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Coal for Heritage Railways


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1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

So they let half the world in

Millions of extra people

Then they say we're lighting too many fires

So they ban us  from using coal, wood & gas

In a country that's cold nine months of the year

Please God let me die !!!!!

 

Brit15

What has population growth and migration got to do with banning carbon?

 

This change has been coming - if we are to ban internal combustion engines then other things that generate harmful emissions will follow - you can still have wood burners just not using wet wood.

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1 hour ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

In large parts of the country coal has been banned for decades as smokeless zones will only allow anthracite or other smokeless fuels!

 

I.e. the places where burning coal is actually a problem for local air quality. This is just another piece of bad news that'll make the country a more unpleasant place to live in, like just about every damned decision that gets made, and made only to pander to some miserable modern city types who get a kick from jumping on every bandwaggon they can find that doesn't actually affect them (which most won't because they seem to have no interest at all in pleasant day-to-day life, probably because the concept is alien to them).

 

As for the job of digging coal up, no-one's forced to, and with the number of mines so small it's not as if anyone's really growing up anywhere where it's the only really viable job option for them.

 

Modern and future Britain - working to make it as lifeless and souless as possible! Stop having anything to care about, it's distracting you from existing to buy stuff! They're banging on about (very questionable in this case) physical health impacts but by god all these "improvements" are doing no good for my mental health, considering that my response to them is "the best I can hope for is to die before they really take effect."

 

That all said that's all about coal, burning unseasoned wood is just stupid. And my experience of anthracite is that it would make a good asbestos substitute.

Edited by Reorte
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8 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

What has population growth and migration got to do with banning carbon?

 

More people = more stuff getting burned (if nothing else changes). To take the extreme for the sake of illustration, a population of one burning as much coal as he could would have zero impact on anything. The number of people is the elephant in the room that politicians are too scared to even consider, even though it's the underlying cause of many issues (and perceived non-issues).

 

Quote

This change has been coming - if we are to ban internal combustion engines then other things that generate harmful emissions will follow - you can still have wood burners just not using wet wood.

 

Internal combusion engines are on a significantly larger scale (and even that ban is ill thought out - it would make far more sense to target the area where they're actually a problem, get maybe 70% on to something else, then you've essentially done away with the downsides and it's a lot easier to get to that point) - and again, they wouldn't be a problem if the population hadn't grown since they were invented.

 

Nope, it's just another change designed to say "look aren't we ticking the right boxes!", nothing more.

Edited by Reorte
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31 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

 

 

Modern and future Britain - working to make it as lifeless and souless as possible! Stop having anything to care about, it's distracting you from existing to buy stuff! They're banging on about (very questionable in this case) physical health impacts but by god all these "improvements" are doing no good for my mental health, considering that my response to them is "the best I can hope for is to die before they really take effect."

 

 

I feel sad for he next generation, denied the pleasure of "hearth rugging".

That is going to be bad for mental health.

I have recently had a 60' plus Silver Birch tree cut down and am going to share the logs with the next door neighbour. I shall have to give him the logs as the new regulation is to ban the sale of them. There are several more trees that will need felling in the next few years. That should provide enough wood to see me out.

If I stop posting you will know that they have taken me away and locked me up as an anti social misfit.

 

Bernard

 

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On the wood front it sounds like you'll be OK if you can season them first, although without a kiln that'll take a couple of years.

 

At least there's some recognition these days that mental health is a big issue, but a huge amount of blindness to the fact that they're hell-bent on building a world that's terrible for it. There are often good intentions behind them but you know what they say about the road to hell...

 

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I can see more and more locomotives being converted to oil.... but that's probably on the list to be banned next..

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1 hour ago, sir douglas said:

this was on the bbc news this morning but just the headline and didnt go into it further. which got me thiking a little later. could it also cripple many dozen local economies that somewhat  rely on the visitors to their local railways, for example if the Talyllyn had to stop running steam, most people would stop going and would have a knock on effect to shops, cafes, petrol stations, hotels and camp sites in Towyn, without the railway its just another coastal town. now times that by how many towns and communities across the UK have a popular heritage railway, museum, tourist attraction or event (traction rallies for example) that need coal, the impact will go further than just those who directly need the coal

I don't think Tywyn is a good example - there is a lack of accommodation in the town and what is shown on the usual websites seems quite expensive.  I suspect that most visitors are on day trips from elsewhere.  The last time I was down that way (four or five years ago) was passing through on a train from up the coast and three teenage girls got on at Tywyn, asked for tickets to Aberystwyth and then asked the guard if she could direct them to a shopping centre as Tywyn was lacking in 'proper shops'.

 

Personally I'm not bothered whether heritage railways run steam as my main interest is for the ride and where it goes.  'Nostalgia' for me is an older DMU and I'm over 60 now!

[IPW]

 

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As the Ffestiniog proved, a 100% oil fired heritage railway is entirely possible. Yes, oil firing will, sooner or later, also become unacceptable, but one obstacle at a time, folks, one obstacle at a time. 

