The Combined Car Park And Storage Battery
I don’t drive these days, but I did for well over forty years.
If I was still driving now and still lived in Suffolk, I’d be looking seriously at an electric car as an everyday runabout, as rarely in the last twenty years, have I had the need to do a long journey, that I couldn’t do by train.
So my electric car would probably sit in a car park space at Cambridge North station, attached to a charger, a lot of the time. But with better batteries and vehicle-to-grid systems, there will come a time, when you will park your battery vehicle and tell it you’ll be returning in a few hours or days and you’ll need say four hours of charge on return. Obviously, if your circumstances change, you will have an app on your phone to make adjustments.
Suppose your average car had a 30 kWh battery, this would mean that the 450 space car park at Cambridge North station, if say 300 spaces were for electric cars would have a electricity storage capacity of around 0.9MWh.
So if the wind wasn’t blowing or the sun wasn’t shining, then there’s probably about half a MWh of electricity that can be borrowed and still allow drivers to get home.
It may all sound terribly complicated, but electricity put into batteries at night or other quiet times, gets used when it’s needed.
Batteries and other forms of energy storage will be everywhere; in houses, offices, public buildings, wind and solar farms, and in every electric vehicle.
There are 31.,6million cars alone in the UK and how many are quietly sitting in car parks and garages or at the side of the street, for most of the day.
The Car Park As A Power Station
There will be multi-story car-parks reserved for electric cars.
- Each parking space will have a charging point.
- The roof will of course have solar panels.
- I would expect that in a few years time the connection between car and charger will be automatic.
- The parking charge would be based on a mixture of time parked and energy passed to or from the battery.
- Car parks would probably also be paid by National Grid dependent on how much energy they can make available automatically.
The control system for all this lot, would do my head in! But it would mean that all generated energy was either used or stored!
In some ways a car pack for electric cars would become a small power station.
Examples Of Car Parks
These car-parks would have some interesting applications.
Airports
Airports like Heathrow have a pollution problem and it’s not just the planes, but masses of diesel and petrol vehicles.
- To encourage more passengers to drive electric vehicles to an airport, why not make the closest car parks electric car only?
- Long-term car parks for electric vehicles could be a massive storage battery, which would be used to help power the airport.
- Car parks for electric cars would be less polluted.
- Car parks for electric cars could be under the ground with runways and taxiways on top.
Everyone would be a winner.
- Passengers’ electric cars would be earning an energy storage charge from the National Grid.
- The Airport would have a reliable back-up power source.
- There would be much less pollution at the Airport.
- National Grid would gain additional much-needed energy storage.
There will be a lot of thought going in to making airport parking more efficient and affordable for electric cars.
Business Parks And Offices
Much of the logic for airports would apply.
But I do feel, that companies with medium and large-sized fleets of vehicles will go electric, as they can then integrate energy management across their premises and fleet.
Town And City Centres
Towns and cities with a pollution problem like London, will surely use the best car parks as bribes to get more electric vehicles into the centre.
Residential Developments
The mind boggles at what could be done in residential developments.
- Cars could go to and from parking automatically.
- Every house would come with energy storage plus that in the car.
- The development would appear car-free.
- Cars could be in shared ownership with the development.
- There could be automatic trolleys running through the development delivering parcels.
The market will determine what is needed.
Conclusion
Creating car parks solely for electric cars will create energy storage units at points of employment, living, shopping and transport.
Rail Operations Seeks New Sites To Extend Storage Space
The title of this post, as the same as that of this article in Issue 869 of Rail Magazine.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Rail operations (UK) Limited is looking to lease more sites for storing off-lease trains.
Via ita Traxion business, the company has already leased Crewe South Yard and the Marks & Sencer Logistics site at Castle Donington.
Much of the rest of the article is an interview with Karl Watts, who is Chief Executive of Rail Operations (UK) Limited, where he outlines the train storage market. He appears to be a man, who builds a strategy around facts and then pounces.
To do this he would need to have.
- Good advisers, with excellent knowledge of and contacts in the UK Rail and European rail industry.
- Reliable financial backing.
- The ability to give a good story to the media.
It appears, Karl could have used similar tactics, when he commissioned ten Class 93 locomotives from Stadler, that I wrote about in Stadler’s New Tri-Mode Class 93 Locomotive.
He puts forward some firm views and facts.
- 4,000 vehicles are coming off-lease.
- 46-47 miles of track will be needed.
- 313s, 314s and 315s will be scrapped.
- 317s, 319s, 321s and 442s will be re-engineered.
The customer gets what they want with appropriate servicing and maintenance.
Have I Regressed To My Childhood?
Growing up in the early 1950s in London, I wasn’t the healthiest of children.
- At some time most winters, I would have several weeks off school with a severe cold with extras.
