Royal Mail Zero Carbon - more trains?

[Hesperus]

Central Wales is mostly on a SY postcode (centred on Shrewsbury) or LD for Llandrindod Wells.  Shrewsbury has a large station with unused platforms and lines heading out to the fringes of SY (Aberystwyth) and straight down to Llandrindod Wells, Cardiff and Chester.

 

I really think this can be done but train interiors might need a rethink to allow passenger stock to carry large amounts of parcels in the aisles at quieter times of day.

[Trainshed Terry]

8 minutes ago, Hesperus said:

I really think this can be done but train interiors might need a rethink to allow passenger stock to carry large amounts of parcels in the aisles at quieter times of day.

 

I do not think that will work as H&S would have something to say about. Any High value letters or parcels would need a secure area where the public has no access to them. As when I was a conductor guard I alway made sure that the guards compartment was locked so no one could get in.

[BernardTPM]

Didn't some Class 321s have a lockable saloon with 'Royal Mail' insignia on the side when in NSE livery?

[adb968008]

12 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

But don't forget that Swindon is typical of the rationalisation. of hubs which has taken place - and its situation is pre-privatisation.  It isn't unusual for towns with over 100,000 residents not to be served by an immediately local hub.   There are - according to a Wiki article - now 37 domestic mails hubs serving the entire UK with, for example only one in South Wales (no others in Wales - presumably Chester deals with North Wales?).

 

So to recreate local hubs in say, for example, Liverpool would mean starting from scratch as there is no existing hub there.  There are no doubt local delivery offices in Liverpool and elsewhere but v could any of them be converted to something like a rail served mini-hub?

Were definitely confusing major hubs with local hubs.

 

i just came home from Gatwick and passed a half dozen local delivery offices, just the ones that I know about, 3 of them within 5 miles of my home, all of them within minutes of a station… all with vans parked up in, ready for tomorrow.

We are obsessing on mail… theres hundreds of “retail” metros of various chains too, same logistics.

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by adb968008

[Trog]

I thought that Royal Mails method of reducing the carbon footprint of mail delivery was to make the price of a stamp so high that every one sends e-mails instead.

[KingEdwardII]

12 hours ago, Trog said:

every one sends e-mails instead

Yes, except for all those pesky parcels that folk insist on ordering via t'Internet...

 

...including all those model railway people

 

Yours,  Mike.

[Wickham Green too]

8 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

....all those pesky parcels .....

I thought they were all going to be delivered by drone !!?!

[lanchester]

On 28/06/2022 at 23:00, Hesperus said:

The biggest waste of energy in parcel delivery is all the competing companies.  It's probably not as noticeable in towns as they are dropping off a lot of packages close together but at my little hamlet of a couple of dozen houses, a mile or so from the main road you can see the silliness of 8 different vans driving up here most days to drop off one or two packages each.  I try to minimise this by getting most things sent to my workplace (also because I'm usually out).

 

I'm not convinced that HGVs will work well on battery power so I can see a lot of freight heading back to the railways if investment is available and staff willing to work in different ways.

 

  To pick up on the out of town hubs that @lanchester mentioned above.  If a city has a ring road it's fairly likely to pass the railway line at some point so could theoretically be rail served.  I wonder about trains of small containers that could slide off onto electric vans for local delivery.  Whatever it is would ideally be able to be unloaded safely under 25KV as that will need to be on most of the network if we can't have diesel.

 

 

Sorry to leave an extra tag, I can't find a way of deleting it.  Or writing anything after it.

@lanchester

The 'small containers sliding off' (with sort of live floor) is exactly the sort of research/trial/pilot scheme that the European Commission has been funding, and yes it is all technically well do-able and has been proven in practice. The trouble, I think (and I'm not taking a political view here, just analysing the research reports I have been paid to write up) is that the EC gets carried away and is looking for overarching solutions that will simultaneously solve a whole host of problems, rather than focussing on a few that might actually be implementable.

