East-West Rail: Aylesbury Spur
This map from East West Rail shows the complete route of the East West Railway between Oxford and Cambridge.
Note the spur to Aylesbury, which is shown dotted, which the legend says means it is a Potential Future Section of the EWR.
The papers in the area have different views.
- This article on Bucks Herald is entitled Aylesbury Spur Excluded From Government’s Latest East West Rail Route Outline.
- This article on Buckinghamshire Live is entitled East West Rail Aylesbury ‘Spur’ Plans Remain On The Table As Route Announced For £5bn Project.
So what do I feel about the Aylesbury Spur?
Train Services
In the Wikipedia entry for the East West Railway, it is stated that there will be an hourly service between Aylesbury and Milton Keynes Central stations, that would call at Aylesbury Vale Parkway, Winslow and Bletchley.
Wikipedia also states that there will be no Marylebone and Milton Keynes or Aylesbury and Manchester Piccadilly services.
I am surprised that a Marylebone and Milton Keynes service is ruled out, for these reasons.
- A Marylebone and Milton Keynes service would give Winslow a direct service to London.
- Aylesbury Vale Parkway has an hourly service from Marylebone, which could be extended to Milton Keynes Central to create the service.
- Aylesbury Vale Parkway and Marylebone have as many as three trains per hour (tph) in the Peak. Does this make timetabling of an hourly Marylebone and Milton Keynes service difficult?
The Wikipedia entry for Aylesbury Vale Parkway, says this about a Marylebone and Aylesbury Vale Parkway service.
It was proposed that, if services are extended to the north, trains between Milton Keynes Central and Marylebone would run via High Wycombe and not Amersham.
This dates from 2012.
But.
- There may be troubles with the timings of a Marylebone and Milton Keynes service between Aylesbury Vale Parkway and Milton Keynes.
- A separate Aylesbury and Milton Keynes service would give a half-hourly service between Aylesbury Vale Parkway and Aylesbury, whereas an extended service only gives the current hourly service.
This Google Map shows Aylesbury Vale Parkway station.
Note.
- The station only has a single bay platform.
- It appears that there is a step-free walk between the car park and the platform.
- There is no bridge or need for one.
- There is a single through line at the station on the opposite side to the car park, which is mainly used by trains going to the landfill at Calvert.
It looks from this map, that if the single platform were widened to an island platform, that both terminating and through trains could call in the station.
Perhaps though the modifications at Aylesbury Vale Parkway are too complicated or expensive?
The ruling out of the Aylesbury and Manchester Piccadilly service is probably easier to understand.
Consider.
- Milton Keynes Central will have a two tph service to Oxford and was planned to have an hourly service from Aylesbury.
- Milton Keynes Central has an hourly Avanti West Coast service to Manchester Piccadilly via Rugby, Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield and Stockport.
- Milton Keynes Central has an hourly Avanti West Coast service to Liverpool Lime Street via Crewe and Runcorn.
- Milton Keynes Central has a two-hourly Avanti West Coast service to Edinburgh Waverley via Rugby, Coventry, Birmingham International, Birmingham New Street, Sandwell and Dudley, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Crewe, Warrington Bank Quay, Wigan North Western, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme Lake District, Penrith, Carlisle, Haymarket
- Milton Keynes Central has a two-hourly Avanti West Coast service to Preston via Rugby, Coventry, Birmingham International, Birmingham New Street, Sandwell and Dudley, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Crewe, Warrington Bank Quay and Wigan North Western. Five trains per day (tpd) are extended to Glasgow and two tpd are extended to Blackpool North.
Note.
- A train running between Aylesbury and Manchester Piccadilly would probably need to be a 125 mph electric train, which would mean electrifying the East West Railway.
- A change at Milton Keynes Central would give access to trains for nearly all North-West England and Southern Scotland.
But because of all the connectivity at Milton Keynes Central, it surely puts pressure on providing an Aylesbury and Milton Keynes Central service.
The Track
It is possible to follow the track North from Aylesbury Vale Parkway until it joins the East West Railway to the West of Winsford station.
This Google Map shows the junction, just North of the hamlet of Calvert..
