Environmentally sustainable model railway exhibitions

[Chris M]

At least the Warley show venue does it's best for the environment and sustainability.

 

https://www.necgroup.co.uk/sustainability/environment/

 

[Neil]

I'm beginning to wonder if the debate is less about practicalities and cost and more about personal choice. Given the cost of rtr stuff today and the buying habits of many, for most, public transport will be affordable and it's just that there's a resistance to paying the price when compared to using ones own car. Making a comparison between fuel cost and ticket price masks the true cost of car use. Do we fool ourselves that it's the cheap option? Bizarrely the foregoing discussion seems to argue that you have either to have loads of disposable income to use public transport whereas there are those too poor to afford to run a car; are trains and buses the realm of only the poor and the wealthy?

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

The first part is impractical as most attendees would just flash their bus pass.

 

 

Also doesn’t work in the London area or anywhere else that uses contactless fare payments as you wouldn’t necessarily have a ‘ticket’.

[Willie Whizz]

5 minutes ago, BachelorBoy said:

 

Plus of course those costs like depreciation, wear and tear, MOT, insurance, repairs, cost of parking, etc.

 

 

 

But once you have bought a car in the first place the cost of that, the depreciation, and the necessary servicing , insurance etc. are effectively “sunk costs” and will not vary much whether you use it a lot or very little.
 

Petrol, parking etc. are then “marginal costs” which are the ones most people use, consciously or unconsciously, to determine the comparison between whether to make a discretionary trip by car, by public transport, or not at all. On that basis - and given the greater comfort and convenience - people have, certainly until recently, often found the car to be more cost-effective for such trips. 
 

To get people using public transport in the first place it must be:

(a) available and convenient at all

(b) attractive - or at very least not unpleasant - to use, and

(c) more affordable than available alternatives.  
 

All these, but especially (c), are especially challenging outside London. The answer often suggested is “more subsidy” - but that doesn’t make it any cheaper, merely displaces the true cost to taxpayers overall rather than just those who use the service. Are we yet ready to pay that price to fund a “public good”?

[jjb1970]

It's also no longer automatically the case that rail travel is less polluting than driving. Rail may be cleaner, it may not be, depending on type of train/car. If someone has a good solar and battery home set up and an EV then it'll emit less for the journey than a diesel train.

[Neil]

10 minutes ago, Willie Whizz said:

... To get people using public transport in the first place it must be:

(a) available and convenient at all

(b) attractive - or at very least not unpleasant - to use, and

(c) more affordable than available alternatives.  .....

 

More affordable, well it's possible to do that by raising the cost of private motoring rather than lowering the cost of public transport. Don't forget that if you're over sixty in Wales and Scotland or at state pension age in England then buses are free and you can't get cheaper than that. Given the amount of grey hair seen at the average model railway exhibition I would think a good proportion of visitors would be eligible for this benefit.

[PMP]

15 minutes ago, Neil said:

I'm beginning to wonder if the debate is less about practicalities and cost and more about personal choice.
 

It’s far more complicated than that. Anyone who does shift work will rapidly tell you that public transport, unless you live in a well served metropolitan area isn’t viable. Pricing too does make a massive difference regardless of time of day and geographic location. Here’s two annual season tickets which cover similar distances. 

Roughly 20 miles

Again roughly 20 miles. So if you earn 25k/yr you take home around 20pa. Out of that you have to pay a season ticket to get to work, if you can get an older car for £2,000 and it’s reasonably reliable and fuel efficient it’s no contest. The cost and practicality of the car will win every time, especially if you factor in ‘life’ things like shopping and simply visiting clubs friends family etc.

 

And yes public transport is too expensive if it makes sense for me to drive 190 miles each way to a show, and it’s still far less than letting a train take the strain. 

[Kirby Uncoupler]

We all know that HS2 and it's originally planned northern extensions, was partly designed to make accessing the Warley train show far easier, but alas for the time being, our cousins up north will have to carry on using the Victorian rail network, although trains from the NW already run through to Birmingham Int., like from Abu Dhabi on the Cambrian Coast. Up until the advent of the NEC, national shows were mostly based in or around London, which had excellent transport links to all parts of the nation, even Lincolnshire.

     Ancient Britons had a similar idea 5,000 years ago, they opened a national conference/leisure centre on the fringes of Salisbury plain, everyone walked or rode a horse to the venue, so some would have to take a week off work, just to get there, plus another week for the trip home. A big advantage with this location, was that the ground could be returned to agricultural use, between events. The food and drink could be supplied locally, oxon and hogs for roasting, mead from the local friary, thus providing much needed jobs in the area. From an environmental prospective, lots of smoke from all the roasting, increased methane production from eating root veg, and both River Avons (south and west) contaminated, due to lack of loos.

