cherish

You all know I'm a bit of a car nut and I LOVE this video of driving in 1963.

Within 20 years, probably less, few if any of us will still be driving. The car will simply vanish, a victim of its inability to be flexible with fuel. A few will no doubt survive in museums, but that is all.

I've been photographing cars for years, and hope more of you will do the same. We need to all do our part to record this so brief form of transport. Not just the cars, but the lorries, buses etc that also will use the roads for a few more years. And also of course all the associated infrastructure - garages, motorway services etc, because once they're gone they'll be gone for good.

And again I urge you all to get out and take photos of diesel trains - they may not even survive as long as cars and buses.

It's so good that somebody had the foresight  to capture the roads way back in 1963, but how many other people did it? Our kids and their kids will look in wonder back to the days when almost everyone had their own funny little metal box on wheels. Eventually cars and roads may even gain a certain nostalgic glamour ... and who knows, there may even be one or two preserved roads with the odd car or bus shuttling along it.

more roads ...

Excellent comment from Neil S that deserves to be more visible than tucked in the comments section!

As usual the comments here are beyond the normal range of conversation in the media.

The Government can see a major crisis on the way. Oil prices will cause many to give up driving. Tax take will therefore plummet. Not dissimilar in ways to the indecent haste to close down the railways in the 50s/60.

I am of the view we must prepare quickly for the approaching crisis. A restored S and D between, say, Midford and Midsomer Norton, with passenger and moreover goods facilities should soon pay its way. Liaison with other restoration projects for railways and canals will assist and leave out the road lobby in the main who have systematically brought Britain to the verge of gridlock with its corruption, greed and lack of foresight.

No new major roads means there will be a good demand in areas where railways were once seen. Southern Somerset is a prime example.

more on the end of roads ...

More on the news that the government plans to privatize the road network. This clear move to switch responsibility for the ultimate wasting asset in the Post-Oil era has already got the dinosaurs' hackles up. I wasn't expecting this quite so soon but the message is clear - the government no longer wants the responsibility and cost of maintaining an 'asset' that will become increasingly irrelevant as oil prices begin to rise. But of course they will still  be able to tax motorists and have the added bonus of taxing the tolls the private companies collect!

Road use is already falling sharply (well before oil prices take off) and fewer and fewer people are taking up driving. Whole swathes of our population already live without cars; walking, cycling and using public transport.

From now on roads will begin to fall apart, less use will lead to less tax revenue or higher taxes to compensate. They will be maintained less and less and it will set up a virtuous circle where fewer people use roads because of the cost and condition. More freight will switch to rail and many more people will begin to use the railways to get to work, to shop etc. All of this is already happening but this is only the start.

Responsibility for running motorways and main roads will be handed to private companies under plans to be announced today by David Cameron.


The aim is to increase the money available for the country's busiest routes and tackle congestion by putting the private sector in charge of repairing worn-out surfaces and crumbling bridges. But the AA condemned the move as a step towards privatisation and raised fears that it would lead to road tolls.


The plans emerged ahead of Wednesday's Budget, which is expected to give fresh impetus to improvements to the national infrastructure. The Coalition envisages investors bidding for lengthy leases to run motorways and major trunk roads. Although the routes represent only 3 per cent of the national network, they carry a high proportion of the nation's road traffic, including nearly all the freight.


Successful bidders would pay upfront for the lucrative leases and be guaranteed a yearly payment from the Government for maintaining the roads. In return, they would have to demonstrate to an independent regulator that they are maintaining high standards and reducing jams.


They would not be allowed to levy tolls on existing roads, but could charge them on new routes. It was not clear last night whether tolls would be permitted on roads that are substantially improved or widened. The Highways Agency, which is currently in charge of major roads, has an annual budget of £3bn – about half of what the Treasury earns from road tax.


The Government refuses to describe the proposals as a privatisation, arguing that the roads will ultimately remain in state control. The sell-off plans are modelled on the privatisation of water in 1989, which Downing Street said last night was essential for repairing the country's 19th-century sewerage system.


In a speech today, Mr Cameron will warn of an "urgent need to repair the decades-long degradation of our national infrastructure". He will argue that the country needs to "build for the future with as much confidence and ambition as the Victorians once did". He will say that the parts of the road system cannot cope with traffic levels, warning: "Gridlock holds the economy back."


