Does rail transport have a future in Ireland?

steamengine

corktina wrote: »

One of the pet potential freight flows that gets trotted out is Tesco/Stobart. Lets assume they go for it and establish a base in Dublin near the docks supplying the country. Do they run a block train to Cork and distibute from there by road? If so, do they have sub-depots at , say Mallow and lim Junc or do they truck the stuff back to those areas from Cork? If they stop to offload , they kill any time advantage, if they truck back to them they are increasing the costs.... (repeat problem for other lines)

It doesnt really work in Ireland does it! They may as well truck the stuff from Dublin to intermediate points, but then they erode the cost benefits of the longer hauls (to Cork in this instance)

Good explanation of the snags in that scenario ok. Again hypothetically speaking, as you mentioned Limerick Junction, a thought struck me regarding its strategic location in the network if a rail/road freight interchange was ever considered a viable proposition. It is roughly equidistant between the Ports of Cork, Waterford, Limerick (and Foynes if they re-connected it), and just some further distance to Dublin and also close enough to the M8. Rail freight is minimal ok, but every viable freight run is a reason to prevent any possible closure of the line in question and so maintain it into the future for passenger use as well.

foggy_lad

All this talk of "strategic locations" and "strategic" infrastructure is misleading because there is nothing strategic about the likes of Limerick junction except maybe historically or when talking about the massive costs such places are adding to the running costs of Irish Rail every year. old track mixed with old broken down points adn rotten to the core wooden sleepers dont make anything strategic.

robd

steamengine wrote: »

Rail freight is minimal ok, but every viable freight run is a reason to prevent any possible closure of the line in question and so maintain it into the future for passenger use as well.

Under EU law, Irish Rail are being forced to run separate accounts for Infrastructure, Passenger and Freight businesses. They are no longer allowed hide the losses of the freight side of their business under general accounts. Will be interesting to see just what a bad state this side of the business is in when their next set of company accounts are published as public information.

Ted Mosby

foggy_lad wrote: »

All this talk of "strategic locations" and "strategic" infrastructure is misleading because there is nothing strategic about the likes of Limerick junction except maybe historically or when talking about the massive costs such places are adding to the running costs of Irish Rail every year. old track mixed with old broken down points adn rotten to the core wooden sleepers dont make anything strategic.

Good old foggy_lad, dependable and reliable in his wish to grind the railways away out of existence until not even the memory of them exists.

pigtown

What if 2 new companies were created, 1 (The Cork Transport Agency, CTA) based in Cork and in charge of the bus service in the city and the Cork-Middleton/Cobh rail line.
Another (Transport for the Regions And Cities, TRAC) based in Limerick and in charge of the bus and local rail in Limerick, Galway and Waterford. The rail services it would operate are:
Limerick-Nenagh
Limerick-Ennis
Limerick-Foynes freight (if requested by the port company)
Galway-Oranmore
Galway-Limerick-Cork with connection to Waterford.

Both of these companies would be tasked with identifying and operating routes, setting rates, marketing, purchasing vehicles and hiring and firing. Board members would be elected by voters in the various cities at the same time as the local elections and accountable to the voting public should services not be up to scratch.

I think giving these companies bus services as well as rail would allow for an integrated service in the cities (something which doesn't exist at the moment) and also they could act as profitable arms as the rail services get established and move into profit. With regards the very slow travel time on WRC and Waterford line, TRAC would gradually close level crossings and straighten the line as funding becomes available.

steamengine

bk wrote: »

As Corktina says, versus just having a big depot somewhere around the M50. Truck stuff directly into this depot and then distribute by truck to Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, etc.

All the cities are reachable in less then 3 hours. Much cheaper to have one big depot near the M50 and distribute from there, then lots of small depots, with extra staff all over the country.

