Is Leon The Only Fast-Food Restaurant, Where You Get Personal Service?
When I ordered my full English pot in Leon a few minutes ago, they were temporarily out. So the assistant told me to sit down and he brought it to me a couple of minutes later.
This regularly happens in Leon and it’s one of the reasons I go!
My Unusual Body
I say unusual, but I suspect there are others out there with similar problems to me.
I was delivered in 1947, by the almost exotically-named; Dr. Egerton White, who was the family GP. He had all the expected characteristics of a three-piece suit, a corporation, a long watch chain and the obligatory Rover car. He also had a rather unusual blotchy skin, that leads me to think he was probably of mixed race.
I was small in stature, not the healthiest of children and was always going to see him and his partner, a Doctor Curley!
- At times, I would cough my guts out for hours on end.
- Later I remember my mother saying to my future wife, that I had difficulty eating as a baby, and I would fall asleep as she fed me.
- Often I would spend three or four months away from school and I can remember spending hours with my head over a large jug of hot Friar’s Balsam.
- At one point, someone said it could be the lead in the paint in our house, so my father burnt it all off and replaced it.
- My mother used to make gallons of home-made lemonade according to one of Mrs. Beeton’s recipes, which must have helped, when I drunk it.
- Doctors White and Curley were puzzled and at one point prescribed the new-fangled drug penicillin.
- It should be remembered that in the 1950s, even in leafy Southgate, where we lived, the air was thick with the pollution from coal fires for a lot of the year.
In the end, one thing that helped was a nasal spray cooked-up by a pharmacist called Halliday. I can still smell it and suspect it was little more than the base chemical still used in some nasal sprays available from pharmacies.
Although my poor health persisted at times, I still managed to pass the 11-Plus and get to Minchenden Grammar School.
But I remember in the first year, I had virtually a term away.
From about ten or eleven, my health gradually improved.
I can suggest these reasons.
- Getting older helped in some way.
- I was exercising a lot more by cycling around, although it was up a hill to get home.
- My parents had bought a house in Felixstowe and we would spend weekends there. Although, as I got older I hated being away from my friends with little to do, so I tended to stay in and read.
In the 1960s, my health seemed to improve dramatically, when I spent three years at Liverpool University and a year afterwards working for ICI at Runcorn.
Liverpool is a Maritime City and in those days, the air was much better than London.
But I also got married in 1968 and I can never remember serious boughts of coughing, sneezing and breathing difficulties in the time Celia was alive.
Although, she did often say that before I went to sleep, I would always sneeze three times and sometimes she would even count them.
She also regularly said, that my sneezes were rather violent at times. They still are!
In the late nineties, I was diagnosed as a coeliac. Regularly, I’d go to the GP around the turn of the year with a general run-down feeling.
Nothing specific, but then an elderly locum decided I ought to have a blood test, which would be the first of my life!
The result was that I was very low in vitamin B12. As a series of injections didn’t improve the situation, I was sent to Addenbrooke’s Hospital for tests.
I was diagnosed as a coeliac, initially on a blood test and then by two endoscopies. Note that Addenbrooke’s used to do them without anaesthetic, as it means the patient can easily get into a better position and doesn’t break teeth. It also means that the hospital doesn’t have to provide as many beds for recovery. Certainly, I’ve had worse experiences with highly-capable dentists!
I thought this was the end of my health problems.
It certainly seemed to be, except for occasional breathing difficulties early in the year. I can remember having difficulty climbing Table Mountain.
My stroke was brought on by atrial fibrillation three years after Celia died.
It happened in Hong Kong and before it happened in the restaurant of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, I had had a walk and remember how well the air felt early in the morning in the City.
The doctors said I had had a serious stroke and I was kept in hospital for twelve weeks on the 29th floor of a hospital with the sun streaming through the windows.
I remember one incident, where I was accused of throwing my water away and not drinking enough, as I wasn’t urinating. But I was drinking, so they checked my waterworks thoroughly and put in a catheter. Nothing improved. Thankfully, eventually they gave up!
