pensioners get it right!

(Sent by Mick Knox)

Protest pensioner halts A35 traffic in Dorset

Tony Fuller: "We are afraid that the lorries are going to crash into our home".

A Dorset pensioner angry at lorries driving through his village blocked traffic for an hour by making sure a pelican crossing was in constant use.

Tony Fuller, 77, and his neighbours carried out the protest in Chideock, near Bridport, on Tuesday.

Traffic on the A35, the main coastal road between Bournemouth and Exeter, backed up within minutes.

Mr Fuller said the roads were too narrow for lorries and he wanted a bypass built around the village.

He said his house had been crashed into by vehicles twice and on one occasion the driver died.

'Terrible pollution'

He added: "It's virtually like a motorway, in fact it's got as much traffic on it as a motorway but there's no pavements and the houses are right on the road.

"The pollution in the village is terrible. You can't walk through the village without choking."

The A35 is the main coastal route between Bournemouth and Exeter

Is dawdling on a crossing illegal?

He said he was upset that plans for a bypass were abandoned several years ago.

He added: "If our local county council is spending £77m on a bypass to Weymouth for the Olympics for two weeks... why don't they come and do something for the citizens and parishioners of Chideock?

"We only want them to show they are doing something and when they do we will stop, but if they don't we shall continue, now, year after year."

Mr Fuller said about 50 residents had already pledged their support to the protest.

He added: "If they all turn up and they each press that button once, one after the other, that's 50 times that traffic will be stopped and it will cause chaos.

"Because they've only gone across once each, they can't be prosecuted for using the crossing that was put there for their benefit."

The Highways Agency, which is responsible for the A35, declined to comment.

Dorset County Council said the Weymouth relief road had mostly been funded by the Department for Transport and the council's contribution had totalled £8.6m rather than £77m.

Forget about a bypass Gramps - just press for ALL freight to be switched to the railways now!

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!

congestion

We've had a comment to an earlier post which I'd like to bring to the main board.

I do think the writer has a valid point about congestion TODAY, but I personally feel that to push the congestion angle too much could well leave us with egg on our faces as traffic FALLS due to the steadily rising cost of energy (which will apply to petrol/diesel AND electrically operated cars).

By setting our argument and lobbying within the long term problem - ie Peak Oil and its consequences - I think we're positioning ourselves well ahead of the crowd and I feel we'll reap benefits from it from now and in the future. I worry that arguing the congestion case too loudly we'll look stupid in the face of the facts, but as I said above I do think that congestion is an issue now, and may even be for a few more years. But what do you all think? Feel free to support or challenge any of the views quoted above and below, and please post all comments to the comments section under this post.

I already have an electric car, powered by water according to Southern Electric. We still need to talk about congestion as that is the issue now. Petrol cars will be on the roads for at least the next two decades and we will wait for an eternity to rely on the public's acceptance of peak oil to switch. As I have said on here before, the car will be the last thing to go. Air travel, foreign holidays, new consumer goods and all other discretionary spending will decline before people give up their cars. if we are going to regenerate the railways today we need to sell them to the public in a language it understands.

jurassic park

The past.



The future.

This extraordinary load of old tosh appeared today on AOL.

Road congestion 'could rise by 37%'

Britain's roads need more investment, the Road Users' Alliance has said.

Traffic congestion will rise by 37% if the current "minimal levels of investment" in roads continues for the next 15 years, a report has said.

By 2025, drivers could be wasting 656 million hours a year - the equivalent of 75,000 years - sitting in traffic jams, the Road Users' Alliance (RUA) added.

"Under-investment in the strategic road network has left the UK with a transport system which is uncompetitive, congested, vulnerable to incident and inadequate to meet the future needs of the economy," the report concluded.

The RUA said that the UK's investment in new motorway capacity was among the lowest in Europe, with no new motorway miles being created in 2007 and 2008.

It added that while £47 billion a year was collected in road user taxes, only £4 billion was invested in new road capacity.
The survey also revealed that the major road network grew by 1% between 1998 and 2008, but had to cope with traffic growth of almost 10%.

Travel by car remained the most popular form of transport, with 92% of Britain's passenger transport taking place by road and 70% of commuting and business journeys made by car.

RUA director Tim Green said: "Road users have for too long been regarded as wallets on wheels, providing an endless stream of revenue for the Government to spend on anything except the road network.

"Hard choices face whichever party leader finds himself in Downing Street after the election. Will limited funds be spent on rail, which moves fewer than 10% of UK passengers, or invested in the transport mode which makes the biggest contribution to the UK's prosperity and quality of life - the road network?"

Well, I know dinosaurs had tiny brains but this goes beyond that! Why do people so desperately want to hang on to the twentieth century? Was it really that good?

All through this piece the clues are there. If any government seriously believed roads DID have a future then obviously this investment would be made - it would be madness NOT to invest in the road network. But we know that roads don't have a future - no amount of scrabbling about trying to replace oil is ever going to produce the levels of traffic we have today. There's no possibility of road transport being used for freight in the future -except for very short runs where private sidings, goods lines or goods tramways haven't yet been built. All long distance travel will quickly switch from road (and air) to rail. Private cars will become really scarce and the roads themselves will begin to physically vanish from the landscape, apart from those adopted by Sustrans, horse riders and walkers. This is the reality and these mugs at the anachronistic Road Users' Alliance have found themselves on the wrong side of history.

