Crossing The Mersey
I took these pictures as the train to Liverpool crossed the Mersey yesterday.
Note.
- The green bridge is now called the Silver Jubilee Bridge, but when I lived in Liverpool and worked at ICI in Runcorn, everybody called it the Runcorn-Widnes Road Bridge.
- The train is on the Ethelfleda, Britannia or Runcorn Railway Bridge depending on your preference. I tend to use Britannia, as the guys I worked with used that name.
- The three towers of the cable stayed Mersey Gateway Bridge can be seen in several pictures.
- Fiddlers Ferry power station is now decommissioned, but was an almost 2GW coal-fired power station.
In January 2011, I took a video as I crossed the Mersey and it is shown in Train Across the Mersey.
The Future Of Fiddlers Ferry Power Station
The Wikipedia entry for the power station, says this about the future use of the site.
Demolition of the station was due to begin in 2020 and will take up to seven years. The land upon which it sits will be redeveloped, with Warrington Council stating it had designated the land as an employment site.
As it obviously has a high-capacity electricity connection and there is a lot of offshore wind power in Liverpool Bay, I would feel it could be an ideal location for a large battery of perhaps 2 GWh.
The Future Of The Britannia Railway Bridge
The bridge was opened in 1868 and is Grade II* Listed.
Did the designer of the bridge; William Baker ever envisage, that in the future his bridge would be carrying trains over 250 metres long, that were capable of 125 mph?
Probably not! But in a few years, the bridge will be carrying High Speed Two Classic Compatible trains between London and Liverpool.
Alstom’s Widnes Factory
I took these pictures as the train to Liverpool passed Alstom’s Widnes factory, soon after crossing the River Mersey.
There has still been few announcements lately on the progress of the Class 321 trains being converted to hydrogen-powered Class 600 trains.
Perhaps, they are too busy updating Avanti West Coast’s Class 390 trains.
Arriving In Liverpool Lime Street Station – 14th October 2021
I took these pictures as I arrived into Liverpool Lime Street station today.
Note.
- The train arrived in Platform 9.
- I arrived in the last coach and took the pictures walking to the front of the train.
- The platform is just long enough for an eleven-car Class 390 train, which is 265.3 metres long. These are the longest trains in Avanti West Coast’s fleet.
- The train was numbered 390130 and named City of Edinburgh.
Network Rail’s platform designers seem to have pulled out all the tricks to fit an eleven-car Class 390 train in Platform 9 at Liverpool Lime Street station.
The new seven-car Class 807 trains will only be 182 metres long, so would appear to fit Platform 9 easily.
In Could Avanti West Coast Run A Lumo-Style Service Between London And Liverpool?, I looked at the various options to run a two trains per hour (tph) service between London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street.
I came to these conclusions.
- The shorter Class 807 trains would be needed to run services that stop at Liverpool South Parkway station, which has shorter platforms.
- If both hourly services were run by new Class 807 trains, there would be a 54 % increase in hourly capacity.
- If one service was run by a Class 390 train and the Liverpool South Parkway service was run by a Class 807 train, this would give a 77 % increase in hourly capacity.
- The Liverpool South Parkway service or both services would be very close to two hours.
Whatever is done, it would be a flagship service between London and Liverpool.
Goodbye To My Gallstones
It is now some weeks since I said goodbye to my gallstones.
They were in my bile duct and were discovered by using an ultrasound probe on an endoscopy at Homerton Hospital. I didn’t even put on a hospital gown.
I had that endoscopy, as I did my two previous ones at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge to check for coeliac disease without a sedative, as Addenbrooke’s likes to be efficient and cutting out sedatives reduces the manpower required, cuts the need for recovery beds and allows patients to drive home.
After this endoscopy, I came home the way I arrived – on the bus!
I would say that a good endoscopy operator should be able to do the procedure without a sedative. Although in this case, the nurse holding the oxygen tubes up my nose, was stroking my beard to calm me down. Not that I needed it! But it was a nice action!
