Recent content by HSTEd

Not necessarily. Conventional electric units have to draw power at the instant that it is used, they have to do this regardless of system conditions. A battery train can, to a reasonable degree, determine feeder conditions using the proxy of line voltage and adjust its draw of power from the...

I don't think electricity costs would not be significantly larger than now. There would be marginal losses because a portion of the energy used to run the train would come from the battery, and the train would achieve a higher average speed (so more drag), but that would not be a major increase...

That's quite a bit, to be sure, but some of those routes aren't particularly well travelled. The problem with a rolling programme is it defacto requires a commitment to electrify for years regardless of cost. Any programme large enough to generate meaningful economies of scale will get an awful...

Well with 22200 batteries spread over nine vehicles, each would contain a battery pack 2.84m wide, <100mm tall and about 11m long. It is a significant size but its not enormous. The volume is 3.1 cubic metres, which is comparable to a diesel engine without generator. OBviously the traction...

This is a world that can put 1030hp into a Tesla Model S 'Plaid' and still have it look more or less like an ordinary electric car Or uses lithium ion batteries to power fuel pumps on space launch vehicles. The power to weight ratios available from lithium batteries and modern motor designs are...

Well I guess you could probably get a gondola/cable car across from Harwich station for less money than doubling the railway! Would need some pretty impressive towers to get over the top of the dockyard but nothing that hasn't been built before. EDIT: Or more realistically, just put in a...

Well that is one way it could go. Another is that fares rebound, but traffic doesn't really fall off much and a net revenue increases (or at least becomes less negative). We don't necessarily have to cut the current Open Access trains out of the timetbale as such, although I expect a timetable...

Well that reduced revenue from lower fares is made up by increased taxpayer subsidies. Meanwhile this uncoordinated timetable causes suboptimal outcomes. I use the railway, but I also pay taxes.

Engine efficiency in cars has now improved quite a lot. Diesel rail operations, which mostly resorts to old diesel engines built to old designs, are getting emissions closer to those of modern internal combustion hatchbacks, even if only a single person is in it. TfW as a whole manages...

Railway engines are considerably older and more worn than road vehicle engines, on average.

The entire trunk road system only costs £6bn per annum, complete with capital expenditure. That is where the bulk of HGV mileage is. However, once you add up fuel duty and VAT on fuel paid by HGVs, plus the HGV levy and other minor charges, HGVs will make a vastly larger contribution to their...

A freight train container is on average less than one HGV load. Modern UK trailers have much greater internal volume than a 40ft container. Although the cargo weights of a tralier and a container are similar, most goods in the UK context 'cube out' before they 'weigh out'. So the comparison is...

Those lockers still only represent a small portion of the parcel flow traffic though.

Well as the Jacobite is probably one of the few truly profitable open access operations (once infrastructure is accounted for), it would might get taken over by GBR rather than axed. EDIT: It may not be truly profitable, but it probably comes closer than anything else.

The simple answer is you can put the Static Frequency Converter wherever is convenient, then run a single phase/split phase 25kV-0-25kV pole line or cable into Sheffield to supply the station. Main line 25kV electrification now (in my view) costs far too much for a large scale electrification...