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Agreed, and what is worse, this sticking plaster will be more platform clutter (at a station where platform space is at a premium) and will consume yet more energy. It would be far better in every way to put our national money and effort into eliminating diesel-worked trains by whatever means (or combination of means) is most appropriate in any area.
Wiring to Shrewsbury, or wiring to Wellington with batteries into Shrewsbury, would help. Hereford is much harder, might have to just live with that one. But the big problem is XC aren't in line for new stock any time soon.
Hereford trains can't get to 4C (it's only available to trains to/from Soho Jns). I wonder if batteries might be enough to get to Hereford and back if the Fast lines to Barnt Green were wired.
Very True. A shame we won't get a tag-on order for more IETs.
I very much doubt that. Empty it in a bin and a lot of it will become airborn again. There will be replaceable pre-filters for the particulate which (will probably get incinerated) plus maybe an electrostatic impingement / liquid scrubbing stage which will need to be serviced regularly, or maybe a reducing catalytic converter to get the nitrogen oxides back down to N2 and O2 - whoch will need replacing or regenerating periodically.
Given the amount of stuff hanging from the roof, how big would the air movers have to be to create a noticeable flow? Especially when you consider how the trains arriving and departing will disrupt the airflow.
Yes.
so they are the wrong tool for the job then, or the spec was incompetently drawn up
Train movements will cause turbulence, but if you look at the outside air movements (wind direction) and then reinforce that directional flow (if there is one) you could have a one-way flow. The class 60s are quiet locos because the cooling fans were designed to be quiet, the 92s are outrageously noisy because whoever specced them ignored fan noise. They could be retro-fitted with quieter fans.
You are correct. Probably never thought about in the new train design. Along with their extraordinarily thunderous and high-rpm "idling" from each car when stationary, which drowns out not only PA announcements but also all normal speech.
General Motors cracked this one a generation ago with fan blades slightly assymetrically spaced, balanced by hub balancing weights, which overcame the harmonic noise generated when all blades are spaced equally. It was done entirely for noise reduction.
What happens to the bin?
As I said, I would be very surprised if they actually use HEPA filters... which don't give you a bin of dust either. And there are a lot of other nasties adsorbed onto the surface of the soot, which are the bits which make it carcinogenic. It takes a lot of power to suck air through HEPA filters and they take a lot of managing too, you dispose of them with the particulate attached. I would expect a physical pre-filter then some sort of wet or electrostatic collection...
It's more likely that a vacuum cleaner has cyclone or some other filter/collector which dumps into a "dust bin" with a hepa filter to clean up the exhaust from that primary stage. The particulate collected by a hepa filter stays stuck to it - unless it is grossly overloaded and lumps of aggregated particulate get shaken off. You wouldn't want to waste the capacity of your expensive filter with coarser dust either. My vacuum cleaner has a dust bag, then another filter to protect the motor from dust in the cooling air, then an extra/final hepa stage at the end if you want to pay for it.
Not impossible to build into the timetable, but would mean turning short if any delays started creeping in
Yes. Shrewsbury is difficult because of the signalling, but the Snow Hill lines are long overdue.
The dust probably has sulphur, heavy metals, so it should go in a clay lined pit.