     Now in the present day, we make an annual pilgrimage to a collection of large sheds in central Mercia, which until the 1970s, was beautiful pastoral countryside, where Shakespeare went for picnics. Looks like we're stuck with that lot now, although being able to fly in for the Warley show is handy, apart from the added pollution. Maybe the answer is for the shows to come to us, rather like a travelling circus, although to a degree we have that already, with the string of leisure centre venues, except in Lincolnshire.

      I think what we've all learnt from this discussion, is that if you want to attend nationwide events, whilst relying on public transport,  don't live in Lincolnshire, although it's very pretty, the houses are cheaper, and it's flat, so less pollution from exhaust and brake dust.   

                                                        Cheers, Brian. (Who used to live in Islington)

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

3 minutes ago, Willie Whizz said:

To get people using public transport in the first place it must be:

(a) available and convenient at all

(b) attractive - or at very least not unpleasant - to use, and

(c) more affordable than available alternatives.

One more:

(d) Absolutely reliable, excluding 'Acts of God'.

 

This is a major problem, even in an area where the service is generally good. If a service is scheduled it runs, unless there has been an earthquake, meteorite impact, or something similarly beyond human control that directly disrupts that locality.

 

Sadly, bus services fall well short. I wouldn't go further on a  bus than a distance I can walk home from if necessary. And if I can walk it, then no need for a bus, thus I have the free pass but have rarely used it: mainly for 'going home' if there's a convenient scheduled service...

[railroadbill]

I used to go the Alexandra Palace exhibitions, both model railway and model engineering (now gone)  regularly pre Covid.  I'm now going back to a few exhibitions again. I can get to AP both by car or public transport because of its location.  When I went on my own I used both ways at different times (might depend on how much I thought I might buy there!).  It's usually quicker by car (I would still have to drive to local station to get train to London, now £7 a day to park).  When my wife accompanied me to the AP railway one,  a show she really liked, it was cheaper by car for the 2 of us, AP having free parking.  OK, a 46 mile journey according to Google maps,  92 miles so say 1 1/2 gallons of diesel for my elderly small hatchback. At present diesel around £7 a gallon so that's £10.50.  Call it £12.  That would be my marginal cost to get there by car. 

A one day travel card is now around £20 so for 2 people that's around £40 (with railcards).  And it takes longer. 

A further hassle is that one day travel cards are likely to be withdrawn next year, making public travel in London more complex (we have got Oyster cards).

Another point is that driving a 15 year old diesel car, despite doing 64 mpg (measured over a year) is that I would now have to pay ULEZ charges to get to Ally Pally.  My friend with a petrol SUV doing 33 mpg isn't affected buy ULEZ.... although his car produces nearly twice the Co2.

 

I used to go to some small and medium exhibitions within say a 30-40 mile radius that I couldn't have reached by public transport so had to drive.  Most of those have gone and not returned post-covid. 

I do use the local bus when I can, plus the train being an enthusast for them, but local bus routes are being increasingly cut back.

Edited October 16, 2023 by railroadbill
Typo

[Willie Whizz]

11 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

More affordable, well it's possible to do that by raising the cost of private motoring rather than lowering the cost of public transport. Don't forget that if you're over sixty in Wales and Scotland or at state pension age in England then buses are free and you can't get cheaper than that. Given the amount of grey hair seen at the average model railway exhibition I would think a good proportion of visitors would be eligible for this benefit.

Absolutely false to say that bus passes are "free".

 

They are not; they are only "free at point of use" - there is still a cost to making that journey, and the cost is met by National and Local Government - in other words, Taxpayers.  Being over 60 myself, but still being a Taxpayer, I appreciate this privilege, but I don't take it for granted.

 

As for "raising the cost of private motoring", well ... as someone was arguing earlier, to embrace pro-environmental changes it would help if they lower prices, not raise them.  Politically your notion is already getting more controversial, and anyone who remembers "Yes Minister" will know how politicians are wary of that kind of thing.

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, Chris M said:

Cycling into town is a cheap sustainable option - so long as no bu&&er pinches my bike!

 

And they do. I had one that was broken pinched from where I live and never saw it again and another pinched in town by someone who I recognised. He had a bit of an unpleasant surprise when I turned up at his flat and retrieved it.

[jjb1970]

I think public transport is a bit like industrial health and safety.

 

I had something of an epiphany one day when I realised that the key to improving safety was to make the safe way to do something the easy way. I return to my point that most people aren't stupid. If someone see's a hideous procedure of 1600 steps which means spending all day on something and identifies a short cut which takes five minutes and does their own ad hoc risk assessment which leads them to believe their short cut is safe what do people expect to happen? If you design stuff to be easy to maintain and operate according to safe procedures etc then people will follow safety rules out of their own self interest.

