Cooking Multiple Cinties
My son and his husband came round for supper on Sunday, so I cooked a batch of Cinty’s French fish pies.
The method is detailed in Serial Cooking – Cinty’s French Fish Pie.
I cooked four, which was one for each of us and one for the freezer.
Note.
- Every pie got two pieces of haddock.
- The topping was a mix of gluten-free bread and parmesan, blended in one of Delia’s Little Choppers.
- I served them with baked tomatoes.
I cooked them in 0.6 litre Le Creuset dishes. You can never have too many of these.
From Silicon Roundabout To Bank – 4th February 2021
I was on top of a 21 bus, as I took these series of pictures.
Silicon Roundabout
Note.
- My bus Crossed from North to South down the East side of the roundabout.
- Work is now concentrating on creating the new road and pedestrian layout in the North-West corner of the roundabout.
- There will be a lift for passengers in this corner.
This map from Transport for London shows the future layout.
Note the Shoreditch Grind coffee house on the map.
20 Ropemaker Street
This will be a twenty-seven storey tower.
Moorgate Station
The road was blocked off yesterday, when I went earlier to Marks and Spencer. It still was when I took these pictures.
This screen-capture from a Crossrail video shows a possible future Moorgate.
Note the new buildings at 101 Moorgate and the current Moorgate station.There appears to be a gap, so will the station entrance be set back behind a small pedestrian area?
From Moorgate To Bank
The last two pictures show the works at Bank station.
The Southbound Northern Line Platform At Bank Station
These pictures show the Southbound platform of the Northern Line at Bank station.
Can there be a Metro, U-bahn, Underground or subway platform anywhere with such bad design and worse decor?
- There are no tiles or cladding on the walls.
- You can see all the cast iron linings dating from the nineteenth century.
- How do people get across the tracks to the passages in the wall?
- But above all there are no adverts.
The state of this tunnel only tells a one-sided story.
Some metres to the West of the existing tunnel a new larger Southbound tunnel has been dug.
This map from Transport for London, shows the route of the new tunnell.
Note.
- The continuous black line of the existing Northbound line.
- The dotted black line of the new Southbound line.
This sentence from this article on IanVisits, which is entitled Bank Tube Station Upgrade Reaches Tunnelling Milestone, explains how the new tunnels were built.
Part of the tunnelling work saw the project team cut through deep-level piled foundations of one building, which required careful excavation and the installation of a new load-support system to support the existing foundations while still allowing a tunnel to pass through them.
According to Ian, 1300 metres of new tunnels have been constructed. All have been dug by fairly traditional methods, uding men, shovels and small diggers and other machines.
The space between the two running tunnels will become a wide concourse. This picture taken at Angel station, shows a wide platform that could be delivered at Bank station.
The old Southbound tunnel will be filled in to form the concourse. Those curious doors will become through passages to the escalators, lifts and the other platform.
Piers Corbyn Arrested Over Vaccine ‘Auschwitz Leaflet’
The title of this post, is the same as that, of this article on the BBC.
These are the first three paragraphs.
Piers Corbyn has been arrested over leaflets comparing the UK’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout to Auschwitz.
The 73-year-old brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he voluntarily attended a police station on Wednesday.
He was then arrested on suspicion of malicious communications and public nuisance.
I am a confirmed atheist, but I do have Jewish ancestors. My great-great-great-grandfather was a Jewish tailor and came from Konigsberg in East Prussia.
As people related to my ancestor and therefore myself, were probably sent to Auschwitz and other similar camps and never came out, I feel very annoyed at what Corbyn has been involved in.
Corbyn and his collaborators should undoubtedly feel the full force of the law.
This
Hydrogen Ambitions For The Port Of Hamburg
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Seatrade Maritime News.
This is the introductory paragraph.
In January Hamburg announced that Vattenfall, Shell, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and municipal heat supplier Warme Hamburg had signed a Letter of Intent to develop a 100MW electrolyser to produce green hydrogen in the port area.
A few points from the article.
- Hamburg believes that ships will be running on green hydrogen.
- Buses and trucks will need the hydrogen.
- They may build a terminal to import green hydrogen, as the Japanese are doing at Kobe.
