one of the elements ...

One of the vehicles we'll be looking at for sections of the New S&D is the Parry People Mover. Whilst obviously not suitable for long disytance trains on the main line it may well have a valuable role providing local services on sections of the main line and many services on the branches. It also runs just as well as a tram on street running lines which will connect with the New S&D at various points.

A PPM press release follows.

JPM Parry & Associates Ltd - consultancy and project management JPM Parry & Associates Ltd - consultancy and project management Pre Metro Operations Ltd - transport operation Pre Metro Operations Ltd - transport operation Carpet Track - shallow section tramway track Carpet Track - shallow section tramway track


Tuesday 9th November 2010 - A PRESS RELEASE FROM:

PARRY PEOPLE MOVERS Ltd

www.parrypeoplemovers.com


LOW-CARBON TRANSPORT PIONEER EXPECTS A BUSY FUTURE


Domestic and export market interest stimulates development work



Parry People Movers Ltd is preparing for a future in which its affordable and environmentally-friendly transport technology is becoming more and more attractive. Actions are being taken as a result of the success of its pioneering commercial application and approaches from potential customers in both domestic and international markets.



The West Midlands-based company is a leader in low-carbon transport having supplied railcars now used in full passenger service on the short Stourbridge Town branch line, part of the London Midland franchise and operated under subcontract by Pre Metro Operations Ltd. Since their introduction in 2009, over 600,000 passenger journeys have been made on the two railcars at Stourbridge with reliability of over 99.4% throughout 2010. The new railcars have enabled service frequency to be increased, costs to be halved and carbon emissions cut by two-thirds. Passenger numbers on the branch have increased significantly in the same time.



Parry People Movers’ concept of lightweight, energy-efficient rail vehicles is proving how to minimise the environmental impact of transport and permits the revival of branch lines. It has created a new category of ‘super-hybrid’ system, with a secondary power system more powerful than the prime mover. The same technology can be applied to street tramways without needing electrification – a major driver of cost and complexity.



The logic behind branch line revival is emphasized by figures recently released by the Association of Train Operating Companies showing that on some branch lines passenger numbers have risen by up to 55% in twelve months alone. A key factor in making branch lines more attractive to passengers is making the service better. As demonstrated at Stourbridge, Parry People Movers technology can achieve improvements leading to passenger growth highly cost-effectively (and at the same time can release main line trains from the branches so that capacity on the main lines can be increased).

The technology’s application to urban tramways – which will be much less expensive and disruptive to construct than conventional tram systems – has been boosted by the UK Government’s recent vote of confidence in light rail systems, deciding to support extensions and improvements to those in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, Nottingham and Tyne & Wear supported despite the current financial climate.

The firm’s preparations for the future include:



The forthcoming issue of a further 500,000 shares in accordance with the approval given by shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting on 5th July 2010. New investment capital will be used for collaborative technical development and marketing activities.

Plans for the purchase of the intellectual property behind the Parry People Movers venture (currently the subject of an exclusive licence from the company’s technical associates JPM Parry & Associates Ltd), as a result of which the intellectual property rights will be revalued upwards in the light of proven advantages

The publication of a Plan of Action laying out the company’s plans and explaining the economic, social and environmental rationale behind its developments (this can be seen at http://www.parrypeoplemovers.com/pdf/2010-09-02%20Action%20Plan.pdf

Ongoing negotiations with a number of industrial partners with the objective of collaboration to develop the company’s product range to include vehicles that are both larger and faster than the 60-passenger ‘Class 139’ type operating at Stourbridge

Design activities with a view to making new vehicles suitable for export markets, including those where it is appropriate for complete rolling chassis supplied from the UK to be fitted with locally-manufactured bodies

Recent market developments include:



High-level discussions with proposed operators, infrastructure controllers and local authorities regarding the use of Parry People Movers vehicles on three short routes in England where new operations would provide useful public transport links to established main line rail services

Expressions of interest in the use of Parry People Movers vehicles on proposed urban transport systems in three south east Asian countries

Discussions already undertaken with commercial developers on the potential for Parry People Movers vehicles to provide public transport services in an African capital city

The company’s chairman, John Parry, said: ‘Our company has arrived on the transport scene and its products are delivering stunning results in public service on the Stourbridge Town branch line. This is making the case for further application of the technology and this is being recognised internationally. We are preparing for a busy future.’



NOTES



Parry People Movers Ltd (PPML) was founded in 1991 to develop rail transport based on a new innovation: the flywheel energy store, which allows vehicles to run extremely efficiently and to recapture their braking energy for re-use when accelerating. The company's shares are listed on the PLUS Market (Ticker code: PPM).