There is no alternative non fossil fuel technology available to power HGV's for a 3 hour duration at present. Diesel fuel is increasing in price year on year and apart from the cost its continued use will do nothing to reduce our carbon emissions, whatever about the taxes and fines that will accrue. Rail is there, electrify the network eventually and use it where possible, in conjunction with the roads. That is the logical way forward and is what our European neighbours will be and are doing. I am referring to the period 2050 and beyond as outlined in the EU 2050 white paper on transport.

corktina

cheaper to improve the technology on HGVs to reduce emissions....as has already been done , no doubt more can and will ber done inr the next 30-40 years

bk

steamengine wrote: »

There is no alternative non fossil fuel technology available to power HGV's for a 3 hour duration at present. ..... I am referring to the period 2050 and beyond as outlined in the EU 2050 white paper on transport.

Not true.

Well, we are probably going to see natural gas be used in trucks, which is cleaner then diesel.

And while I'm not a major fan of it, biofuels and in particular biomass can do an excellent job of powering trucks today. Biofuels can be used in some trucks today.

I'm not a fan of biofuels as they require the use of land that could otherwise be used for growing food or trees. However if it is only used for trucks and buses and the rest of cars switch to battery, then it mightn't be so bad.

Also there is the very real possibility of the hydrogen fuel cell trucks.

robd

I too am a believer in the technology argument rather than return to rail argument.

To add, huge work going on with self drive technology. I don't see how rail can compete with this over short (up to 300 km) distances for intercity traffic, which is all that there is in Ireland.
http://www.digitaltimes.ie/2012/05/europes-answer-to-googles-self-driving-car/

Commuter is another story. Investment in the various rail projects in Dublin would be a similar quantum leap to the M50 upgrade for cars. The no argument on this one is similar to the argument that the West-link toll plaza didn't cause traffic problems/chaos.

steamengine

bk wrote: »

Not true.

Well, we are probably going to see natural gas be used in trucks, which is cleaner then diesel.

And while I'm not a major fan of it, biofuels and in particular biomass can do an excellent job of powering trucks today. Biofuels can be used in some trucks today.

I'm not a fan of biofuels as they require the use of land that could otherwise be used for growing food or trees. However if it is only used for trucks and buses and the rest of cars switch to battery, then it mightn't be so bad.

Also there is the very real possibility of the hydrogen fuel cell trucks.

Natural gas is a fossil fuel and another hydro carbon. Bio fuels are also hydro carbons, just not old enough to qualify for fossil status. Therefore one of the main products of combustion continues to be CO2, carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Hydrogen fuel cells may be a possibility, but really there are all sorts of possibilities - just that !

How about this 'Wind powered DART' ??? - presently a reality instead of a possibility, at least to a certain percentage.

Plowman

This post has been deleted.

micdug

n900guy wrote: »

You have to remember that at the moment 1.8 million people live within 100km of Cork city. It was suited very well to rail 100 years ago before the rail got shut down. Loads of small stations and it worked well.

We are talking about a transport solutions here - how do you get to the train station!!! Walk?

100k is not walking or even bus commute. It is a journey. Unless you are within 5 minutes of a bus that will take you within half hour to a train station you are not going to take the train. You will get into your car and drive the entire journey.

n900guy wrote: »

It totally is, but Dublin-centric road and rail mishandling has caused a lot of problems. There is no reason for Intercity services at 160km/h to not be the norm between Dublin --> Galway / Cork and Cork --> Limerick --> Galway. Linking up the major cities in a loop works very well, which is how the Randstad in the Holland works. The major cities in Ireland are in a triangle and are around 200-250km each apart. It should take no more than 90mins to go from Cork to Dublin, Dublin to Galway or Galway to Cork with Limerick halfway.

Simply investing the required amount to connect the four cities in a loop would connect 80% of the population of the country.