So where was all that water going?
Another curious thing in Hong Kong was that their automatic blood pressure machines sometimes didn’t work well on me in the morning. So they resorted to traditional devices and a stethoscope. Strangely, these blood pressure machines never fail these days.
After the stroke, I was put on long-term Warfarin and I have been told several times, that I if I get the dose right, I won’t have another stroke.
Now moved to London, I possibly made the mistake of moving to a house, which gets too hot.
One day I collapsed, panicked as I thought it was another stroke.
It wasn’t and UCLH thought that I needed to be put on Ramipril, Bisoprolol Fumarate and Spirolactone.
Since then another cardiologist has dropped the Spirolactone.
As I said my body is unusual in strange ways.
- If I have an injection or give a blood sample, I don’t bleed afterwards or need a plaster. With a new nurse, it often causes a bit of a laugh!
- My nose seems to be permanently blocked and I rarely am able to blow it properly.
- My feet don’t have any hard skin, which is probably unusual for my age.
- I used to suffer from plantar fasciitis, which seems to have been partly cured by the Body Shop’s hemp foot protector.
- I drink a large amount of fluids, with probably six mugs of tea and a litre of lemonade or beer every day.
- I always have a mug of decaffinated tea before I go to bed.
- I often have half-an-hour’s sleep in the middle of the day. As did my father!
- My eyes are very dry and I have a bath most mornings, where I put my head under the water and open my eyes.
Perhaps, the strangest incident was when I went to sleep on the floor after a lot of tea, with the window open.
I woke up to find I couldn’t see! There was nothing wrong with me, but my large living room was full of steam, like you’d get if you leave the kettle on.
I came to the conclusion after that incident, that the only place the water could have come, was through my skin.
This was also suggested by a nurse, who said he’d got leaky skin.
As someone, who understands physics, could this leaky skin be the cause of my problems?
And do the drugs make it worse?
My Grandfather
He died at forty, long before I was born.
He was an alcoholic, who eventually died of pneumonia.
Could his drinking like mine, have started because of a need for fluids?
I used to drink a lot of beer until I was about twenty-four, but my father had suffered so badly emotionally because of the death of his father, that he had instilled the right attitude to drink deep in my mind.
Conclusion
This has been a bit of a ramble!
Bombardier Transportation Consortium Preferred Bidder In $4.5B Cairo Monorail
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the Toronto Star.
This the first three paragraphs of the article.
Bombardier Transportation says its consortium has been named preferred bidder in a C$4.5 billion contract to build and supply a new monorail system in Egypt’s capital.
The company’s potential share of the design and build contract for the system in Cairo is C$1.8 billion with an operations and maintenance deal valued at about C$1.67 billion over 30 years.
The 54-kilometre monorail will connect East Cairo with the New Administrative City and a second 42-km line will connect 6th October City with Giza.
The railway division of Bombardier Inc. will deliver the project in partnership with two Egyptian companies Orascom Construction and the Arab Contractors with the trains being developed and built in Derby, Britain.
The article then mentions the Bombardier Innovia monorail.
- The latest Innovia 300 monorail is automated and driverless.
- These trains can travel at 80 kph
- They can handle 48,000 passengers per hour in both directions.
- The latest versions are manufactured in Brazil, Canada and China
- The latest versions are installed or planned in Brazil, China, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.
I think there must be more to this project than the article in the Toronto Star.
What Are The Strengths Of The Innovia 300 Monorail?
This is Bombardier’s video of the monorail.
It looks to be a well-designed system, that has several strengths.
- It is automated and driverless.
- Cars are short and the trains can take quite curves, with as low as a 46 metre radius.
- Trains can have up to eight cars. The Cairo trains will be four cars.
- The latest cars look stylish, with cab design not unlike an Aventra.
- The cars appear to be walkthrough.
- The track is a slender concrete beam with walkways on either side for passenger evacuation and maintenance.
- The tracks wouldn’t necessarily have to be elevated.
- Construction could be quicker than a conventional railway.
- It could also be built to travel over roads, railways, water and building, by placing the beam at the right height.