PPML's rail vehicles offer the quality of modern light rail transport without the need for electrical power supply, giving excellent environmental performance and energy efficiency at lower costs than conventional technology.

PPML technology can be used equally on railways and on urban tramways. The company’s vehicles are fully compliant with accessibility regulations. The technology used in PPML's vehicles is licensed to the Company by JPM Parry & Associates Limited, a West Midlands engineering firm specialising in overseas development, innovative transport and energy/environmental issues.

Two Parry People Movers railcars, known as ‘Class 139’, are used to operate all passenger services on the Stourbridge Town branch, part of the London Midland network, which runs between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town stations and at just over three-quarters of a mile long is the shortest rail route in Britain.

The rail industry’s target for services operated is 99% and the Stourbridge operation has, on average, exceeded this target for the whole of 2010. Service reliability figures for the Stourbridge Town branch show the percentage of services run compared to the timetable.

Calculations by PPML show that the Class 153 diesel trains previously used on the Stourbridge Town branch emitted an estimated 810kg of carbon dioxide a day, while the new lightweight Class 139 vehicles from Parry People Movers Ltd have brought this down to 240kg per day.

Transport contributes around 29% of the UK’s total carbon emissions.

Contact: Parry People Movers Limited, Overend Road, Cradley Heath, West Midlands, B64 7DD

Telephone: +44 (0)1384 569553, Fax: +44 (0)1384 637753

E-mail: info@parrypeoplemovers.com, Website: www.parrypeoplemovers.com

next stop spetisbury

Great news for our Dorset members - now we've safely saved Midford as a railway location for ever we are now in negotiation with Dorset County Council to take over Spetisbury. Aim here is to restore the station to 1950s style and, as at Midford, set up a shop and information office for the whole route. There is of course ample opportunity here to lay a single line of track, perhaps to demonstrate a Parry People Mover at a later date.

The two currently most important sections of the S&D are Midsomer Norton to Bath and Blandford to Poole. Both routes should really already be operating regular passenger and freight trains, with a catchment population well over 100,000 excluding Bath and Bournemouth. Hopefully soon both stretches of line will have a magnificently restored station acting as an information centre for the route. This will help bring about the restoration sooner rather than later.

We'll shortly be launching a Spetisbury Appeal to raise funds to restore the buildings, and hopefully set up work parties in the not too distant future, once we have secured the site.

power ...

Heidelberger Strassenbahnen: Eine Dokumentation uber die Heidelberger Strassen- und Bergbahn AG = Tramways of Heidelberg (Germany) (Archiv) (German Edition)
Tramway and Light Railway Atlas 1996: Germany - Tramway, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, Trolleybus
Schwandl's Tram Atlas Deutschland: Detailed Maps of All German Tram, Light Rail and Underground Networks (English and German Edition)

 

The Parry People Mover uses a flywheel to store energy with no overhead wires or conductor rail needed.


Modern trams use lightweight catenary.


Classic Southern Region conductor rail - cheap but dangerous!


Heavier style main line catenary - here used on a roadside line in Switzerland.

Anna-Jayne has just found this article which could provide the ideal power system for the New S&D - buried electric supply meaning that the system is totally safe (unlike conductor rails), cheap (no expensive masts) and aestetically pleasing (no external presence). This gets easier as each week passes!

Bombardier to test wireless trams in Augsburg

26 May 2010
GERMANY: The Primove induction-based catenary-free electrification system developed by Bombardier Transportation is to be piloted on the tram network in Augsburg, the manufacturer announced on May 26.

Formally unveiled at Bombardier's Bautzen factory in January 2009, Primove uses cable buried beneath the track to produce a magnetic fields which induces electric current for traction power in pick-up coils mounted underneath the vehicle.

It will be installed on a 0·8 km branch from Augsburg Line 3 which serves the city's exhibition centre. This will enable Bombardier to demonstrate the technical capabilities and electromagnetic compatibility of Primove, which is a potential competitor for Alstom's APS ground-level power supply in locations where overhead electrification is considered undesirable.

'Our expectation for the Primove pilot project is to gain further insights into new developments in energy management and energy savings in tramway operations', said Stadtwerke Augsburg Verkehrs Managing Director Norbert Walter. 'We will also co-operate with the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences'.

Bombardier is currently supplying Augsburg with 27 Flexity Outlook trams. The first arrived last year and deliveries will run to the end of this year.

