Sir Alfred Sherman R.I.P.
A young Guido was a friend of Gideon Sherman, as a result Guido would often be around the Sherman house. His father Sir Alfred always rendered Guido tongue-tied, he was right on so many issues and spectacularly wrong on others. He was great fun to hear when he was going full throttle.
After doing an economic analysis of British Rail Sherman concluded that the best thing to do would be to tarmac over the railways and turn them into private autobahns. Mrs Thatcher found it a teensy bit too radical. Unacceptable politically, but practical and right because it would have saved billions in subsidies. Guido has never understood how heavy energy inefficient heavy trains are more green than modern buses.
After doing an economic analysis of British Rail Sherman concluded that the best thing to do would be to tarmac over the railways and turn them into private autobahns. Mrs Thatcher found it a teensy bit too radical. Unacceptable politically, but practical and right because it would have saved billions in subsidies. Guido has never understood how heavy energy inefficient heavy trains are more green than modern buses.
47 comments:
It doesn't have to be energy efficient to please the green lobby it just has to be uncomfortable and inconvienient. It makes them feel better if they think they are suffering to 'save the planet'.
By that account my southeastern train to cannon street each morning must not only be saving the planet but must be giving birth to a whole new one, even first class is awful these days!
I have heard that a single dedicated bus lane in the Hudson tunnel moves more people into Manhattan during the morning rush hour than all of Waterloo station. Face it, trains are a 19th century technology. Worse, they are run for the benefit of unions and subsidy miners - not passengers. Pave the rails!
Guido - see a Sherman follower here ...
http://www.transwatch.co.uk/
Hayek's Grandad,
The green lobby doesn't make policy, the government does.
And under the British electoral system you are condemned to an oscillation between Labour and Conservative governments.
So you'll never know how "radical" Greens could be in power.
you'll never know how "radical" Greens could be in power
That just cheered me up a lot.
I must say I can't see why trains seem to be made these days by taking a section out of a large iron bridge and sticking wheels on it.
Seems to be stupidly heavy, uses more energy, and wearing the crap out of the rails. The answer is of course to make lighter trains. There would or rather should be great economies of scale, after all you control all the traffic so can limit crashes, use only 1 driver for 500 passengers etc.
Mind you I can understand why steam train locos were built heavy. They have to be in order to get traction on the four, six or 8 driving wheels. Modern trains have many more driving wheels.
Sorry for being boring Guido.
There is no reason why trains should be 'heavy and inefficient'. The problem isn't the technology per se, it's the fact they're run by the Government and have been frozen in aspic since WW1. Therefore don't tarmac the train tracks necessarily: sell them off and let the market decide what to do with them.
Also, don't tell me that's been tried because it hasn't. Idiot Major only sold temporary operating franchises and short-term leases for the lines and the trains. This meant that the railways were even more resistant to innovation than they were under the unions.
It might be the tarmacing the railroads will turn out to be the best idea. Maybe not. But eaither way please don't make the same socialist mistake of being arrogant with your ideas and forcing them through with yet more centralisation.
> …more green than modern buses
Ah, you have to remember that the most common form of colour blindness is red/green, its why cyclists can swear at pensioners who mistakenly cross in front of the ecowarriors who’re going though crossings on red. It extends deeply into society where some vague and fallacious concept of doing something “for the planet” allows you to behave with the moral integrity of the red army sitting on their hands watching the Warsaw Rising being liquidised.
"Sir Alfred always rendered Guido tongue-tied"
it seems that the real Mr Fawkes is still scared....though definitely alive and kinckieng now!
Rosbif: I have heard that a single dedicated bus lane in the Hudson tunnel moves more people into Manhattan during the morning rush hour than all of Waterloo station
Not at all surprising, considering that Waterloo is in London, not NYC...
Tarmacing the railroads is an interesting idea, although if you go to Brasil they haven't even got round to doing most of the roads yet...
Unfortunately, Guido, modern buses are driven by modern bus drivers, whose aim in life seems to be to give the passengers the most stressful time possible.
