Return through the rails AFAIK.trams don’t have a return wire do they?
Return through the rails AFAIK.trams don’t have a return wire do they?
Well lorries already have to have recording devices that it is criminal to tamper with (the tachy assembly).Presumably also someone will have to pay for the electricity drawn from the wires - I wonder how this will work?
The track access charges do not reflect the actual cost of having them on the railway.
If track access charges were realistic Network Rail would not haemmorhage billions in public money every year.
I'd love to see figures behind this statement as to my mind a fair bit of enhancement is also maintenance in disguise.If you exclude enhancements the net subsidy for the railways is sub £200 million.
The world’s first electrified road that recharges the batteries of cars and trucks driving on it has been opened in Sweden
About 2km (1.2 miles) of electric rail has been embedded in a public road near Stockholm, but the government’s roads agency has already drafted a national map for future expansion.
The problem with ground-based systems that require contact between vehicle and conductor is solving the problems presented by things other than vehicles making contact!With multiple solutions all looking to compete you get he added complication of investment and standardization issues. I also find that this pantograph solution is purely aimed at freight transport but the other two options would provide a more all encompassing solution.
That's because actual maintenance is rolled into "enhancement" projects.The amount of subsidy of the railways is mostly down to the cost of enhancements to the existing network.
If you exclude enhancements the net subsidy for the railways is sub £200 million.
Except since we supposedly have rolling enhancement programmes then the track access charges should flatten, because overall each years improvements will be paid for in that year as next years pays for next years.If we were in the situation where Enhancement spending was covered in a single year (for projects with up to a 60 year design life) then it would be argued that the track access charges were much too high.
Yes, but for the electrification of the SRN you get an electrification of freight mileage equal to six or seven times the entire rail freight industry.It is likely to be cheaper to electrify more of the rail network and provide more capacity than it would be to electrify even 25% of the Motorway network (let alone 25% of the whole trunk road network)
The problem with ground-based systems that require contact between vehicle and conductor is solving the problems presented by things other than vehicles making contact!
I'd love to see figures behind this statement as to my mind a fair bit of enhancement is also maintenance in disguise.
In many cases rather than just replacing like for like, assets which are nearing end of life will be included in enhancement projects - e.g. replacing/renewing signalling during electrification. How much of that is required for sighting or immunisation (and is justified as enhancement) and how much is taking the opportunity to "do it now so it doesn't have to be done later"?
Given that there's £2.4bn of maintenance in addition to the above, so I'd be a little surprised if there was significant "hidden maintenance" within the enhancements spending. Of course if anyone has evidence of sufficient hidden maintenance costs (given that even if you added the total signal spending from last year of £600 million you'd still not reach £1bn) then I'll be willing to listen.
And if it can, maybe we should discuss that, in a world where passenger growth is dropping, why we are burning £4bn buying extremely expensive marginal capacity gains.
A couple of things that seem like obvious problems to me are that when the wires are inevitably bought down due to weather, misjudgment, or some other failure, I could see a following truck change lanes suddenly due to the driver reacting in surprise as they suddenly find a heavy duty cable heading towards their windscreen at 56mph. But also the thought of that cable hitting the road and being caught by a motorcyclist who wouldn’t have the shell of a car to protect them.
I’m not sure that an overtaking motorcyclist (of which there are lots during summertime in continental Europe) would be anymore resilient to bits of broken pantograph flying around than flailing cables?You could design the pantographs to break before the overhead wiring does, or at least does in a way that will actually bring the wires down.
It's a risk that has to be tolerated if you want to actually decarbonise freight haulage any time soon.I’m not sure that an overtaking motorcyclist (of which there are lots during summertime in continental Europe) would be anymore resilient to bits of broken pantograph flying around than flailing cables?
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that the worst case scenario needs to be prepared for, and this seems like another layer of potential hazards being introduced onto a busy motorway network.
I see what you mean HST’d, but having done lots of driving on German (and other European) motorways over the years it’s something that occurred to me as a potential problem.It's a risk that has to be tolerated if you want to actually decarbonise freight haulage any time soon.
