125 mph Upgrade For MML OLE South Of Bedford
The title of this post, is the same as that of an article in the June 2023 Edition of Modern Railways.
This is the sub-heading.
Targeted Investment Benefits From Project SPEED Approach
The main objective was to upgrade the 1980s electrification between Bedford and St. Pancras, so that it could support 125 mph running by East Midlands Railway’s new Class 810 trains.
Originally, a total replacement was envisaged, but in the end a more selective approach will be carried out.
This paragraph indicates the benefits of the approach.
The proposal for wholesale replacement of the OLE South of Bedford would have cost several hundreds of millions of pounds, whereas the approved scheme comes in at just £84 million, around one-third of the previous cost – testament to the application of SPEED principles.
I have a couple of thoughts.
Network Rail’s Project Management
If I go back to the 1970s and 1980s, when we were developing and selling the project management system; Artemis to the world, we sold very few systems to the UK Government and none to British Rail or the NHS. Later Artemis was used on the Channel Tunnel and the Rail Link to London, the Jubilee Line Extension, sections of the Docklands Light Railway and railways in Australia and Hong Kong.
So it is good to see, Network Rail getting to grips with managing the electrification upgrade of the Midland Main Line with some good project management.
An Encounter With A Group Of Drivers
It might have been five years ago, when I travelled with a group of drivers from East Midlands Trains positioning to St. Pancras.
- One of the observations they had was that the Class 700 trains coming into service were not fast enough as they were only 100 mph trains, whereas their Class 222 trains were capable of 125 mph.
- Since then the Class 360 trains have been introduced on Corby services. These trains have been uprated from 100 to 110 mph.
- We now have the situation, where Class 810 trains capable of running at 125 mph will replace the Class 222 train.
If you look at the traffic at West Hampstead Thameslink station, you can see that Both Thameslink and East Midlands Railway are using the fast lines, through platforms 3 and 4.
The fast lines have a maximum speed of 125 mph North of Luton and generally 100-110 mph between Luton and West Hampstead Thameslink station.
Would it help the timetabling of services on the Midland Main Line, if the Thameslink services were capable of running faster, when they were using the fast lines?
I feel the drivers may have a point.
Industry Calls For 10 GW Of Offshore Hydrogen In German National H2 Strategy
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Offshore wind and hydrogen developers and organisations in Germany have called on the federal government to set clear targets for offshore hydrogen in the update of the country’s National Hydrogen Strategy, with an additional 10 GW of offshore electrolysis capacity to be added by 2035.
These two paragraphs add detail the story and name those who are behind it.
On 26 May, several companies and industry organisations signed an appeal sent to the German Federal Government that highlights offshore hydrogen’s advantage of adding large-scale capacities and asks that a target of an additional 10 GW of offshore hydrogen by 2035 be added to both the country’s hydrogen strategy and the area development plan.
The parties that signed the appeal include the German offshore wind-to-hydrogen initiative AquaVentus, offshore wind and hydrogen players BP, Siemens Gamesa, Gasunie, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), EnBW, Equinor, and Lhyfe, as well as industry organisations WAB and the Federal Association of Offshore Wind Farm Operators (BWO), among others.
These two paragraphs describe an area to be developed for the first offshore hydrogen production.
As reported in January, in the country’s new area development plan for offshore wind, Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) also outlined the first offshore hydrogen area in the North Sea.
The area, SEN-1, spans over 100 square kilometres in the North Sea and will allow for an electrolysis capacity of up to 1 GW to be tested and connected with a hydrogen pipeline.
Note.
- 1 GW if electricity should create about 435 tonnes of hydrogen per day.
- That amount of hydrogen could be stored as liquid in a sphere with a radius of 11.35 metres.
Bonus For GPs If Patients Join Drug Trials In Plan To Lure Firms To NHS
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
£650m boost for medical research after number of participants slumps
These three paragraphs outline what is to be done.
Tens of thousands more patients will be signed up for clinical trials as ministers promise drug companies better access to the NHS to expand the economy and develop cutting-edge treatments.
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is promising a £650 million package to boost life sciences as he attempts to lure pharmaceutical giants to Britain.
GPs will be offered financial incentives to recruit patients into trials of new treatments and hospitals will be given research targets under plans to reverse a slump in clinical testing while the NHS struggles with the backlog from Covid-19.
It all sounds good to me.
I have been involved in several trials and medical research projects.
- As part of my coeliac disease diagnosis, one endoscopy was performed by Rebecca Fitzgerald at Cambridge, as she was taking samples of bile fluids for her research into Barrett’s esophagus.
- After the death of my wife, I was interviewed by PhD students in the Psychology Department at Liverpool University for their research into widowhood.
- Oxford University interviewed me on diet for their coeliac disease research.
- After my stroke, I spent an entertaining afternoon at the University of East London doing balance tests by computer. Their aim was to develop a reliable balance test for stroke and other patients, that could be carried out by physiotherapists quickly, than by more expensive doctors.
- I have also been on a drug trial at Queen Mary University, but that drug was useless and had no good or bad affects, so the trial was halted. However, it did lead to other enjoyable activities in the field of patient relations with treatment and research.
As a confirmed coward, I should note that with the exception of the drug trial, all of the other projects were low risk.
I should say, that I also sponsor pancreatic cancer research at Liverpool University, in memory of my son, who died from the disease. I wrote about the first Liverpool project in There’s More To Liverpool Than Football And The Beatles!.
A Database Of Projects Open For Volunteers
I believe that this is needed, so that those like me, who like to contribute to research can volunteer.
Perhaps some of the £650 million, that has been promised by Jeremy Hunt, could be used to create the database.
I also believe the database could be used for other non-medical research.
The Anonymous Widower 