Why do people travel long distance (as opposed to commuter)? Usually to get services they cannot get locally. The second tier cities in Ireland don't usually offer any significant differentiation between each other with regard to services. Therefore people travel to the next level up which is always going to be Dublin. Dublin has scale and services not available or tenable in any other location in the country. As a result you will never get travel between tier 2 cities sufficient to justify rail links because people do and will choose to go to Dublin. Hence the Hub and Spoke design of our transport network which makes complete sense. Any alternate viewpoint is based on a lack of sense of proportion (the second tier cities in Ireland are very small) and comparisons with the Randstad with a population of nearly eight million in an area not much bigger then County Cork has got to be a joke no?

n900guy wrote: »

The majority of the population are not in the centre of the country. 1,5 million people live east in Dublin and the Greater Dublin Area. 1,8 million people live in the south. the rest live in the west and BMW.

I think he made a mistake but this exactly backs up the reason for the Dublin centric transport model. The metropolitan area is actually closer to 1.8m in a relatively dense area on the east coast i.e. suitable for some commuter rail. The rest of the population is dispersed in the 143rd least dense country in the world. That figure is worse when you take into account we have no deserts or mountain ranges that account for countries around our density. The UK is 53 as a comparison.

Lets face it - Ireland is too small, too compact and has too little population outside of Dublin to justify long distance rail travel. The longest urban-urban distance (Belfast to Cork) is only 400km which is entirely motorway and only 4 hours which is easily doable compared to the sheer scale of other countries (Norway for example).
There is justification for commuter/light rail in the Dublin Metropolitan region based on congestion but that's about it. Outside of that the most efficient, environmentally friendly and usable mode of transport or those designed for low occupancy, that is the Bus Network which can run routes of less then 40 people economically and below that again the motor car which can scale right down to one person point to point.

Freight is so dead in Ireland, a country with no heavy manufacturing base where as pointed out and has ports in all it's cities that its not worth discussing.

micdug

Ted Mosby wrote: »

Good old foggy_lad, dependable and reliable in his wish to grind the railways away out of existence until not even the memory of them exists.

But the thing is it's not foggy lad. Its the general public who have voted with their feet. And this is because the alternative is better unless you are Dublin City Centre to Belfast, Cork, Limerick or Galway City Centre. No amount of investment will change that. And even there Dub-Cork and Belfast are the only lines with sufficient demand to cover their costs.

steamengine

Plowman wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

The main thrust of my reasoning is to express the hope that Irish railways (as opposed to Irish Rail, who are free to bat for themselves on Boards) are not abandoned, prematurely due a wave of euphoria about motorways. It is generally accepted, that the fuel efficiency pecking order is from the top, as follows - Marine, Rail, Road, Air. Fuel efficiency and carbon emissions are again generally related. If an engine is working at peak efficiency fuel wise then emissions should be low. Rail, at present, can have the added advantage of electrification and if alternative energy usage is further increased eg wind power in our case, then our dependency on fossil fuels in the future is partially reduced. Yes the carbon footprint is irrelevant to most people, but the EU are calling the shots.

If we run with the carbon emissions narrative for the sake of argument, then cars will likely see greater improvements sooner than trains as there is greater competition in the motoring world than in the rail one. Already Volkswagen, for instance, is putting its prototype XL1 car into production. Using a combination of batteries and a diesel engine, it consumes 1l of fuel per 100 km. Even then, VW is only testing the waters with a short production run. And battery cars, which are already available, probably won't get someone very far outside a city. Lower carbon emissions and greater fuel economy probably will be realised sooner in cars, which have a much greater turnover, than in trains, which involve larger investments over longer periods of time.

If Volkswagon achieve this well and good. Battery cars are indeed available but there doesn't seem to be much point in using mostly natural gas/coal to charge the batteries, as is the case here at present. To be fair the same applies to the DART though.

Ultimately, though, environmentally friendly and fuel efficient transport is still nascent and consumers will not see tangible benefits for years. When they do, the cost per litre of a car will probably equal or outweigh that of a train. While high volume, urban, commuter services should benefit from lower running costs and fuel efficiencies, long-distance, low volume, intercity services could still struggle against cars. Intercity trains would have to become more attractive to consumers from both a cost and a speed point of view, whereas today poor speed tends to be one of the biggest differentiators (besides mobility and independence) between intercity road and rail.

