Rail Solar Project Seen As Stepping Stone For Renewables
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Engineering & Technology.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A British solar power company is working on technology that could enable railways all over the world to be powered by renewable energy, with South Wales seen as a likely testbed for the equipment.
Riding Sunbeams is developing its technology to see if it can be part of the electrification of the South Wales Metro.
Some relevant points from the article.
- Their test installation at Aldershot, which is rated at 37 kW, is quite small.
- The Aldershot system is already delivering power to trains.
- The Welsh Government are aiming for the South Wales Metro to be powered by renewable energy, of which 50 % is generated in Wales.
- There could be export possibilities for the technology.
Note that the article gives an interesting insight into the various equipment needed to power railway electrification.
Manchester Piccadilly ‘Super Hub’ Proposed
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
This is the introductory sentence.
A Manchester Piccadilly ‘super hub’ has been proposed as part of the High Speed North rail project.
And these two paragraphs lay out the proposed design.
To create the super hub, the report suggests a new tunnel from Ordsall into Manchester Piccadilly from the west, which could connect to High Speed 2 (HS2) and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR).
Fast trains from Chester and North Wales, Liverpool, Blackpool, Barrow and Glasgow could travel through the super hub with services emerging eastwards and across the Pennines to Leeds/Bradford, Sheffield, Hull, York and Newcastle.
Five years ago, I wrote Whither HS2 And HS3?, which argued for greater integration of the two routes and more tunnelled stations under major cities to build High Speed Two and Northern Powerhouse Rail with less disruption.
Part of that post was deliberately over the top, but it seems that others have been thinking in a similar way.
Last year, I wrote Changes Signalled For HS2 Route In North, which was an attempt to add detail to this report on the Transport for the North web site, which is entitled At A Glance – Northern Powerhouse Rail.
The proposed Manchester Piccadilly ‘Super Hub’ fits very well with the Transport for the North report.
- The station, could have entrances and exits were all over Manchester City Centre
- The main platforms could be long East-West through platforms, that would have direct tunnelled approaches from both directions.
- There could also be terminating platforms to take services from North Wales, Blackpool, Barrow and Glasgow.
- According to the Wikipedia entry for High Speed Two, the Western tunnel would be 7.5 miles long and link Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport stations at speeds of up to 142 mph.
- As a High Speed Two size tunnel will be needed on the Eastern approach, if High Speed Two trains eventually use the route, could this tunnel extend for perhaps five miles with speeds of up to 142 mph, to speed up journey times?
- Journey times between Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport stations could be under four minutes.
The Manchester Piccadilly ‘Super Hub’, High Speed Two And Liverpool
This clip of a map from the Transport for the North report shows a schematic of the current and possible rail links in the area.
High Speed Two would appear to come North and split into two routes.
- One continues North to join the existing West Coast Main Line just South of Wigan.
- Another goes through Crewe station.
North of Crewe, the two routes join and then split into three at the Junction labelled 6.
- To Warrington and Liverpool
- To Wigan, Preston and Scotland
- To Manchester Airport and Manchester.
A second Junction labelled 5, allows Northern Powerhouse Rail trains to run Liverpool-Warrington-Manchester Airport-Manchester.
The Transport for the North report, also says the following.
- There could be a new Warrington South Parkway station.
- Six trains per hour (tph) between Liverpool and Manchester via Warrington are planned.
- Journey times will be 26 minutes.
Will a Liverpool and Manchester time of 26 minutes be possible with two stops?
- I estimate Liverpool and Manchester will be a distance of 43 miles.
- As the will be a newly-built railway high speed railway, I suspect it will be at least a 125 mph line between Liverpool and Manchester Airport.
- But it is perfected feasible, that this section could be designed for speeds up to 140 mph or even the High Speed Two speed of 186 mph.
- TransPennine Express‘s current Class 802 trains, can run at up to 140 mph, so could take advantage of the higher speed.
- In addition, the Wikipedia entry for High Speed Two says that trains will use the Manchester Airport to Manchester City Centre tunnel at speeds of up to 142 mph.
Calculating journey times for various average speeds, including the two stops at Warrington South Parkway and Manchester Airport stations gives the following.
- 100 mph – 26 minutes
- 125 mph – 21 minutes
- 140 mph – 18 minutes
If the Liverpool and Manchester Airport section were to be built to High Speed Two standards, I can see a very comfortable Liverpool and Manchester time of under twenty minutes.
The Twenty-First Century will finally get a modern and fast Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
Going East From The Manchester Piccadilly ‘Super Hub’
The principle long-distance destinations to the East of Manchester Piccadilly station use one of two routes.
The Huddersfield Line to Leeds and beyond.
The Hope Valley Line to Sheffield and beyond.
Both routes leave the Manchester Branch of the West Coast Man Line out of Manchester Piccadilly station at Ardwick Junction.
This Google Map shows Ardwick Junction, Ardwick station and the Siemens Train Care Facility.
It would appear that the Eastern portal of the tunnels that lead to the proposed underground platforms of the Manchester Piccadilly ‘Super-Hub’ could emerge in this area.
Note.