- The green hydrogen might be produced in places like Africa and Morocco.
100 MW strikes me as a large electrolyser.
Huge Step Taken As Greater Manchester Takes Over First Rail Station
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Today (1 Feb) marks a significant moment for Manchester’s long-term vision for rail as Transport for Greater Manchester takes over operation of Horwich Parkway Station.
These are some pictures of the station.
Horwich Parkway station is a fairly typical parkway station, that is also a destination in its own right, as Bolton Wanderers stadium, a shopping centre, a very much bog-standard Premier Inn and a University campus are nearby.
Services At Horwich Parkway Station
Currently, these services call at the station.
- Hazel Grove and Blackpool North
- Manchester Airport and Blackpool North
- Manchester Victoria and Preston
Note.
- All services are electric and run by Northern.
- All services are one train per hour (tph)
Some TransPennine Services also pass through on their way between Manchester Airport and Scotland.
My Thoughts
These are a few thoughts.
Local Authority Or Remote Management?
I like the concept of stations being managed by local authorities.
When I moved back to London from Suffolk nearly a dozen years ago, the stations in North East and East London were managed by Greater Anglia from Norwich.
- Many of these stations were very shabby.
- Many of these stations have now been taken over by Transport for London.
- Stations are now managed by either the London Overground or Tfl Rail.
- Stations seem to have improved and they are in many cases, a lot cleaner.
Perhaps, the shorter communication links to Senior Management mean, that problems get solved. Or does the local councillor know the right person to kick?
Hopefully, we’ll see a more efficient station at Horwich Parkway.
Facilities
Consider.
- There are ramps to the footbridge.
- There is a booking office.
- Previously, this station was managed by Northern
It is one of those stations that on a cold winter’s day can be a bit bleak.
Hopefully, Transport for Greater Manchester will be improving the station.
Four Trains Per Hour?
Birmingham, Liverpool and London seem to like the concept of Turn-Up-And-Go stations with a frequency of four tph.
Would Horwich Parkway station benefit from this frequency?
Two Trains Per Hour To And From Manchester Airport?
This may be beneficial,
Perhaps some of the TransPennine Express service between the Airport and Scotland could call?
Certainly, a sort out of train services at Horwich Parkway, led by Transport for Greater Manchester could be beneficial for passengers and train operating companies.
Conclusion
I shall be interested to see, if the station is improved.
Roger Ford’s Cunning Plan
In the February 2020 of Modern Railways, there is an article called LNER Procurement, which has been written by Roger Ford.
It is Roger’s reply to an article in the December 2020 Edition of Modern Railways, which was entitled LNER Seeks 10 More Bi-Modes.
He starts by describing the requirement and then says this.
Would any fleet engineer in his or her right mind want to add a unique sub-fleet of 10 high speed trains to an existing successful fleet, even if they were hydrogen-electric tri-modes from the respected Kim Chong t’ae Electric Locomotive Works?
In my analysis of the December 2020 article, I wrote this post with the same name, where I said this, under a heading of More Azumas?
Surely, It would require a very innovative train at perhaps a rock-bottom price from another manufacturer, for LNER to not acquire extra Azumas.
So it would appear that Roger and myself are vaguely in agreement on the subject of more Azumas.
The last section of the article has a title of Cunning.
Roger puts forward, the view that the procurement process, as well as being compatible with EU law, could be a warning to Hitachi, to make sure that LNER get a good deal.
It certainly could be, and I remember a similar maneuver by ICI around 1970.
The company was buying a lot of expensive IBM 360 computers.
ICI needed a new computer to do scientific calculations at their Central Instrument Research Establishment (CIRL) at Pangbourne in Berkshire.
- English Electric had just released a clone of an IBM 360 and were keen to sell it to ICI.
- As it would do everything that ICI wanted, they bought one.
- It worked well and did everything that CIRL wanted at a cheaper price.
IBM’s reaction was supposedly quick and dramatic. The salesman who dealt with ICI, was immediately fired!
But as ICI had about a dozen large IBM computers, there wasn’t much they could do to one of the most important and largest UK companies.
IBM also made sure, that ICI got their next computer at a good price.