Source

on our doorstep

A real gem locally is the very under publicised Bristol Harbour Railway, which runs from the SS Great Britain on Bristol's harbourside to the Create Centre. In 2011 it should re-extend to the newly refurbished Industrial Museum. This line has previously hosted a Parry People Mover. It's not open every weekend but the 2010 timetable is here.

This line could also become a very valuable transport link in the future. It could re-extend southwards to join the Portishead line - it's less than half a mile to rejoin the network over a bridge that saw trains (and heavy, steam-hauled ones at that!) as recently as 1996. It could also extend into the centre of Bristol tramway style, connecting with the new Bristol tramway system. This would then give a surely soon-to-be-reopened Portishead branch TWO traffic flows, one to Bristol Temple Meads for longer-distance travellers and freight and one to the city centre via the new developments on the Harbourside south, serving commuter flows. Tram-trains, Parry People Movers, conventional electric multiple units and, of course, steam hauled heritage trains could all operate the routes from Portishead to Bristol, complementing the current heavy freight use of this very important route.

fuel economy

Offered with little in the way of comment - and as a little add-on to today's earlier post, when we're looking at fuel efficiency in the future hopefully we'll take into account the comparitive fuel efficiency of the Parry People Mover over other, less modern, forms of transport! The ability to move 50 people 15 miles on just a gallon of fuel is very impressive!

the future starts yesterday

Yesterday's announcement that an alliance of local residents and climate protestors had managed to get the third Heathrow Airport runway stopped dead in its tracks, the day after admissions that the British road network was cracking up after the 'harsh' winter, are more signs that the pendulum is now swinging fully in favour of rail development and reinstatement.

Heathrow 3 was always a dead duck, but I was surprised just how much retrenchment there's been from maintaining the road network. If governments really believed the hype that roads had a future would they really allow them to deteriorate as they are? If that were true surely almost all transport investment would go to roads? That's clearly not happening.

The real sign that air traffic was expected to decline happened years ago, when Concorde was retired with no replacement. The real sign that the decline of road traffic was expected was the opening of the Channel Tunnel as a rail, rather than road, tunnel.

So the process begun in the 80s and 90s, which was also yesterday in a different sense of the word. We do indeed live in interesting times!

parry on travelling

Two shots courtesy of Midsomer Norton volunteer and Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for North East Somerset Gail Coleshill. These show a Parry People Mover, an ingenious and low energy railcar that currently trundles up and down the Stourbridge branch, but has also made appearances in Hove and Bristol, among other places. The clever thing about these is that they employ a flywheel to capture brake energy, and can be recharged very quickly when stopped at a station. It obviates the need for overhead wires, which has both economic and aesthetic advantages. It is also free from future oil price rises!

I haven't thought a lot about motive power for the New S&D, only that it can't be diesel! That leaves electric and/or steam power. Both have the advantage of being able to be fuelled exclusively from sustainable sources, which will be an essential requirement for all modern transport past the Peak.

I can see PPMs filling some roles on the line, particularly on the branches. Obviously the majority of traffic will be heavy goods and passenger trains, many originating or continuing off the S&D. But some off-peak services may well utilise a PPM or something similar. Another big advantage of these is that they can just as easily run on tram routes, and I suspect there will be plenty of these, urban, interurban and rural, connecting to the S&D in the future!

branching out

Two above courtesy Jeffery Grayer.


Courtesy Adrian Vaughan.

We'd like to welcome Steve Overthrow on board the New S&D team. He'd only discovered this blog a few days ago, has since joined and is now acting as track steward for Evercreech Junction to Burnham and the Bridgwater North and Wells branches. He will also be taking a keen interest in these branch affairs via a co-opted committee role. He has a long family history with the 'branch'.

We have always intended to restore the branches as well as the main line. All S&D branches served important towns and a city - Wimborne, Wells, Glastonbury, Burnham and Bridgwater - and also provided potential modern transport to many villages en route.

Restoration of the branch presents few physical obstructions and compared to the main line follows a very easy and lightly-engineered route. Early on I mooted restoration of Burnham-Highbridge or even an isolated (at first) route between Wells and Glastonbury as possible first steps towards restoration of the branch, mainly to find our feet as rail operators and to show that we are very serious. I can imagine Parry People Movers (of which more tomorrow) being ideal transport on these flat routes. The branch had a particular charm which I think will be recovered when it is restored - the landscape through which it runs has changed little during the four decades of temporary closure.

james howard rides again

Sorry, couldn't resist a random post with random pics and a slightly off-topic polemic from Mr Kunstler, posted with the usual disclaimer re USA angle and apocalyptic merriment.

Best read after watching Idiocracy!


