Pollution on UK newest trains

[24Grange]

Go to the vestibule, slide the window down and stick your head slightly out... oh wait...

Don't agree the HST replacements are an overall improvement. Ride quality terrible, poor seats, insufficient luggage space, no buffet car, poor /non-existent trolley service,bulk standard harsh lighting, bigger gap between train door and platform. etc etc...

 

[O L Leigh]

There is no reliable “data” for either argument, indeed it is only hearsay but that applies for both arguments not just the arguments against these units. The polls referred to can be ignored on the basis that they are heavily biased to give the answer those running the poll want. If I were to do two polls on these units, one with the questions worded to encourage positive responses and the other to encourage negative responses, the responses would come back mostly as encouraged by the wording of the questions.

There is no doubt that this is a real, measurable effect. However, that doesn't mean that all surveys can be discounted out-of-hand. I would respectfully suggest that, unless you yourself were surveyed, you cannot know whether or not the questions posed were leading and to what extent the results became skewed. I would also suggest that a survey is more likely to reflect the feelings of those asked, the majority of whom may not be sitting there giving a live review of the rolling stock. That people complain/give praise openly is not indicative of the feelings of the majority nor does it necessarily point to any failings in the survey.

 

[jfollows]

There is a better article in today's Times, but I can't find it online: "Air filters on trains could clean up your commute".
It says: (I am typing from my copy)

(The RSSB) analysed pollution on six train routes .... The highest levels of nitrogen dioxide were found on diesel-electric "bi-mode" trains operated by Great Western between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads. NO2 readings taken by researchers indicated an average of 208 micrograms per cubic meter of air, with a peak of 840mcg. This compared with annual average levels of 63mcg recorded by the side of busy Marylebone Road - one of the most polluted in London. The study said that there was a "large difference in measured nitrogen dioxide" when trains were operating in diesel mode compared with electric.

EDIT NO2 on Marylebone Road recorded at 68mcg at 10am today, see https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/latest/currentlevels

The government's own document (https://assets.publishing.service.g..._data/file/633270/air-quality-plan-detail.pdf) says (my italics)

239. The new fleet of bi-mode Intercity Express trains that will operate on the Great Western Main Line and other routes will deliver air quality benefits compared to the diesel trains they replace. They will be able to use electrified infrastructure where it’s available and switch to low-emission diesel power on non-electrified tracks.

 

[Retorus]

The Guardian report says

which I find far too vague - does the GWR train subject its passengers to a spike only when swtching from diesel to electric? For a start, that seems like the wrong way round.

The article says "to diesel from electric".

 

[irish_rail]

You’re categorically wrong about passenger opinion, the polls of travelling public has shown the exact reverse. There’s a distinct minority who are very vocal about specific complaints (such as seats) and it’s easy to form an opinion based on that if you’re inside the echo chamber. Outside in the real world, customers prefer them to HSTs on average.

If you ask the right people at the right time on the right train then you will get the answers you are hoping for.
These passenger surveys are frankly pointless.
To those of us who work day in day out on them , IETs really are not popular. Admittedly the seats is the biggest gripe, but they are far from loved by the travelling public.
It has nothing to do with Rose tinted spectacles. If I have to travel to London now I will be in pain on arrival. That wasn't the case with HSTs. Rose tinted spectacles don't come into it.

 

[jfollows]

The article says "to diesel from electric".

Yes, I was already corrected earlier on by D6975. But I'll edit my original post to make it clearer!

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

The thing is with IETs, personally I don't like them at all. The seats, ride quality and lack of buffet are all against my personal taste. Yet I can recognise that even those vocal passengers you hear on a train are the minority. If you had a train with 400 pax on board, you'd have to ask them all and get 201 strong 'dislike' opinion results to even be able to say a small majority dislike them.

We have a human trait to hear a loud voice and assume it represents the majority. That characteristic is prevalent on social media, in politics, societal discourse etc. Its also apparent here I think.

 

[Taunton]

Outside in the real world, customers prefer them to HSTs on average.

No we don't.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

No we don't.

Do you mean, no 'you' don't (and the relatively small number of people you converse with?)

 

[MarlowDonkey]

What's all that nonsense about sitting at the back well behind the "locomotive" when travelling to the West Country? Did it escape their attention that locomotives on passenger trains are a thing of the past and that even bi-modes have underfloor engines? They could have advised travelling in an unpowered vehicle, although passengers wouldn't really know which ones these were on an 80x train.

I suppose they could have been thinking about the Castle HSTs, but they have locomotives at both ends, so the advice should have been to sit in the middle. The advice is sixty years too late if diesel locomotives are a problem.

 

[squizzler]

One other issue with the report is that it seems to be comparing the level of NOx/particulates inside a train with the level outside on a main road. If you want to compare safety to the passenger of different modes of transport, then I would have thought the correct comparison would be inside a train vs. inside a car (or bus, etc.)

The most sensible response I have read so far. I have an interest in bicycles and is known in that scene that bike riders suffer less by air quality than motorists who are lower to the ground. Comparing measured air pollution in a train saloon with air quality from presumably a monitoring station on the pavement (they can't put it in the middle of the carriageway!) is comparing apples with oranges.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Is the average NO2 level on Marylebone Road some kind of accepted benchmark / red line in the study of noxious pollutants? I remember Oxford Street being mentioned in the news media a few years ago as the worst measured value in Europe I think, but not M Rd?

