Vivarail D-Trains And The Heart Of Wales Line
I’d never really heard of the Heart of Wales Line until it was mentioned in this paragraph in this article on Wales Online about D-Trains running in Wales.
Vivarail spokesman Alice Gillman says the firm’s engineers believe the refurbished rolling stock would be suitable for lines in Wales including the Heart of Wales Line.
It certainly looks like a forgotten line that could certainly use some new rolling stock.
Reading the Wikipedia entry for the line, I come to the following conclusions.
- The line is mainly single track, but has been upgraded with four modern passing loops and can take freight trains that fir a loading guage of W5.
- The line is thought to be scenic.
- The passenger service is only a few trains a day and is mainly run by single coach Class 153 trains.
- It must have some horrendous operating problems, which could be expensive to handle.
It sounds to me, that this line is a very much underused asset, that if it was given a better train service could help to improve the lives of those in some of the most remotest parts of Wales. It might even bring more tourists to the area.
I must take a trip on the line.
In 2010, I took a train ride from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh and after that trip, I came to the conclusion, that that very scenic line needed more capacity.
But five years on there is still not enough diesel multiple units to give these lines an upgraded service.
So as reports are suggesting, could one or more D-Trains be used on the Heart of Wales line?
The journey takes just over three hours with a Class 153 Train, which has a top speed of 75 mph.
So a D-Train would unlikely be faster along the route, as it only has a top speed of sixty. Although, as there are 29 stations on the line, the D-train which has been designed for easy loading and unloading in London, may actually not be much slower overall.
Imagine a train service with these characteristics.
- A train with seats arranged in fours around tables by the window.
- Lots of space for bicycles.
- Fully-accessible for everyone!
- Something like Vivarail’s proposed catering system.
- A clock-face hourly service from Craven Arms to Llanelli.
All is possible with the right number of D-trains.
D-trains offer other advantages.
- As the D-trains don’t need the sort of specialist depot that most trains need, this must ease maintenance of the trains.
- More than one train, probably eases the problems of what to do if a train has a serious breakdown or hits a flock of sheep or a snow drift in the middle of nowhere.
- Don’t forget the novelty value of riding a refurbished London Underground train in some of the most rural parts of Wales.
- D-trains will be available by the end of 2016.
D-trains may never run on the Heart of Wales Line, but I can certainly see the reasons why Vivarail have thought seriously about the possibility.
Are There Secondary Effects In The Budget?
I have a feeling that there could be some secondary effects from the budget and particularly the announcement of a National Living Wage.
Nowhere will this measure be felt more than at the bottom end of the employers. If you read the tabloids, you get the impression that dodgy low-quality businesses are the big employers of illegal immigrants, keeping them in squalor and paying them in cash, if they’re lucky.
With a solidly enforced living wage, will this make it more difficult for these companies and operators to survive, so this country might be less of a magnet for illegal immigrants. I don’t know, but a higher level of living wage gives the Tax Authorities a good reason to investigate the sort of businesses who rely on no-questions-asked labour.
I very much watch innovation in the media and also have been in touch several times with universities in the last few years. I think we’ll see companies using their local innovators to make sure they support their now more highly-paid employees. I know several universities are giving students real projects in local companies.
So will we be pushing our employment up-market? I think we will!
As an example, an industry that we all seem to use more these days are couriers to deliver the goods we’ve bought on-line. They have got so much better over the last few years and that is just not the delivery reliability, but the staff as well, who seem to be polite and very much on-the-ball. Incidentally, most staff who’ve delivered to me lately seem to have been British born and educated.
I don’t know what will happen in the next few years, but I have a feeling that the Chancellor’s announcements may be helping to move the country on from a low-wage, low-skilled and badly-supported work force to one where a job, where you work hard and efficiently gives you a real living wage.
Of course Labour think that the restructuring of Tax Credits will mean many will lose out. But then Labour’s solution to a low-wage, low-skill economy was to pay people at the low-end to do nothing or crap jobs.
The other thing the Chancellor must do to help, is make sure that our transport links are improved. It’s one thing to get a job and often it’s a much more difficult thing to get to that job every day. You just have to see what the Overground and the fleets of new buses have done for Hackney and the surrounding boroughs, here in London, over the past few years.
Will Dudley Get A National Very Light Rail Innovation Centre?
In London, there are several types of railway.
1. The main lines coming into London like the East Coast Main Line and the London Overground would typically be classified as heavy rail.
2. The London Underground is a metro, underground of rapid transit system. Take your pick on the name, but in London’s case it’s complicated by some Underground trains sharing tracks with heavy rail services.
3. The Docklands Light Railway is probably best described as what it says in the name; a light railway.
4. There is also the Tramlink, which in London is a tram that runs both on-street and on dedicated tracks.
Looking around the world, there are a multiplicity of types of railway and every country seems to have their own versions.