The Prime Minister will argue that the Government is looking at innovative ways of funding improvements to roads. But he will add: "We now need to be more ambitious. Why is it that other infrastructure – for example water – is funded by private-sector capital through privately-owned, independently-regulated utilities ... but roads in Britain call on the public finances for funding?


"We need to look urgently at the options for getting large-scale private investment into the national roads network – from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and other investors."


Edmund King, the president of the AA , said he favoured some reform of the Highways Agency but added: "It is a big leap from reform of the Highways Agency to new ownership and financing models for roads. The Government has indicated that tolling may only apply to new capacity, but this could be the thin end of the wedge, leading to full privatisation and road pricing. The road network is crucial to the UK. Drivers have paid for the road network many times over and continue to do so to the tune of £46bn every year."


The Treasury and the Department for Transport will carry out a feasibility study with a view to reporting back to Mr Cameron in the autumn.


A head traffic engineer at a major private transport contractor told The Independent: "The issue is whether the Government is proposing to use the investment to provide new roads as private alternatives, where people pay for the advantage of using less congested routes, such as on the M6 toll road – or forcing people to pay for roads where they have no other viable choices available, which would be massively controversial."

getting the point

It's amazing how many people - even railway enthusiasts - reckon we needn't worry about Peak Oil as the alternatives will be easy to find and cheap to produce.

People like things to be simple. Kids aren't taught economics at school and most adults don't have a clue what economics is! This wasn't a problem in the easy times, but it will be in the future, because everything may depend on it.

People in all seriousness believe that the future is electric cars (despite electricity generation set to FALL!), biofuels (now totally discredited - it is not scalable, destroys the fertlility of soil and, even at 5% of requirements will push food prices up by huge amounts), or even hydrogen (hydrogen is an energy CARRIER, not a form of energy).

But I reckon the following few paragraphs put it far more succinctly than I ever will -

Much is made of the development of the hydrogen-fuelled vehicle, but the only sustainable method of hydrogen generation is by electrolysis using electricity from wind or marine current power. However, there will be great competition for this and it would be more efficient to use renewably generated electricity directly for trains or trams or for battery vehicles. To have supplied the 2006 level of road vehicle movements with hydrogen would require round three times the energy generated that year by coal, gas and nuclear power combined, viz., 1100 TWh compared with 400 TWh actually generated. This will restrict the use of the hydrogen car to a favoured minority. Transport fuels in 2006 amounted to 53.5 million tonnes.

Bio-diesel is already being supplied in limited quantities, mainly as a blend with normal diesel. Currently in the UK, biodiesel is manufactured from waste cooking oil and imported palm oil. The likely amount of waste vegetable oil from the food industry totals only 75,000 tonnes/annum, which with bio-ethanol or methanol would make around 100,000 tonnes of motor fuel. However, in 2005 a plant was commissioned in Newarthill, near Motherwell, Scotland which augments waste cooking oil with tallow to produce 50 million litres (57,000 tonnes) of biodiesel per annum. But the final amount is restricted by the amount of land able to be devoted to rape cultivation, all the biodiesel from which will be needed for agriculture. It might be possible to import rape seed (or rape oil from it) grown on land currently used for tobacco. Other vegetable oils can be employed and there are controversial imports of palm oil.

Bio-diesel is currently made using methanol (to produce FAME) from the petrochemical industry, so to be sustainable it should be made using bioethanol (to produce FAEE). British Sugar manufactures bioethanol from sugar or wheat in Norfolk, but because of more favourable tax rebates in Poland has also located an initial venture there. Bioethanol is blended with petrol in any proportion up to 15%.

In 2006 the use of oil-based liquid fuels for road transport amounted to 53.5 million tonnes per annum, up from 49.5 million tonnes in 2000, a rise of 8% in spite of increases in fuel efficiency. There no possibility of replacing this with alternative fuels.

Source is the Busby Report, a little dated now but very prescient!

ten billion more for railways?

Thanks  to Anna-Jayne Metcalfe for this. It underlines both the hidden costs of motoring and the fact that there's another ten billion quid out there for transport - in other words RAILWAYS! There's no point wasting this on trying to keep the road network going - it's dying and we should just let it die ... ten billion would open about 500 miles of new railways, that can last into the distant future. 

 

Report claims 11-year pothole backlog

England is facing an 11-year backlog of potholes which will cost £10billion to repair following funding cuts, a survey has found.