 

In particular, they have become attached to the idea of the 'physical internet'. The electronic internet deals in data packets which are neutral as to how they are routed, providing they turn up in time in the right order etc - some of the page you are reading may have bounced off half a dozen satellites, some of it in theory could have come straight down some fibre-optic cable. So do the same thing for physical packets. This is in theory a gloriously attractive idea, under which by rigorous standardisation, everything travels in 'boxes' of particular sizes and shapes that relate to each other for maximum efficiency in 'palletisation' or the equivalent, which in turn can be broken down and made up, at a cross-dock for example. Side loading, live decking, RFID tracking naturally, all feeding into planning and routing systems that work across transport modes and direct a particular box through the combination of road, rail, air, inland water connections that will optimally and at that moment achieve the required result - which might be time, or mileage, or (not necessarily the same) carbon emissions, or avoiding congestion, or whatever, and can indeed reroute in the event of, for example, accidents or adverse weather conditions.

 

Which is great, and all theoretically doable - BUT - it requires a cow of a lot of absolutely accurate data collection and processing at very many points or nodes, and possibly on the box itself during transit (for example for temperature controlled consignments). That is an awful lot of computer power and bandwidth. Then, everyone has to rebuild their vehicles - road, rail or whatever; invest in new pallets or the equivalent, and the IT systems, and whatever the mechanics that replace fork trucks are. And somehow this has to be economically viable.

 

Note I don't say commercially viable - because the only way I can see of implementing this across the majority of traffics traffics, across  Europe and beyond (and it has to be that sort of scale to be worth it) probably requires the sort of funding and enforcement that only a totalitarian-style system could achieve.

 

The EC in fairness is trying to concentrate on what could be achieved on core transport lanes, of which it identifies a dozen or so across Europe and connecting into, for example trans-Asian rail links. (For the information of Remainers/Rejoiners, however you slice it, UK operations, of just one or two hundred miles mostly, are pretty peripheral to this thinking - a lane in Europe is Rotterdam to Brest Litovsk or even Shanghai, not Felixstowe to Daventry).

 

And this is still only addressing stuff that, at least on some part of the journey, is travelling in pallet or container sized loads, not the casual and random assortment of small parcels and packets sent and received by most consumers and small businesses - ie Royal Mail business. 

 

All very annoying. BUT, there is no reason in principle why Royal Mail - and if competition laws were judiciously eased - in collaboration with the various other delivery and courier companies (DHL, DPDS, Hermes ....) couldn't adopt the most appropriate technologies to achieve major cost and environmental savings on the trunk portion of the delivery. They can and should still compete on 'final mile', and the ensuing charges, service levels etc. If you think about 'consumer protection' we don't actually care who trunks our stuff out of Southampton: they are using the same roads, similar trucks, paying similar wages probably, affected by the same pile-up on the M1... it isn't where 'competition' of the sort that gives consumers lower prices or better service is actually happening . We do care about whether the nice man in the van turns up when he says he will and doesn't throw Bachmann's latest into next door's hedge! That is 'all the competing companies' that Hesperus is pointing the finger at: and of course he is right, this is energy-inefficient, but it is what saves us from a monopoly (Royal Mail/Post Office pre privatisation/competition?) that, how shall I put this nicely, may not fully meet consumer expectations.

 

In an ideal world, rail administrations would lead in putting in the investment, in locations and facilities, rolling stock, data and IT etc, over the core trunk routes (which will usually need to be of some hundreds of miles, so actually it isn't many) and with perhaps a marginal bias in government taxation or other policies, pretty well every logistics firm with those sorts of flows would pile in. You may say 'Ha! But we haven't got a rail administration that can or will make those investments - we need nationalisation'. Mebbis - but none of the effectively nationalised rail networks of Europe (who have longer distances and thus more viable trunk routes, or parts of trunk routes, to play with) have got anywhere with this; and indeed one of the many impediments on a European scale has been the inability of Dutch rail (for example) to talk to German rail or French rail, who don't talk to the Spaniards, the Italians or the Poles (and Switzerland ain't even in the club). It is all rather politicised so the idea that the UIC could do anything (although it is worth visiting their website to see what they believe could be done) ain't a runner.