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16 minutes ago, PatB said:

As the Ffestiniog proved, a 100% oil fired heritage railway is entirely possible. Yes, oil firing will, sooner or later, also become unacceptable, but one obstacle at a time, folks, one obstacle at a time. 

 

As the Ffestiniog also proved, it's uneconomic for heritage rail operation.

Any workaround will inevitably be more expensive than the status quo. Make no mistake, this change is going to simply kill a large amount of heritage steam operation in this country, whether that be road, rail or waterborne.

Yet at the same time millions of tonnes of coal shall still be mined and distributed in Europe (and beyond) every year, with huge volumes of coal still used in UK steel/iron and cement plants causing pollution far in excess of anything used in domestic dwellings or heritage operations.

Not fogetting the hypocrisy in saying it's still OK to import coal from Russia or South Africa - ah but those emissions are caused elsewhere so that's OK then....

 

 

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1 minute ago, Bon Accord said:

 

As the Ffestiniog also proved, it's uneconomic for heritage rail operation.

 

 

Uneconomic under a particular set of circumstances. The decreasing availability of coal in less than power-station quantities amounts to a change in circumstances, which may render oil firing more attractive again. 

 

Like I said, this change has been fairly clearly on the horizon for a long time. Any operation purporting to be a proper commercial proposition (ie, not a bunch of enthusiasts playing trains) should have been planning a transition strategy for at least a decade. Not to do so represents a significant failure of management. As for the rest, we'll, brutal though it may seem, there has been talk, even here on RMWeb, that there may be too many heritage operations around to be sustainable on the pool of consumer cash available. It's certainly been mooted that some contraction in the sector is inevitable. Maybe this will simply hasten it. I don't necessarily regard this as a good thing. I think coal fired heritage steam is a wonderful thing. However, I'm struggling to see why the heritage steam sector deserves greater protection than any other industry hit by changing circumstances. It's been fun, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Things change. 

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4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

What has population growth and migration got to do with banning carbon?

 

 

If the world's population hadn't exploded in the way it has in the last 30-50 years, we wouldn't be talking about climate change at all.

Edited by melmerby
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6 hours ago, APOLLO said:

So they let half the world in

Millions of extra people

Then they say we're lighting too many fires

So they ban us  from using coal, wood & gas

In a country that's cold nine months of the year

Please God let me die !!!!!

 

Brit15

 

Oh dear, have you been at the Daily Mail again? I thought I'd fact check the first bit. It seems the world population last year reached 7.7 billion, whereas net migration to the UK was 226 000 for the same year. To put it another way that's 0.00293% of the world population, some way off the 50% you quote. To deal with the second part, this year we've seen Australia burn and the UK flood and we're only a couple of months in so should we continue as we are or try to do better?

Edited by Neil
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25 minutes ago, melmerby said:

If the world's population hadn't exploded in the way it has in the last 30-50 years, we wouldn't be talking about climate change at all.

I don't doubt population growth across the world has contributed markedly but I was thinking more the actual quote which appeared:

 

6 hours ago, APOLLO said:

So they let half the world in

Millions of extra people

Then they say we're lighting too many fires

So they ban us  from using coal, wood & gas

In a country that's cold nine months of the year

Please God let me die !!!!!

 

Brit15

 

Seemed rather aimed at immigrants to the UK.

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5 hours ago, sir douglas said:

this was on the bbc news this morning but just the headline and didnt go into it further. which got me thiking a little later. could it also cripple many dozen local economies that somewhat  rely on the visitors to their local railways, for example if the Talyllyn had to stop running steam, most people would stop going and would have a knock on effect to shops, cafes, petrol stations, hotels and camp sites in Towyn, without the railway its just another coastal town. now times that by how many towns and communities across the UK have a popular heritage railway, museum, tourist attraction or event (traction rallies for example) that need coal, the impact will go further than just those who directly need the coal

 

2 hours ago, wasabi said:

I don't think Tywyn is a good example - there is a lack of accommodation in the town and what is shown on the usual websites seems quite expensive.  I suspect that most visitors are on day trips from elsewhere.  The last time I was down that way (four or five years ago) was passing through on a train from up the coast and three teenage girls got on at Tywyn, asked for tickets to Aberystwyth and then asked the guard if she could direct them to a shopping centre as Tywyn was lacking in 'proper shops'.

 

Personally I'm not bothered whether heritage railways run steam as my main interest is for the ride and where it goes.  'Nostalgia' for me is an older DMU and I'm over 60 now!

[IPW]

 

 

I have the great good fortune to live in Tywyn and before moving here was in the tourism business just a few miles away, so am reasonably well placed to comment. I'm not sure how much the Tywyn economy relies on the Talyllyn Railway but I'd speculate that it's less than we might at first think. Many will just arrive for a trip on the train and then go on elsewhere. The railway is pretty self contained with cafe's at both ends and a gift shop at Wharf, not much need for the visitor to the railway to head into the town itself. Tywyn gets noticeably busier in summer but the majority of the holidaymakers seem to have caravans at the three parks which are adjacent to the town and are best characterised as Nan, Grandad and the grandchildren, here for a bucket and spade holiday with a ride on the train if there's a wet day.