England is facing an 11-year backlog of potholes, a report claims Photo: ALAMY

By David Millward, Transport Editor

7:00AM GMT 15 Mar 2012

17 Comments

Two thirds of local authorities said they were are unable to carry out necessary repairs to bring roads back to the condition they were in at the start of last winter.

This has left a fifth per cent of the country’s roads in need or urgent repair within the next five years, which will cost an estimated £10 billion.

The repairs have been hampered by cuts to local authority budgets which have left councils in England and Wales with an £800million funding gap.

The Asphalt Industry Alliance, which conducted the survey, said the additional Government funding of £200 million to help councils, although welcome, "has proven woefully inadequate".

Earlier this week all-party Public Accounts Committee warned that cuts to the highway maintenance budget could end up costing the taxpayer more as roads deteriorate.

It estimated that the Highways Agency alone, which is responsible for only 10 per cent of the roads network, had to pay £2.5 million compensation in a year for vehicle damage and personal injuries.

According to the Alliance, which represents companies who repair and resurface roads, said councils filled in 1.7million potholes last year.

The alliance estimated that the cold winter of 2010-11 caused £600 million damage to the country’s roads.

Edmund King, the President of the AA, said: "Our members are very concerned at this pothole plague. This deterioration [is happening] is despite councils working hard to keep pace to reduce the backlog using the extra cash allocated by the Department for Transport.

“The survey once again shows that potholes blight our roads and are as much about lack of investment in proper road repairs as they are about bad winters and heavy traffic.

“We need a new approach to stop this vicious circle of decline which causes danger to all road users, particularly those on two wheels, and expensive damage to vehicles.”

Peter Box, chairman of the Local Government Association’s Economy ad Transport Board, accused the Coalition of failing to provide enough money to tackle the problem.

“Councils are currently stuck in the position of chasing their tails, repeatedly patching up a deteriorating network rather then fixing it properly,” he said.

“What is needed from central government is a serious commitment to funding an upgrade of the entire road network. This will save billions of pounds in the long term and make roads safer for motorists.”

Norman Baker, the local transport minister, defended the Government’s record.

“I recognise there is an ongoing need for highways maintenance that can’t be fixed overnight,,” he said.

“However we are providing £3 billion to councils for road maintenance between 2011 and 2015 which is more in cash terms than the previous 4 years - as well as investing £6m for longer term strategies. We also gave them generous windfall handouts last year following the severe winter which caused major problems.”

barely believable

Now let's get this right. There's no £47 million for restoration of the Portishead branch, desperately needed and something everyone wants, a transport system for the 21st century which will reduce the average travelling time between Bristol and Portishead from an hour or more to 17 minutes ...

... yet there IS £90 million to WASTE on signage and cameras on the Almondsbury Interchange, a ROAD!!!!! The argument is that congestion is creating problems and losing drivers a few minutes each day. Er ... congestion will vanish quickly enough as oil prices rise and few of us will be able to continue to drive. Roads are 20th century, a dying transport mode. Not another penny should be wasted on them. ALL tranbsport funding now needs to go on transport modes that can survive Peak Oil.

This is disgusting and we need to make it stop. Money and resources are running out, it is CRIMINAL to misallocate either now.

Forget playing with cars, the £90 million should be spent on getting Portishead linked to Bristol and Norton/Radstock to Bath.

modal shift part 2

It's not easy for me to get into a 1960s mind set. I was around at the time of course, but hardly engaging with the big outside world!

But in retrospect it looked like the 60s, and the attitude to rail, was 'it's finished. It has no future role, except perhaps to run commuters into were applied to roads serving smaller places. Even the lines that survived the Beeching cuts were run down - stations were closed or staffing reduced, buffets closed, lines were singled, the whole network began to look run down. It was almost as if the railways wanted passengers to desert them! Freight was switching from efficient and fast rail to inefficient and much slower roads.

In fact EVERYTHING was expected to use the roads. It really was as if oil would last forever. Extra lorries and buses flooded on to the roads as the parallel railways were closed, cyclists were expected to brave the traffic, you'd still find horse and carts, tractors, mobility scooters, milk floats - everything was thrown onto the roads.

You had ridiculous scenes like the congested A33 running alongside a closed cross country railway that should have been carrying most of the freight and many of the car drivers. A few railways were still closing as late as the 1980s.

