Be Excellent To Each Other

You know, after reading the Nimby argument in here, my problem is that it's not imby! If it was maybe I could use what I'm paying for.

I think the problem many of the nimby folks have is that the line may well pass nearby, but there won't be an actual stopping point anywhere in the vicinity. Especially on a high speed commuter line which is hardly going to have a station in Saint Arbrough-on-the-Twee or wherever these little pockets of Conservative moneyed up rich folk live.

It's first world problems though, isn't it? It's not like they live in a ghetto or anything.

If there was to be a station at Niceton-on-the-water they'd moan instead it would be bringing people in, too many of them.

Or the wrong sort of people.

The wrong sort of people being anyone who's not them.

There's nothing quite like a Perkies rant.

Is it like an S Club Party?

Yes but with more dancing..

It's really not as simple as that. I've worked on WTE plants (albeit purely concerning noise environmental impact, not the 'core engineering' aspects as it were) - the pollution potential from pcbs, dioxins and the like is absolutely *hideous*, as I understand it. Whilst (theoretically) these can be controlled via complex/expensive flue gas treatments, this involves significant use of bought in 'caustic cake plant' chemicals that have to be produced elsewhere and the resulting hazardous residue dealt with.

As for anti nuclear, I think you'll find it's the 24,000+ year half life of nuclear waste and its immense toxicity and environmental damage potential, no available safe means of storing it for anything like that long, vast cost of decommissioning, not to mention Long Island, Chernobyl, Fukashima etc., that bothers most people - not Dr No.

Being anti-nuclear isn't NIMBYism as far as I'm concerned; more like common sense and concern for the planet/future generations who to our best current knowledge will have no means of dealing with the deadly mess that we'll leave behind for our selfish energy requirements.

... As for the rest of the stuff about stereotyping anyone who lives in the country and dares to be concerned about high speed trains thundering through their hitherto peaceful, tranquil environment as being DM-reading, selfish, Tory scum etc., frankly I'm not even going there.

As opposed to greenhouse gas buildup from burning fossil fuels, of course. Better hope you're right that global warming doesn't exist! Because nuke waste, as nasty as it is, is at least fairly easy to contain in a small area. Atmospheric CO2 is everywhere.

I think you'll find, Cavey, the BBC article was universally decried as a load of old crap, based as it was on one silly man's statement. I certainly could think of better reasons to be afraid of nuclear power (if I was) than a deliberately far fetched action movie.

Hey, I never said global warming doesn't exist mate, I just worry about the 'scientific community bandwagon effect'. We don't know anywhere near enough about the behavior of the sun etc. etc., but I am no tea party/George 'dubbya' type!

To me the answer seems so simple: wood burning combined heat and power (i.e. to include community heating, as well as electricity generation) - carbon neutral and we can grow stacks of fast growing, coppiced trees? (I'm about to do the same for my house, albeit heating only), but by all means supplement with tidal and HE where it's available. I think we'll always need a gas (possibly shale?) backbone as well, but to my mind that's better than fission power, where one microgram of airborne plutonium will kill a human being.

Wasn't the main issue in Japan down to the fucking earthquake? I don't think we'll have quite the same risk factor here.

The proposed extension from Brum-Manchester passes by Lichfield, and the only complaint I've heard from the nimby brigade is that it'll lower the value of their houses. Oh, and the golf course will have to go.

I thought golf clubs were only used round your way for hitting people outside the Bargain Booze?

Also, of there's any more power plant stuff it might need being split like a kipper.

I don't get how a train line vaguely nearby a house can lower its value.

noise innit

Malc

Counterbalanced if there's a station nearby for 'good transport links'.

A friend of mine used to live on the third floor of Altolusso in Cardiff, facing the railway... specifically:
-The South Wales Mainline (four tracks, trains start 4am and run until after midnight)
-The curve around from Queen Street to Central (trains start about 5:30am, and there is one every five minutes in each direction until just before midnight)
-The Bay line (every 12 minutes)

To hear what the crappy Pacer trains (which have fixed axles) sounded like going around the bend to Queen Street at the line speed of 15mph, start this video at 4:55, the building in question is the rounded white building atop its parking area, his living room window was on the first floor of rooms proper, on the end.

At first even I thought he was nuts (when these buildings first opened we had piles of noise complaints from new residents) but as I spent time there I got used to it and eventually was able to sleep on the living room couch with the window facing the tracks open. He said he hardly noticed it at all after a few days.