Agreed, that's why electrification of the rail network must eventually come into being, in conjunction with a substantial alternative energy source. Wind as I understand it, currently forms approx. 10%+ of the generation fuel/energy mix. Finally yes, services like Intercity must compete on speed and cost - that's up to Irish Rail.

robd

steamengine wrote: »

Battery cars are indeed available but there doesn't seem to be much point in using mostly natural gas/coal to charge the batteries, as is the case here at present. To be fair the same applies to the DART though.

A good energy mix is important however renewable sources (such as wind hydro) can only offer so much. The wind doesn't blow all the time. Then there's the problems associated with any new type of infrastructure project such as interfering with fishing grounds which the wave people are coming up against. We're too small for a nuclear industry. And oh wind is actually very expensive (return on investment wise).

Gas is still by far our best option (technologically most efficient and cheapest) for the moment.

Aidan1

but there doesn't seem to be much point in using mostly natural gas/coal to charge the batteries, as is the case here at present

Actually, with gas CCGT, there is a significant efficiency advantage over ICE vehicles (even small highly effiicient diesels - remember, it's not just the tank-to-output shaft efficiency, it's well-to-wheel contact). Add renewables to the mix and you get cheap, environmentally sustainable and efficient transport. Only problem remaining is the high cost of the bettery tech (and range, for the moment). Both of these are going to be less of a problem as time goes on, but it's very difficult to foresee a time when the cars will be as user friendly (particularly wrt range) as ICE ones.

Aidan1

Therefore people travel to the next level up which is always going to be Dublin. Dublin has scale and services not available or tenable in any other location in the country.

Bang - nail on head. Mostly. There is a substantial scale difference between the 4 cities outside of Dublin (Cork is twice as big as Limerick or Galway, and 3-4 times the size of Waterford), and it does lead to some scalar differences in terms of functions (like retail, services and employment opportunities). But while you could say that Cork is a higher order centre than the others, it plainly is at least one rung down from Dublin, so the point stands. Just building transport links will not axiomatically change the economic or population geography of the State. Moreover, it is clear that population is still shifting from West to East, and rural to (peri) urban and will continue to do so. So the challenges for the future are largely around Dublin-elsewhere intercity travel, transport within cities. Maintaining existing links between (non Dublin) cities is nice, but it falls well below investing in the cities that are big enough to support public transport in terms of priority.

steamengine

robd wrote: »

I too am a believer in the technology argument rather than return to rail argument.

To add, huge work going on with self drive technology. I don't see how rail can compete with this over short (up to 300 km) distances for intercity traffic, which is all that there is in Ireland.
http://www.digitaltimes.ie/2012/05/europes-answer-to-googles-self-driving-car/

Commuter is another story. Investment in the various rail projects in Dublin would be a similar quantum leap to the M50 upgrade for cars. The no argument on this one is similar to the argument that the West-link toll plaza didn't cause traffic problems/chaos.

In Portugal the distance between their two major cities, Lisbon and Porto is just that - 300 km. The rail network is electrified and their flagship Intercity train is the Alfa Pendular tilting train which runs at 220 km/hr. I see from Wiki that they have a massive 50% renewables in their electricity mix, the majority wind, followed by hydro power.

That could and should be the future of rail here !

corktina

the Greater Lisbon area has a population of 3 million and the greater Porto area 1.3 million as opposed to 1.1 million for dublin and 1/4 million or so for Cork. Need I say more?

steamengine

corktina wrote: »

Rail has a great future as shown in the UK and on the Continent etc, but no, not a very rosy picture in Ireland, thast because of the years of under-investment and lazy management which sees us around 40 or more behind the UK from a position of actaully modernising a decade before them.

What do i think should be done? Well keep all the suburban stuff is a given as it is useful even if it doesnt make a profit, and invest in Cork,Limerick,Galway and Belfast to Dublin by upgrading to 125mph minimum. Other lines can be closed or kept on a secondary level so long as major investment isnt needed.

corktina wrote: »

the Greater Lisbon area has a population of 3 million and the greater Porto area 1.3 million as opposed to 1.1 million for dublin and 1/4 million or so for Cork. Need I say more?

