The car lobby's culture war is insane and dangerous.

 The accompanying image was modified by me from a popular meme that characterises well-known environmental activist Greta Thunberg as demanding electric cars. I have turned Greta here into a straw man, because that's exactly what this meme is. It completely misrepresents the green movement and what it wants to achieve. And that is the point. The car lobby, and the political right in general has declared a culture war on anti-car environmentalists, and this is a big problem. Make no bones about it, the world needs fewer cars, and the ones it has need to be smaller and more efficient. yes, electric cars are part of the solution, but they aren't a silver bullet that's going to fix climate change. And that brings us to the latest insanity from the right. 15 minute cities are a town planning concept that states that most city dwellers should be no more than a 15 minute walk or bike ride from the shops, churches, schools, pubs, libraries and places of employment that they need to go about their business. It makes perfect sense in theory. However, far right conspiracy theorists have conflated ultra-low emission zones (which are intended to keep cars out of city centres) with some sort of attack on freedom of movement. Let's be clear, 15 minute cities and low emission zones are not going to be some sort of "Hunger Games"-style districts that you are locked into with no escape. They are simply a means of reducing car use. If you want to cross town, over a distance more than a 15 minute walk away, there should be a public transport option to take you there. Nobody is banning you from leaving your 15 minute zone.

The absolutism of the right (who like to attack Greenpeace for using diesel boats, while claiming that restrictions on cars will stop tradesmen in white vans from going about thier jobs) is absurd. Yes, car use should be eliminated where practicable. This of course will be easier for city-dwelling commuters than for farmers and tradesmen in the country. Where a car, van or truck cannot be eliminated it should be made as efficient as possible, by downsizing and electrification. Why buy a giant SUV if you only need a mini? And public transport needs to be electrified. As I have discussed in other blog posts, wiring up the railways is the easiest and fastest way the powers that be can eliminate diesel emissions. 

Low Carbon Logistics

Away from the “blah, blah, blah” of the main COP26 events in Glasgow, the Low Carbon Logistics conference at Mossend (held on the 8^th, 9^th and 10^th of November) showcased some of the solutions the transport industry is coming up with to reduce its carbon footprint.

Exhibitors in attendance included Network Rail, DB Cargo UK, Nuclear Transport Solutions (owner of DRS), Peel Ports, and of course the hosts for the event, P&D Stirling, whose Mossend International Railfreight Park (MIRP) provided the venue for the conference. MIRP is a controversial development locally, with objections raised over building on “green belt” land, but the construction of MIRP will allow more freight on rail and fewer trucks using local roads through Bellshill.

The three day conference had a different theme each day, with speakers discussing the relevant topics. Monday’s theme was “let’s talk about rail freight”. Speakers included Morwen Mands, Head of Sustainability at Highland Spring Group, who are building a railfreight siding adjacent to the group’s main bottling plant in Blackford, and Chris Swan, Head of Rail at Tarmac, who own the rail-served cement terminal at Uddingston.  Tuesday’s theme was “Driving rail Innovations” with an emphasis on decarbonising rail. I attended on Wednesday, which had the theme of "skills and opportunity" with speakers from the National Skills Academy for Rail, Glasgow Caledonian University and SWGR talking about how the amount of electrification going on (plus maintenance, plus building HS2 and reopenings) requires a lot of manpower and skills and how best to retain these skills as older engineers retire and (post Brexit) European workers move back to Europe. The main message here was the need to train up a new generation of engineers, particularly civil and electrical engineers, and technicians.

Before all the speeches started, there was a chance to speak to the exhibitors, which resulted in several interesting conversations. One exhibitor from Network Rail mentioned somebody at the Q&A the day before (possibly one of our members) asking about electrifying a certain line in Glasgow and the answer was that it would simply cost too much. The main concerns were over alterations to listed buildings and closing the line for 18 months. In a so-called "climate emergency" how much are we as a country willing to spend cutting CO2 emissions? It was reported recently that Freightliner were taking their electric locos off the rails and replacing them with diesels because the price of electricity had shot up. This was due to the rising price of gas, upon which (apparently) much of our generating capacity is still dependant. Clearly decarbonising the grid must go hand-in-hand with electrifying transport otherwise putting up wires is simply moving the emissions around. The same of course goes for battery and hydrogen power. Yes, the vehicles themselves don't pollute, but the production of hydrogen is very energy intensive, and batteries contain rare earth elements that come from iffy mines in the Congo. I had another interesting conversation with a man from Peel Ports about the developments at Hunterston, as well as getting the railway to Greenock Ocean Terminal reopened, and the Mossend-Liverpool container train. Obviously Peel Ports are keen on using rail and they need to be encouraged in this endeavour.