I would like to see one in operation, but Brazil is a long way, so I’ll stick with the video for the moment.
Why Develop And Build In Derby?
Why would a big company like Bombardier, with already three production lines for the monorail, want to setup another production line in Derby?
Bombardier say that the trains will also be developed in Derby.
Perhaps, some or all of these reasons apply.
- The cross-section of an Innovia 300 monorail car looks to be about the size of a British train.
- Can Derby’s manufacturing technology that has been used successfully to build Electrostar and Aventra bodies be applied to the Innovia monorail.
- Derby has good relations with a large number of appropriate suppliers in the UK and Europe.
- The new version will use the Aventra parts bin to cut development and manufacturing costs.
- Supporting the Egyptian system from Derby will not be difficult.
- Canada has better relations with the UK, than Brazil or China.
But even so, development could surely have been continued in Canada.
So Bombardier must have very good reasons!
Are Bombardier Proposing A Closely-Related Design For The Tyne And Wear Metro?
The current Class 994 trains of the Tyne and Wear Metro have the following dimensions.
- Width – 2.65 metres
- Height – 3.45 metres
- Car Length – 27.8 metres
- Train Length – 55.6 metres
The Class 710 train, which is an Aventra has the following dimensions.
- Width – 2.77 metres
- Height – 3.76 metres
So it would appear that the standard Aventra might be too large to fit the Metro, where Bombardier are approved bidders.
It does appear that Bombardier have designed the Aventra’s body from three aluminium extrusions, so these could be resized to fit the smaller dimensions of the Metro.
But looking at the video of the Innovia 300 monorail, I get the impression, that above the floor, the body might be almost the same size as that needed for the trains for the Metro.
So Bombardier would need to design an appropriate chassis, to replace that used for the monorail.
This could mean that the bodies on both trains could be identical.
- Four fifteen metre cars, would give a length of sixty metres.
- If longer trains are needed, then extra cars could be inserted up to a length of eight cars.
- The trains would be walk-through with lots of doors for easy exit according to the video.
- The four-car design would enable tight curves could be negotiated.
- There would surely be advantages in support and maintenance.
- Cabs could be provide for the driver if required.
I also believe that any new trains must have step-free access between train and platform. This picture shows a current train at South Shields station.
That is not bad for a system that opened forty years ago.
I would think that Bombardier will make the access better, when designing a new chassis from scratch.
But the big advantages of commonality between the Innovia monorail and the Metro cars, would be in the areas of support and expansion or lengthening of the fleet in the future.
What About The Docklands Light Railway?
The Docklands Light Railway like the Tyne and Wear Metro, is another one-off system, that is incompatible with most other rail systems in the UK.
The DLR is intending to replace the rolling stock and Bombardier has been shortlisted.
The current trains of the DLR have the following dimensions.
- Width – 2.65 metres
- Height – 3.47 metres
- Car Length – 28 metres
- Train Length – 56 metres
Give or take a few millimetres, they are almost the same size as the trains on the Tyne and Wear Metro.
Could we see similar trains on the Tyne and Wear Metro and the Docklands Light Railway?
Wikipedia says that the new DLR fleet will be 87 metres long, so could that mean six 14.5 metre cars?
A Possible Tram-Train?
Bombardier build trams and have supplied them to the UK.
The UK has just started to develop tram-train systems, with the South Wales Metro being developed in the next few years with Class 399 tram-trains.
If Bombardier use the concept, I’ve outlined here for the Tyne and Wear Metro and the Docklands Light Railway, I believe it is only a short development to get a tram-train, that could run in the UK
I’m sure that they could get it to work in Blackpool, where the company supplied their trams for the Blackpool tramway.
Are Bombardier Expecting Orders From Europe?
It was only in 2014, that the first Innovia 300 monorail route, Line 15 (São Paulo Metro), opened in Brazil.
But since then, have several Transport Authorities, City Councils and Governments visited Brazil to have a look?
Do Bombardier feel that they will be selling other systems in Europe?