- Ardwick station is about a mile from Manchester Piccadilly station.
- The Sheffield and Leeds routes split about a mile to the East of Ardwick station.
- The large site of the Train Care Facility, could surely be used for the tunnel portal.
The Transport for the North report says this about the services to the East from Manchester.
- Sic tph between Manchester and Leeds are planned.
- Four tph between Manchester and Sheffield are planned.
Ten tph through the underground platforms is surely possible, when Crossrail will handle 24 tph with full digital signalling.
A Manchester And Leeds High Speed Line
This clip of a map from the Transport for the North report shows a schematic of the rail links to the East of Manchester.
Two alternative routes are proposed between Manchester and Leeds.
- The black route would be created by upgrading the Huddersfield Line.
- The yellow route would be a new route via Bradford.
The Transport for the North report says this about the Leeds-Manchester service.
- There will be six tph.
- The journey will take 25 minutes.
In Is There Going To Be Full Electrification Between Leeds And Huddersfield?, I detailed Network Rail’s £2.9 billion proposal to upgrade the existing route between Huddersfield and Leeds. This is the black route.
If this project results in the full electrification between Leeds and Hudderfield, the Leeds and Manchester route will have these characteristics.
- It will be about forty-two miles long
- All except the sixteen mile section between Stalybridge and Huddersfield is electrified or is planned to be so.
- Network Rail have published plans to upgrade Huddersfield station.
- The section between Huddersfield and Dewbury will be upgraded to four tracks.
- The approach to the underground platforms at Manchester Piccadilly station could be in a two-mile 100 mph tunnel.
- Twenty-five minutes between Leeds and Manchester will need an average speed of 100 mph.
I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume that with a few other improvements, that the twenty-five minute time between Leeds and Manchester is possible.
New 140 mph Trains Will Be Needed
Consider a Blackpool and Leeds service via Preston, Wigan North Western, Warrington, Manchester Airport, Manchester and Huddersfield.
- It could be a fully-electrified route, if between Stalybridge and Huddersfield were to be electrified.
- Much of the route would be cleared for at least 140 mph running including the West Coast Main Line and the new route between Warrington and Manchester Piccadilly via Manchester Airport.
- Some sections of the route would allow more than 140 mph, but most would be 140 mph or less.
Without doubt, trains capable of running at 140 mph would be needed to make full use of the operating speeds available.
China And US Snub Global Talks On Vaccine
The title of this post is the same as that of this article in The Times.
Judging by the list of those that turned up to the talks, the United States and China care less about the health of their people and the wider world than Saudi Arabia.
My Equilibrium INR Has Risen Under Lockdown
For something like four years my Warfarin regime has been to take 4 mg. every day and to self test every Monday and Friday. It has been a simple regime that has worked well and my INR has stayed between two and three, with 2.4-2.6 being the common readings.
In other words what I would call as a Control Engineer, my equilibrium INR is spot on.
In the past, I have noticed that in times of hot weather my INR has tended to rise and in times of cold weather, it has occasionally dropped. A change of dose to three or five mg. has generally kicked it back towards 2.5 mg.
Doctors and this Control Engineer would say that you shouldn’t chase the INR by constantly changing the dose.
Warfarin also seems to have a cumulative property. A couple of years, I had to have a small operation. I dropped the INR to 2.1 for the operation over three days, by cutting back to 3 mg. After the operation three days at 5 mg. brought it back to 2.5.
Under lockdown, my equilibrium INR rose initially to 3 on a dose of 4 mg. every day.
In a telephone conversation with my GP, we agreed to alternate the dose between 3 and 4 mg. every day. My INR now seems to be stabilising between 2.5 and 2.8.
Why has my equilibrium INR risen under lockdown?
My house can get hot, as it wasn’t designed and built correctly and because of that I am drinking a lot of fluids. When I prick my finger for the self-test, the blood seems more watery than usual, so are all those fluids diluting my blood and causing my INR to rise?
Bodies can’t disobey the laws of physics!
Oh! For a walk by the sea in the sun!
Is The New Routemaster A Better Bus For COVID-19?
I went to the Angel today and rode on a New Routemaster.
It almost seemed it was a bus designed for social distancing.
- I sat in one of the sets of four seats on the lower deck, by myself.
- The other set, also had a single occupant.
- The driver is safely behind a barrier and two metres from passengers.
- Entry and exit is by rear and centre doors only.
- The buses were designed for entry and exit at all doors.
I’d certainly be happy to travel on one of these buses.
An Inappropriate Advert
I didn’t think that this taxi-advert was in good taste.
No Time To Die has been put back to the 12th of November.
Plan Submitted For £18.6 Million Station At Soham
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Magazine.
The new Soham station appears to be simple.
- A single 102 metre long platform, that will be able to handle a four-car Class 755 train.
- A car-park. Fifty spaces is mentioned on Wikipedia.
- Trains on Greater Anglia‘s two-hourly service between Ipswich and Peterborough service will call. This service is planned to go hourly, with some services extended to Colchester.
- The picture in the article shows a bridge.
- Opening could be in Spring 2022.