 

What's that got to do with car use and public transport? If you provide a public transport system which works, offers excellent connectivity, is reliable and allows people to go about their lives using public transport then people will use it. If public transport is a shambolic mess, or infrequent, or not reliable (or a combination of all) then don't blame people for not using it as they are not the problem. I'm not even sure cost is the issue often portrayed, of course ticket price is important but even if public transport is cheap it doesn't help to shift people out of cars if it doesn't operate when people need it, doesn't go where they need to go or is unreliable. I made the mistake of thinking we could rely on rail services and public transport for our last holiday in England, I won't be repeating that mistake and am hiring a car for our Christmas holiday.

[MrWolf]

7 minutes ago, Willie Whizz said:

Absolutely false to say that bus passes are "free".

 

They are not; they are only "free at point of use" - there is still a cost to making that journey, and the cost is met by National and Local Government - in other words, Taxpayers.  Being over 60 myself, but still being a Taxpayer, I appreciate this privilege, but I don't take it for granted.

 

As for "raising the cost of private motoring", well ... as someone was arguing earlier, to embrace pro-environmental changes it would help if they lower prices, not raise them.  Politically your notion is already getting more controversial, and anyone who remembers "Yes Minister" will know how politicians are wary of that kind of thing.

 

One of my friends is coming up 67 and has a senior rail card as well, but buses and trains don't always take him where he wants to go. Like me he walks and cycles, travels longer distances by motorcycle and only uses a car when absolutely necessary. He considers his travel discounts a perk for paying taxes for fifty years, not a right.

 

Private motoring is expensive enough and the majority of the taxes raised from it are squandered on projects that if put to the vote would never happen. 

Purely my opinion, but whilst motorists have little alternative, the powers that be will keep milking them, so there's little incentive for the government to spend money on an integrated public transport system is there?

I also think that the reason motoring was encouraged is because the individual is much easier to hit for taxes and in greater sums overall than a giant commercial railway enterprise.

Give people the alternatives first, wean them off private car usage rather than car ownership and then you will see a difference.

HS2 I believe was doomed to failure as a public project, too big a pig trough to resist.

Our old networks were built by private investors and we need to find ways to encourage that again in order to reopen branch and cross country lines for both goods and commuters, whilst ensuring that any taxpayer's money as subsidies gets where it should go, not pockets or pet projects.

[MrWolf]

12 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I think public transport is a bit like industrial health and safety.

 

I had something of an epiphany one day when I realised that the key to improving safety was to make the safe way to do something the easy way. I return to my point that most people aren't stupid. If someone see's a hideous procedure of 1600 steps which means spending all day on something and identifies a short cut which takes five minutes and does their own ad hoc risk assessment which leads them to believe their short cut is safe what do people expect to happen? If you design stuff to be easy to maintain and operate according to safe procedures etc then people will follow safety rules out of their own self interest.

 

What's that got to do with car use and public transport? If you provide a public transport system which works, offers excellent connectivity, is reliable and allows people to go about their lives using public transport then people will use it. If public transport is a shambolic mess, or infrequent, or not reliable (or a combination of all) then don't blame people for not using it as they are not the problem. I'm not even sure cost is the issue often portrayed, of course ticket price is important but even if public transport is cheap it doesn't help to shift people out of cars if it doesn't operate when people need it, doesn't go where they need to go or is unreliable. I made the mistake of thinking we could rely on rail services and public transport for our last holiday in England, I won't be repeating that mistake and am hiring a car for our Christmas holiday.

 

Having held an IOSH qualification and written more risk assessments and method statements than I care to remember, I completely agree with you. 

You also beat me to it with your thoughts on public transport.

[PMP]

21 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I think public transport is a bit like industrial health and safety.

 

What's that got to do with car use and public transport? If you provide a public transport system which works, offers excellent connectivity, is reliable and allows people to go about their lives using public transport then people will use it. If public transport is a shambolic mess, or infrequent, or not reliable (or a combination of all) then don't blame people for not using it as they are not the problem. I'm not even sure cost is the issue often portrayed, of course ticket price is important but even if public transport is cheap it doesn't help to shift people out of cars if it doesn't operate when people need it, doesn't go where they need to go or is unreliable. I made the mistake of thinking we could rely on rail services and public transport for our last holiday in England, I won't be repeating that mistake and am hiring a car for our Christmas holiday.