If so, then Derby will be an excellent sales, development, production and support base.
Could We See Some Monorails In The UK?
If you look at the list of Bombardier Innovia systems on Wikipedia, there are several short systems at places like airports and theme parks and a few longer systems of which the Cairo system will be the longest.
I can see opportunities for the shorter distance systems.
- As a part of developments of Heathrow Airport’s third runway.
- As a part of the development of Gatwick Airport’s second runway.
- Linking Ebbsfleet International and Northfleet stations.
- Linking East Midlands Airport to East Midlands Parkway station.
- Linking the proposed Eden Centre at Morecambe with Lancaster station.
- Linking Bristol Airport to the City Centre
- Greenhithe station to the Bluewater shopping Centre.
- It could be a modern replacement for the Liverpool Overhead Railway.
There are probably other locations at stations, airports and theme parts, where Innovia monorail systems could be installed.
As to a longer system in the UK, the only one I can think off would be to link High Speed Two at East Midlands Hub station to Derby and Nottingham and perhaps East Midlands Airport.
But then that would then be a system on Derby’s doorstep.
Conclusion
There are possibilities and with a billion pound-plus order, the project could be on its way!
But surely, the big advantage to Bombardier is if they get the orders for the new trains for the Tyne and Wear Metro and the Docklands Light Railway, they can create trains with a lot of shared components for all three applications.
The two UK systems would get trains that weren’t totally unique, which must ease maintenance and future expansions of the respective systems.
CoolRail To Cut Carbon Footprint Of Fresh Food
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette International.
These first two paragraphs outline the plan.
Food logistics company Euro Pool System has launched a thrice-weekly CoolRail dedicated temperature-controlled service to transport fresh produce between Valencia in Spain and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
This is intended to be first route of planned network of CoolRail services which would link Spain with Germany, Scandinavia and the UK.
I can see this method of fresh food transportation growing, especially as CoolRail claim it is as fast as by road and cuts CO2 emissions by 70 to 90 %.
It also appears that the UK through the Channel Tunnel is in CoolRail’s plans.
Fish, Lamb And Beef To Europe
The obvious British export, that could use the service the other way to Europe is probably fish, as a large proportion of UK-landed fish goes to Europe at the present time.
This page on the Seafish web site, gives details about fish imports and exports.
Quality meat, like Welsh lamb and Scottish beef could also be sent to Europe, after being slaughtered in the UK.
What About Quality Food And Drink?
This page on the Scotch Whisky Association web site is entitled Scotch Whisky Exports On The Up in 2018.
This is two paragraphs from the page.
In 2018, the export value of Scotch Whisky grew +7.8% by value, to a record £4.70bn. The number of 70cl bottles exported also reached record levels growing to the equivalent of 1.28bn, up +3.6%.
The United States became the first billion pound export market for Scotch Whisky, growing to £1.04bn last year. The EU remains the largest region for exports, accounting for 30% of global value and 36% of global volume.
That means that Scotland exported to the EU, the equivalent of 461 million bottles of whisky, that is worth around £1.41billion.
A twenty-foot shipping container has a volume of 33.2 cubic metres., so with allowance for packaging, one could probably hold 33,200 bottles worth about £100,000.
To accommodate all Scotch Whisky exports to Europe on the 2018 figures, would need 14,000 containers per year or a very civilised thirty-eight containers a day.
Conclusion
There’s certainly a large market for food transport by rail across Europe and to the UK, some of which will be in containers with refrigeration and some without!
The Formation Of A Class 710 Train
This morning, I was able to look at the plates on all four cars of a Class 710 train.
Here is the formation of the train.
DMS+PMS(W)+MS1+DMS
The plates on the individual cars are as follows.
DMS – Driving Motored Standard
- Weight – 43.5 tonnes
- Length – 21.45 metres
- Width 2.78 metres
- Seats – 43
The two DMS cars would appear to be identical.
PMS 
-Pantograph Motored Standard
- Weight – 38.5 tonnes
- Length – 19.99 metres
- Width 2.78 metres
- Seats – 51
The signifies a wheelchair space.