Note.
- The East West Railway going across the top of the map.
- The single track railway to Aylesbury Vale Parkway coming North and then turning East to join the East West Railway.
- The railway from Aylesbury Vale Parkway is still used by trains taking landfill.
The Wikipedia entry for Calvert, says this about the landfill site.
Another of the clay pits is now a landfill site. Waste is collected from Bristol, Bath and London each day and transported using rail via Aylesbury to Calvert. The site has a power station capable of producing 14 MWe of electricity from landfill gas, coming from the decomposition of organic matter to convert it into renewable electricity MW.
Looking at the map and the traffic on Real Time Trains, it would appear that there would be enough capacity for both the freight and an hourly passenger train between Aylesbury and Milton Keynes.
There is also the slight problem, that High Speed Two will be going through the area, as this map shows.
Note.
- High Speed Two is shown in yellow (cutting) and embankment (red).
- High Speed Two appears to run either on the same route or alongside the route to Aylesbury.
- The East West Railway goes across the top of thye map.
- The chord that connects the Aylesbury Spur to the East West Railway can clearly be seen.
- The Aylesbury Spur will run along the same route as High Speed Two.
- Aylesbury Vale Parkway will be just off the South-East corner of the map.
This page on the High Speed Two web site is entitled Boost for Oxford-Cambridge Connections As HS2 Builds Key East West Rail Bridge, describes the installation of a bridge to take the East West Railway goes over High Speed Two.
This picture is from High Speed Two.
As the landfill at Calvert will still need to be filled, I suspect that High Speed Two will leave the route between Aylesbury Vale Parkway and the East West Railway as a fully-serviceable railway, when they tidy up and leave this section of their route.
It looks to me, that once these tasks are complete.
- High Speed Two relay all the tracks between Aylesbury Vale Parkway and the East West Railway.
- The junction between the Aylesbury Spur and the East West Railway is completed.
- Aylesbury Vale Parkway station is updated.
The Aylesbury Spur as needed by the East West Railway to run passenger services between Aylesbury and Milton Keynes Central could be complete.
And all because of High Speed Two and a landfill site.
Conclusion
I am drawn to the conclusion, that the Aylesbury Spur would not be a difficult railway to build and because it links to the important interchange station at Milton Keynes Central, it could be delivered soon after High Speed Two are finished in the area.
It also appears that Avanti West Coast have already aligned their services with the East West Railway.
Boson Energy To Use Nonrecyclable Trash To Make Carbon-Negative Hydrogen
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Hydrogen Fuel News.
This is the first paragraph.
Boson Energy, an Israeli-Swedish-Polish startup is preparing to move ahead with a form of carbon-negative hydrogen production using nonrecyclable garbage.
It is worth reading the Boson Energy web site.
Are Disposable Nappies A Wasted Resource?
I stated my views on disposable nappies in this post called Disposable Nappies, where this was the first sentence.
From a scientifically green point of view, in many places I’m against using disposable nappies, as they clog sewers, end up in landfill and I’ve even seen them in litter bins in parks. We used real nappies for all our three children in the seventies, washing them ourselves in a machine for the first and then using a nappy service for the last two.
But dirty nappies contain a lot of the ingredients, that can be used to make hydrocarbons.
This article from the Sunday Times in 2018 is entitled Syngas, The New Jet Fuel — Stinky Nappies And Coffee Cups.
These are the first two paragraphs of The Times article.
With their packed cabins and recycled air, long-haul passenger jets are the last place where you would want to encounter the whiff of a dirty nappy.
However, old nappies are to be used — along with other non-recyclable waste such as meal packaging and takeaway coffee cups — to power British Airways planes.
Syngas is a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and some carbon dioxide. Some countries without access to petroleum or diesel created syngas and then used the Fischer–Tropsch process to create the fuels they needed. The process doesn’t have a good reputation as the two main countries to use the process were Germany under the Nazis and South Africa during apartheid.
Why is the use of this process being revived to produce aviation biofuel or sustainable aviation fuel for British Airways?
According to Wikipedia, it can save between 20 and 98 % of carbon emissions compared to conventional jet fuel.