National Express, anyone? Late departures because of 'staffing problems', and 'the driver hasn't had his full break', chaos at Victoria, poor information, circuitous routes via insanely off-piste bus stops, coaches with narrow, uncomfortable seating and poor suspension, unhelpful, rude drivers and staff. Other journeys (Stagecoach, local regional lines etc) have proved equally awful.
As for the London buses, don't get me started.
By contrast, I had four recent train journeys (SW Trains) which all began and ended on time, and were remarkably comfortable. So it can be done.
Let's not ditch the trains yet. Not everyone wants to drive a car long-distance.
Sir Alfred was a wonderful agent of change, much needed by the UK. We are the poorer for his demise; even when wrong he made a great contribution, and he was right often enough that Thatcher should have ben bolder and backed his ideas more often.
Point One: it is not true that a single bus lane has more capacity than a single rail line. Quite the contrary, a rail line has several times the capacity of a road lane, and it can move people a lot faster too.
But that is not the point.
What matters is not capacity but demand.
If you were starting out from scratch with a new public transport system and peak demand was (say) 60% of a roadway (and so about 10% of a railway) it would be daft to build a railway.
An empty train creats far more pollution (even if electrically powered -- the pollution just happens at the power station) than an empty bus, but somehow it's supposed to be 'greener'.
Similarly, as Jeremy Clarkson famously showed on Top Gear a few years ago in the case of Oxford (but it could apply anywhere) there are situations where banning cars and insisting everyone takes the bus is also environmentally counterproductive. The same sort of thing happens again. If everybody drove in their own car and peak demand was (say) 60% of a car-only roadway (and so about 10% of a bus-only roadway) it would be daft to ban cars and insist on busses.
An empty bus creats vastly more pollution than a driver-only car, but somehow it's supposed to be 'greener'.
The truth is that most greenery is a cover for the reintroduction of regimented state socialism by the back door. It will do diddle-squat for the environment, but it will be a mighty force in the suppression of individualism.
And, heaven preserve us, Cameron seems to have falled into this trap hook, line and sinker.
Sorry if this is not very amusing, but the situation is pathetic.
On a technical note; electric traction, which picks up power from the track or catenary system is efficient because of the improved power/weight ratio. The vehicle, e.g. Eurostar, doesn't have to carry its' energy source like steam or diesel. The problem? Expense of the initial installation. Trams and trolleybuses are in the same category, quick, clean and efficient, shame about the drivers!
Trains are heavy because they are built to take a battering year after year from millions of commuters. If you lighten them, the quality will also diminish, and before you know it, their useful life goes from 40 years to 15, and we end up buying more than twice as many trains for the same useage!
Its the same reason Land Rovers last for ever and Fiats don't!
Buses are pot-luck. Sometimes you have very helpful drivers who will tell you where your stop is if you don't know it. Others, mainly African, seem to think its a game to have as many people fall over as possible.
Lagwolf said...
Buses are pot-luck. Sometimes you have very helpful drivers who will tell you where your stop is if you don't know it. Others, mainly African, seem to think its a game to have as many people fall over as possible.
3:09 PM
You should know that there is a national competition between bus drivers to see how many times they can get standing passengers marching backwards and forwards the length of the bus, between stops without them falling over!
It is part of the training they get!
I know 'cos my Dad was UK and Commonwealth Allcomers Champion for seven years.
Whenever my Mum was on his bus every time she got close enough to the front to say "Hello dear" she ended up at the back on the conductors lap!
Fuck the trains - I'm glad he's dead, right wing twat.
Never understood why British buses are so small and carry so few passengers.......now if we could get 12 buses linked together that would be a lot more effective in moving people over distance.
Never understood why London needed to import labour into holding pens like Liverpool Street either when it should draw on the local supply..........need to disperse more City jobs to India to reduce congestion.
I nearly forgot...
Point Two: if a commuter rail line is at 100% capacity (Or more than that. A good rule-of-thumb is if people have to stand on rush hour trains, the system is over 100% capacity) then to take the same number of people on a roadway system would need not one but about 3, 4 or 5 lanes. in other words, a huge motorway.
Most London commuter lines would need to be replace by that sort of thing if you wanted to do it all by bus.
Clearly your chances of getting this done resemble that of a snowball surviving in Hell.