MS1 – Motored Standard
- Weight – 32.3 tonnes
- Length – 19.99 metres
- Width 2.78 metres
- Seats – 52
It is similar in size to the PMS car, but has an extra seat.
These figures add up to the unit figures you would expect.
- Weight – 157.8 tonnes
- Length – 82.88 metres
- Seats – 189
But what else can be said?
All Cars Are Motored
All four cars are motored, which is not an arrangement seen very often in UK electrical multiple units.
- Most British Rail units like Class 317, 319 and 321 trains have only one motored car.
- Five-car Class 800 trains have two trailer cars and nine-car trains have four trailer cars.
- Eight-car Class 700 trains have four trailer cars and twelve-car trains have six trailer cars.
Class 345 trains which are also Aventras, have eight motored cars and only one trailer car.
I suspect that it is an arrangement that gives advantages, over the weight and cost of the extra motors.
Less Force Between Wheel And Rail
The tractive and braking force between the wheels and the rail will be less to get the same acceleration and deceleration, as the force will be divided between all traction motors and wheels.
Does applying the power at all wheels mean that the train accelerates and decelerates faster, thus cutting station dwell times?
Does this mean that wheel slip, which damages wheels and rails is less likely?
Are the lower power traction motors more reliable?
Can A Motored Car Be Changed Automatically To A Trailer Car?
Suppose a traction motor or its controlling system packs up, can the train’s central computer switch it out and effectively convert the errant motored car into a trailer car.
On a 710 train, that would mean a 25 % loss of power, but surely the train has sufficient power to be driven to the next station?
Equalisation Of Forces Between Cars
The forces between the four cars must be equal and possibly low at all times, as you have four identical individually-powered, computer-controlled vehicles moving in unison.
Does this give passengers a smoother ride?
Does it mean that walking between cars is an easier process?
I think so and I can only think of the problems of getting a four-person pantomine caterpillar working properly!
A Logical Way To Power A Train
Could it be that this is the logical way to power a train, but you need precise computer control of all cars to take full advantage?
It strikes me that getting it right could be a very difficult piece of computing, so has this been causing the delays for the Class 710 trains?
I don’t think we’ll know the answers to all my questions, until Bombardier publish a full authorised philosophy.
Twenty Metre Long Cars
British Rail designed a lot of trains to be eighty metres long give or take a metre. So there are a lot of platforms in the UK, that can accommodate an eighty-metre long train.
All of the London Overground routes, where these trains will run have platforms that can accommodate 80, 100 or 160 metre long trains.
So they could be run by a single train or two trains running together as appropriate without any expensive platform lengthening.
The Two Driving Cars Appear Identical
This must be logical.
Many older electrical multiple units have different driving cars.
Sod’s law states that one type will be less reliable than the other, so you’ll end up with a shortage of trains.
But if both driving cars are identical, you have much less of a problem.
What Will Be The Formation Of a Five-Car Class 710 Train?
If all cars are to be powered then it will be.
DMS+PMS(W)+MS1+MS2+DMS
MS2 and MS1 would be identical.
Would you really want to add a new trailer car into the fleet to complicate maintenance?
Why Are The Trains For The Lea Valley Lines Not Eight-Car Trains?
On the Lea Valley Lines, London Overground have said that they’ll generally run two four-car trains as an eight-car train.
In Latest On The New London Overground Class 710 Trains, I discussed the possibility of changing the order to a number of eight-car trains and felt there could be advantages.
- Higher passenger capacity in the same train length.
- An eight-car train would contain only two DMS cars instead of four.
- Trains could be built as two four-car half-trains, to improve reliability.
- Passengers would be able to walk the full length of the train.
Bombardier and London Overground must have analysed this and as they have more information than I do, they have come to a different conclusion.
Is there for instance, a safe procedure, that uses the operational train to transfer passengers to a safe place and then drag the failed train to appropriate parking?
- With an eight-car train, you’d have no operational train to take passengers to safety.