The seventies were probably the most dour and depressing years for the railways, and oddly most people who don't use the railways seem to think they are still like that! You still get jokes about British Rail sandwiches for example.

And what of the roads? They have just got busier and busier, though they seem to be spluttering a bit now. Apparently a million people have given up driving in the last year - the reason 'high fuel costs'! Don't make me laugh, fuel is still ridiculously cheap. It will be 5 to 10 times as expensive in ten to twenty years' time. But something must be afoot, because it's no small decision to give up driving, however much most of us would love to. There are still far too many places unreachable by rail or even bus today. It's like a drawing in happening across the board, people are worrying about the cost of driving - they are going to be in for such a huge shock over the coming years! This is just the very beginning. The high cost of insurance makes it almost impossible for young people to be able to drive - driving test applications have fallen by 19% in the last year.

We are building a demographic that will probably never drive, but so far we're doing very little to put in process transport infrastructure that will enable them to get around cheaply and safely. That'll be the subject of the third and final part of this article!

the interrupted journey

Things are falling into place and have been for some time now. I'm talking about the bigger picture rather than specifically the S&D, though the end will be the same.

Britain began the industrial revolution at the end of the 18th century and railways were perhaps the most important element in industrialisation. Railways quickly reached every corner of the UK and in the cities rails spread into the suburbs and onto the roads. We were well set up for a proper sustainable transport system that could last indefinitely, a system that carried freight and passengers with equal ease. Light railways were beginning to fill the gaps.

But then some fool discovered oil and for some odd reason transport development switched to the roads, indeed it did for a few decades become the primary transport mode. But road traffic had a fatal and terminal flaw - it was dependent on a fuel source that had a finite life. It should have been clear to everyone that it was only a stop gap, a downmarket way of moving things for a short while.

But it didn't work out like that. The planners ignored that simple geological fact and acted as if road transport and the fuel that powered it could last for ever. They even CLOSED railways even though it was clear that they would soon be needed again. And the average person in the street began to believe that roads and cars would always be around, because we have short memories and like to ignore reality as much as possible.

The age of the car is now ending. Not just stopping or slowing down but ending - probably for ever. The car will never be able to compete with trains on energy efficiency. And you could even argue that with rails reaching every corner of the land as the interrupted journey is started again, and with the roads crumbling and motoring becoming out of the reach of most of us, rail will even have the edge on flexibility. As the Beeching cuts are reversed, then brand new lines built to fill the gaps, and light railways, tramways and industrial lines built to reach every business, factory and market, we'll soon forget that roads ever existed, except as quiet, unmade tracks that wind through woods and villages, somewhere to walk on a warm evening, or perhaps to take the horse out for a hack, or of course to cycle along. Nostalgia for the coming generations, shattered as a sleek and fast train flashes by.

potholing

Last winter's cold December - itself almost certainly a result of climate change influenced atmospheric anomalies - has resulted in a nother rash of potholes on our crumbling road network. And the cost to fix it? Up to ten billion pounds!

That's almost £200 per person in the UK, a ridiculous subsidy for a piece of infrastructure that is surely in its twilight years.

But I do appreciate that it is needed, despite this. A crumbling road network, a very strong indicator that Peak Energy is with us, is a costly thing to not repair as well. Cars can travel more slowly but let's be realistic, the real damage is caused by our dinosaur lorries. That's why the ten billion would be much better spent on expanding the rail network so it can start taking the freight traffic. This will protect the roads for the few more years they have left. This is quite clearly a case of throwing good money after bad.

It won't be the end of oil that finishes the car culture, but the impossibility of maintaining the road network. Remember that road surfacing itself uses large amounts oif oil. Rail doesn't have this problem!



endangered transport

Railways have been documented in such depth that there's hardly a corner that hasn't been recorded for posterity through pictures and words.

But will our roads leave ANY trace once the last car is garaged for good? Will a stretch of road be preserved and open for the public to experience an otherwise extinct transport mode? I hope so.

I did have the foresight even back in the 80s to record this doomed transport mode and have a good collection of pictures. But I doubt there are 1% of the number of railway shots out there. I'd urge all of you to go out and try to capture this form of transport in its dying years.

But there are a few books on cars, and even a few on the road culture (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) New member Derek Lunn has an excellent range on his website, and an even bigger range of railway titles. Take a look at his site and grab some of those rare titles. He will be sending out the New S&D brochure with every relevant book sold.

the biggest mistake of all?

