New Facility To Power Liverpool’s Buses With Hydrogen
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Air Quality News.
These are the first three paragraphs.
Arcola Energy will build a facility to develop hydrogen and fuel cell technology for buses near Liverpool.
The company has secured 15,000 sq. ft of newly-built premises in Knowsley which will house the company’s manufacturing, installation and maintenance facilities.
The manufacturing area of the new site will be used to produce and install hydrogen fuel systems into a fleet of double-decker buses for the Liverpool City Region, after the city region was awarded £6.4m for the project by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles.
The article says this about the design of the buses.
The buses have been developed through a partnership between Arcola and Alexander Dennis, the world’s largest double-decker bus manufacturer.
Arcola Energy‘s Head Office is just round the corner from where I live, by the Arcola Theatre in Dalston.
Could London Get A New Tube Line Between Canary Wharf And Euston?
The title of this post is the same as that as this article on CityMetric.
The article makes some interesting points.
- The line has been proposed by the owners of Canary Wharf.
- Getting to Canary Wharf from Euston, Kings Cross and St. Pancras is difficult.
- Property developers have always decided where London’s railways go.
- The plan would seem to have just one intermediate stop at Blackfriars station.
These new or improved services will be happening in the next ten years.
- More and faster services to/from the Midlands and the North West at Euston.
- High Speed Two services at Euston
- More and faster services to/from the East Midlands and Sheffield at St. Pancras.
- More Continental services at St. Pancras
- More and faster services to/from Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland at Kings Cross.
These lead me to the conclusion, that a new rail link is needed across London.
A Possible Western Extension To The Docklands Light Railway
In A Connection Between City Thameslink Station And The Docklands Light Railway, I wrote about a possible Western extension of the Docklands Light Railway.
his map from Transport for London, shows this possible Western extension of the DLR.
This was my analysis.
With all the problems of the funding of Crossrail 2, that I wrote about in Crossrail 2 Review Prompts Fresh Delays, could this extension of the DLR, be a good idea?
Consider,
- Victoria, Euston and St. Pancras are prosposed Crossrail 2 stations.
- It would link Canary Wharf and the City of London to Eurostar, Northern and Scottish services and High Speed 2.
- It would give all of the Docklands Light Railway network access to Thameslink.
- A pair of well-designed termini at Euston and St. Panras would probably increase frequency and capacity on the Bank branch of the system.
- The DLR is getting new higher capacity trains.
- Bank station is being upgraded with forty percent more passenger capacity.
- Holborn station is being upgraded and hopefully will be future-proofed for this extension.
- One big advantage at City Thameslink, is that Thameslink and the proposed DLR extension will cross at right-angles, thus probably making designing a good step-free interchange easier.
- The Bank Branch of the DLR currently handles 15 tph, but could probably handle more, if they went on to two terminal stations at St Pancras and Victoria..
- Waterloo and City Line can run at twenty-four tph.
Cinderella she may be, but then she always delivers, when there is a desperate need, just as she did magnificently at the 2012 Olympics.
The only problem with this extension of the DLR, is that compared to the rest of the system, the views will be terrible.
For myself and all the others living along the East London Line, with a step-free change at Shadwell, we would get excellent access to Euston, Saint Pancras and Victoria
But could the line still be called the Docklands Light Railway, as it spreads its tentacles further?
Will Cinderella come to the help of Canary Wharf for a second time?
I remember, when the Lewisham extension of the DLR was built without fuss, fanfare and cost and time overruns a couple of decades ago.
It was a triumph of sensible engineering.
The Anonymous Widower 