And it seems to be a rather small possibility that a pantograph will fail catastrophically at the moment a motorcyclist is in the right place to get hit by debris.
I don't even see that many motorcyclists on British motorways anyway....
I don't even see that many motorcyclists on British motorways anyway....
As compared to unsecured loads coming loose, yes vanishingly small.Pantograph comes off, goes through windscreen of following truck, truck swerves through central reservation, people die.
It’s a small risk...
What a pity rail isn't allowed to take such similar calculated risks, in both freight and passenger transport.It's a risk that has to be tolerated if you want to actually decarbonise freight haulage any time soon.
And it seems to be a rather small possibility that a pantograph will fail catastrophically at the moment a motorcyclist is in the right place to get hit by debris.
I don't even see that many motorcyclists on British motorways anyway....
As compared to unsecured loads coming loose, yes vanishingly small.
Obviously it would require extensive improvement to the motorway network which could at the same time be realigned, strengthened and sped up if safe to do so. This would add many additional benefits to the country, drivers and car manufacturers such as:Germany is joining the ranks of those countries betting on "electric highways" to foster eco-friendly trucking. The country has started real-world tests of an eHighway system on a 3.1-mile stretch of the Autobahn between Frankfurt and Darmstadt, with an electric-diesel hybrid truck merging into everyday traffic while it received power from overhead cables to keep it from using its combustion engine. Earlier tests in the country relied on either slow night time tests or the safety of an unused military airfield.
Given how the world is changing to becoming more greener, I wonder why Britain couldn't follow Germany's lead and use train style overhead wires on motorways, with lorry's and cars using a dodgem style pantograph
Germany tests its first 'electric highway' for trucks
Germany is joining the ranks of those countries betting on "electric highways" to foster eco-friendly trucking. The country has started real-world tests of an eHighway system on a 3.1-mile stretch of the Autobahn between Frankfurt and Darmstadt, with an electric-diesel hybrid truck merging into...www.engadget.com
Obviously it would require extensive improvement to the motorway network which could at the same time be realigned, strengthened and sped up if safe to do so. This would add many additional benefits to the country, drivers and car manufacturers such as:
- Less pollutants on motorways in or near cities, making cleaner air
- Faster journeys by allowing motorways to be sped up, helping the economy.
- Not having to worry about recharging batteries or having the battery go flat mid journey.
- Car manufacturers not having to spend fortunes on developing better battery technology
- Not having the expense of replacing life expired batteries
Of course for ever positive there are negatives.
Obviously i'd love to know everyones thoughts.
- Pantographs wear down, so there will be expensive to repair(But any more than the usual cost of a piston engine?)
- If a similar incident to the railways happens, I.E, pantograph ripping down wires the entire motorway is brought to a stand still.
- Having overhead wires means motorways will cost more to maintain
Just saw this on the BBC website.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stori...tric-roads-spark-a-green-transport-revolution
Interesting to see this trial, don't know how successful it will be.
- the emissions from the maintenance of roads are high, for example the strategic road network creates 330,000 tonnes of emissions just from the maintenance and operation of it (i.e. no traffic emissions), that's 1/5 of the gross emissions to build HS2.
- the emissions from maintenance of the roads are split between relatively few people, on a distance traveled basis is something like 2g/passenger mile for roads, for the construction of HS2 to get to this figure the average distance traveled would have to be about 130 miles of based on a 60 year period.
Because the railway industry is a mess?We already have a transport revolution underway, the upgrading of Britains Railways and look how the electrification is going for that ...
Well yes, why would it ever be built anywhere else?This is yet more technological deterministic solutions for problems that don't require it. The only places I can see this being of any use is specialist lanes for HGVs.
Half of our lorry miles are carried out on a tiny fraction of the road network.Railway Catenary, seems to be enough of a logistical and expensive headache to warrant it's many set backs, imagine what it's installation along 10s of thousands of miles of public roads would be like
What are these maintenance emissions caused by?
Are we assuming that all maintainence traffic will occur without using the electrification equipment that is present?