- With two four-car half-trains, as in Crossrail’s Class 345 trains, would you have other problems? But the Croosrail trains are designed for a long tunnel, with difficult evacuation problems.
There must be a very valid reason.
Conclusion
The Class 710 train has been well-designed and is not your normal suburban train.
Politics Just Got Even More Interesting!
I don’t know about politics, but I like to think I know about data and I have a long and deep memory.
We now have two immovable and possibly unstoppable forces on opposite sides, which have almost equal support.
- Those that want to leave the European Union without a deal.
- Those that want to remain in the European Union.
They are irreconcilable positions.
I remember an acrimonious takeover attempt by Imperial Chemical Industries for Courtaulds in the 1960s. Not so much, at the time but because I later worked for ICI and became friends with a guy, who had worked for British Nylon Spinners at Pontypool.
Later I became aware of Frank Kearton and his part in the stopping of the takeover.
At the time he was the Engineering Director of Courtaulds. In a Press Conference, the CEO of Courtaulds was floundering and giving a rather bad impression. A question was asked and Frank Kearton stepped in and answered it so well, he took over the Press Conference.
He became CEO and the takeover was defeated. Kearton went on to have a respected career.
I may have remember the story wrong and I suspect it’s Kearton’s version, that I’m repeating.
In the UK are in a similar position to Courtaulds in the sixties. Both major parties are almost leaderless and none of those at the top of the Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties are better than the average run-of-the-mill MPs, who generally do a good job.
We need someone to step forward to unite this country and sort out the mess.
Will he or she be one of the following?
- Jeremy Corbyn – Anybody that far left and over seventy would be unacceptable to well over half of the population.
- Boris Johnson – You might employ him as a salesman, but you wouldn’t employ him in any management position.
- Vince Cable – Too old and he’s sensible enough to know it.
- The herd of Tory leadership candidates – Perhaps one might have the qualities, and they would need to show amazing style, intelligence and oratory to even get on the final ballot.
- Nigel Farage – The other side believe he’s the cause of the problem, so wouldn’t follow him.
- Caroline Lucas – Green policies are anathema to perhaps seventy percent of the country, who still fly too much and don’t buy zero-emission cars?
We need someone with amazing qualities to step out of the shadows, just as Frank Kearton did at Courtaulds.
Conclusion
I’ve put a small bet on my choice for the next Tory Leader and Prime Minister.
Are Attitudes To Cars Changing?
There were two articles on the same page of yesterday’s Times.
City Steps Up Safety Drive With 15mph Limit
This is the first paragraph.
A blanket speed limit of 15 mph will be introduced in the City of London as part of a safety drive.
They are intending to have the limit in place by 2021-22!
Hopefully, in that time, these rail projects will be finished and discouraging the use of vehicular traffic.
- Crossrail
- The capacity increase at Bank station.
- New trains and faster suburban services into Cannon Street, Liverpool Street, London Bridge and Moorgate stations.
- Frequency improvements on the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Lines.
- Better cycling and walking routes.
The City of London wants to attract more visitors and these projects and the speed limit will surely help.
Travellers Who Arrive Ar Heathrow By Car Face Pollution Charge
This is the first paragraph.
Motorists will be charged up to £15 to drive to Heathrow under plans to combat congestion and pollution around London’s busiest airport.
Heathrow’s Chief Executive, is quoted as saying.
Three or four years ago the general mood was of opposition. The mood has changed hugely.
I believe that Hathrow can cut its carbon and pollution footprints significantly, by the following.
- Making all air-side vehicles zero-carbon.
- Increasingly the rail lines and services to the Airport.
- Encouraging passengers and workers to go to and from the Airport by zero-carbon transport.
I also think, that an Airport, that marketed itself as No Addition Carbon, could attract more passengers.
What Is The Kinetic Energy Of A Class 710 Train?
I finally got a good look at a Class 710 train at Gospel Oak station this morning.
The picture shows the plate on the end of a DMS car.
- The weight of the train is 157.8 tonnes. Note that the four-car Class 378 trains weigh 172.1 tonnes.
