators can get in on the act, maybe via sponsorship?

(*Or some form of osmosis or adsorption etc, which are pretty much the same thing as witchcraft. I'm no expert.)

[stuving]

I read in yesterday's (behind paywall) newspaper that the noted environmentally alert companies Shell and BP^» (Beyond Petroleum (Former name - British Petroleum) - home page) are amongst others queuing for a government handout, to fund further research into making carbon capture and storage into something more useful than the current PowerPoint presentation. The plan seems to be to burn lots more coal, oil and gas, remove the resultant carbon dioxide from the exhaust using witchcraft*, and pump it into holes under the North Sea, helping to force more oil out in the process. Whether, following an earthquake, the North Sea will be renamed the Fizzy Sea is not discussed. There is definitely free money for oil companies, though. I reckon coal could yet continue nice and safely if the heritage rail operators can get in on the act, maybe via sponsorship?

(*Or some form of osmosis or adsorption etc, which are pretty much the same thing as witchcraft. I'm no expert.)

I read that too - but got some different facts out of it. Firstly, it's not using an oilfield, current or retired. They are further north, and while there are old gas fields, they are not trusted for long-term reuse due to having many old wells of dubious seal reliability. The Endurance formation is a saline aquifer - so what gets displaced is sea water. The CO₂ also dissolves, but as all this happens inside solid, but porous, rocks it's hard to get your head around (unless you have a geologist's head).

The "CCUS cluster sequencing process" isn't R&D (Innovate UK^▸ (United Kingdom) has already been funding that), it's for full scale deployment by 2025-ish. The companies claim "full scale" means half the country's industrial CO₂ output, and building a pipeline network for collection. The original CO₂ source that called for such a big sink was the planned blue hydrogen project on Teesside, but most of the rest already exist. "New power stations" are also mentioned, but may ones planned to be built anyway.

This sort of thing is all temporary and transitional towards true sustainability, of course, though on a timescale of many decades. Here's an industry page (from Upstream) with more details, dating from when the consortium was formed.

[johnneyw]

I couldn't resist putting this link here rather than on a perhaps more relevant thread but feel free to move it if it seems more appropriate.

It may be the "End of Coal" power as we once knew it but it might be the beginning of coal mines as a source of low carbon energy.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210706-how-flooded-coal-mines-could-heat-homes