I’m with Roger that all the shenanigans are a warning to Hitachi.
Roger finishes the article with these two paragraphs.
A genuine bluff would have been to seek bids for the long-term deployment of remanufactured IC225s. Which in these straitened times could still turn out to be a more viable option.
I rather fancy the idea of a hydrogen-electric Class 91. Owner Eversholt Rail might even have played along on the understanding that it funded the inevitable hybrid Azumas.
Note that IC225s are InterCity 225 trains.
- The 31 trains, were built for British Rail in the 1980s.
- They are hauled by a 4.83 MW Class 91 locomotive, which is usually at the Northern end of the train.
- Nine Mark 4 coaches and a driving van trailer complete the train.
- As with the Hitachi Azumas (Class 800 and Class 801 trains), they are capable of operating at 140 mph on lines where digital in-cab ERTMS signalling has been installed.
I just wonder, if a Class 91 locomotive could be to the world’s first 140 mph hydrogen-electric locomotive.
Consider the following.
Dynamics
The wheels, bogies and traction system were designed by British Rail Engineering Ltd, who were the masters of dynamics. This is a sentence from the locomotive’s Wikipedia entry.
Unusually, the motors are body mounted and drive bogie-mounted gearboxes via cardan shafts. This reduces the unsprung mass and hence track wear at high speeds.
That is a rather unique layout. But it obviously works, as otherwise these locomotives would have been scrapped decades ago.
I believe the quality dynamics are because BREL owned a PACE 231R for a start, which was an analogue computer, that was good enough for NASA to use two computers like this to calculate how to put a man on the moon.
London and Edinburgh is a slightly shorter distance, run at a somewhat slower speed.
Space
This picture shows a Class 91 locomotive.
What is in the space in the rear end of the nearly twenty metre-long locomotive?
This sentence from the Wikipedia entry for the locomotive gives a clue.
The locomotive also features an underslung transformer, so that the body is relatively empty compared to contemporary electric locomotives.
It also states that much of the layout came from the APT-P, which was a version of the tilting Advanced Passenger Train.
Would the space be large enough for a tank of hydrogen and some form of generator that used the hydrogen as fuel?
It should be noted that one version of the APT used a gas-turbine engine, so was the locomotive designed for future use as a bi-mode?
Fuel Cells
I’ve ignored fuel cells, as to get the amount of power needed, the fuel cells could be too large for the locomotive.
Class 91 Locomotive Performance
The performance of a Class 91 locomotive is as follows.
- Power output – 4.83 MW
- Operating speed – 140 mph
- Record Speed – 161 mph
Not bad for a 1980s locomotive.
Required Performance Using Hydrogen Fuel
If the locomotives were only needed to use hydrogen to the North of the electrification from London, the locomotive would need to be able to haul a rake of coaches twice on the following routes.
- Aberdeen and Edinburgh Haymarket – 130 miles
- Inverness and Stirling – 146 miles
A range of three hundred miles would be sufficient.
The locomotive would need refuelling at Aberdeen and Inverness.
The operating speed of both routes is nowhere near 140 mph and I suspect that a maximum speed of 100 mph on hydrogen, pulling or pushing a full-size train, would probably be sufficient.
When you consider that a nine-car Class 800 train has five 560 kW diesel engines, that give a total power of 2.8 MW, can carry 611 passengers and an InterCity 225 can only carry 535, I don’t think that the power required under hydrogen will be as high as that needed under electricity.
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce have developed a 2.5 MW generator, that is the size of a beer keg. I wrote about it in Our Sustainability Journey.
Could one of these incredibly-powerful generators provide enough power to speed an InterCity 225 train, through the Highlands of Scotland to Aberdeen and Inverness, at speeds of up to 100 mph.
I would give it a high chance of being a possible dream.
Application Of Modern Technology
I do wonder, if the locomotive’s cardan shaft drive could be improved by modern technology.
These pictures show Joseph Bazalgette’s magnificent Abbey Mills Pumping station in East London.
A few years ago, Thames Water had a problem. Under the pumping station are Victorian centrifugal pumps that pump raw sewage to Beckton works for treatment. These are connected to 1930s electric motors in Dalek-like structures on the ground floor, using heavy steel shafts. The motors are controlled from the control panel in the first image.