I had the removal of the gallstones with a sedative, but I only remember the anaesthetist saying something like “Lovely” as he threaded the camera and attachments down my throat.
They broke into my bile duct from the duodenum and then inserted a balloon, which was then inflated to flush the stones back into my duodenum.
I must have dropped off and I woke without any pain or even discomfort.
One complication for me, was that I am on Warfarin, but I dropped my INR to one before the operation, so that there wasn’t blood everywhere.
I have had some after effects.
Where Has My Constipation Gone?
Since I was about sixty, I have suffered from constipation and my GP has prescribed a laxative.
I felt it was a family trait as my father was also a sufferer.
But since the operation, I have only taken one pill, that may not have been necessary.
My Appetite Has Returned
I am certainly eating better and I have not put on any weight.
Conclusion
If you have gallstones and removal is suggested, go for it!
How To Build A Liverpool-Style Optical Bench
When I worked at ICI in Runcorn, one of the guys had developed a very accurate instrument for measuring trace chemicals in a dirty process stream. I remember one of these instruments was used to measure water in parts per million in methyl methaculate, which is the misnomer or base chemical for Perspex.
All the optical components needed to be mounted on a firm base, so a metre length of nine-inch C-section steel beam was chosen. The surface was then machined flat to a high accuracy.
In the end they found that instead of using new beams, old ones decades-old from the depths of a scrap yard gave better accuracy as the steel had all crystallised out. Machined and spray-painted no-one knew their history.
But they were superb instruments and ICI even sold them abroad.
Bradford Seeks Support On Rail Project Which Could Deliver £30bn Benefits
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
This is the first paragraph.
Delivery of a new city centre railway station in Bradford is estimated to boost the city’s economy by £30bn over ten years, with Bradford Council now seeking government support to deliver the major rail project.
The article also says that the the station, will be built on the site of St James Market, which is owned by the Council.
This Google Map shows the market and the surrounding roads and railways.
Note.
- Bradford Interchange station is in the North-West corner of the map.
- St. James Market is marked by the red arrow in the middle of the map.
- The railway Between Leeds and Bradford Interchange stations via New Pudsey station curves in a loop South of the market.
- The railway going South from Bradford Interchange goes to Bradford Low Moor and Halifax stations, before taking the Calder Valley Line via Hebden Bridge to Manchester Victoria station.
I think it would be feasible to build the station on the current route between Leeds and Bradford Interchange stations, with perhaps a mixture of through and bay platforms.
This second Google Map, shows Mill Lane Junction, where the lines from New Pudsey and Bradford Low Moor stations join South of Bradford Interchange station.
Note.
- Bradford Interchange station is on the rail line to the North.
- The proposed new Bradford station and the existing New Pudsey station are on the rail line to the East.
- Bradford Low Moor station is on the rail line to the South.
It would appear that an extra chord should be added to the junction to allow trains between Manchester Victoria and Leeds via the Calder Valley Line can call at the new station in Bradford.
Current trains between Manchester Victoria and Leeds using this route have to reverse at Bradford Interchange. The new station and the extra chord would avoid this.
Conclusion
I think that this proposal has possibilities.
20 Ropemaker Street – 13th October 2021
I pass this building every time, I go to Moorgate.
I took these pictures today.
The architects have put up this video.
I shall be following this twenty-seven story building as it reaches for the sky.
Osterley Becomes 89th Step-Free London Underground Station
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
So I went to Osterley station and took these pictures.
Note.
- Osterley station is Grade II Listed and was built in the style of Charles Holden.
- It does look that there is also step-free access between train and the platform for most wheelchair-users, buggy-pushers and case-draggers.
- The two new lift-towers are typical steel-and-brick constructions.
I don’t think that the most militant member of the Heritage Taliban will object to the quality of the design and the construction.
Sun Cable’s Australia-Asia PowerLink
Two weeks ago, in How Clean Energy And Jobs Can Flow From Morocco to The UK, I talked about a plan to generate electricity using solar arrays in Southern Morocco and use an underwater interconnector to bring it to the UK.