Economists often talk of opportunity costs and misallocation of resources. I reckon that in 50 years time we'll all look back and see the Beeching cuts and the, once quite serious, belief that railways were finished and the policies that grew out of that huge error as the biggest misallocation of resources the UK has ever seen.

For a start the Beeching cuts didn't save the railways a penny - they made no contribution to reducing the costs of the railways. If anything they reduced the overall income as many people living on closed routes simply abandoned the railways altogether, rather than find alternative means to get to the railhead.

But even more importantly the consequent congestion effects caused by people being FORCED to use the roads, both for passenger and freight services, had a huge cost, massively outweighing any savings made by scrapping a few branch lines.

I know some people think that the second railway age will merely reverse the Beeching cuts, but remember that this assumption is based on some miraculous energy source being available to keep at least some cars running. In reality of course once the level of traffic on roads falls to a certain point it will no longer be viable to keep roads open. Rail will really be the only available option. So just reversing the Beeching cuts will nowhere near solve the problem, unless we're prepared to totally abandon whole swathes of countryside. But surely these will be the very areas that need transport to bring food to the towns and cities? So if lines will be needed to bring food in then surely it will be best to operate them as passenger routes as well? This supposes a huge expansion of light and ultra-light rail, bringing rail to every corner of the country. So as well as a total reversal of Beeching the trunk and branch lines will be accompanied by a Vicinal style network of narrow gauge and light railways. I do sometimes think most of us simply haven't taken on board the scale of the rail revival, and the benefits (and problems) that will bring!

And as for misallocation of resources - how many billions were wasted on developing a road system for a form of transport with a severely limited life, and what will the costs be to restore the network, particularly through developed areas, compared to the costs of keeping the routes open? These questions will keep transport economists in work for decades!

the beginning of the end?

Results just in from the AA Populus poll -

Subject: March survey results Posted At: 12/04/2010 13:26:31

Impact of current fuel prices - Over a quarter of members (27%) have cut back on car use - Two thirds of members have cut back on spending and car use.

'Current fuel prices'? Prices are still ridiculously low compared to what's coming, but this does rather challenge the standard view that motorists will NEVER give up their cars, regardless of the price of fuel. If the very low cost of fuel we are currently experiencing can have this effect - what does the future hold?

What this means is that we really have to start getting railways back to pre-Beeching levels NOW, and that's just the start. With the terminal decline of road transport we'll need to bring the rails to every village, hamlet, factory, shop and market in the country. Some lines will be standard gauge heavy lines, others standard gauge tramways, others will be narrow gauge or ultra light rail. There's an awful lot of work to do in the next twenty years!

you couldn't make it up

As ash continues to fill the skies above us could we have hoped for a better glimpse into the future? There's just been a brilliant TV report from Bristol airport, with the airport staff flying kites or running up and down the runway doing an impromptu mini marathon. Smiles all round.

We took a car trip yesterday into town with empty skies above us and potholes big enough to contain baby elephants below us.

The silly troubles at Shillingstone paled into total insignificance as the whole of Europe seemed to shift twenty years into the future with crumbing roads and airports reverting back to peace and quiet. Once again Mother Nature showed us that we can't build a complex global society that works seamlessly for 100% of the time. And although the emphasis has been on passenger delays no-one seems to have yet considered the knock-on effect of the cessation on air freight or indeed the airmail service. We may think this won't affect us, but it will.

And whilst the planes are grounded most passengers are trying to switch to rail, but finding that the capacity so cruelly and stupidly reduced by Beeching and his crew can't handle all the extra traffic, leaving them stranded. We do need a fast European high speed network to fill the gap as air travel winds down, and we also need a huge expansion of rail to every town and village in Britain as the roads empty. This air shut down, which is probably still in its early stages, will give a huge impetus to the expansion of rail Europe wide. Are you all ready to play your part?

the wrong model!

The 70’s pro road attitude ……….

1) railways are dead

2) railways are now trailways, they died and are not coming back

3) you're not putting a smelly old railway that’s costs the taxpayer 25 billion and only used by 5% of the population back through our children's landscaped nature trail (but we don’t mind if you build a 300 million relief road just over the other side of that hill if it means getting those blasted 44 ton trucks out of our village thanks!!)