The shafts were showing signs of their age and needed replacement.
So Thames Water turned to the experts in high-power transmission at high speed – Formula One.
The pumps are now connected to the electric motors, using high-strength, lower-weight carbon-fibre shafts.
Could this and other modern technology be used to update the cardan shafts and other parts of these locomotives?
Could The Locomotives Use Regenerative Braking To Batteries?
I’ll start by calculating the kinetic energy of a full InterCity 225 train.
- The Class 91 locomotive weighs 81.5 tonnes
- Nine Mark 4 coaches weigh a total of 378 tonnes
- A driving van trailer weighs 43.7 tonnes.
- This gives a total weight of 503.2 tonnes.
Assuming that each of the 535 passengers, weighs 90 Kg with babies, baggage, bikes and buggies, this gives a passenger weight of 48.15 tonnes or a total train weight of 551.35 tonnes.
Using Omni’s Kinetic Energy Calculator, gives the following values at different speeds.
- 100 mph – 153 kWh
- 125 mph – 239 kWh
- 140 mph – 300 kWh
I think, that a 300 kWh battery could be fitted into the back of the locomotive, along with the generator and the fuel tank.
With new traction motors, that could handle regenerative braking, this would improve the energy efficiency of the trains.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel
Sustainable aviation fuel produced by companies like Altalto would surely be an alternative to hydrogen.
- It has been tested by many aerospace companies in large numbers of gas turbines.
- As it has similar properties to standard aviation fuel, the handling rules are well-known.
When produced from something like household waste, by Altalto, sustainable aviation fuel is carbon-neutral and landfill-negative.
ERTMS Signalling And Other Upgrades
Full ERTMS digital signalling will needed to be fitted to the trains to enable 140 mph running.
Conclusion
I believe it is possible to convert a Class 91 locomotive into a hydrogen-electric locomotive with the following specification.
- 4.83 MW power on electricity.
- 140 mph on electrification
- 2.5 MW on hydrogen power.
- 100 mph on hydrogen
- Regenerative braking to battery.
If it were easier to use sustainable aviation fuel, that may be a viable alternative to hydrogen, as it is easier to handle.
Oxford Vaccine Could Substantially Cut Spread
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first two paragraphs.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could lead to a “substantial” fall in the spread of the virus, say scientists.
The impact of Covid vaccines on transmission has been a crucial unknown that will dramatically shape the future of the pandemic.
The article also says you get this after one dose.
This study – on 17,000 people in the UK, South Africa and Brazil – showed protection remained at 76% during the three months after the first dose.
This rose to 82% after people were given the second dose.
It will be interesting to see, what figures drop out of the data, when millions have been vaccinated twice in the UK.
Conclusion
It looks like very good news to me!
Is Liverpool Street Getting Ready For Crossrail?
I took these pictures in front of Liverpool Street station, this morning.
It does look that in a week or so, the area in front of the station will be ready for people to use the glass entrance to the new station.
- The whole area in front of the station and the next door building; 100 Liverpool Street has been converted into a new traffic-free square.
- The only vehicles are the taxis to the East in front of the old station and the buses using the bus station between the station and 100 Liverpool Street.
- 100 Liverpool Street will have a roof-top restaurant.
- I do like the City of London’s stylish red and black bollards.
- The station sign is in front of the station.
Obviously, we don’t know the completion state of the massive below-ground station, that reaches all the way to Moorgate.
Is This The Proof That Coeliacs On A Gluten-Free Diet Don’t Get The Covids?
I took this picture in Marks and Spencer’s food store on Finsbury Pavement this morning,
I know Easter is coming, but it did seem to me that they had over-ordered the gluten-free hot cross buns.
But have their gluten-free sales held up extremely well during the pandemic?
Are their large numbers of gluten-free customers, still well enough to be buying the good things in life?
Certainly, throughout the pandemic, there’s never been a shortage of gluten-free scones!
Or it could be a simple case of a computer saying “Let them eat loadsa buns!” in the City of London!
The Anonymous Widower 