The Fate of the Yeast People by James Howard Kunstler

Every time I do a Q and A after a college lecture, somebody says (with a fanfare of indignation) — so as to reveal their own brilliance in contrast to my foolishness — "You haven’t said anything about overpopulation!"

Right. I usually don’t bother. Their complaint, of course, implies that we would do something about overpopulation if only we would recognize it. Which is absurd. What might we do about overpopulation here in the USA? Legislate a one-child policy? Set up an onerous set of bureaucratic protocols forcing citizens to apply for permission to reproduce? Direct the police to shoot all female babies? Use stimulus money to build crematoria outside of Nashville?

It’s certainly true that the planet is suffering from human population overshoot. We’re way beyond "carrying capacity." Only the remaining supplies of fossil fuels allow us to continue this process, and not for long, anyway. In the meantime, human reproduction rates are also greatly increasing the supply of idiots relative to resources, and that is especially problematic in the USA, where idiots rule the culture and polity.

The cocoon of normality prevents us from appreciating how peculiar and special recent times have been in this country. We suppose, tautologically, that because things have always seemed the way they are, that they always have been the way they seem. The collective human imagination is a treacherous place.

I’m fascinated by the dominion of moron culture in the USA, in everything from the way we inhabit the landscape — the fiasco of suburbia — to the way we feed ourselves — an endless megatonnage of microwaved Velveeta and corn byproducts — along with the popular entertainment offerings of Reality TV, the NASCAR ovals, and the gigantic evangelical church shows beloved in the Heartland. To evangelize a bit myself, if such a concept as "an offense in the sight of God" has any meaning, then the way we conduct ourselves in this land is surely the epitome of it — though this is hardly an advertisement for competing religions, who are well-supplied with morons, too.

Moron culture in the USA really got full traction after the Second World War. Our victory over the other industrial powers in that struggle was so total and stupendous that the laboring orders here were raised up to economic levels unknown by any peasantry in human history. People who had been virtual serfs trailing cotton sacks in the sunstroke belt a generation back were suddenly living better than Renaissance dukes, laved in air-conditioning, banqueting on "TV dinners," motoring on a whim to places that would have taken a three-day mule trek in their granddaddy’s day. Soon, they were buying Buick dealerships and fried chicken franchises and opening banks and building leisure kingdoms of thrill rides and football. It’s hard to overstate the fantastic wealth that a not-very-bright cohort of human beings was able to accumulate in post-war America.

And they were able to express themselves — as the great chronicler of these things, Tom Wolfe, has described so often and well — in exuberant "taste cultures" of material life, of which Las Vegas is probably the final summing-up, and every highway strip, of twenty-thousand strips from Maine to Oregon, is the democratic example. These days, I travel the road up the west shore of Lake George, in Warren County, New York, and see the sad, decomposing relics of that culture and that time in all the "playful" motels and leisure-time attractions, with their cracked plastic signs advertising the very things that they exterminated in the quest for adequate parking — the woodand vistas, the paddling Mohicans, the wolf, the moose, the catamount — and I take a certain serene comfort in the knowledge that it is all over now for this stuff and the class of morons that produced it.A very close friend of mine calls them "the yeast people." They were the democratic masses who thrived in the great fermentation vat of the post World War Two economy. They are now meeting the fate that any yeast population faces when the fermentation process is complete. For the moment, they are only ceasing to thrive. They are suffering and worrying horribly from the threat that there might be no further fermentation. The brewers running the vat try to assure them that there’s more sugar left in the mix, and more beer can be made from it, and more yeasts can be brought into this world to enjoy the life of the sweet, moist mash. In fact, one of the brewers did happen to dump about a trillion-and-a-half teaspoons of sugar into the vat during 2009, and that has produced an illusion of further fermentation. But we know all too well that this artificial stimulus has limits.

What will happen to the yeast people of the USA? You can be sure that the outcome will not yield to "policies" and "protocols." The economy that produced all that amazing wealth is contracting, and pretty rapidly, too, and the numbers among the yeast will naturally follow the downward arc of the story. Entropy is a harsh mistress. In the immediate offing: a contest for the table scraps of the 20th century. We’ve barely seen the beginning of this, just a little peevishness embodied by yeast shaman figures. As hardships mount and hardened emotions rise, we’ll see "the usual suspects" come into play: starvation, disease, violence. We may still be driving around in Ford F-150s, but the Pale Rider is just over the horizon beating a path to our parking-lot-of-the-soul.