The same process can also make biodiesel for buses, trains and trucks
It’s certainly an area, where a lot of research is going on! Just type “syngas nappies” or “syngas diapers” into Google and you’ll get a lot of serious hits.
By my front door I have a well-designed blue bin.
This is for my food waste bin, which is collected once a week.
This page on the Hackney web site is entitled Food Waste Recycling, and this is said about where the food waste goes.
Food waste from households in Hackney is sent to an anaerobic digestion facility in south east England, where it’s turned into renewable energy to power homes and biofertiliser to be spread on local farmland to grow crops.
A similar bin of an appropriate size could be used for nappies.
The nappies would go to an appropriate recycling site, instead of down the toilet or into landfill.
New Facility In Scotland To Turn Waste Plastic Into Hydrogen
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Hydrogen Fuel News.
This is the first paragraph.
Peel NRE, a part of Peel Land & Property, has unveiled its plans for a second waste plastic to hydrogen facility. This one will be installed on the River Clyde’s north bank at the Rothesay Dock in West Dunbartonshire.
A few relevant points from the article.
- The facility will cost £20 million.
- Input will be non-recyclable plastics, that otherwise would go to landfill.
- There will be a hydrogen filling station at the site.
- The facility can handle 13500 tonnes of plastic per year
- The facility will use technology developed by the Powerhouse Energy Group.
It sounds like, we need more of these plastic to hydrogen facilities!
The Edmonton Incinerator
Although it is officially known these days as the Edmonton EcoPark, as a North Londoner, I will always know it as the Edmonton Incinerator.
I took these pictures with my drone.
These are a few facts from Wikipedia about the waste-to-energy plant.
- It was commissioned by the Greater London Council in 1971.
- It burns waste from the seven North-East London boroughs.
- It generates 55 MW of electricity.
It certainly dominates the landscape alongside the North Circular Road.
But.
It is probably not amongst the greenest of incinerators.
It is probably very much a design of the 1960s.
It is approaching fifty years old.
But it appears that things could be improving.
- There is a large composting and recycling facility being built on the site on the site.
- Plans exist to bring in the rubbish by barge.
This Google Map shows the site.
Note.
- The North Circular Road runs across the bottom of the map.
- All of the roads obliterated the famous Cooks Ferry Inn, where I saw the Animals play in the 1960s.
- The River Lee Navigation runs past the incinerator.
- Pymme’s Brook runs on the other side.
It looks from the map, that another reservoir is being built to the East of the canal.
The Guy Who Built The Edmonton Incinerator
I used to work with the guy, who was one of those in charge of the building of the incinerator, who when I met him, was head of the Greater London Council’s Construction Branch, who were using my project management software.
I can’t remember Mr. Samuels first name, even if I ever knew it.
- He was an Austrian Jew, who had trained as an engineer, who arrived in the UK sometime in the 1930s.
- He taught himself English in six weeks and got a job at Lucas.
- At the start of World War II, he volunteered and joined the Royal Engineers.
- He spent the whole war in bomb disposal.
- After the war he became an observer at the Nuremberg Trials.
After all he’d been through, he told me, the worst time of his life, was those years in the early seventies when I knew him, as his wife was dying of cancer.
But he taught me a lot about project management and the real horror of war.
He never told me, how many of his relatives survived the Nazis.
What Will Happen To The Edmonton Incinerator?
This year it will be fifty years since the Edmonton Incinerator was commissioned. It must be coming to the end of its life.
I can’t find any plans, but endless groups, who want it closed rather than rebuilt.
This article in the Hackney Gazette, which is entitled Campaigners Urge North London Incinerator Bidders To Pull Out, is typical.
I am very pro recycling, but then others aren’t as these pictures show.
So if some won’t recycle properly, it will all have to go to landfill.
An Odd Tale About Recycling
I applied to be a member of the Independent Monitoring Board of a prison near, where I used to live.
I had a very interesting tour of the prison, where I met several of the inmates.
One thing surprised me.
The prison had a very comprehensive internal recycling system, whereby everything was fully sorted.
