Restoring Your Railway Fund Could Provide A Toolkit For Town Transformation
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Business.
The article talks a lot of sense and is a must-read for improving a town, that is on its uppers.
It uses the Northumberland Line between Newcastle and Ashington in the North East as an example and describes how the fund can be used with the Towns Fund.
This paragraph gives a few examples of rail lines that could be improved using the fund!
Potential priorities for future rounds of funding could include the South Yorkshire Joint Line, a freight line serving 50 000 people between Doncaster and Worksop; the Leamside Line, a disused line which would serve 70 000 in Washington; March to Wisbech, a disused line which would connect 35 000 people in Wisbech to the network; and the line from Yate to Thornbury, another freight line which would connect 15 000 people in Thornbury to Bristol and beyond.
In the early sixties, I lived in the crap town of Felixstowe, with a sparse rail service to civilisation (London). Now the town has an hourly rail service to Ipswich in a smart new train and the town is more successful.
There’s a lot of chicken-and-egg syndrome at work here, but sorting the rail routes could be a good start.
In some cases, it’s not necessarily rebuilding infrastructure, as that is there for freight or an inadequate passenger service using a scrapyard special. But why not use refurbished trains powered by battery or hydrogen, on these routes to provide an hourly service. The curiosity value of the unusual propulsion, might even be a selling point to those reluctant to give up their PPVs, (Personal Protective Vehicles)!
An Untidy Railway
I took these pictures as I returned from Eridge.
You see it all over the railways and not just in the UK; general untidiness!
When I joined ICI in 1968, I went on a thorough and excellent induction course.
One very experienced engineer, gave a Health and Safety Lecture and one thing he said, was that a neat and tidy chemical plant was less likely to have silly accidents.
Some years later, I went to the United States to see some of Metier’s clients, of whom some were nuclear power stations. This must have been just after the Three Mile Island accident, which is described like this in Wikipedia.
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (TMI-2) in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg, and subsequent radiation leak that occurred on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history.
Artemis was involved in maintenance at the nuclear stations I visited. I can remember at AEP Donald C Cook nuclear station being shown a database of work to do and many of the actions were referred to as TMIs and checking them had been mandated by the US regulatory authorities.
I should say, the site on the shores of Lake Michigan impressed me, but another I visited later didn’t. I won’t name it, as it is now closed and it was the most untidy industrial plant of any type I have visited.
As we left, I gave my opinion to our support engineer and he told me they had a very large number of TMIs to process. I wasn’t surprised!
So why are railways generally so untidy?
Potential Site For New Cambridge South Station Named
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail News.
The article says this about the site of the proposed Cambridge South station.
There had been three options for the station site and the preferred choice, which is the furthest north and nearest the guided busway, will offer improved connections with other railway routes as well as the busway. Although the detailed plans for East West Rail between Bedford and Cambridge have not yet been confirmed, it is possible that EWR trains will call at Cambridge South.
This Google Map shows the area.
Note.
- Addenbrooke’s and Papworth Hospitals and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in the South-East corner of the map.
- Long Road going East-West across the map.
- The West Anglia Main Line going North-South, at the Western edge of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. Cambridge station is to the North and Shelford station is to the South.
- Running diagonally away from the railway towards the South-West corner of the map, is the Cambridge Busway. which connects the Trumpington Park and Ride to Cambridge station and the City Centre.
It would appear there would be plenty of space to put a station with enough capacity for this important medical complex.
Train Services
Trains passing through that area include in trains per hour (tph)
- CrossCountry – 1 tph – Birmingham New Street and Stansted Airport via Cambridge
- Freater Anglia – 2 tph – London Liverpool Street and Cambridge North via Cambridge
- Greater Anglia – 1 tph – Norwich and Stansted Airport via Cambridge and Cambridge North
- Great Northern – 1 tph – London King’s Cross and Ely via Cambridge and Cambridge North
- Great Northern – 1 tph – London King’s Cross and Kings Lynn via Cambridge and Cambridge North
- Thameslink – 2 tph – Brighton and Cambridge
- Thameslink – 2 tph – London King’s Cross and Cambridge
That all adds up to 10 tph to Cambridge and 5 to Cambridge North.