There are still a few people who have this attitude, they are a dying breed, but to those who don't care one way or the other their views are still considered, a bit like those divs that (normally because they are paid to lie) claim that although global warming's happening it's not due to our activity in any way. There is of course a concensus amongst 95% of scientists that global warming is mainly due to our activities! (I hope this doesn't sound like enviro-babble to some of the beardies, it's not, it's just simple science!)

We do need to keep pushing our view (the correct one)

The 21st century pro-rail attitude ..........

1) roads are dying

2) railways are now trailways and cycleways, but this is simply a way of preserving the integrity of the trackbeds that are soon coming back

3) we will soon be desperate to have our railway put back, we can't afford to run our cars any more, the roads are falling to pieces, how are we going to get to work/shops/holidays unless you bring back our trains?

a view from the board ...

(Round about Sturminster 2009)

Simon Ellison joined the board back in January and is particularly interested in the Sturminster Newton area.

He's just posted a comment which I think should be promoted to the main blog page as it covers much of the reasons why we exist and cleverly draws together many points raised (and challenged!) here over the last few weeks.

I note, with some disquiet, the rather 'negative' comments which seem to blight all aspects of railway restoration, in whatever form that takes.

Thing is: There are ALWAYS dissenters and ne'er do well's who delight in the negativity of their own lives, and like to project on to others their attitude.

If you do not believe in something with passion, then it's best not be get involved at all - applies to life generally, not just railways.

The obstacles to reinstating a continuous rail route from Bath/Bristol through to Poole/Bournemouth are huge, but not insurmountable. Of course there will have to be deviation from the original route at various locations, but, essentially, the route in its entirety should be, and MUST be reinstated, because rail will be the only sure way of transporting heavy freight and passengers in a viable way to smaller towns and villages in the future of road degradation and spiralling fuel costs.

Councils are being squeezed like sponges for funding which will not be forthcoming for essential road repair - here, where I live, roads are like rutted farm tracks, damage to wheels, tyres and steering geometry is becoming horrendous as well as unsafe.

Roads like minor 'B' and unclassified ones are left to their own devices due to lack of funding for repairs - that situation is fuelled by inclement weather which rapidly adds to the [rapid] destruction of surface 'black top'

How will we move anywhere in relative safety without wrecking our spines and our vehicle's suspension ? Are we to remain isolated in villages which have roads not fit for purpose?

At least a rail link would mean no more road wrecking heavy trucks - all commerce conducted by small trucks/vans from RAIL depot to destination - probably by electric engined vehicles.

But, before we all fall into the trap of 'electric' propelled vehicles [of ANY sort], just remember this: electricity has to be generated - which still means oil/coal/nuclear powered generating plants - so at whatever point, there will always be some form of 'unfriendly' fuel being used to provide all this 'clean' electricity. I'm sorry, but these pathetic wind farms will just NOT fit the bill for reliable and continous power supply, besides which, they are a blot on the landscape as well being a major threat to wild life, which also has the right to exist.

Remember this: Rail over road transport has much in it's favour:

A. It is fairly unobtrusive to the environment - noise is a minor consideration, once a train has passed the sound of its passage fades back into natural surrounding sound level, unlike the continuous drone of road transport.

B. The physical space needed to run trains is much less than an A class road!

C. Many more people die on the roads than on railways.

D. The cost of fuel is slashed as ton for ton, railway transport is far more efficient [much less frictional resistance on steel rail].

E. More economical - a typical train load is equivalent to many 44 ton trucks but in ONE movement and with ONE loco.

F. Faster - over distance, rail is MUCH quicker than road.

There are many other considerations which I have not entered here, but I am preaching to the converted ! It's the general public and local government who need to be 'educated'

The monopoly of road transport is over - it's time to bring back OUR trains for the betterment of OUR lives, our children's and their children's lives.

Short term-ism has been this country's failing - it's the reason for blinded politicians wrecking a once comprehensive railway infrastructure, and HERE lies our problem. It's so much easier to destroy than construct - all for short term profit/gains which gain NOTHING in the 'long run'.

We should DEMAND government aid in repairing the damage THEY were responsible for in the first place!

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!

more congestion

A comment from Mick Knox in response to Ian W's post yesterday -

Congestion is certainly the reason a lot of people use rail now, and to take the Portishead Branch as an example how long would it take using a train, compared with a car, to commute into Bristol? The public understand this argument well, and it also stands up with the switch to electric cars. What is the journey time from Radstock to Bristol, or Bath? And would that be easily beaten by train today? I would have thought easily so?