 

And we certainly aren't the only country where privately owned road haulage and other companies would cry foul if national or supra-national policy appeared to be driving them out of business in favour of the likes of DHL (although, actually, DHL is one of the most forward-thinking companies in this field - a browse of some of the research etc on their website could lose you for several days).

 

Sorry if this has gone on a bit - I think the key messages are firstly around scale - the UK is too small (geographically, not in 'little britain' terms) to contemplate several of the possible innovations on its own; while the EU is arguably too big to implement them across the board, which of course it would have to - you can't, for example, leave Spain and Portugal on the 'too difficult' pile. (For understandable, even virtuous, political reasons, there are transport lanes in Iberia that count as part of the EU core network even though traffic flows are significantly lower than some other lanes that aren't included).

 

And secondly, we have to find legal and policy approaches to allow and encourage collaboration without eliminating competition. That is Nobel Prize level, so I will leave things there!

[KingEdwardII]

18 hours ago, lanchester said:

allow and encourage collaboration without eliminating competition

Aye, that's the conundrum. My own experience shows that there is a wide variation in the quality of delivery companies - some are so poor that if a supplier indicates that they use them, I won't buy from that supplier. At least with competition and multiple companies, I can choose. A single delivery service might be "more efficient" but would mean no choice even if the quality was poor. We need to be careful what we wish for.

 

Yours,  Mike.

[KeithMacdonald]

On 30/06/2022 at 16:25, ruggedpeak said:

Lithium mining for batteries has increased >1500%, wrecking some of the most sensitive ecosystems on the planet

 

I concur. The demand is so high that they're drilling for it in Cornwall. Fortunately, it's at Trelavour Downs, which was already an ecosystem disaster area from decades of china clay workings. See the white pyramids. Even so, you have to gasp in amazement at the brazen audacity of their PR spin.

 

Quote

Cornish Lithium is an innovative, eco-technology company focused on mineral exploration and development for the environmentally sustainable extraction of lithium in the historic mining district of Cornwall, UK.

 

https://cornishlithium.com/projects/lithium-in-hard-rock/trelavour/

 

Still, look on the bright side, an opportunity for someone to produce a RTR Lithium Hopper Wagon (converted from a china clay hopper wagon)

[KeithMacdonald]

On 30/06/2022 at 16:25, ruggedpeak said:

1) There ain't enough electricity generating capacity now, let alone all the overpriced electric cars by 2030. Add lorries to that and the system will presumably collapse. And planes and everything else they want to electrify - all heating systems in every building etc etc.

 

A good live case-study of the end-game is happening right now in Australia. Which has invested heavily in wind and solar, even more than the UK. The result (so far) has been to replace a stable power grid based on cheap reliable coal & gas with one that is (at least) three times the price, unstable and teetering on the edge of breakdown.

 

https://joannenova.com.au/2022/06/in-an-emergency-we-need-coal/

 

[KingEdwardII]

In the UK, things will be much worse than in Oz, given that NetZero demands that not only all transport is converted to use electricity, but also all heating systems are to become electric as well. How this will work on a cold winter's night is anyone's guess, but it is going to take a lot more than a pile of intermittent wind turbines in the North Sea.

 

Yours, Mike.

[Hesperus]

On 03/07/2022 at 11:09, Trainshed Terry said:

 

I do not think that will work as H&S would have something to say about. Any High value letters or parcels would need a secure area where the public has no access to them. As when I was a conductor guard I alway made sure that the guards compartment was locked so no one could get in.

 

My thought would be to lock one or more coach's out of passenger use at off peak times.  That way it would encourage operators to use longer trains so peak time travel would be better.

[Trainshed Terry]

1 hour ago, Hesperus said:

 

My thought would be to lock one or more coach's out of passenger use at off peak times.  That way it would encourage operators to use longer trains so peak time travel would be better.