So I was interested to see this article on the BBC web site, which talked about a proposed Very Light Rail Innovation Centre and a new transport link in Dudley in the West Midlands.
So what is very light rail?
I suppose the only truly very light rail system in the UK, is the Parry People Mover in Strourbridge, which is a lightweight vehicle powered by an innovative electric drive train using a flywheel for energy storage.
It is my belief, that as you make vehicles lighter, they become more efficient and this improves the economics. This applies to both road and rail vehicles.
As the Dudley project is backed by the well-respected Warwick Manufacturing Group, I suspect that quite a few influential organisations, will think the Innovation Centre could be a worthwhile project.
This is a project that needs to be watched.
But consider.
1. The Docklands Railway is successful and liked by passengers and operators. So why is it, that there is no similar driverless system using the same technology?
2. How many proposals for trams and light rail systems in the ?UK, have never come to fruition?
3. Every tram system I’ve ever ridden seems to be a one off design from the stations and track to the vehicles and the ticketing system.
We must be able to do better!
And surely a properly-funded Innovation Centre, backed with the right technical resources wiill help us create better urban transport systems in the UK and the wider world.
Is This The Future Of Patient Monitoring?
As anybody who has spent time in hospital connected to a traditional heart, blood pressure, pulse and temperature monitor will know, it is not an easy process. Leads fall off, moving around is difficult and you are often in need of staff. I’ve only spent time recently in good hospitals, where they were enough staff to check on me regularly and that includes two NHS hospitals. But in one NHS hospital, I had a private room and a quick visual check as the nurse passed by wouldn’t have been possible.
In some ways the current system is like driving a car without a fuel gauge and every few miles, you have to get out to dip the tank to see if you’ve enough fuel to carry on.
But then enter the engineers!
I have just watched this story on BBC Breakfast Here’s the first three paragraphs.
The NHS is starting to test a sticking-plaster-sized patient-monitoring patch.
Placed on the chest, it wirelessly transmits data on heart rate, breathing and body-temperature while the patient is free to move around.
Independent experts say the system, developed in Britain, could ease pressure on wards and has the potential to monitor patients in their own home.
I think we all have to remember, that this is the first device. No-one would be able to predict how far this technology will go. And how a healthcare system like the will be able to use it in the future!
On the other hand, there is also this statement in the story.
But the Royal College of Nursing says there is no substitute for having enough staff.
In some ways that shows what a good system it must be, as the Luddites and Nimbys always try to stop good developments.
Read more about the company; Sensium Healthcare, behind the development here.
As it’s got one or more ultra-low power chips in there somewhere, is this another application of technology from ARM?
Enthusiasm For Class 68 And Class 88
I found this article from Rail Engineer about the new Class 68 and Class 88 locomotives that will soon be pulling freight and passenger trains on the UK rail network.
The article is enthusiastic about the two classes, but notes that the Class 68 will not meet the toughest EU pollution regulations. This is particularly appropriate given that the UK and some European countries are suffering high levels of air pollution. The Rail Engineer article says this about compliance to the new regulations.
The CAT engines meet European Stage IIIA emission standards, and can be modified to meet 2012 IIIB emission standards by replacing the exhaust silencer with a diesel particulate filter. However, because of the UK’s restricted loading gauge, this would involve considerable re-design work if it were to be applied to the Class 68.
It is important that rail locomotives are improved, as the current mainstay, the Class 66 is not liked by those who live on busy freight routes, due to its noise. I’ve also talked to drivers, who feel they have other problems too.
As an engineer, I feel that the best solution is the next generation of locomotives like the Class 88, which will be a 200 kph electric locomotive with an on-board diesel for running on non-electrified track. I wrote about the Class 88 here.
Do I Pass The Branson Test?
Richard Branson is being quoted on the BBC about his ten tips for success in business.
So as someone, who likes to think he’s been successful at times, how do I think I stack up?
1. Follow your dreams and just do it!
Guilty as charged!
2. Make a positive difference and do some good
I argue, that I was part of the movement, which of course included the mighty Artemis, had a lot to do with transforming project management, so that important projects are now more likely to be implemented on time and on budget.
Unfortunately, some people, who tend to be mainly politicians and government employees, don’t abide by the principles we laid down.
But it did deliver the London Olympics and it looks like it’s going to deliver Crossrail in the next few years.
3. Believe in your ideas and be the best
Guilty as charged!
4. Have fun and look after your team.
I certainly had fun and it is not for me to say, if I looked after my team.
But I will say that many people, who I worked with in the past, are still friends. Some also looked after me, through my troubles of the last few years.
5. Don’t give up
Many people after what I had been through with the loss of my wife and youngest son to cancer and a serious stroke, would have taken the easy way out.
But then London mongrels have more fight, than a whole kennel-full of pit bulls.