One course of training, that was offered to prisoners was how to sort and process all of the rubbish. According to the guy running the course, it was one of the most popular in the prison.
Possibly, because I was told, it prepared prisoners for a job, where there were lots of vacancies.
I wonder if the new £100million recycling centre at Edmonton will use labour trained in the Prison Service?
Beeching Reversal – Reopening Harston Station
This is one of the Round 3 bids of Beeching Reversal projects that the Government and Network Rail are proposing to reverse some of the Beeching cuts.
Harston is a Cambridgeshire village, which is shown in this Google Map.
Note.
- The A10 winding its way North and South through the village.
- Cambridge is five miles to the North.
- The triangular road junction in the middle of the village with Station Road leading off to the South East.
- The Cambridge Line crosses the South-East corner of the map, at a right angle to Station Road.
This Google Map shows the former station site at an enlarged scale..
Note.
- There is plenty of space.
- There is a level crossing.
- The railway is double-track.
There’s even a Harston History page for the station, so if the architect’s decide to go retro, they can visit it for design inspiration.
My initial thoughts are that compared to some of the proposals for Beeching Reversal this one is practical and not over ambitious.
These are some of my thoughts.
Car Parking
Currently, there are the following stations between Cambridge and Hitchin.
Note.
Only Royston station has more than minimal parking provision.
The addition of Harston and Cambridge South stations will probably mean, that a lot of thought will be given to parking at all the stations between Cambridge and Hitchin.
Cambridge South like Cambridge North will probably have extensive parking to also serve Addenbrooke’s Hospital and Cambridge Bio-Medical Campus.
Whittlesford Parkway station on the line between Cambridge and Liverpool Street has very adequate parking provision.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Harston station having a couple of hundred parking spaces.
East West Railway
In Looking At The East West Railway Between Bedford And Cambridge, I looked at the route of the East West Railway as it approaches Cambridge.
I very much doubt that this new railway will go through Harston station.
But Harston station will beef up the capacity on the Cambridge Line to bring more workers to one of the science and engineering capitals of the world.
Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro
There are also plans for the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro.
This map shows the proposed layout of the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro.
Note that the green section will be in tunnel.
I doubt that the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro will run to Harston, as it most likely will run on rubber-tyred wheels and probably wouldn’t mix well with heavy rail.
Train Service
Currently, the current trains run through the station in the Off Peak.
- Thameslink – 2 tph – Cambridge and Brighton
- Thameslink – 2 tph – Cambridge and King’s Cross
- Great Northern – 1 tph – King’s Cross and Ely
- Great Northern – 1 tph – King’s Cross and King’s Lynn
Note.
- tph is an abbreviation for trains per hour.
- All trains are fast services, except for the Cambridge and King’s Cross service, which stops at all stations.
- When Cambridge South station opens, I suspect nearly all services will stop at that station.
- The Great Northern services also stop at Cambridge North station.
- In Call For ETCS On King’s Lynn Route, I talked of the possibility of running 125 mph trains on Great Northern services between King’s Cross, Cambridge, Cambridge North, Ely and King’s Lynn.
I suspect that it will be likely only the Thameslink stopping train will call at Harston station, just as it is the only service that calls at Foxton, Shepreth and Meldreth stations.
- But is two tph enough for a Park-and-Ride station?
- Whittlesford Parkway station already has three tph to and from Cambridge.
- I suspect there will be a second Stansted and Cambridge service which mean Whittlesford Parkway station gets four tph to Cambridge,
I suspect Hartston station needs four tph to give a Turn-Up-And-Go service.
Barrington Quarry And Landfill
This Google map shows the location of the Barrington Quarry and Landfill, with respect to Harston.
Note.
- Barrington Quarry and Landfill is in the North-West corner of the map.
- Harston is in the North-East corner of the map.
- The A10 road runs South-West from Harston to Foxton station, where there is a level crossing, where the Cambridge Line crosses the road.
- Foxton station has a freight-only line linking it to the quarry.
This second Google Map shows Foxton station in detail.
Note the rail line to Barrington curving away to the North West.
This document from CEMEX is entitled Barrington Quarry – Restoration Project.