It’s a sad and tragic process and, all lame metaphors aside, there are real human feelings at stake in our prospects for loss of every kind, but especially in the fate of people we love. The human race has known catastrophe before and come through it. There’s some credible opinion that "this time it’s different" but who really knows? We have our 2012 apocalypse movies. The people of the 14th century, savaged by the Black Death, had their woodcuts of dancing skeletons. Feudalism was wiped out in that earlier calamity but, whaddaya know, less than a century after that the Renaissance emerged in a wholly new culture of cities. Maybe we will emerge from our culture of free parking to a new society of living, by necessity, much more lightly on the planet and for a long time, perhaps long enough to allow the terrain to recover from all the free parking.

bristol surprise

We went to visit the SS Great Britain today and this took me totally by surprise. It's the Bristol Harbour Railway, probably the only heritage line in the UK without a website, and it was running today. Currently it runs for about half a mile but will be extended in 2011 to the new industrial museum. Passenger vehicles are converted goods vehicles, which must have been great fun in today's heat and sun! This section of line was used a few years ago by a Parry People Mover. Unusually the line is operated by the city council, who clearly know a good thing when they see it!

four more from broadstone

Four more 1977 shots from Broadstone.

This was once the main line to Dorchester and Weymouth, before Bournemouth even existed. A new direct line was eventually opened to Bournemouth, and this section of Castleman's Corkscrew became something of a backwater. Even so it had a fairly extensive service, always worked by steam.

It seems strange that rails remained to Wimborne (until 1977), West Moors and Ringwood (1967), as well as to Blandford (1969), yet all of this potentially valuable Bournemouth commuter network is currently completely closed. All of these areas, despite being unserved by modern transport, have grown since closure of the railways. I remember reading somewhere that the trackbeds were to be reserved for a future rapid transit system but nothing seems to have happened on this front. Surely it's long overdue? But then even Bournemouth Airport (at Hurn) is not rail served. I don't think airports have any long term future but it does seem incredible to me that a reasonably busy regional airport has no rail connection, particularly one very close to an existing closed railway formation (the Ringwood-Hurn-Christchurch line, closed in 1933!)

I do see this area as one of prime importance for the New S&D because as well as through trains on the main line there will be scope for many (possibly tram-train or Parry People Mover) local and commuter services in this heavily populated area, as well as many potential freight flows.

options for the 'New'

The New S&D will hope to quite quickly set up a short section of line to announce our presence and intent to the world! Ideally the line would be a few miles long and would, right from the start, fulfil a genuine transport need.

My own views are that the following sections would fulfil this - Burnham to Highbridge (up platform side) and Wells to Glastonbury. I'd like to see a mix of utilitarian (and inexpensive) trains such as the Parry People Mover and a steam worked tourist service. Both would need to be economically viable. Burnham has the advantage of a captive market and a seaside destination, as well as a network connection, but Glastonbury to Wells would link a prime tourist destination to England's smallest (and probably most attractive) city. Both lines would be under 3 miles long, ideal for a start up.

The Wells line also has the advantage of being expandable towards a connection - ie by heading east from Glastonbury back to Evercreech then down to Templecombe (or by a connection at Bruton at first). Beyond that the line could be extended northwards to Shepton Mallet, giving a useful network with connections to the main line - and becoming tantalisingly close to the Midsomer Norton line as it heads southwards.

But this is all a long way into the future! But a PPM at Midsomer Norton would be a nice start!

the paradox of steam

It's pretty clear that steam power (and the burning of coal and wood) will become much more commonplace as the oil starts to vanish.

Steam was not replaced by diesel for inefficiency reasons, but for financial reasons. When cheap oil was available then it made sense to switch over to it (though perhaps not at the politically-inspired pace we saw in the UK!)

It's pretty certain that as the oil pinch really kicks in then railway companies will increasingly look at steam as an option where electrification is too expensive. How to square this with the need to reduce carbon emissions will be the big problem. There will also need to be huge infrastructure investment as most steam facilities have been, rather hastily, removed. This is where the wood burning option needs to come in. Wood will be sustainable, and infrastructure replacement will be more attractive for this reason. Forests lining our railway will provide almost free fuel, and will fix more carbon dioxide than is generated by our trains. Narrow gauge logging lines (permanent and/or temporary) can bring the logs to the railhead. No doubt coal will also be used during the transition from oil to wood, perhaps taken from pits in Somerset or South Wales to reduce transport costs.

Steam isn't quaint or nostalgic. Our nuclear reactors are just big steam engines.

Steam is certainly the future for the S&D, though smaller sections may be amenable to, for example, flywheel sustainable electric power (ie the Parry People Movers). But for the big heavy freights and through passenger workings, steam will again be king.