If you think that project was ambitious and distinctly bonkers, then that project is outshone by Sun Cable‘s Australia-Asia PowerLink, which is shown in this SunCable graphic.
These are a few facts about the project.
- Electricity will be generated by solar panels in the Northern Territories of Australia.
- There will be 12,000 hectares of solar panels in Australia, which will create 3.2 GW of electricity for distribution.
- There will be a 36-42 GWh battery in Australia.
- There will be 4,200 km of submarine HVDC cable to deliver the electricity to Singapore and Indonesia.
- It looks like there will be batteries in Darwin and Singapore.
- The link could supply up to fifteen percent of Singapore’s electricity.
It is certainly an ambitious project, that will contain the world’s largest solar array, the world’s largest battery, and the world’s longest submarine power cable.
Note.
- Currently, the largest solar park in the world is Bhadia Solar Park in India, which is half the size of the solar array proposed.
- At 720 km, the North Sea Link is the largest undersea HVDC is operation.
- The largest battery in the UK is Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, which is only 9.1 GWh.
- A Tesla Megapack battery of the required size would probably cost at least ten billion dollars.
This is certainly, a project that is dealing in superlatives.
Is The Australia-Asia PowerLink Possible?
I shall look at the various elements.
The Solar Panels
I have flown a Piper Arrow from Adelaide to Cairns.
- My route was via Coober Pedy, Yulara, Alice Springs and Mount Isa.
- There didn’t seem to be much evidence of rain.
- The circle from South to East took four days of almost continuous flying, as Australia is not a small country.
- It left me with the impression of a flat featureless and hot country.
Having seen solar panels on flat areas in the UK, the Australian Outback could be ideal for solar farms.
Sun Cable are talking about 10,000 hectares of solar panels, which is roughly 38.6 square miles or a 6.2 mile square.
Given enough money to source the solar panels and install them, I would expect that the required solar farm could be realised.
The Cable
Consider.
- The North Sea Link is a 1.4 GW cable that is 720 km. long.
- I would size it as 10008 GW-km, by multiplying the units together.
- The Australia-Asia PowerLink will be 4200 km or nearly six times as long.
- But at 3.2 GW as opposed to 1.4 GW, it will have 2.3 times the capacity.
- I would size it as 13,400 GW-km.
Whichever way you look at it, the amount of cable needed will be massive.
The Battery
Currently, the largest battery in the world is the Bath County Pumped Storage Station, which has these characteristics.
- Peak power of 3 GW
- Storage capacity of 24 GWh.
Sun Cable’s 36-42 GWh battery will be the largest in the world, by a long way.
But I don’t think pumped storage will be suitable in the usually dry climate of Northern Australia.
The largest lithium-ion battery in the world is the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia, which is only 150 MW/194 MWh, so something else will have to be used.
As Highview Power are building a CRYOBattery for the Atacama region in Chile, which I wrote about in The Power Of Solar With A Large Battery, I wonder, if a cluster of these could provide sufficient storage.
Opening Date Announced For Dartmoor Line
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railnews.
This is the first couple of sentences.
Full train services will return to the Dartmoor Line in Devon on 20 November. The Department for Transport said the DfT and its partners had ‘accelerated’ the reopening of the railway, because passenger services will now be launched only nine months since funding was approved.
It also says that the initial service between Exeter and Okehampton will be two-hourly, until May 2022, when it will be hourly.
I have looked up the Great Western Railway timetable and there are two sensible morning trains between Paddington and Okehampton on the 24th of November.
- 08:04 – Arrives at 11:18
- 10:04 – Arrives at 13:17
Returning there are two sensible afternoon/evening trains.
- 15:24 – Arrives at 18:24
- 18:20 – Arrives at 21:36
It looks like it would be possible to go from London and Okehampton and return in the same day.
The Anonymous Widower 