Each day culminated in a locomotive naming ceremony, with GBRF naming 92020 “Billy Stirling” on Monday, DB Cargo naming 90039 “The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport” on Tuesday and DRS naming 68006 “Pride of the North”  on Wednesday.

Truck driver shortage is an opportunity for modal shift.

 Recent days have seen reports of panic buying of fuel as the media have suggested a fuel shortage due to a lack of truck drivers to deliver to petrol stations. This brings up two issues:

1. A shortage of truck drivers.

2. Car dependency.

Let's deal with the driver shortage first. Brexit has resulted in many European drivers quitting the UK, and the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a backlog of trainee drivers needing to be tested. This has created the perfect storm of a driver shortage, which will affect deliveries of all manner of products. Fuel tanker drivers need additional hazardous goods training, which exacerbates the problem for that particular trade.

To cut down on the number of lorries on the road (all of which need drivers), industry must look to getting more freight on the railways. Of course trucks are still needed to deliver to petrol stations, supermarkets, and high street shops. However longer distance trunking routes between suppliers and regional distribution centres should be moved onto the railways, freeing up truck drivers for local deliveries as well as reducing pollution. Bulk movements of commodities such as timber, cement, grain, etc. are obvious targets for modal shift. With the rise of online shopping and home deliveries, parcels traffic should return to the railways as well. 

Panic buying is a symptom of wider cultural issues, but car dependency is one problem that can be easily solved. Cars themselves are a very inefficient way of moving people around, particularly for commuting and short journeys. Investment in active travel and public transport should provide the public with car-free alternatives that pollute less and aren't dependent on a finite and fickle resource for fuel. Electric cars will also help in this area, but should not be relied upon as a solution to problems such as pollution and congestion. since an electric car takes up the same amount of space on the road as an internal combustion-engined car, and also consumes the same amount of material to build. Petrol shortages have happened before, yet every time queues form outside petrol stations, nobody stops to ask "can we get by without the car?" It's time to stop relying on the car and look for alternatives.

Undoing Beeching could wipe out heritage operations.

Back in the 1960s, when British Railways were closing "unremunerative" branch lines left, right and centre, plucky bands of volunteers stepped in to save scenic branch lines and the steam trains that ran on them up and down the country. Over the subsequent decades, the heritage railway sector has become a massive part of Britain's tourist industry, as well as saving some pretty important historical trains, stations and other infrastructure. Volunteers have spent decades carefully curating their railways to present an idealised image of a bygone era. There's only one problem. Now the government want to rebuild some of the lines that previous generations closed and these steam railways are standing in the way. The Rossendale to Manchester route for instance could be a strategic commuter route for local residents. however, the East Lancashire Railway is currently occupying the trackbed. Likewise the Spa Valley Railway stands in the way of Brighton Main Line 2 and a potential reopening of the Matlock to Buxton Line would result in Peak Rail being shunted into the sidings. So what is to be done? local commuters need these reopenings to relieve congestion and cut down on CO2 emissions, but closing the heritage railways would hurt the local tourist trade. The simplest answer would of course be to simply shut up shop, sell or donate rolling stock to other nearby heritage railways and let Network Rail move in. Peak Rail, for instance, is practically next door to the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway. Does the area really need two heritage lines, or could the two railways co-locate? This solution wouldn't work so well for the ELR as there are no other heritage lines close to Manchester. Another solution would be to allow heritage trains to operate over Network Rail lines or vice-versa. This would be a legal and managerial nightmare, but not entirely impossible as the NYMR Whitby trains (operating over the NR line from Grosmont to Whitby) demonstrate. You could potentially have National Rail trains running Monday to Friday and have the heritage operation running weekends-only. A third option might be to simply convert the heritage loco sheds to static museums with no operating trains. This would not go down well with the volunteers or visiting public, who want to actually ride on the trains.
So which is more important? A museum (or more derogatorily "toy") railway for tourists and enthusiasts to enjoy of a weekend, or a modern, functioning mass transit system to move people and goods?

Is there a future for domestic air travel?