- I can remember my mother cutting up old sheets for hankerchiefs.
- These would be boiled after use in a large saucepan on the gas cooker.
- I would cough all night and a good part of the day.
- I would inhale steam from a large jug of hot water and Friar’s Balsam.
Dr. Egerton White was always round our house.
Things improved towards the end of the 1950s.
- The passing of the Clean Air Act in 1956.
- I would be given penicillin which seemed to help. Naughty! Naughty!
- At weekends we’d go to Felixstowe.
What finally improved my health was going to Liverpool University.
Now over fifty years later, I’ve got a cold like I had in the 1950s.
- I can’t stop coughing for more than ten or twenty minutes.
- Nothing seems to work to stop the cough!
- It’s gone on for eight days now!
- I’m not getting much sleep.
Could the pollution from all the diesel vehicles be the key?
The Original Walk-Through Train In The UK
It’s not often, you are more or less alone in one of London Underground’s S8 Stock trains, that is stationary.
But this train was stuck as a red signal outside Farringtdon station on a quiet day over the Christmas period, so I took advantage.
You can understand, why these eight car and 134 metre long trains can handle a couple over a thousand passengers for big matches at Wembley and also make journeys acceptable for long-distance commuters from Amersham, Chesham, Uxbridge and Watford.
Note the following features.
- Walk-through design.
- Better seats than Thameslink’s Call 700 trains.
- Wide all-double doors and lobbies.
- Wheelchair spaces with tip-up seats.
- Big, wide windows.
- Space under the seats.
Air-conditioning, step free access to platform and selective door opening are not shown.
The trains started to enter service in 2010 and they will probably have an interior refresh in around five years time, with the probably addition of wi-fi and USB power sockets.
Transport for London have used similar designs for three trains since.
- The Overground’s Class 378 trains
- Crossrail’s Class 345 trains
- The Overground’s Class 710 trains
The refurbishment of Docklands Light Railway trains has also been following similar principles.
Tottenham Hale Station – 2nd January 2019
I took these pictures yesterday pf the rebuilding of Tottenham Hale station.
Note.
- The basic concrete structure of the station box appears complete.
- The footbridge is coming on.
- The lift tower on the Stansted-bound platform appears far back on the platform.
- Network Rail seem to be seriously pruning trees.
- The third track isn’t complete yet.
There must be a chance that the station will open as planned in May 2019.
Poetic Return For The Night Train In The Era Of ECommerce
The title of this post is the same as that of a half-page article on Page 34 of the Business Section of today’s copy pf The Times.
As you can see The Times gave it the full treatment with stills from the classic documentary film; The Night Mail, which has a verse commentary written by W. H. Auden.
It’s an idea from the seemingly irrepressible Karl Watts, who is Chief Executive of Rail Operations (UK) Limited.
He plans to start test operations with two Class 769 trains leased from Porterbrook.
I wrote about this concept two years ago, in The Go-Anywhere Express Parcel And Pallet Carrier (HSPT).
Climate Change: The Massive CO2 Emitter You May Not Know About
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first three paragraphs..
Concrete is the most widely used man-made material in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet.
But, while cement – the key ingredient in concrete – has shaped much of our built environment, it also has a massive carbon footprint.
Cement is the source of about 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to think tank Chatham House.
Read the whole article.
Huge Increase In Capacity On GWR As Final Class 800 Enters Traffic
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Rail Madazine.
This is the first two paragraphs.
More than 10,000 extra seats will be available to Great Western Railway passengers on January 2, compared with the same number last year.
This follows the delivery of the final Class 800 Intercity Express Train.
This means that Great Western Railway (GWR) ‘s fleet is now
- 21 x nine-car Class 800 trains
- 36 x five-car Class 800 trains.
- 21 x Class 802 trains
With still another 15 Class 802 trains to come of the 32 x five-car and 14 x nine-car order.
They are certainly ready to increase services in 2019.
Introduction Of New Trains To East Anglia Will Be Like Moving ‘From Mid-Table To Champions League’ Says Greater Anglia Boss
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the East Anglian Daily Times.
It is a rare detailed article on how new trains are introduced to a network.
This is a quote from Jamie Burles of Greater Anglia in the article.
On some lines there will be a huge quality uplift – going from a 40-year old single carriage diesel train to a minimum three-carriage state-of-the-art bi-mode train with air conditioning, plug sockets and broadband wi-fi.
East Anglia is being subjected to one of most radical rail upgrades in the history of railways in the UK.
Keep Your Fingers Crossed And Don’t Anticipate Disaster
This is June Whitfield’s own words at the end of her obituary in The Times today, after she had been asked for tips on how to remain positive in old age.
I’ll drink to that!
The Anonymous Widower 