It appears that the quarry will be restored and some of the land will be used for new homes.
As all the track is already in place, would it be possible to run a 2tph service between Barrington and Cambridge North station?
- It could call at Harston, Cambridge North and Cambridge stations.
- Harston station would get a four tph service.
- Cambridge gets more much-needed housing connected to the city.
It could also be run using battery-electric trains that would be charged using the electrification between Foxton and Cambridge North stations.
Conclusion
Taking everything together, it appears to me, that Harston station could improve the rail network to the South West of Cambridge.
Green Jet Fuel Plant Developers’ Ioy As World Economic Forum Backs Method As Best Aviation Solution
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Business Live.
This is the first paragraph.
The World Economic Forum has backed sustainable aviation fuel as the most promising decarbonation policy for aviation, delighting the developers of a £350 million refinery on the Humber.
I bet Velocys are delighted.
I also think, that, the biodiesel, that they can produce, is a short term solution to the decarbonisation of rail freight and the heaviest vehicles powered by diesel.
It’s so much better than throwing the rubbish into landfill.
Microwaves Could Turn Plastic Waste Into Hydrogen Fuel
This headline from this article in The Times could be the headline of the day!
Although thinking about it, it wouldn’t be a good idea to put all your plastic waste in the microwave and switch it on. It might catch fire or even worse create lots of hydrogen in your kitchen, which could be followed by a mini-Hindenburg disaster in the kitchen.
These are the introductory paragraphs.
From the yellowed bottles in landfill to the jellyfish-like bags clogging the oceans, plastics pollution is an apparently intractable problem.
Yet, chemists lament, it shouldn’t be. Within this waste there is something extremely useful, if only we could access it: hydrogen. Now a British team of scientists believes it has found a way to get at it, and do so cheaply, thanks to tiny particles of iron and microwaves.
If their system works at scale they hope it could be a way of cheaply converting useless plastic into hydrogen fuel and carbon.
Don’t we all want to believe that this impossible dream could come true?
Some Background Information
Some of the things I talk about will be technical, so I will have a bit of a preamble.
Hydrogen; Handling And Uses
Because of pre-World War Two airships, which tended to catch fire and/or crash, hydrogen has a bad reputation.
I used to work as an instrument engineer in a hydrogen plant around 1970. To the best of my knowledge the plant I worked in is still producing hydrogen in the same large building at Runcorn.
Hydrogen is one of those substances, that if you handle with care, it can be one of the most useful elements in the world.
It is a fuel that burns creating a lot of energy.
The only by-product of hydrogen combustion is steam.
It is one of the feedstocks for making all types of chemicals like ethylene, fertilisers, ammonia, pharmaceuticals and a wide range of hydrocarbons.
Hydrogen is a constituent of natural gas and in my youth, it was a constituent of town gas.
Hydrogen and hydrocarbons are involved in the manufacture of a lot of plastics.
In the future, hydrogen will have even more uses like making steel and cement, and powering railway trains and locomotives, and shipping of all sizes.
Hydrocarbons
According to Wikipedia, hydrocarbons are compounds consisting entirely of atoms of hydrogen and carbon.
In a kitchen, there are several hydrocarbons.
- If you cook by gas, you will probably be burning natural gas, which is mainly methane, which is a hydrocarbon
- Some might use propane on a barbecue, which is another hydrocarbon.
- I suspect you have some polythene or polyethylene, to use the correct name, in your kitchen. This common plastic is chains of ethylene molecules. Ethylene is another hydrocarbon.
- There will also be some polypropylene, which as the name suggests is made from another hydrocarbon; propylene.
Hydrocarbons are everywhere
Plastics
I used to work in two ICI divisions; Mond at Runcorn and Plastics at Welwyn Garden City
- The forerunners of ICI Mond Division invented polyethylene and when I worked at Runcorn, I shared an office, with one of the guys, who had been involved before the Second World War. in the development of polyethylene.
- Plastics Division used to make several plastics and I was involved in various aspects of research plant design and production.
One day, I’ll post in this blog, some of the more interesting and funnier stories.