 

[jfollows]

Is the average NO2 level on Marylebone Road some kind of accepted benchmark / red line in the study of noxious pollutants? I remember Oxford Street being mentioned in the news media a few years ago as the worst measured value in Europe I think, but not M Rd?

From https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/latest/currentlevels?period=current&region=15#levels it appears to be the worst monitored level in Greater London, I just looked and Marylebone Road is 102 with the next highest Hillingdon at 29 (M4 vicinity). Or maybe Haringey (Tottenham High Road) is second at 46.

 

[Tony2]

I was at Glasgow Central on Wednesday for the public display of green 66004 which is powered by HVO- hydrotreated vegetable oil.
The DB brochure shows the reduction in emissions as follows-

co2 emissions reduced by up to 90%
particulate matter emissions reduced by up to 30%
Hydrocarbon emissions reduced by up to 30%
co emissions reduced by up to 25%
Nitrogen oxide emissions reduced by up to 10%

I was advised that conversion kits are straightforward drop ins and wondered if the 800 series would benefit from a similar modification? HVO is more expensive currently than diesel but DB hope the unit price will fall as use spreads.

 

[MarkyT]

I wonder if there's an issue with ventilation settings for COVID on new trains such as the 80x, which where possible will probably have been switched to run using the maximum proportion of 'fresh' external air at all times. I imagine settings being possible where external intake was reduced during diesel mode and perhaps shut off entirely during and for a short time after engine start up, while the exhaust 'tubes' are cleared so to speak.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Fairly damning (again) of Vivarail given that much older 15x don't appear and run through tunnels etc, none of which exist on the Marston Vale.

Very much emphasises why opening East West Rail without wires from day one is a stupid piece of cost cutting.

Indeed so - totally agree.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

I was at Glasgow Central on Wednesday for the public display of green 66004 which is powered by HVO- hydrotreated vegetable oil.
The DB brochure shows the reduction in emissions as follows-

co2 emissions reduced by up to 90%
particulate matter emissions reduced by up to 30%
Hydrocarbon emissions reduced by up to 30%
co emissions reduced by up to 25%
Nitrogen oxide emissions reduced by up to 10%

I was advised that conversion kits are straightforward drop ins and wondered if the 800 series would benefit from a similar modification? HVO is more expensive currently than diesel but DB hope the unit price will fall as use spreads.

Does it do anything material to power outputs? As that's a bit of a hot topic with the 80x fleets in diesel mode.

 

[eastdyke]

There is a better article in today's Times, but I can't find it online: "Air filters on trains could clean up your commute".
It says: (I am typing from my copy)

EDIT NO2 on Marylebone Road recorded at 68mcg at 10am today, see https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/latest/currentlevels

The government's own document (https://assets.publishing.service.g..._data/file/633270/air-quality-plan-detail.pdf) says (my italics)

239. The new fleet of bi-mode Intercity Express trains that will operate on the Great Western Main Line and other routes will deliver air quality benefits compared to the diesel trains they replace. They will be able to use electrified infrastructure where it’s available and switch to low-emission diesel power on non-electrified tracks.

Which presumably applies to total emissions rather than inside the train?

Without access to the original report the whole discussion is reduced to commenting on mere 'sound-bites'.

Nonetheless the FLIRTS (GA Ipswich-Cambridge) seem to show up comparatively very well [above sentence not withstanding!]

 

[Tony2]

Does it do anything material to power outputs? As that's a bit of a hot topic with the 80x fleets in diesel mode.

The loco was trialled on heavy stone trains and was comparable to diesel fuelled 66s according to staff present.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

The loco was trialled on heavy stone trains and was comparable to diesel fuelled 66s according to staff present.

That sounds promising then.

 

[stuu]

No we don't.

Yes we do. They are a bit dull, and the lack of a buffet annoys me, but the legroom is much better, they don't creak horribly round corners and they have sped up station calls by miles (anecdotally, but that's all any of this is)

 

[ABB125]

I was at Glasgow Central on Wednesday for the public display of green 66004 which is powered by HVO- hydrotreated vegetable oil.

Do you know why it was there? I saw it too, but couldn't work out any reason for its presence.



As for emissions on trains, is it really a big problem?

 

[XAM2175]

Do you know why it was there? I saw it too, but couldn't work out any reason for its presence.

Because DB wanted to show off the fact that it's powered by hydrotreated vegetable oil, perhaps?

 

[yorksrob]

The question is, will I end up fancying a bag of chips every time a vegetable oil fuelled train goes by !

 

[greyman42]

True but why risk it? There will be plenty of people who are not going to want to increase their cancer risk (even by a little) and will opt not to use the train.

I would imagine that these people are already that terrified of Covid that they dare not even leave the house, never mind go on a train.

 

[ABB125]

Because DB wanted to show off the fact that it's powered by hydrotreated vegetable oil, perhaps?

Yes, but as far as I could see it was just dumped at the end of the platform. I'd have thought they'd want to have a bit more information available to the public than simply the text on the livery (unless I missed it?).

 

[reddragon]

Agree with a drive towards electrification.

That said, smoking (for example) is still far more likely to result in lung cancer than diesel travel.

People choose to smoke not to breathe in diesel fumes!

 

[ABB125]

People choose to smoke not to breathe in diesel fumes!

Well, some rail enthusiasts may choose to...

 

[yorksrob]

People choose to smoke not to breathe in diesel fumes!

It depends how addicted they are.

That said, I'm reasonably addicted to rail travel.

 

[reddragon]

Well, some rail enthusiasts may choose to...

I'm addicted to the sound of but not smell of certain diesels. Also addicted to the smell of a steam loco