Cycling infrastructure needs joined-up thinking.

 Cycling is one of the greenest and healthiest modes of transport. Whether it's making short trips around town for shopping or commuting, or longer bikepacking adventures, cycling is carbon neutral, cheap, and provides exercise as you go. However, it's also dangerous. Cyclists are of course highly vulnerable when sharing the road with motor vehicles, which puts off a lot of people from cycling. There's also an anti-bicycle mindset among many motorists, with many reports in the press of road rage incidents against cyclists from motorists who consider the road to be theirs and theirs alone (despite the fact that bicycles, and horses before them were there before the motor car was invented). Except for designated multi-use paths, cycling on the footpath is illegal, slow and often difficult. The solution is obviously properly segregated bike paths. However, cycle path provision in the UK is patchy, to say the least. 

While some councils have made good effort to provide well-engineered cycle routes that connect places, many paths are isolated, inconvenient and often downright unusable. You get the impression in some areas that paths were provided merely where space and funding was available, with little thought to where the paths were going to and from, and who was going to use them. Warrington Cycle campaign used to have a Facility of the Month page (last updated in 2019), which named and shamed some of the worst examples. Many of these went into a book called "crap cycle lanes", which ridiculed these unusable, confusing, and even dangerous token attempts at providing bike paths. 

To campaign for better, safer cycle routes that actually go from somewhere to somewhere, campaigners in Scotland started a not-quite-annual pedal on parliament to take their concerns straight to the Scottish Government.

Simply put, cyclists want routes that actually connect places, and are safe and convenient to ride.

Photographed below are some examples of bad and good practice:

    Bad practice: Bridge Street Cambuslang at the junction of sustrans routes 74 and 75. Access to the bridge is down the overgrown path to the left. The path across the road is multi-use, but there's only a small sign on a lamppost to indicate this and there's no obvious transition on and off the path. Getting down to and across the bridge requires kerb-hopping, and then there's a fence across the road at the other end of the bridge. These things are all fixable with a bit of thought.

    Good practice: East Kilbride, on sustrans route 756. Well-marked and signposted, fully segregated bike path. Where the cycle route joins the road there are drop-kerbs and white lines to indicate this, providing a smooth ride with no kerb-hopping. 

Could EMALS be fitted to UK Aircraft Carriers?

One of the most controversial design choices of the UK's new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers is that, despite their size, they are designed around the VSTOL variant of the F-35 L:ightning II Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35 B, meaning the ships are fitted with ski-jumps for short take-offs and no arrester gear because the aircraft can land vertically. The USA with its nuclear powered Nimitz class ships operate the  F-35C CATOBAR aircraft, but (and here's the important bit) can also operate a wider range of fixed wing aircraft using catapults and arrester gear. However, such systems are expensive to maintain, take up space in the ship, and require a source of steam to operate. There's no shortage of steam on a nuclear vessel of course, but the Queen Elizabeth Class are powered by diesel and gas turbine engines, not steam or nuclear. A steam boiler would need to be added to create steam to power a catapult.

However, a new technology means that it's now possible to power a catapult with electricity rather than steam: EMALS, or Electro-Magnetic Aircraft Launch System. This new form of catapult uses a linear induction motor, rather than a steam piston, to launch aircraft. The system first saw use on the latest US Aircraft Carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, and is now being introduced on China's newest aircraft carrier, the Fujiyan. Like any new system, EMALS has gone through significant development and testing by the US Navy, hitting many bumps along the road, but the design definitely shows promise, with many notable advantages over steam catapults, including smoother acceleration of aircraft, more precise adjustment for weight of aircraft, and taking up less space below decks. But one of the most obvious advantages is that it doesn't need a source of steam (although Gerald Ford still has that, being nuclear powered). There are conflicting reports on the Fujiyan's power plant, with Wikipedia (not the most reliable source) suggesting it may use steam turbines, like earlier carrier designs, or Integrated Electric Propulsion, like the Queen Elizabeth class. More up-to-date videos on youtube imply the latter.

Which brings us back to the Queen Elizabeth Class. Could the British carriers be retrofitted with EMALS and arrester gear? Certainly in the initial design of the carriers consideration was given to using a CATOBAR design, but this was dropped due to the cost of such a system. EMALS is still a new, expensive, and untested technology, but it should be technically possible to retrofit the ships. The question then becomes one of funding, as well as purchasing additional CATOBAR aircraft to take full advantage of the facility, plus additional pilot training. One thing never mentioned in these debates is that CATOBAR is less safe than VSTOL, with aircraft landing at speed and having to catch an arrester wire to stop, which is a difficult method of landing requiring precision flying from the pilots. With a vertical landing, the plane comes to a hover before landing, eliminating the old risk of missing the wires and having to go around again. 

In summary, VSTOL is safer and cheaper than CATOBAR, but CATOBAR offers the possibility of longer-range fixed wing aircraft with a wider choice of fixed-wing aircraft. While it's fun to speculate about the possibilities, the current finances of the UK will probably preclude the adoption of EMALS for the foreseeable future.

Where next for high speed diesel units?

Electrification and introduction of bi-mode trains is bringing about the withdrawal of many high speed diesel trains in the UK. The nomadic and unreliable Class 180s were withdrawn by Hull trains in favour of Class 802s in 2019, and were transferred to EMR to replace older HSTs, but electrification of the Midland Main Line as far as Corby and the introduction of Class 360 EMUs on the route have once again made the Class 180s surplus to requirements and they have been withdrawn along with EMR's final remaining HSTs. Furthermore, the introduction of bi-mode Class 810 Aurora trains will result in the withdrawal of EMR's Class 222 fleet. The 40+ year-old HSTs were life-expired and due for scrapping, but what of the Class 180s and 222s? Surely these modern trains could find further use? One possible user for the Class 180s is open-access operator Grand Central, which is the only other operator of the type. Where the Class 222s could go is less clear.

Meanwhile on the West Coast Main Line, Avanti Trains is to replace its Class 221 Voyager units with Class 805 and 807 bi-mode trains. In September it was announced that seven Class 221s would be transferred to Cross Country Trains to allow the withdrawal of HSTs.

A surprising announcement towards the end of last year was that Transpennine Express would be withdrawing its four year old fleet of Nova 3 Class 68 locomotives and Mk5 carriages. Their Class 185 DMUs will be fully retained to cover the loss. While the Class 68s could potentially be cascaded to Direct Rail Services for freight use, there isn't much demand for push-pull carriages. Perhaps Scotrail might consider them to replace HSTs on Inter7City services?