The railways exist, so the sensible move is to make the most of them. That means things like Crossrail, and double-decker trains.
The best example of how to go about this is (sorry) Paris's RER.
That's commuter lines: mostly Lonodn, but also some in Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow.
Across the rest of the countryside, the case for trains is much weaker.
In rural areas, buses probably are right, but for the trunk routes, well, its already cheaper by easyJet or Ryanair... and the trains get subsidised while the low-cost airlines don't; instead they make a profit.
"By contrast, I had four recent train journeys (SW Trains) which all began and ended on time, and were remarkably comfortable."
Guess who's on strike today?
Where is your famous comments policy Guido? How dull does a comment need to be before it gets deleted? You are in danger of turning into a message board for trainspotters.
shermans support for the Bosnian Serbs turned stomachs.
Fucking hell - I've never read such boring comments! If it weren't for the weekend I've just had I'd be comfortably snoring in my office chair.
Keep up. Trainspotters have been banned, under suspicion of being terrorists. No, not joking.
I remember from my old O-level GCE physics days that a steam locomotive was approximately 2.5% efficient, i.e. it delivered one fortieth of the calorific value of the coal it burnt. Of course everything has changed with the modern electric trains which I venture to suggest are probably 7.5% efficient or perhaps slightly more as well as being a whole lot cleaner.
Why metal trains? In a few years time they'll be made of wood or organic vegetables or suchlike. I've never worked out how I can simultaneously disbelieve every word that Knapp and his supporters ever spoke, yet daily I still trust these ignorant self-interested twats who despise me to change the signals and move the points at the right time.
"The truth is that most greenery is a cover for the reintroduction of regimented state socialism by the back door. It will do diddle-squat for the environment, but it will be a mighty force in the suppression of individualism."
What utter bollox. Still, as Britain grinds to a halt in the mother of all traffic jams, such idiocy is amusing to read.
"...yet daily I still trust these ignorant self-interested twats who despise me to change the signals and move the points at the right time."
Who the fuck are you talking about? The Unions? The TOCs? The sub-contractors?
'The Permanent Way' - please go on tour again. Please.
Vicous right wing twat. End of story.
Haven't seen it mentioned in the obits, but wasn't Sir Alf the one who invented the Sherman tank? Bloody good piece of engineering that. Why can't we run them on rails? - no problem with overrunning red lights and colliding, you just pause a moment then carry on. They'd make mincemeat of Eurostar.
They'd make mince meat out of Eurostar until the "going under water" bit had to be accomplished.
Thinking out of the box.
Why not put rails on all the motorways
Result? a great transport system system , no road accidents
Always arriving in comfort and on time
but there again
I was just dreaming
bj 11.36pm
Well, you would pick on the one weak point of the plan, wouldn't you. Look, let the boffins work that one out - that's what they're for. Once they do, we can roll with confidence across the Continental rail system, stopping only to change the tank track guage at the Russian border. Then we have a united Europe.
Dodonline said...
There is no reason why trains should be 'heavy and inefficient'. The problem isn't the technology per se, it's the fact they're run by the Government and have been frozen in aspic since WW1. 1:39 PM
Now you`ve done it,how long until that gem is heard over a tannoy near you?Probably the wrong kind of aspic as well.
Jeeeeezus
Trainspotters tonight, my friend. The argument surely is that this lunatic informed the intellectually impaired mother of Mark and Carole with crazy ideas (like tarmac-ing the railways) which allowed her to come up with daft concepts such as giving the trans to Richard fucking Branson or declaring there was no such thing as society or poverty was merely relative. Or that raves were a bad idea. The pretence that hard right upper middle class immigrants like "Sir" have anything to do with the reality of this country is laughable.
As my old dad pointed out yonks ago, when there are enough cars, you can join them all up and let the poor sod who was at the front pull us all round.
The M25 wasn't built then, it was only a figment in the wandering grey matter of some misled soul with an engineering degree and a government funded requirement for somewhere to use it.
"Anonymous 3.35" is right, 12 minibuses should just about do it (one can be a bendy one), the rest of you can walk!