Most motorists would love to see more freight on the railways as it would leave more road space for them, together with less roadworks due to the damage caused by the heavy goods vehicles.

There is nothing more frustrating than sitting in traffic jams, so yes congestion is an issue the general public will understand. Post ‘Peak Oil’ it may not be, but today it is, so I suggest we use this to our advantage.

It was a valid reason not to close the Somerset & Dorset and therefore it is a reason to re-open it again.

My own view was that we could wrong foot ourselves by talking about congestion as a problem into the future. But I think there's a way to tie this all together. And perhaps I was being too dogmatic ...

Firstly we need to understand why there is congestion. If road really was a mode for the future then surely road development would continue as a reaction to congestion? Congestion would perhaps happen somewhere and measures would then be undertaken to get rid of it. But this doesn't happen. We need to understand why.

It seems to me that governments are well aware of the impact of Peak Oil, even if they are trying to keep it from us. They hide the measures needed to deal with it under the 'climate change' banner but any intelligent person sees through that quickly enough. (Clearly the world is warming and our activities are responsible for much of it, but this will slow down as Peak Oil hits so it's not a long term problem unless we reach certain tipping points). Governments will also be aware of the impending end of cheap air travel but they use different methods to hide this in their devious equations, like proposing a new runway for Heathrow knowing full well it wil never be built but being able to pass the blame on to climate change activists for example.

But underneath all deviousness and posturing there is a very real fear by government that this is a problem so big that they may not be able to contain it, hence the fact it's hidden at the moment from the general public. It may even be that climate change was put forward as a safe alternative just to test some of the measures that will be needed.

Okay, there was a lot of waffle there, but it does underline why road development has ground to a halt. It not only shows that governments are well aware that petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles have had their day, but that the proposed alternatives will NOT fill the gap. Hence the current level of roads will be more than adequate to cope with future traffic needs. This means that congestion is a problem now, whilst oil-derived fuels are so incredibly cheap, but will not be in the future.

There's another side issue which concerns fuel prices. People are surprised that the retail price has remained stubbornly high despite the falling price of crude oil (at least from its 2007 highs of $147 barrel). This is easily explained by the lack of refining infrastructure. New refineries are not being built because the oil companies are even more aware than we are of the looming oil shortages. There's no point in building new refining facilities as whilst they may be needed for a few years they will be derelict in a few decades as the raw material will have dried up. Hence the current level of refining capacity will be more than adequate to cope with future needs.

So how do we apply all this to the New S&D without ending up with egg on our faces? I think we need to set current congestion levels within a long term framework. We've all been held up in traffic jams and they are without doubt both very annoying and a terrible waste of precious time. They also have a damaging effect on economic activity. Mick has mentoned the problem of heavy lorries and this is something we can really exploit. Car drivers hate them and railways are desperate to grab the freight they currently carry. So we need to encourage aggressive pricing wars between railfreight companies and the road based freight companies. Rail will become more and more advantaged as the system expands and the price of fuel goes up. Whilst railways will also be affected by the rising cost of energy the 400% extra efficiency of rail will work for rail and against road in this context. Freight will start switching from road to rail, and the New S&D will be as much a freight carrier as a passenger carrier. So this part of our programme should appeal to car drivers, even if they don't (for now) plan to use our trains. But it won't hurt to throw Peak Oil into the equation and say to drivers that by pushing freight onto new railways the infrastructure will then be in place for a return of passenger services on most lines as the oil runs out. They don't need to believe in Peak Oil to suffer from its effects! As the price of driving a private car goes stratospheric then people will return to the railways in their droves. It may be the last thing that goes, but go it will!

wasted money ...

The huge snowfall [and very low temperatures] we’ve had in recent weeks has done terrible damage to Britain’s road network. There are now millions of potholes strewn across the country - in fact around one in every 120 yards, that are causing treacherous driving conditions. The total repair bill is estimated to be £10bn just to get all the UK’s highways back into shape and safe to use - equivalent to spending another 2012 Olympics just on resurfacing work. Source.

So to keep our dying road network up to speed we have to commit DOUBLE the total rail subsidy? This is a total waste of resources, the roads should be allowed to gradually return to nature and we should be investing in the future, not the past. It makes the Road Users' Alliance claims (see earlier post) that only £4bn a year is spent on roads look ridiculous (and see the comment section on Jurassic Park for a complete forensic dissection of that stupid claim!)