That's an extreme example, but as my previous links to actual high speed trains running on straight lines (as opposed to badly design trains on a notoriously tight corner) show, the noise really isn't much of an issue. You hear a faint whooshing sound off in the distance that's over in almost no time at all.

A modern track doesn't have the distinctive 'ker-chunk' rail sound either, due to there being no joins in the line.

DISCLAIMER: I know fuck all about trains.

Indeed, continuously welded rail.

The metal plates which hold the two sections of jointed track together are called 'fishplates'.

I live about 50m away from the line between Exeter and Plymouth (in Ivybridge) and when we have the door open in summer, it can drown out the TV whilst the trains go past, you can hear the fast trains go fizzing by in a few seconds, but the slower noiser (I assume freight) trains are really loud and might last a minute or so.

I used to live just off Buckingham palace road, opposite the coach station, so we had the noise of the coach station, a fairly main road, and the train lines out of Victoria to contend with, the london underground (circle line between Sloane Square and Victoria) went under one corner, and depending on the wind we were in the flight path of Heathrow. Concorde could often be heard. Oh, and there was a barracks not too far away, and helecopters would take off from there, plus the police helecopters, oh yeah, and theu built a police station between the flats and Buckingham palace road, which blocked the train noises a bit, but added (more) sirens to the mix.

I think I prefer where I am now

Malc

In our first rented unit out here we were close to a (slow) train line servicing the cement works about 8k away. The trains weren't that frequent and the only time we really heard them was as the freight cars clunked together as the train was moving slowly (is that called shunting? I'm not that into trains but am vaguely aware of some of the terms). Big trains though, I counted ~40 freight cars being pulled by 3 locos when I got caught at the crossing one day.

I do slightly miss hearing the train horn blare out, as my wife never tired of me saying 'pardon me' after a long blast.

I don't remotely apologise if this has been covered already, but is a 30 minute reduction in the journey between Brum and Shit really worth 33 billion quid?

14 years. That's 2 minutes saving per year.

There was a whole row of terraced houses near Bromley that collapsed due to the Eurostar vibrations.

Also, a house's value is its perceived value. If the people who might want to buy your house are put off by the fact that there's a train line planned nearby, you'll have to lower the price.

Arguably, they were pretty shit houses then.

they were Victorian. I'm not sure they were specced for a several hundred tonne behemoth chuntering past them.

And then after Craster walked to town, the train went past.

heh

Excellent.

I don't mind the travel time and train would be my preferred method of transport to London, the problem is cost. They should sort that out.

Shunting is when you're assembling a train (attaching the cars) and can also be used to refer to a very short move such as backing into a siding. The clunking could well be the slack between each car either being taken up as it pulls away, or the buffers hitting as it comes to a stop. 40 cars is quite impressive, they must have been empty even with three locomotives as the maximum weight of a freight train in the UK is about 3,000 tons due to the limits of the couplers.



Eurostar weighs 800 tons laden, the Flying Scotsman weighed about 600 laden, so a significant but not huge difference. As above, freight weighs a lot more but a 3,000 ton freight train will be doing 60mph, not 100 (Bromley being along the old Waterloo route for the Eurostar where that would have been the absolute maximum possible speed)

Of course, I totally understand that the likelihood of the UK suffering an earthquake anything like the scale of Japan's is minute. However, earthquakes are by no means the only disaster that could befall a UK nuclear powerplant. For example, there are super-storms/flooding (which I understand are likely to become a reality within the next few decades). After all, it was flooding that did for Fukashima; not vibration from the earthquake per se, causing a catastrophic failure of cooling systems, leading to core overheating.

Of course, natural disasters are one thing, but what about sabotage/terrorism? It's hardly as though the UK hasn't pissed off/radicalised enough peoples over the years; we've had suicide bombers et al. Thousands of people work in nuclear power plants; it could only take one to blow it up.

Most tellingly of all, nuclear power plants are run by human beings and are therefore prone to human error. These were the principle causes for both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the latter causing 100,000 cancer deaths alone according to Greenpeace, untold human misery and plenty of harrowing, heart-rending deformed children and all the rest. Anyone who says this can't happen again is a fool, but with nuclear power the stakes are far, far too high.