It is perfectly obvious that a roadway has a much greater passenger throughput than a railway. Look at an aerial photo of London in the rush hour and look at the rail lines wihich can be barely utilised because of the need for these monsters to be separated. Waterloo received one train every two minutes during the rush hour with roughly 1,000 people on board, all of whom are delayed if there is any problem. It takes multiple inward lines to achieve this. Claims for trains do not stand up to scrutiny. Comparing what you could do with modern roadways into the centre of places like London you quickly discover you could build a flexible, union-free, customer responsive public transport system not requiring one penny of subsidy. Beeching was too feeble. People who love trains are like people who love the BBC – eager for others to pay for their entertainment. Their arguments are just as ridiculous. Comparing modern rubber-tracked transit to a 19th century railway (much of it on strike yesterday) is just fantasy. Trains are ridiculous, often disgusting, incredibly expensive, hugely inefficient, create vast amounts of pollution, waste land - need I go on?
Trains are so dull -- I'm glad to see an anti-BBC sentiment on this thread at last. Look at http://www.tvlicensing.biz/ for hints & tips on not paying your licence! My unpaid telly-tax has so far accrued compound interest quite nicely and I've just bought a new Bosch washer with it. Am expecting Capita's washing-machine licensing agents to kick my door in and send in the sniffer-dogs in quest of hidden Persil.
Mind you, I have no TV set, but that doesn't interest TV Licensing. According to them I am a criminal.
P.S. Even Guido says he has no TV licence. Be like him! (In that respect, at least.)
Rosbif --
I realize I have inadvertently puffed one of your pet projects. Didn't recognize your ugly mug, or I'd have left it to you.
What's the score on your pro/pre-secution by TVL? Are you now an asylum-seeker, lurking in France with little better to do than perving over TV presenters? :-)
"Or that raves were a bad idea."
They're only a bad idea if private property is infringed in the pricess.
process*
Trains and cars both work for me as I have never learnt to drive and don't intend to. Always had a succession of friends, girl friends and drivers to ferry me about when no train is available. I've even been known to take the bus but I don't like that so much as the loonies always sit next to me.
It also allows me to have a drinkie or two which is fab. So no tarmac please, except in the pot holes.
2br02b said..."but for the trunk routes, well, its already cheaper by easyJet or Ryanair... and the trains get subsidised while the low-cost airlines don't; instead they make a profit."
Actually the so-called 'low-cost airlines' (low-cost for their passengers, not for the rest of us) are very subsidised, they pay no tax on their fuel, nor have to pay for the mess they make (noise, pollution etc.).
And there is a lot more chance of meeting someone lovely and carrying the affair to fruition on a train (the rhythm helps as well) than in a car or on a plane (and no chance at all on a bus!).
I like trains, they help to make life less rushed!
Reminds me that Gideon 'George' Osborne has taken up an interest in magnetic railways of over 300 miles long across the UK.
Quite good to see he enjoys long lines these days.
In judging the energy efficiency of trains versus other modes of transport you really have to follow the money trail.
When I use my car to go from London to say Manchester it costs around £100. However around 80% of that it tax, so the real cost is around £20. When I use the train it costs about the same, £100 but in this case the fare is subsided, so that the real cost is more like £200. The question is not so much why rail is ten times more expensive, but what happens to the money. We all know that the rail system is overmanned and hopelessly inefficient but even that would not account for a 10 to 1 price difference.
The answer is of course that the money gets spent on many diverse things, all of which consume energy, replacement rolling stock, new rails, concrete sleepers. So ultimately the money goes up a chimney in the form of CO2 emissions.
The very fact that cars are economically cheaper in real terms means that the are more efficient in energy terms as well. Facile arguments about one train carrying 500 people are just that. They do not take into account the total life cycle cost of the rail versus road
Steel wheel on steel rail is intrinsically the most energy efficient transport mode other than boat on water.
The TGV not only gets me from city centre to city centre faster than air travel, but saves me the indignities of airport security. Oh and I nearly forgot, TGV makes a profit.
Britain lead the world in rail R&D: the magnetic induction motor; maglev; tilting lightweight airframe trains; driverless freight modules. AND we through it all away because sucessive governments were closer to their big corporate donors than their own electorate.
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