The recent collapse of flybe has made headlines, but many in the industry have seen this coming for some time. The short-haul airline was operating on a flawed business plan and had been in financial trouble for some time before the sudden drop-off in passenger numbers caused by the COVID-19 outbreak tipped it over the edge.
But with the climate crisis and the rise of the flygskam movement, can short-haul flights continue to be justified? To avert the climate crisis, there will need to be fewer planes in the sky. However, this will inevitably hit the profit margins of the airlines. Can short-haul airlines remain viable businesses?
Within mainland Britain and Europe, rail (and high-speed rail in particular) is the main competitor for short-haul air travel. However in the UK, rail is very highly priced compared to budget airlines. If you can get where you're going faster for less, why bother taking the train? For the sake of the environment, higher air passenger duty could be used to subsidise rail fares, encouraging more people to take the train.
Air travel starts to look much more appealing when you get out into the islands. The Hebrides and the Orkney and Shetland islands are a long ferry ride away from the mainland. Air travel is much, much faster for foot passengers and mail. But out here, passenger numbers are far less, meaning airlines need to use much smaller aircraft to make routes economical. But with the speed advantage, airlines should be able to charge a premium over the ferry operators for foot passengers.
Can the airline industry be saved? Should it be allowed to fail?
Long-haul airlines will probably be alright, as air travel has such an advantage over sea travel. Short-haul airlines are inevitably going to lose out as people turn from air to rail travel to save the planet. I suspect the era of the budget airline may soon come to an end and we may return to the days when air travel was a premium service for the well-to-do.

Star Wars irl

Ever since man has gone into space, the military have used satellites for their own advantage, primarily as an intelligence gathering platform. The big players in the space race were historically the USA and the USSR. The cold war has ended, but the military use of space may just be about to warm up with the creation of the US Space Force. Up until now, American military satellites have been controlled by the US Air Force (itself founded in 1947) but a recent reorganisation has created the Space Force as an independent branch of the armed forces of the United States.
So is this simply a rebrand of the existing Air Force Space Command? Is it a headline-grabbing publicity stunt to satisfy the ego of Donald Trump? Will satellites become weaponised? Will we see space battles like in the movies? All of this seems a bit far-fetched, doesn't it? At the moment the establishment of a Space Force looks like nothing more than a statement of intent. The service will carry on the work previously done by the Air Force Space Command. Very little will immediately change on the ground. But if the world does get invaded by aliens from outer space, we know who will be the first line of defence.

Putting the "Express" in Transpennine Express.

Way back in the early days of privatisation, Cross Country (Virgin Cross Country as it then was) described itself as the "Cinderella" franchise. Equipped with old, unreliable, yet comfortable and spacious loco-hauled trains, it made the decision to scrap its old fleet of Class 47s and loco-hauled coaches in favour of "Voyager" Class 220 and 221 DMUs. However, its Cinderella transformation is nothing compared to that currently taking place to Transpennine Express.
Tasked with running Inter-City trains within the North of England (and more recently into Scotland), TPX, in its earliest incarnation, inherited a small fleet of Class 158 Express Sprinters from BR. These were, simply put, not man enough for the job. From 2005, the 2-car Class 158s were replaced with 3-car Class 170s and 185s. Then when the Liverpool-Manchester electrification was completed these were supplemented by 4-car Class 350 EMUs. These are quite decent units for cross-country services, but they are still effectively upgraded suburban commuter units rather than full-fat Inter-City trains.
So now, the fleet is to be totally be replaced with longer, faster, better equipped trains than ever before. This new fleet will be known as Nova.
The nova fleet will come in 3 varieties, for diesel, electric and bi-mode services:

Nova 1. This is the bi-mode train, for routes with partial electrification between Liverpool-Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh. It is based on the Hitachi AT 300 design and consists of a 5-car multiple unit.
Nova 2.  This is the Electric train, operating on the Manchester Airport to Glasgow/Edinburgh and Liverpool to Glasgow routes, which follow the electrified West Coast mainline. These are 5-car units based on the CAF Civity design.
Nova 3. This is the diesel train, for unelectrified routes between Liverpool and Scarborough Unusually, this train consists of push-pull Mk 5 coaches hauled by a class 68 locomotive, which should please enthusiasts. When lines are electrified it will be possible to convert this train to bi-mode or full electric simply by swapping the locomotive, to a class 88 for instance, and if trains require to be lengthened it will be a simple matter to insert more carriages into the train.

All these trains will have first class carriages, space for 4 bikes and a catering trolley service.
With this new fleet, Transpennine Express trains will be transformed from an overcrowded second tier commuter TOC to a legitimate competitor to Cross-Country Trains.