- 700 passengers at 90 Kg each with baggage, bikes and buggies would be 63 tonnes.
- That would be a total weight of 220.8 tonnes.
- The operating speed is shown as 75 mph., which is the same as the Class 315 train, that many Class 710 trains will replace.
Using the Omni Kinetic Energy Calculator gives a kinetic energy of 34.5 kWh.
For completeness these are the figures for different speeds.
- 50 mph – 15.3 kWh
- 60 mph – 22.1 kWh
- 90 mph – 49.4 kWh – Operating speed of a Crossrail Class 345 train.
- 100 mph – 61.3 kWh – Operating speed of many electric multiple units.
Note that the amount of energy is proportional to the square of the speed.
What Do The Kinetic Energy Figures Show?
These are a few of my thoughts.
What Is Regenerative Braking?
A full Class 710 is travelling along at 75 mph, ihas 34.5 kWh of kinetic energy. Whenit needs to stop at a station, this energy has to be dissipated.
With normal friction brakes, the energy will be converted into heat and wasted.
But with regenerative braking, the traction motors are used in reverse to generate electricity.
This electricity is generally handled in one of three ways.
- It is passed through resistors on the roof of the train and turned into heat and wasted.
- It is fed back into the electrification and used by nearby trains. This needs special transformers feeding the electrification.
- It is stored in a battery or other energy storage device on the train.
The last method is the most efficient, as the stored energy can be used to help restart the train and regain line speed.
Can The Lea Valley Lines Electrification Handle Regenerative Braking?
This question must be asked, as if the lines can’t then running trains with batteries could be the best way to handle regenerative braking and improve efficiency and reduce the electricity bill.
It should be noted, that the Chingford and Enfield Town routes are not shared with any other trains, so running Class 710 trains on these routes may have advatages in the maintenance of the electrification, if the trains handle the regenerative braking.
On the Cheshunt route, there are also some Greater Anglia services, but these will generally be run by Class 720 trains, which are also Aventras.
On the other hand, the electrification on the Gospel Oak to Barking Line has probably been installed to handle the reverse currents.
Do Class 710 Trains Have Regenerative Braking?
Search the Internet for “Class 710 train regenerative braking” and you find little in addition to my ramblings.
But other Aventras, like Crossrail’s Class 345 trains have been stated to have regenerative braking.
I also repeated my views in an article in Rail Magazine, which I described in I’ve Been Published In Rail Magazine.
No-one has told me that they disagree with my views and I was talking rubbish!
So I will assume that Class 710 trains do have regenerative braking!
The Aventra’s Electrical Systems
In this article in Global Rail News from 2011, which is entitled Bombardier’s AVENTRA – A new era in train performance, gives some details of the Aventra’s electrical systems. This is said.
AVENTRA can run on both 25kV AC and 750V DC power – the high-efficiency transformers being another area where a heavier component was chosen because, in the long term, it’s cheaper to run. Pairs of cars will run off a common power bus with a converter on one car powering both. The other car can be fitted with power storage devices such as super-capacitors or Lithium-ion batteries if required.
This was published eight years ago, so I suspect Bombardier have refined the concept.
But even in 2011, Bombardier were thinking about energy storage on the train.
How Much Storage Would A Class 710 Train Need?
As I said earlier, I train would need sufficient energy storage to store the kinetic energy of a train.
As my calculations show that a full train travelling at the maximum speed of 75 mph, then the energy storage for this version of a Class 710 train must be able to store at least 34.5 kWh, at all times.
The size of the on board energy storage could be around 40-50 kWh, which is readily available in a lithium ion battery, that has been designed for transport use.
Where Would The Energy Storage Be Placed?
The extract above says that two cars hold the electrical systems.
These pictures show the pantograph car and driver car next to it.
Note that underneath the pantograph car is a transformer.
So are these, the pair of cars, the extract describes? They certainly could be!
This is a selection of pictures of the underneath of the driver car.
Note.
- There are two large boxes with latches under both driver cars.