 

Unfortunately I think that most modern rolling stock do not have locks on corridor connections don't have locks on them, any I can not see TOC's going to the expense of fitting locks, as most TOC's are interested in running trains for profit and that means putting bums on seats.  

[Michael Hodgson]

5 hours ago, Hesperus said:

 

My thought would be to lock one or more coach's out of passenger use at off peak times.  That way it would encourage operators to use longer trains so peak time travel would be better.

I remember travelling from Edinburgh to Newcastle in Mark I stock one winter evening.  As it was getting dark I asked the Guard to turn on the lights.  He apologised but told me the lights weren't working in that coach, but if I cared to move, they were fine in the next carriage - but unfortunately the steam heating in that one was out of order!

[icn]

On 06/07/2022 at 19:30, KingEdwardII said:

In the UK, things will be much worse than in Oz, given that NetZero demands that not only all transport is converted to use electricity, but also all heating systems are to become electric as well. How this will work on a cold winter's night is anyone's guess, but it is going to take a lot more than a pile of intermittent wind turbines in the North Sea.

With good insulation you barely need any heating. In fact I went a year with (unknowingly) broken heating in a flat in the UK simply because it was well insulated and perhaps the hot-water boiler provided enough heat to maintain the temperature (the fault lay with the pump for the heating apparently). Houses will need more heat than a flat obviously, but it's entirely possible to minimise heat requirements. You'll want the insulation regardless of which energy source you use.

 

My current place gets its heat and hot water via a low-power ground source heat pump (i.e. electric), some neighbours even use it for cooling.

[cctransuk]

On 06/07/2022 at 14:53, KeithMacdonald said:

 

I concur. The demand is so high that they're drilling for it in Cornwall. Fortunately, it's at Trelavour Downs, which was already an ecosystem disaster area from decades of china clay workings. See the white pyramids. Even so, you have to gasp in amazement at the brazen audacity of their PR spin.

 

 

https://cornishlithium.com/projects/lithium-in-hard-rock/trelavour/

 

Still, look on the bright side, an opportunity for someone to produce a RTR Lithium Hopper Wagon (converted from a china clay hopper wagon)

 

Of course, if one asked Jo / Joe Public in, say, Redruth; you would be likely to find that lithium / copper / tin mining would be welcomed with open arms - if it meant some of the currently unemployed might at some point be able to afford a home.

 

I wonder how many politically-active environmentalists have second homes in the West Country?

 

I am all for Zero Carbon, but it has to be accepted that there are bound to be some environmental negatives on the way.

 

CJI.

(resident of Cornwall)

[icn]

I'm not sure why people here are so focussed on lithium - 2 steps behind methinks (rather like that adage about the faster horses). Shortages breed innovation, and there's plenty of research ongoing into alternatives (and that alternative might end up not being a battery). Will they be ready tomorrow? Probably not. Ready in time for a wholesale switch? Likely yes.

[KingEdwardII]

1 hour ago, icn said:

With good insulation you barely need any heating.

Well, that's great for people who live in a place like that, but it simply isn't the case for millions of folk. Like myself, many live in buildings 90+ years old that take a fair bit of heating. It would be nice to improve the insulation, but it is expensive and can be difficult to achieve, with a number of drawbacks. We don't spend money on heating for fun, but the cost to improve insulation can be high and involve payback times of decades.

 

Yours, Mike.

[GordonC]

On 08/07/2022 at 18:07, Trainshed Terry said:

 

Unfortunately I think that most modern rolling stock do not have locks on corridor connections don't have locks on them, any I can not see TOC's going to the expense of fitting locks, as most TOC's are interested in running trains for profit and that means putting bums on seats.  

 

How many have electric doors through the corridor connection and selective door opening though that can be disabled?

[adb968008]

On 06/07/2022 at 15:06, KeithMacdonald said:

 

A good live case-study of the end-game is happening right now in Australia. Which has invested heavily in wind and solar, even more than the UK. The result (so far) has been to replace a stable power grid based on cheap reliable coal & gas with one that is (at least) three times the price, unstable and teetering on the edge of breakdown.