I've just repeated what you've said

corktina

all im doing is pointing out WHY Portugal have this system and we dont have it. It MAY be viable there, and it probably isnt here.

Whereas I think that 125mph max is necessary for rail to have a future, I also doubt that an economic case for it can be put up and that investment as at present to a max speed of 100 mph is largely a waste of money in terms of the FUTURE of the system.

Re your quote: A slip of the keyboard (I meant 125 maximum no doubt)

Solair

We should be aiming to get the network up to a state where intercity and enterprise routes are running at 160km/h across most of their lengths.

The Cork fleet can do 200 kmh with new engines. It's a small but expensive investment to upgrade it.

160kmh is achievable with existing trains and would really just need more effective design of signals and track upgrades.

I don't really think Dublin - Belfast needs high speed, it needs reliable 160km/h and a removal of bottle necks. It's a very short distance!!

Same with Galway. the distance and population don't warrant the costs. Other routes need upgrading too but, not as urgently.

The priority should be to get 200km/h to Mallow at least. That would serve Limerick and Kerry too. Services onwards to Kerry and Limerick should be 160km/h rail card fed by the Cork higher speed service.

We need to look at getting more out of the infrastructure we already have.

The intercity DMU trains and the Cork Dublin fleet are perfectly good vehicles and, with the right signalling, track upgrades and better planning they could provide significantly better journey times.

The Dublin Belfast enterprise is clearly too slow. They should look at replacing the locomotives hauling it with two smaller, lighter, faster power cars.

I wonder if an order could be created to build a set of power cars for the Cork Dublin trains and the enterprise. Perhaps a common design for both ?

Paint them silver and they'd blend into either Cork or Belfast branding.

bk

Steamengine, if you are going to use the environment as a selling point for rail, you really should learn a lot more about it and the intricacies and complications of it. For instance:

- biofuel is considered carbon neutral. For while burning it releases co2, plants take in an equal amount of co2 to grow in the first place. Thus biofuel powered vehicles are also considered carbon neutral.

The only objection to biofuels, is that they take up land to grow that could otherwise be used for food or forests. There is no way all vehicles could ever be powered by biofuels, there simply isn't enough land, but there could be for just trucks and buses.

- intercity coach buses release less co2 per passenger then diesel trains and are thus more environmentally friendly. Trains are only considered to be more efficient when they are powered by electricity.

The co2 efficiency of coach buses is advancing much faster then trains due to strict new EU regulations. We are much more likely to see reduction in co2 levels from coach buses due to the far higher competition in this sector. Also the fact that coaches usually only have a lifetime of 12 to 16 years, versus 40 years for trains, means you are much more likely to see more efficiency gains in the coaches

- gas is a fossil fuel, however it is cleaner then oild and much cleaner then coal.

- while yes electric cars and trains are primarily powered by coal and gas burning power plants, these plants are much more efficient then ICE engines and thus produce far smaller levels of co2 per km travelled. In particular when gas is used.

BTW gas and coal maybe fossil fuels, but unlike oil, we still have tens of thousands of years worth of supplies of these, so there isn't an immediate concern of them running out like oil.

- wind is nice, but the reality is it is a very unreliable source of energy and it will never be a base load producer of electricity. It will never go above 20%. The unfortunate reality is that we in Ireland will continue to burn coal and gas as our primary form of energy for the foreseeable future

I'm now convinced that for cars the future is hybrid vehicles. Cars that have both a battery with enough power for your daily commute, while using oil, diesel and biofuels for long distance journeys.

80% of daily journeys are under 40km, which can easily be handled by battery. How often do people drive cork to Dublin, seldom. When they do to simply switch over to using oil, diesel or biogas. If every car in the world switched to this model, then the amount of oil consumed with massively decrease, meaning there would still be hundreds of years of oil left to use for the less seldom longer journeys.