When you add in future services on East West Rail, and do a bit of reorganisation, there could be twelve tph through the three Cambridge stations.
High Speed Rail Link To Lift Baltic Economies By Up To 0.6 Per Cent
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Emerging Europe.
This is the first two paragraphs.
A major new report from Swedbank, a Nordic-Baltic banking group based in Stockholm, Sweden, claims that the construction of a high speed rail link between the Estonian capital Tallinn and Lithuania’s border with Poland could lift GDP in each of the three Baltic states by between 0.2 and 0.6 per cent.
In addition to the direct economic impact in terms of public investment and jobs, the ambitious project will also help the region meet its environmental goals and bring in new technology and know-how.
The article is a must-read and has left me thinking, what will High Speed Two do for the UK?
Meet The Futuristic-Looking Electric Arrival Bus
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Microsoft News.
The Arrival Bus is by the same company, who are building electric vans for UPS, that I wrote about in UK Electric Van Maker Arrival Secures £340m Order From UPS.
This is a video of the prototype under test.
This article on CNET is entitled Arrival’s Electric Bus Is Designed For Coronavirus-Era Social Distancing and it contains this paragraph.
The British startup company, which focuses on smart electric vehicles, on Wednesday debuted the Arrival Bus, pitched as just the bus for social distancing. That’s because the interior of the bus is customizable, with removable seats, so you can create additional space between passengers. It’s a pretty novel way to increase or decrease seats to meet reopening guidelines
If it works, knowing Sod’s Law, it will probably be rarely used, as someone will come up with an affordable vaccine, that’s bulletproof!
As we’ve also had an electric bus from Norfolk, that I wrote about in Equipmake Opens New Electric Bus Factory In Snetterton, there will be several players helping to decarbonise the bus industry.
£350m Investment For Britain’s First Mainline Digital Railway
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
This is the introductory paragraph.
The East Coast Main Line will become Britain’s first mainline digital rail link with £350m of new investment to install state-of-the-art electronic signalling designed to cut journey times and prevent delays.
We’re finally going digital!
The Route Of High Speed Two Into Birmingham
This map clipped from the High Speed Two web site, shows the route of the line to its terminus in Birmingham Curzon Street station.
Note.
- Birmingham Curzon Street station is indicated by the blue dot in the West.
- Interchange station is indicated by the blue dot in the South-East corner of the map.
- There is a large triangular junction connecting the spur to Birmingham Curzon Street to the main North-South route of High Speed Two.
This second map is an enlargement of the South-East corner of the map.
Note.
- The road across the bottom of the map is the A45,
- The large circular roundabout roughly at the halfway [point is where the M42 crosses the A45 at Junction 6.
- The Junction at the Eastern edge of the map is where the A452 crosses the A45.
- High Speed Two goes roughly North-South between the M42 and the A452.
- When shown in red, High Speed Two is on an embankment.
- When shown in yellow, High Speed Two is in a tunnel.
- The large blue dot is the position of the Interchange station.
- The existing Birmingham International station is on the other side of the M42.
- The two stations will be connected by a people mover.
This description of the Interchange station is from this page on the High Speed Two web site.
The Interchange Station itself will be made up of two 415 metre long island platforms, offering 4 platform faces, as well as 2 central high speed through lines for non-stopping services. The station will be linked to the NEC, Birmingham International Station and Birmingham Airport via an automated people mover carrying up to 2,100 passengers per hour in each direction. In addition to the APM, the station will be fully integrated with other local buses, taxis and private vehicle options.
This third map is an enlargement of the triangular junction.
Note.
- The M6 going West to Spaghetti Junction, Birmingham and the North.
- The M42 and the M6 Toll going North-South.
- When shown in red, High Speed Two is on an embankment.
- When shown in yellow, High Speed Two is in a tunnel.