^^^ This 100%. Convenience and cost are key to getting people to change. I and colleagues find it wryly amusing to read assorted rants about airport drop off and close to terminal parking prices. One reason they are so high is to encourage people to use public transport alternatives, airports etc having signed up to net zero etc. The charges are used in the main to develop other environmental improvements, and/or local community benefits, not to line directors pockets. This is because cars at the terminal used to be more polluting than the actual aircraft in terms of emissions, it is getting better but since C19 there has been a resurgence in SOV (single occupant vehicle) journeys. Does the pricing force people out of cars into transport? Well sort of, in that you see shinier cars in drop off and close terminal parking than you do in remote parking and drop off where the older cars are. Some say that might be due to disposable income. And on that bombshell…

Edited October 16, 2023 by PMP
Spelling

[PaulRhB]

1 hour ago, Chris M said:

And no buying quota of others. You would be mad to put on a model railway exhibition that was hard to get to using certain means of public transport.

And no shows in the two to three months before the quotas renew! Who’d take the risk with many unable to do leisure travel? 😉

[PMP]

2 hours ago, Chris M said:

One answer might be to give every person in the western world a carbon allowance that they can use on holidays (jets, cruises), social travel etc.

 

Why only the western (developed) world? If environmental protection is to work it has to be unified worldwide. This obviously means that less developed areas won’t have the opportunities and freedoms the ‘we’ have enjoyed now or in the past. We would almost certainly have to cut our impacts going forward, and developing areas manage their development accordingly to meet at a unified position.

 

Anyone fancy their chances with that vote winner?

[Coldgunner]

Travel broadens the mind, restrict travel with a carbon allowance and you will end up with local villages for local people everywhere.

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, PMP said:

I and colleagues find it wryly amusing to read assorted rants about airport drop off and close to terminal parking prices. One reason they are so high is to encourage people to use public transport alternatives, airports etc having signed up to net zero etc. 

Except that the public transport options  for many airports are rubbish for anyone not travelling to/from the city centre - Until very recently, to get from here to Heathrow, for example, meant either an unreliable bus that's likely to get stuck in M25 traffic, or going via central London - there's a new more direct bus service just started that may be better, but we'll see how reliable that turns out to be...

[PMP]

2 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Except that the public transport options  for many airports are rubbish for anyone not travelling to/from the city centre -

That’s a factor worldwide of where airports are developed. Historically they are out of town locations. As travel has become more popular, there’s been the need to subsequently provide more access opportunities after the airports have been developed. 
If you start with a clean sheet it’s easy to get and future proof all types of facilities, not so much if working with infrastructure ten years old let alone seventy plus in the case of Heathrow.

[Coldgunner]

There is some completely illogical timetables with Stansted (in my experience). To me, Stansted tends to be the go-to for the cheap early morning flights and I think the latest arrival from Brum (and other stops) on the XC service is 22:41 and the earliest arrival is 0841 which is useless for those on a 6am flight.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Coldgunner

[PaulRhB]

30 minutes ago, Coldgunner said:

Travel broadens the mind, restrict travel with a carbon allowance and you will end up with local villages for local people everywhere.

You could use a wooden boat with a sail, the Danes have been quite good at broadening their travel horizons for over 1000 years that way. Come to think of it we used to be quite good at it too until some bloke with a French dad started building these massive super steamships. 
I blame him . . .

 

😉

[Nick C]

5 minutes ago, PMP said:

That’s a factor worldwide of where airports are developed. Historically they are out of town locations. As travel has become more popular, there’s been the need to subsequently provide more access opportunities after the airports have been developed. 
If you start with a clean sheet it’s easy to get and future proof all types of facilities, not so much if working with infrastructure ten years old let alone seventy plus in the case of Heathrow.

I'll have to disagree with you there - they were able to fit in the Heathrow Express link into existing infrastructure, but made no provision as they did so for extending to Reading (which then has connections on to almost everywhere) or down towards Woking - either of which would have been much cheaper if done at the same time.

 

Of course having your principle airport upwind of the city is pretty bad from an environmental point of view anyway, but that is something that can't easily be changed! (unless they decided to demolish Watford and build a new one there...)

[Neil]

1 hour ago, Willie Whizz said:

Absolutely false to say that bus passes are "free".

 

They are not; they are only "free at point of use" - there is still a cost to making that journey, and the cost is met by National and Local Government - in other words, Taxpayers.  Being over 60 myself, but still being a Taxpayer, I appreciate this privilege, but I don't take it for granted. ....

 

We were talking about the immediate cost to the individual but if you want to go there then there are costs involved in private motoring above and beyond fuel, depreciation and vehicle license which are borne by society as a whole. Here are some interesting statistics on the costs of road traffic accidents and fatalities here in Great Britain and although three years out of date it gives some idea of the tab picked up by the public purse as a whole. Then there's the environmental cost, here's what car and van emissions cost the NHS each year. Even mundane stuff like traffic jams come with a financial cost to society, here's a report from nine years ago which gives the total projected hit to the UK economy as more than three hundred billion over sixteen years.