Many plastics are made by joining together long chains of their constituent molecules or monomer.
- Ethylene is the monomer for polyethylene.
- Propylene is the monomer for polypropylene.
- Vinyl chloride is the monomer for polyvinylchloride or PVC.
So how are the chains of molecules built?
- Polyethylene was made by ICI. by applying large amounts of pressure to ethylene gas in the presence of a catalyst.
- They used to make polypropylene in large reaction vessels filled with oil, using another catalyst.
I suspect both processes use large quantities of energy.
Catalysts
A catalyst is a substance which increases the rate of a chemical reaction.
Judging by the number of times, I find new catalysts being involved in chemical reactions, the following could be true.
- There are processes, where better catalysts can improve yields in the production of useful chemicals.
- There is a lot of catalyst research going on.
Much of this research in the UK, appears to be going on at Oxford University. And successfully to boot!
Velocys
It should be noted that Velocys was spun out of Oxford University, a few years ago.
- The company appears to have improved the Fischer-Tropsch process.
- They are building a waste-to-aviation biofuel plant in Lincolnshire.
- They are backed by British Airways, Shell and UK plc.
This infographic shows their process.
This could be a route to net-zero carbon aviation and heavy haulage.
The beauty is that there would need to be little modification to existing aircraft and trucks.
Oxford University’s Magic Process
These paragraphs from The Times article explain their process.
The clue came in research on particles of iron, and what happens when they get really small. “There’s a fascinating problem,” Professor Edwards said. “You take a bit of metal, and you break it into smaller and smaller bits. At what stage does it stop behaving like a copy of the bigger bit?”
When the particle gets below a critical size, it turns out it’s no longer a metal in the standard sense. The electrical conductivity plummets, and its ability to absorb microwaves does the reverse, increasing by ten orders of magnitude.
Professor Edwards realised that this could be useful. “When you turn on the microwaves, these things become little hotspots of heat,” he said. When he put them in a mix of milled-up plastic, he found that they broke the bonds between the hydrogen and carbon, without the expense and mess of also heating up the plastic itself.
What is left is hydrogen gas, which can be used for fuel, and lumps of carbon nanotubes, which Professor Edwards hopes might be of a high enough grade to have a use as well. The next stage is to work with industry to find ways to scale it up.
It sounds rather amazing.
Going Large!
This article from The Times on Friday, is entitled Plastic To Be Saved From Landfill By Revolutionary Recycling Plants.
These are the two introductory paragraphs.
Thousands of tonnes of plastic waste will be turned into new plastic in Britain rather than dumped in landfill sites, incinerated or sent overseas under plans for four new plants that will use cutting-edge recycling technology.
Up to 130,000 tonnes of plastic a year will be chemically transformed in the facilities, which are to be built in Teesside, the West Midlands and Perth.
It all sounds like technology, that can transform our use of plastics.
Conclusion
In the years since I left Liverpool University in 1968 with a degree in Electrical and control Engineering, it has sometimes seemed to me, that chemistry has been a partly neglected science.
It now seems to be coming to the fore strongly.
Waste-to-Hydrogen Project Set For California
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Power Magazine.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A California company that produces renewable hydrogen has joined with a Louisiana construction group on a project to build a modular waste-to-hydrogen production facility.
These are some further points.
- The Californian company; Ways2H, also has a project in Japan.
- They aim to setup a pipeline of projects in 2021.
- The California Energy Commission has said the state is short of green hydrogen.
- The process can use paper and plastic waste or municipal solid waste.
- They can also handle medicinal waste.
- The systems appear to be transportable.
This paragraph is from the article.
Kindler said his company could produce “white hydrogen,” because the company’s process, which uses very high temperatures to turn waste plastics, wood, rubber and other biomass into gas and a carbon solid, can be used to sequester carbon dioxide and store it underground.
It looks to me, that if they make this system work, they will have found an alternative way to make hydrogen, by a zero-carbon method.
Conclusion
Could we see one of these plants in every local authority in the world to process all their waste into hydrogen?
I suspect in Ways2H’s plan for world domination, this is one of their objectives.
The Anonymous Widower 