I wonder how much damage (if any) was done to the rail network by the recent cold winter?

motorway madness

Austin at Cheddar!


Classic car style.


Midford.


Midsomer Norton yesterday.

It was quite sad watching the news this week as they attempted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening of the M1. They failed miserably.

Driving is not fun. The average drive is ruined by poor drivers, lorries, buses, tractors, cyclists etc. You are stressed 90% of the time. there's no pleasure in it. It's not cool. It's just a chore.

If anything this event proves that we don't expect road travel to last much longer. They were trying to stir a mix of 'glamour' and nostalgia into something as vile as a motorway. Why apply nostalgia to something that we're supposed to believe will last forever?

I was once accused of being anti-car. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have travelled all over Europe by car and van. I was a professional driver for four years. I probably have almost as many photos of cars as I do of trains! I think the cars of the 50s and 60s had superb design and were great fun. But since then everything's gone downhill. Try as we might we'll never invest cars and roads with a thousandth of the romance of railways. Even the imminent death of cars and roads will not bring about any great regrets. Many of us, remembering hours stuck in jams, displays of amateur driving and having to fork out for repairs etc, will be glad to see the back of them.

Look at the shot of Midford above, then think about the average road. There's no comparison.

So what's my point?

We don't have to live in a world of squalor, poor design, vandalism, environmental damage. These are all choices, made through ignorance or a false sense of economy. If we want it we can live in a world where architecture and modern transport systems combine to give us a real sense of achievement and well-being, where we all work at jobs we enjoy and where we work with nature rather than against it. The New S&D is all about this. There'll be no nostalgia in what we do, no cutting corners and no working against nature. We'll create a sustainable transport infrastructure that people will enjoy using and which enhances the environment through which it runs, much as the old S&D did.

And it will make a profit!

reorientation

We are all in for a big reorientation over the next 20 to 30 years.

With respect to the rebuilt S&D we are not only looking at restoring the 'classic' routes, Bournemouth to Bath and Evercreech to Burnham, but adding extra capacity and flexibility by including new links to Brockenhurst via Wimborne and Ringwood and to Bristol via Pensford, and also looking at the whole provision of rail to Glastonbury and Wells by not dismissing the possibility of building a wholly new route from these two important tourist towns over the Mendips to a junction near Masbury rather than simply restoring the original route from Evercreech Junction. We also expect that the entire main line will need to be double tracked including the long Blandford to Templecombe section, though with the obvious proviso of physical limitations north of Midford into Bath!

In the wider transport field all communities will need to look at how they are actually arranged. Suburbs, where they are still viable, will need trams or ULR to continue to allow them to thrive. Businesses needing incoming and outgoing transport will need to be located next to a rail or tram route with larger concerns having private sidings. Many industries will need to reconnect using their own private industrial lines. Whole swathes of manufacturing and service industries will vanish with the withering of pure consumerism. Seaside resorts benefitting from an improving (warming) climate and the end of cheap air travel will need to ensure they are connected to the network and outlying parts of their resort connected to the nearest network station by tram. Everything will need to be sustainable both in embedded energy and energy used to operate. Farms will need to be connected to the network by light rail to allow produce to reach markets which will also, of course, need to be rail served.

And individually, and as families, we will all need to reorientate the way we live. Within 20 to 30 years the idea that we once all - or nearly all - had access to private motorised transport will seem incredible. The electric car, now the only serious option in a post-oil society, will wither on the vine as the roads themselves fail without affordable materials for repair and under the new political regimes that will do everything they can to reduce private transport, using the oil price first, then rationing then actually outlawing private vehicles. This will not of course be a concatenation of political decisions but economic imperatives, so will be applicable to anyone who is voted in. None of this is rocket science.

We'll need to change the way we work, many of us will have to relocate, as close as we can to rail transport, grow our own food and live more locally-based lives. Personally I hope we retain our love of travel even if many are counting on us giving it all up. I don't think this will be the end of history or of, indeed, progress. But I do think we are all going to have to sit back and relax for a few generations until everything is totally reorientated towards a truly sustainable society. Once that's in place technology can start to develop again. I'm sorry if I'm an incurable optimist, but it's a position I've arrived at after many decades of pushing the boundaries!

(Apologies for using continental European images for this article - but they are so far ahead of us!!)