I’ve read somewhere that the station will have provision for adding a second platform.
- Looking at the maps of the railway through Soham, it is double-track at the Southern end of the village and single-track at the Northern end.
- The single track section, which reaches as far as Ely, will possibly be doubled before 2030.
- East West Rail are also proposing a new A14 Parkway station at Chippenham Junction, which is close to both the A14 and the A11. I wrote about this in East West Rail Makes ‘Powerful Case’ For Direct Services From Ipswich And Norwich To Oxford.
- The Mayor of Cambridge has plans for a direct service between the new Soham station and Cambridge.
It’ll all be happening in this part of East Anglia. Most is driven by the expansion and success of Cambridge.
It’s all a bit different to the dark days of the Second World War, when the town suffered from the Soham Rail Disaster.
Will there be a memorial at the new station?
A14 Parkway Station
This report on the East-West Rail web site is entitled Eastern Section Prospectus and gives full details of their proposals for the section of East West Rail to the East of Cambridge.
The report recommends building a new station at Chippenham Junction, which is to the East of Newmarket, close to the junction of the A11 and the A14 . The station is referred to in the report as A14 Parkway station.
This Google Map shows the location of the proposed station.
Note.
- The A14 going across the top of the map.
- The junction between the A14 and the A11 in the top-right corner.
- The triangular Chippenham Junction, pointing North to Ely, South to Newmarket and East to Bury St. Edmunds and Ipswich.
Having lived in that area for nearly thirty years, I believe that this is a much-needed station.
- Stations in the area, with the exception of Cambridge North are short of car parking.
- There would be two trains per hour (tph) to/from Bury St. Edmunds and Ipswich.
- There would be one tph to Cambridge, Cambridge North, Cambridge South , Ely, Peterborough and the new Soham station.
I suspect that there could be shuttle trains to provide extra services to Cambridge and Ely.
A shuttle train could run between A14 Parkway, Cambridge South, Ely, Soham and back to A14 Parkway.
- The service might be arranged so that trains reverse at Cambridge South, Ely and A14 Parkway stations.
- As an alternative trains could reverse at Bury St. Edmunds instead of A14 Parkway.
- Trains would call at all intermediate stations.
I believe that if the A14 Parkway station were to be built, that there would be no need to rebuild the Western track of Chippenham Junction to enable services between Cambridge and Soham via Newmarket.
Northern Cities And COVID-19
If you look at the official Government statistics for the total number of cases of COVID-19, as of May 3rd, the number of cases in the two major cities in the North West as follows.
- Leeds – 1463 out of a city population of 789,194 (0.18%) and a metro population of 2,638,127 (0.05%)
- Liverpool – 1454 out of a city population of 494,814 (0.29%) and a metro population of 2,241,000 (0.06%)
- Manchester – 1154 out of a city population of 547,627 (0.21%) and a metro population of 3,748,274 (0.03%)
- Newcastle – 939 out of a city population of 300,196 (0.31%) and a metro population of 1,650,000 (0.06%)
- Nottingham – 537 out of a city population of 321,500 (0.17%) and a metro population of 1,610,000 (0.03%)
- Sheffield – 2191 out of a city population of 582,506 (0.38%) and a metro population of 1,569,000 (0.14%)
Note.
- All populations come from Wikipedia.
- Why is Liverpool 40% worse than Manchester?
- Why is Sheffield the worst?
I will add a few smaller towns andcities.
- Blackpool – 465 out of an urban population of 139,720 (0.33%)
- Caldervale – 252 out of an urban population of 200,100 (0.13%)
- Hull – 469 out of a city population of 260,645 (0.18%)
- Middlesbrough – 566 out of an urban population of 174,700 (0.32%)
- Stoke-on-Trent – 509 out of a city population of 255,833 (0.20%)
- York – 315 out of a city population of 209,893 (0.15%)
I’d like to see full statistics plotted on a map or a scatter diagram.
The latter is a very powerful way to plot data and often they highlight data points that lie outside the underlying pattern of the data.
Hydrogen House Is ‘Greenest In Europe’
The title of this post is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A hydrogen-powered house that is off-grid and said to be the first of its kind in Europe is being built by a family in Devon.
These are some features.
- Solar panels
- Hydrogen from electrolysis.
- Hydrogen storage
- Hydrogen boiler
- Water from a borehole
- Own sewage plant
- Air source heat pump.
The article says that “Any spare hydrogen can power the hydrogen cars they plan to buy”
This sounds like my ideal house!
Acting Quickly Can Reduce Coronavirus Death Toll In Care Homes
The title of this post is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Care homes account for almost half of all coronavirus deaths in several European countries but the number of future deaths can be reduced if measures are taken, research has found.
Between 42 per cent and 57 per cent of deaths from the virus in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium happened in care homes, figures show.
But the article also says that Hong Kong acted quickly, after the experience of the 2003 Sars epidemic, and have had no deaths in care homes.
It appears we can learn from the experiences of other countries.
It is also my view, that the typical care home model in lots of countries is not fit for purpose!
We need a new design, that can be locked down quickly in a civilised manner.
The Anonymous Widower 