These seem like perfectly reasonable, rational reasons to me to be against nuclear power and I haven't even mentioned decommissioning and the complete lack of any technology to handle or store the resultant nuclear waste - for hundreds of millenia - longer than for the complete duration of human history, from the moment the first ape stood up on his legs onwards. (As an engineer, rather than a scientist, it is a *complete anathema* to me to even consider embarking on any project or enterprise that is so inherently dangerous without a complete understanding of all project stages, including final decommissioning and environmental reinstatement, let alone without any at all - CRAZY).

I understand Doccy G's argument about 'a small volume of waste' (as compared to landfill) but of course, we are dealing with the most lethal, toxic materials to life where one millionth of a gram of plutonium will kill, whose half life is measured in millions of years. Just ONE 1 gigawatt nuclear plant produces 27 tonnes of "high level" nuclear waste a year, and in total, the annual global production is 12,000,000kg, and that's before we start building more nuclear power plants (Source: Wiki). Given the extreme, unprecedented toxicity, not just to us but to life in general, and immense longevity involved, not to mention the complete lack of any technology to store, much less still deal with the stuff, I wouldn't call this a 'small amount'.

A high speed train that weighs 500-1000 tonnes, travelling at 160mph+, will have an immense sound power level - sorry, but that is simply an engineering *fact* (believe me, I know). It goes without saying that CWR would be used anyway and there are indeed other means of mitigation as well (e.g. acoustic screening, distance, soft ground attenuation etc.), but beyond minimising drag factor there's no getting around air velocity induced noise, for example. And as others have mentioned, there is also ground-borne vibration, if close enough to the tracks.

As to whether or not noise (and/or vibration) is actually a problem, or not, this will largely depend on the proximity of houses (or other receptors) to said rail, whether or not it is screened, the pre-existing, background noise climate (e.g. quiet rural area), the underlying ground strata in the case of vibration, and so on. But it is certainly true to say that noise and/or vibration has the very clear potential to be a genuine, bona fide issue - and these should be scrutinised by acoustic engineers, as part of any planning process. We are not China; we don't just displace/plonk high speed rail, power stations or other infrastructure wherever the State wishes to, without due, or any recourse to those potentially affected. And that is entirely right.

Somewhat off topic, but a couple of weeks ago I was reading about nuclear reactors that occurred naturally.

Go by clicking here.

Yes, I had my mind blown with that one on a training course in British Energy. Spooky, huh?

Fascinating reading. I was vaguely aware of this phenomenon, but did not appreciate that such things could no longer occur today (without the unlikely imposition of heavy water or graphite), due to the marked reduction in naturally occurring U-235, by concentration, as compared to billions of years ago, when it was more abundant.

(Of course, U-238 can be made to fission as well, if there are enough stray neutrons knocking around. I believe the "tamper" of A-bombs were constructed from U-238, in order to massively increase their yield via the U-238 secondary fission, post the primary U-235 bomb detonation).

I'm sure I've read a story (which means it has to be scifi or Horror really, possibly fantasy) where this was one of the plot points. Pretty sure the one they use is in Africa too, I've got a feeling, that the plot involves someone going back in time (or maybe it's just set in the past and to do with aliens or something), and is using this as a power source, but I really can't remember... Anyone have any ideas?

Malc

It is now.

At least the airport will now be serviced by a tram.

Oh.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... e-27842632

And the South will get its potholes fixed!

But what will councillors have to pose in front of at election time?

The whole car crash of the week with every minister trotting out and saying "no decision has been made" and "spades in the ground!" then "surprise! we already decided".

This is one of this issues where I changed my mind substantially once I understand the capacity angle. I also felt that like CrossRail/Lizzie Line that once it was built, nobody would even question it as they rode.

Next time: start digging from the north.

The Northern stretch of HS2 was *never* going to be built. It was bullshot smoke to blow up northern Tories' arses to keep them onside. Now that there's no chance of another Tory government, the curtain has been pulled. Having the Party conference in Manchester is the same energy. "look how much we care about the North! We all came here for a few days and laughed at how backward everyone is"

They really are totally useless.

But hey, at least that crucial Wellington to Cullumpton link is on the cards, right?

It would be nice for the entire Great Western line to be electrified, but they kicked that into the long grass a while back.

But, not all bad news!

By the end of the decade I'll be able to go to Milton Keynes! Imagine that!

Indeed. All the conversation around knocking 10 minutes off a journey was a serious shot in the foot. It was about doubling the capacity on the busiest train route, if they had talked about it from that angle it might have been better received.