In time these hybrid vehicles would switch to battery for short journeys + hydrogen fuel cells for long journeys, with the hydrogen being produced at Thorium nuclear reactors.

Solair

Personally, I think a jump in car technology will be the solution.
We don't have the population densities to make rail work properly.

Electrifying some core lines, especially commuter routes might be sensible though.

Del2005

steamengine wrote: »

If Volkswagon achieve this well and good. Battery cars are indeed available but there doesn't seem to be much point in using mostly natural gas/coal to charge the batteries, as is the case here at present. To be fair the same applies to the DART though.


Agreed, that's why electrification of the rail network must eventually come into being, in conjunction with a substantial alternative energy source. Wind as I understand it, currently forms approx. 10%+ of the generation fuel/energy mix. Finally yes, services like Intercity must compete on speed and cost - that's up to Irish Rail.

The wind doesn't blow regularly enough to use it to power trains and it may not be blowing when the train needs to move. If we want to use wind to power our country we need people to switch to electric cars so the batteries can be used to store electricity and feed it back into the system as needed. Otherwise for every bit of wind energy we generate we still need to keep fossil fuel station powered up, I doubt we'd get any more pumped storage passed the NIMBYs, or else build inter-connectors to France and use their nuclear power as our base load and sell our wind to them, the connectors we have to the UK aren't big enough.

We aren't big enough to have "clean wind energy" so the alternatives are to build massive inner-connectors for France or heavily discount private electric vehicles, to use their batteries to store access energy.

I wonder which would be cheaper? To build several inter-connectors to France or buy everyone an electric vehicle? And then use trains for distance and have electric share cars at each station to complete the journey if you don't or can't use public transport from the station. It would make inter city rail more appealing to the Irish public.

Judgement Day

bk - what about all the other environmental aspects to private motoring/road transport in general versus rail? The short life of a road vehicle, the energy used to create it, the amount of disposables (tyres, batteries etc.) associated it with it during its short lifetime and the problems dealing with same. I genuinely can't be bothered to spend more time on the issue, especially trying to argue the toss with somebody with such a massive anti-rail bias.

steamengine

bk wrote: »

Steamengine, if you are going to use the environment as a selling point for rail, you really should learn a lot more about it and the intricacies and complications of it. For instance:

Thankyou for that patronising comment !

- biofuel is considered carbon neutral. For while burning it releases co2, plants take in an equal amount of co2 to grow in the first place. Thus biofuel powered vehicles are also considered carbon neutral.

The only objection to biofuels, is that they take up land to grow that could otherwise be used for food or forests. There is no way all vehicles could ever be powered by biofuels, there simply isn't enough land, but there could be for just trucks and buses.

Agreed !

- intercity coach buses release less co2 per passenger then diesel trains and are thus more environmentally friendly. Trains are only considered to be more efficient when they are powered by electricity.

This is definitely debatable. Due to the frictionless nature of rail compared with road, trains - even diesel trains - have a basic advantage here, it depends on the passenger loadings. I have seen data both ways on this one comparing diesel coaches to rail DMU's.

The co2 efficiency of coach buses is advancing much faster then trains due to strict new EU regulations. We are much more likely to see reduction in co2 levels from coach buses due to the far higher competition in this sector. Also the fact that coaches usually only have a lifetime of 12 to 16 years, versus 40 years for trains, means you are much more likely to see more efficiency gains in the coaches

They can try and improve the efficiency ok, but the combustion equation for any CH fuel dictates the proportion of CO2 released to the atmosphere. It's one of the two main exhaust products along with H2O. Different to CO, SOx's and NO'x and particulates which can all be dealt with - filtration etc.

- gas is a fossil fuel, however it is cleaner then oild and much cleaner then coal.

- while yes electric cars and trains are primarily powered by coal and gas burning power plants, these plants are much more efficient then ICE engines and thus produce far smaller levels of co2 per km travelled. In particular when gas is used.

Still CH fuels - repeat - main product of exhaust CO2 released to atmosphere !!!