 

https://joannenova.com.au/2022/06/in-an-emergency-we-need-coal/

 

Sadly technical evolution is painful, it takes a war to bring technical revolution.

 

if it werent for ww1, we would still be riding horses as cars were too technical and impossibly expensive…

 

if it werent for ww2 we would still be using steam powered ships and trains to get around the world as diesel and planes were too technical and impossibly expensive…

 

if it werent for the cold war we would still be using telephones, pagers, books and letters rather than IT which were too technical and impossibly expensive…

 

Wars are invariably fought over by strong dominant technology being challenged by new incumbent revolutionary technology, the Ukraine one is no different.

The road out of gas and oil may require blood to transform into green energy…

 

The politicians are prepping us up for long term high energy inflation.. they need it, to make Green energy viable… 

lets not kid ourselves of the agenda…it was black and white at Hinkley Point in 2016… the government agreed a price twice the 2016 market rate… looks like a bargain today doesnt it ?

https://www.theenergyshop.com/articles/what-does-hinkley-point-mean-for-energy-bills

UK govt guarenteed edf £92.50 per mwh … against c£45 market rate in 2016..

why would they do that unless…

 

Quote

According to the Competition and Markets Authority (1) ....

"On the basis of current announced plans, DECC estimates that climate and energy policies will add 37% to the retail cost of electricity prices paid by households in 2020."

37% equates to an increase of £185 on an annual electricity bill of £500 over just 4 years.

published in 2016..

 

So here we are in 2022 were looking at £192 pMWH

https://www.catalyst-commercial.co.uk/wholesale-electricity-prices/

and an average of £3000 annual bill..There is definitely room for it to come down, but if inflationary salaries creep upwards, then youve the headroom for investing in new green tech rather than a cut… the 2020s might be a long slow painful economic decade.. just like the 1920’s.

 

Edited July 11, 2022 by adb968008

[DY444]

On 03/07/2022 at 15:51, BernardTPM said:

Didn't some Class 321s have a lockable saloon with 'Royal Mail' insignia on the side when in NSE livery?

 

Yep, and all the 319s had them too.  Behind the cab at one end with two longitudinal bench seats which could be tipped up and stowed out of the way.  

[KingEdwardII]

7 hours ago, adb968008 said:

it takes a war to bring technical revolution.

That REALLY isn't true. Technical revolutions happen all the time and are driven by technology advances and economics.

 

To take one of your examples - the car. The real revolution was the Model T Ford - assembly line mass production. Date: 1908. Nothing to do with war.

 

Similarly with computers - first the mainframe in the early 1960s and then the PC in the late 1970s. Both driven by technology advances allied to changes in economics. No war involved, just $$$.

 

War may stimulate some advances where related to military equipment - Radar and the Tank are two classic examples. I'd argue that both of these were related to technical advances originating elsewhere and before any war, but there is no doubt that the cavity magnetron, for example, was invented expressly as a result of WWII.

 

Yours, Mike

[DY444]

On 09/07/2022 at 14:30, icn said:

I'm not sure why people here are so focussed on lithium - 2 steps behind methinks (rather like that adage about the faster horses). Shortages breed innovation, and there's plenty of research ongoing into alternatives (and that alternative might end up not being a battery). Will they be ready tomorrow? Probably not. Ready in time for a wholesale switch? Likely yes.

 

You should get a job at the DfT 😉.

 

In my experience basing a transport (or any other) strategy for a nation on something you hope will be developed by a given date is a very good way to maximise the odds of failure.  Research is obviously a key pre-requisite for developing anything new but it doesn't guarantee success by a given date or even at all (see cancer and fusion) 

Edited July 12, 2022 by DY444

[DY444]

On 30/06/2022 at 19:52, black and decker boy said:

The government has already done the same for HGVs with sales of new ICE powered HGVs prohibited after 2040 (policy announced last summer).

 

Announce a date with no technical solution to replace the thing you're banning.  That always works 🤔