6. Make lots of lists and keep setting yourself new challenges
I managed bugs in Artemis with lists and I still use them extensively on a card for each day. But then my father was the master of creating paper-based management systems, so it must be in the genes.
7. Spend time with your family and learn to delegate
Not sure about this one, but I’ve always organised my work from home since 1971. I can’t understand those who commute!
I don’t know about delegating, but if I have a problem that needs solving, I usually delegate by finding the best and getting them to do it.
8. Try turning off the TV and get out there and do things
I always have the TV on and have done for years, as I created Artemis, whilst watching the box.
But I’ve always been open to distraction by a pretty woman, who wants to take me somewhere to enjoy ourselves. C was a master, at coming in and saying that we perhaps go out to see a play in a Cambridge College.
I am obsessive about completing major tasks, but very easily distracted.
9. When people say bad things about you, just prove them wrong
I use criticism as a motivating tool and generally go on to prove people wrong.
10. Do what you love and have a sofa in the kitchen
C and myself, generally did what we loved and lived in the kitchen. We had a sofa there since we moved to Debach about 1980.
Even today, I live in a large living room, with a bedroom behind and a kitchen in the corner.
I can’t understand why people want to live in houses with masses of rooms and an eight figure price tag.
I certainly do what I love, too!
So I think I followed Branson’s principles pretty well!
Would I add any of my own? Yes!
1. Experience as much as you can of life
So if someone offers you a trip in the sewers of East London, don’t turn it down!
Branson is certainly not short on experience.
2. Never forget anything
I have an elephantine memory, but there are successful people, who make sure everything they have read, written or said is archived.
You never know, when you might need that information.
As an example, I went on a Health and Safety course at ICI. Some of what I learned has been invaluable since my stroke, when navigating my way around streets with impaired vision.
3. Don’t get divorced.
Branson hasn’t! But I suspect, he’s not always been a Saint, where the ladies are concerned.
4. Steal ideas from the public domain or experience
Two things in the design of Artemis come to mind.
The report writer of the original Artemis broke new ground, but I stole the template from a dead IBM program called 360-CSMP, that I’d used at ICI.
The other was perhaps more trivial. When I developed the PC version of Artemis, I needed a strong well-designed interface. So I mimicked the keyboard and the function keys on the old IBM-PC and used the bright colours from a BBC Television program called Three of a Kind, which used jokes on the screen in a system they called Gagfax.
One of my colleagues disagreed with my choice and said we’d employ an expert to choose them. But we didn’t and I won the argument by default.
5.Don’t trust lawyers, accountants, bankers and patent agents
I could add a caveat here, in that if they have a stake in the success of the venture, then in many cases it turns out for the better.
I’ve only met one accountant and one banker that I would ever trust. Sadly both, are sorting out God’s problems!
As to lawyers, I got to screw my own for forty years and luckily we bred a good one. So if I need a good one, I can generally get a good recommendation.
On the other hand, the biggest mistake, I made in life, was when after C’s death, I didn’t sell everything and move to something like a two-bedroom flat in Docklands or the Barbican!
I’d love to hear Branson’s view on what I call Professional Theft
But
A Worrying Report On CFCs And HCFCs
It is being reported that mysterious CFC and HCFC gases have been found in the atmosphere. Here’s the first part of the report.
Scientists have identified four new man-made gases that are contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer.
Two of the gases are accumulating at a rate that is causing concern among researchers.
Worries over the growing ozone hole have seen the production of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases restricted since the mid 1980s.
I have no theory about how these gases got there, as I’m no chemist or environmental scientist.
But I do feel that there are an awful lot of unnecessary drug inhalers powered by HCFCs used in the world.
I don’t mean unnecessary from the medical point of view, although in the 1990s, there were some amazing anomalies in the prescribing of these devices.
Some years ago, I backed a company that went on to produce an inhaler, that used no compressed gases, no batteries or any other noxious or environmentally-unfriendly substance.
It was so impressive that we were brought up at the Montreal Protocol talks, where some delegates tried to get the banning of HCFCs as well. They failed as some countries and Big Pharma didn’t want a ban.
So what happened to our device?
We sold it to Bohringer Ingelheim for a lot of money and it is described on this website.
Lighting The Way Affordably
I have dabbled in the past with photoluminescence and C and myself were once enchanted by the starry ceilings of the Hotel Windsor in Nice, but up to now most of the applications have been small.
So I commend Hammersmith and Fulham Council’s plans to use the phenomenon to light up the path in William Parnell Park, as is reported here in the Evening Standard.
There are lots of places, where the proiperty of photoluminesence can be successfully used, although safety applications as detailed here predominate.
We may giggle at the idea now, but in a few years time, this type of lighting, will be used all over the place.
If you’d like to put stars on a child’s bedroom or something similar, there is this UK manufacturer in Bury.
The Anonymous Widower 