BTW gas and coal maybe fossil fuels, but unlike oil, we still have tens of thousands of years worth of supplies of these, so there isn't an immediate concern of them running out like oil.

Once again this does nothing to reduce carbon emissions.

- wind is nice, but the reality is it is a very unreliable source of energy and it will never be a base load producer of electricity. It will never go above 20%. The unfortunate reality is that we in Ireland will continue to burn coal and gas as our primary form of energy for the foreseeable future

Re the 20% I will quote the Portuguese case again - 50% renewables - the majority wind followed by hydro !!! We have the same resources, our position vis-a-vis the low pressure wind systems from the Atlantic ocean.

I'm now convinced that for cars the future is hybrid vehicles. Cars that have both a battery with enough power for your daily commute, while using oil, diesel and biofuels for long distance journeys. (


80% of daily journeys are under 40km, which can easily be handled by battery. How often do people drive cork to Dublin, seldom. When they do to simply switch over to using oil, diesel or biogas. If every car in the world switched to this model, then the amount of oil consumed with massively decrease, meaning there would still be hundreds of years of oil left to use for the less seldom longer journeys.

In time these hybrid vehicles would switch to battery for short journeys + hydrogen fuel cells for long journeys, with the hydrogen being produced at Thorium nuclear reactors.

I would like to see car dependency reduced in favour of good public transport, both road and rail. Why not use hydrogen directly as a fuel for hybrid cars ? Why not produce it by electrolysis using excess wind power ?

Judgement Day

Why not go for a new generation of Drumm type trains for lightly used lines - I floated this idea before but it was shot-down by all the 'know-it-all' college boys on this forum. Drumm trains were produced when Inchicore Works was a centre of innovation not a place where clerks shuffle paper about to justify their jobs while waiting for the lump.

steamengine

Del2005 wrote: »

The wind doesn't blow regularly enough to use it to power trains and it may not be blowing when the train needs to move. If we want to use wind to power our country we need people to switch to electric cars so the batteries can be used to store electricity and feed it back into the system as needed. Otherwise for every bit of wind energy we generate we still need to keep fossil fuel station powered up, I doubt we'd get any more pumped storage passed the NIMBYs, or else build inter-connectors to France and use their nuclear power as our base load and sell our wind to them, the connectors we have to the UK aren't big enough.

We aren't big enough to have "clean wind energy" so the alternatives are to build massive inner-connectors for France or heavily discount private electric vehicles, to use their batteries to store access energy.

I wonder which would be cheaper? To build several inter-connectors to France or buy everyone an electric vehicle? And then use trains for distance and have electric share cars at each station to complete the journey if you don't or can't use public transport from the station. It would make inter city rail more appealing to the Irish public.

I'm not making the case for 100% wind energy. But if wind represents presently 10%+ of the mix, then surely that figure can be increased upwards to 20% etc. I know very little about power generation practise but I do understand the base load concept, in our case gas and oil, and accept it has to remain. The idea I have heard from this physicist acquaintance of mine is that our wind energy supply should be increased via large wind farms sited off the West coast. Excess can be sold abroad via the interconnector to the UK and also used here to produce hydrogen as a fuel, via electrolysis. Nuclear or wind generated power can be imported in exchange depending on weather conditions etc. in the various countries.

My main interest is obviously railways, the curious thing is that all the technology is in place to run Intercity trains via a cleaner energy source such as wind power, whereas that technology has yet to be developed for Intercity buses. That is why IMO rail is potentially in a good place for the future. Will it happen though ???

steamengine

Judgement Day wrote: »

Why not go for a new generation of Drumm type trains for lightly used lines - I floated this idea before but it was shot-down by all the 'know-it-all' college boys on this forum. Drumm trains were produced when Inchicore Works was a centre of innovation not a place where clerks shuffle paper about to justify their jobs while waiting for the lump.

Why not indeed. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, possibly more so in fact, as the branch line train could use the main line overheads to recharge the batteries