The junction seems to have been fitted around the motorways using a series of embankments and tunnels.
This fourth map shows the approach to the City.
Note.
- The spur appears to run alongside the elevated section of the M6.
- Spaghetti Junction is in the North-West corner of the map.
- The Western junction of the triangular junction is at the Eastern edge of the map.
- When shown in brown, High Speed Two is on the surface.
- When shown in black, High Speed Two is in a cutting.
- Or are black and brown, the other way round, as I can’t find the legend for the map.
The spur seems to have been neatly fitted in alongside the M6.
This fifth map shows the route as it terminates in Birmingham Curzon Street station.
Note.
- The A38 (M) that connects the City Centre to Spaghetti Junction at the top of the map.
- High Speed Two appears to approach the City Centre on a viaduct. But then trains between London and Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Moor Street stations, do the same.
- The three stations are within a reasonable walking distance and there will also be a tram connection.
- The journey time between Birmingham Curzon Street and Interchange stations is planned to be nine minutes.
This page on the High Speed Two web site, gives more details on Birmingham Curzon Street station.
Coronavirus: Over 600 People Test Positive At German Slaughterhouse
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on DW News.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Yet another German slaughterhouse has registered a massive outbreak of the coronavirus. Roughly two-thirds of the test results so far have come back positive.
Does the author think this is a recurring problem?
There is a sub-heading in the article of By No Means An Isolated Case, where this is said.
Germany’s meat processing sector has come under increasing scrutiny during the pandemic, with several plants reporting massive outbreaks. The sector is plagued with poor working conditions, exploitative contracts and usurious rents in mass housing for eastern European workers.
The company is blaming Bulgarian and Romanian workers going home for the long weekend.
The next paragraph, would appear to debunk that theory.
According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Germany has had far more confirmed cases of coronavirus than either Romania or Bulgaria. In the past 14 days, Germany registered 4,814 new cases, compared to 2,898 in Romania and 915 in Bulgaria.
By comparison, we have had 14,932 lab-confirmed cases in the last fourteen days.
The article says that this slaughterhouse is in Gutersloh and from a picture in the article, the slaughterhouse seems to process pigs.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Gutersloh.
It looks to be a typical German town of 100,000 people, but it does have one unusual feature according to Wikipedia; ten percent of the population are Arameans.
I have found these facts on Wikipedia.
- The total number of Arameans in Germany is between 100,000 and 120.000. See Arameans
- There has been a long history of Turkish people migrating to Germany. See Turks In Germany
- The number of Turks in Germany is 2,774,000, making them the largest minority. See Demographics of Germany
- Many of the Turks were brought to Germany in the 1970s to do the jobs the Germans didn’t want to do and to solve a labour crisis, after the building of the Berlin Wall. See Turks In Germany
Turks are Muslim and the Germans produce a lot of pork. So do Turks work in German slaughterhouses handling pork and making sausages?
If they don’t, does this explain the large number of Arameans in Gutersloh? Arameans are Christians and unlike Muslims and Jews, eat pork.
Their diet also contains alcohol and appears to be gluten-rich!
I’d love to have German statistics of COVID-19 by ethnicity!
Honeywell Launches Lightweight Cooling System For Electric Aircraft
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Flight Global.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Honeywell Aerospace has unveiled a lightweight, low-maintenance cooling system for developers of urban air mobility (UAM) and electric aircraft, and has named the Eviation Alice as launch platform for the energy-efficient feature.
I particularly like the comment of Eviation’s founder Omer Bay-Yohay’s comment of “Every ounce counts!”.
But although weight is important in an electric aircraft, like the Eviation Alice, it is also important in other forms of transport from a family runabout to a high-speed train. Especially, if the vehicle is powered by batteries.
It should also be noted, that Honeywell are setting up a specialist business unit to provide equipment for and help the builders of electric aircraft.
Conclusion
Other companies will follow Honeywell’s lead and produce lightweight equipment for the automotive and rail industries.
The Anonymous Widower 