- Next to these boxes is a smaller box. At the pantograph end of the train, it is open and looks like a cooling system for the two boxes
- At the other end of the train, the smaller box appears to have a blanking plate, so perhaps the boxes are empty.
The only sensible use I can think of for the boxesis to store the batteries or capacitors.
I
I would estimate that each of the four large boxes.
- Is about a metre wide.
- Is about 0.3 metres high.
- Is sized to fit within the 2.7 metre width of the train. Perhaps 2.5 metres.
These give a column of 0.75 cubic metres.
Bombardier used to manufacture a Primove 50 kWh battery, which was built to power trams and trains, that had the following characteristics.
- A weight of under a tonne.
- Dimensions of under two x one x half metres.
Were these boxes under the floor of the driver cabs of the Class 710 train designed to hold a Primove 50 kWh or similar battery?
Four batteries could give the train as much as 200 kWh of energy storage.
But surely for trundling along the Gospel Oak to Barking Line. a smaller battery capacity would be sufficient. I suspect that you fill the boxes with how many batteries you need and the computer does the rest.
Perhaps, just one 50 kWh battery would be enough! This could explain, why the cooling system appears to be blanked off at one end of the train.
Could The Batteries Be Used To Power The Class 710 Train?
In an article in the October 2017 Edition of Modern Railways, which is entitled Celling England By The Pound, Ian Walmsley says this in relation to trains running on the Uckfield Branch, which is not very challenging.
A modern EMU needs between 3 and 5 kWh per vehicle mile for this sort of service.
So a 50 kWh bsttery would give the following ranges with these consumption rates for a four-car Class 710 trains.
- 3 kWh – 4.2 miles
- 4 kWh – 3.1 miles
- 5 kWh – 2.5 miles
It looks to me, that battery power would be possible over the extension to Barking Riverside station, which is about a mile long.
Battery power would also other uses.
- Moving the train to a safe place for passenger evacuation, when the overhead electrification fails.
- Moving the train in a depot or sidings, without overhead power.
- Running innovative on-board services for maintenance and train preparation, when the train is parked overnight.
Reliable battery power has a lot of uses on a train.
West London Orbital Railway
The West London Orbital Railway would have less than ten miles of lines without electrification, with several electrified miles on either side.
I believe that Class 710 trains with the right amount of batteries could bridge the gap and make a massive difference to rail transport in North and West London.
I think that jumping a gap of a few miles on battery power, may well be easier than doing an Out-and-Back service..
A Flexible System
As it appears, each Class 710 train has got four battery boxes, I suspect that batteries can be installed as to the needs of the route.
- Standard operation on Gospel Oak to Barking, Watford DC Lines and Lea Valley Lines could be one or two batteries to handle regenerative braking.
- Out-and-Back to Barking Riverside station ,might need two batteries.
- West London Orbital services might need three or four batteries.
These battery boxes also could be designed to allow an easy and quick change of battery, as batteries on buses have given Transport for London trouble in the past.
Conclusion
Bombardier’s design of the Aventra has been designed with battery operation in mind, which opens up lots of possibilities!
And Then There Were Three!
This morning, I went to Gospel Oak station to look at what was running on the Gospel Oak to Barking Line.
I’d just watched two Class 710 and two Class 378 trains run the 10:10, 10:35, 10:50 and 11:05 trains to Barking, when another Class 710 train come through, by-passing Platform 3 and going straight on towards Barking.
So that must mean there’s at least a third Class 710 train, either being tested, training drivers or accumulating mileage.
Checking on Real Time Trains, it appears that the train passed Gospel Oak station at 11:11 and then ran all the way to Barking station, where it arrived at 11:53, which would have been the time that the missing 11:20 train would have arrived in Barking.
I can’t find any trains disappearing, but it looks like a train joined the service in the missing 11:20 slot and another train disappears back to Willesden Depot, thus creating a slot for another train.
The outcome is the following.
- Passengers seem to be getting at least three trains in every hour in each direction.
- London Overground have at least two and possibly three Class 710 trains running between Gospel Oak and Barking.
Baldrick would be proud!
The Anonymous Widower 