 

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As modellers, we should be lending our expertise to the preservation folks. After all, we’ve been running steam outline trains on electricity for years, and getting enjoyment from it. Most of the lines are quite short runs, a dirty big rechargeable lithium battery in the tender and a motor tucked between the frames should do the trick?

Main line outings, just stick a pantograph on top of Tornado, etc.

 Otherwise those do-gooder pillocks who are having such a great time posturing in Cambridge this week will just turn their attention to the heritage lines, which would be a backward step.

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Perhaps I should have posted in the jokes thread, yes I was a bit OTT !!!!

 

Immigration (etc) means increased population = increased consumption = increased fuel (all types) use, etc. But immigration is a subject not for rmweb - and no I'm not wholly against it either. Just needs better control. Nuff said.

 

I fear about Natural Gas being phased out for domestic consumption over the coming years though. Serious issue. Far more of an issue than banning coal & wood burning. We will really suffer.

 

Brit15

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The largest problem with burning coal., is how you actually burn it. It's a scientific operation, with the right amount of air both above & below the firebed. Banning household coal is no bad idea, because civilians aren't trained to understand the sciences. 

 

Preserved steam is every bit as bad as household coal. Some of the Casey Jones I've met (and I've met a lot) are by & large, pretty not clued up about how it's meant to work. Coal quality & fire management is a lifelong art, which is far more interesting than blasting up & down a 5-mile preserved line.  Sometimes, it makes me weep. 

 

Best wishes,

Ian. 

 

PS. I've done it for real, and paid income tax as a result of that.

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5 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Perhaps I should have posted in the jokes thread, yes I was a bit OTT !!!!

 

Immigration (etc) means increased population = increased consumption = increased fuel (all types) use, etc. But immigration is a subject not for rmweb - and no I'm not wholly against it either. Just needs better control. Nuff said.

 

I fear about Natural Gas being phased out for domestic consumption over the coming years though. Serious issue. Far more of an issue than banning coal & wood burning. We will really suffer.

 

Brit15

Alright for those that can get natural gas,  many like me have to use lpg at 3 times the price.

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22 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

The largest problem with burning coal., is how you actually burn it. It's a scientific operation, with the right amount of air both above & below the firebed. Banning household coal is no bad idea, because civilians aren't trained to understand the sciences. 

 

Preserved steam is every bit as bad as household coal. Some of the Casey Jones I've met (and I've met a lot) are by & large, pretty not clued up about how it's meant to work. Coal quality & fire management is a lifelong art, which is far more interesting than blasting up & down a 5-mile preserved line.  Sometimes, it makes me weep.

But on the scale it's burned these days does that really cause issues?

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Question.

 

The burning of wood to be banned next year.

 

What about Drax power station ? - Burning wood pellets imported from the USA - Pellets are processed, then a train journey to port in USA - Shipped across the Atlantic to Liverpool then put on another train for a convoluted round the houses journey over the pennines to Yorkshire. 

 

But it's Green energy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Brit15

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I assume that the wood chips burned in Drax aren't made directly from unseasoned green timber that haven't been processed in any way other than to turn them in to chips - I'm actually for no green wood being burned, although it's just plain common sense anyway for people who don't want a chimney fire.

 

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29 minutes ago, Reorte said:

But on the scale it's burned these days does that really cause issues?

Well, you have to draw a line in somewhere.

 

Some railways will continue to burn coal, I guess, but the quality of training will need to  increase exponentially, to allay the public at large. The skills gap might prove to be a problem, where volunteers knowledge fall far short of the mark. 

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1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

Question.

 

The burning of wood to be banned next year.

 

What about Drax power station ? - Burning wood pellets imported from the USA - Pellets are processed, then a train journey to port in USA - Shipped across the Atlantic to Liverpool then put on another train for a convoluted round the houses journey over the pennines to Yorkshire. 

 

But it's Green energy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Brit15

You seem to being doing a lot of misquoting today!;)

Wood isn't being banned, wet wood is.

Burning dry wood from resources that are sustainable forests is actually not too bad as the CO2 that is emitted is taken back out of atmosphere by the replacement trees.

This needs to a long term planned process, e.g. don't burn more wood than is replaced.

 

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According to The Times, Drax has failed its emissions test at a US pellets plant in Louisiana.

The power station owner has admitted to breaching environmental rules in the US after one of its wood pellet plants significantly exceeded air pollution limits.

The Times reports that Drax has admitted that its Morehouse Bioenergy plant in Louisiana produces particulate emissions about four times higher than permitted.

 

https://www.bioenergy-news.com/news/drax-us-plants-high-emissions-could-continue-for-another-year/

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/drax-fails-emissions-test-at-us-pellets-plant-56lz6lxfv

 

And this is interesting

 

https://www.fern.org/fileadmin/uploads/fern/Documents/Up in Flames.pdf

 

Brit15

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