I almost feel sorry for them!

bristol's tramways take shape

Works alongside Hartcliffe Way, Bristol, January 2010. Trams at last??

Bristol has a population of 380,615.
Bratislava (Slovakia) has a population of 426,927.

Bratislava has 40km of tramways and 13 lines. This is in addition to a suburban railway network, metro, trolleybuses and even (LOL) buses.

Bristol has 0km of tramways and 0 lines. This is in addition to a railway network that cleverly avoids most places, including Portishead, no metro, no trolleybuses and lots of (LOL) buses, many of which proudly proclaim 'Not in Service'.

No, the pic isn't of tramway works in Bristol. Our Supertram was abandoned a few years ago by a bunch of spineless councillors who would rather look backwards than forwards and have consequently condemned Bristol to years of congestion. The trams WILL come, that's inevitable. No real city lacks trams. What the pic is of is the new cycleway - but the interesting thing is that it can, and will, convert easily to a tram route. Perhaps the councillors here are taking their heads out of the sand and are - at last - looking ahead, even if they are doing it covertly.

So what's Bratislava got to do with anything? Well, apart from being a similar size to Bristol it's our holiday destination in June. And why did we choose it? Precisely because it does have modern public transport, which makes it tourist friendly.

And what's any of this got to do with the New S&D? Well, Bristol will be a destination for us, using the old Pensford route. In fact I fully expect trams to shadow our route south from Bristol to Whitchurch station on the New S&D. And trams will almost certainly reappear in Bournemouth, Poole and up to Broadstone and Wimborne. Over the longer term trams/light railways will pop up everywhere, feeding into the new rail network, carrying frieght as well as passengers. Those dinosaurs who think that the 21st century will merely see a reversal of the Beeching cuts simply haven't understood the urgency and depth of the energy crisis.

So keep watching this space. I fully expect to retake these pictures by 2015 with tram tracks running down Hartcliffe Way!

argument or not?

I'd like to thank Ian who posted the following on the comments page of an earlier post. I think it should be promoted to the main page as it quite succinctly puts the conucopian view forward. We may still come up against this over the next few years, so it's worth analysing and criticising.

I am as keen as anyone here to reinstate as many disused railways as is feasible including the S&D but it is worth remembering some facts. Petrol is only as expensive today as it was in real terms when I started driving in 1981 nearly 30 years ago. I remember back then how the demise of the petrol car was anticipated yet the number of cars on the road has virtually doubled between then and now. People will pay the price for the transport quite simply because of the convenience and the fact that whilst rail travel is great for single travellers, if you have any more then one person travelling to the same destination it is virtually always cheaper to go by car.

I am trialling an electric plug in car which is excellent and will, as battery technology improves, be a viable alternative to petrol so we are going to need a different argument for modal shift from road to rail as the peak oil argument is going to be redundant.

I am also a fan of Eurostar and relish the thought of increased travel opportunities but living as I do on the south coast I fly from Southampton or Bournemouth to European destinations as you arrive there before you would even be in the Eurostar train in St Pancras, having to travel up to London in order to return by Eurostar to the south coast at Ashford! We need radiating routes from Ashford avoiding London (possibly upgrading the long straight Tunbridge Wells line west from Ashford).

I think we should concentrate on the issue of congestion as being the key reason why people would move from road to rail. The advent of average speed cameras which will slow down the traffic flow on major roads, together with the above mentioned doubling of car volumes on the road is our best bet for persuading people who do not share our vision for the railways in the future to join us on the railways.
　
My reply follows. My main point is that he has not addressed how all this extra electricity generating capacity will be acquired. This is the heart of the Peak Oil dilemma. It's not just about oil, but about energy in its entirity. The conucopian view has been created by an unholy alliance of politicians and classical economists, the first group believe that truth is flexible, the second that nature is flexible and will always provide substitutes. They are both wrong!

Hmmm. Interesting argument, though a little hard to grasp as you don't give any facts. You claim Peak Oil will vanish as we all switch to electric cars, but how exactly is all that extra electricity going to be generated? We are already being told that we may well face power cuts from 2013, that's without the huge extra demand for electricity that running cars on electric will make. I think I read somewhere that we'd need to increase generating capacity by 300-400% to cover this. This is the real question, not the rather minor one of method of propulsion - it's about scalability, and all the technical reports and articles I've read bring this up as the main problem.

This then leads to allocation of resources and also pricing. With a huge undercapacity in generating ability price would have to rise to ration demand, if supply could not be upped. Remember that even sustainable energy sources often have upper limits - wind power is variable, hydro is almost fully tapped and nuclear will suffer from uranium shortages sooner rather than later. In many ways all energy prices will reflect the price of oil, which will inexorably rise as it begins to run out. This is because much of all generating capacity, even sustainable, has oil inputs.

All this will lead to a fall off in road traffic, not an increase, making arguments about congestion look naive in a decade or so's time. That's not to say it shouldn't be an argument we put forwards NOW, in a popularist way, but we need to be careful not to place too much importance on it and to drop it at the right time. We don't want to look stupid, banging on about congestion, when it will be clear to everyone that their own car use and others' is falling in the real world.

Your one valid point re cost of a car trip for a family versus a rail trip for a family will need to be addressed, at least whilst road is still an option. Families travelling on a family card priced at say 50% above the cost of a single person would be an idea for example.You need to look behind the facade that's been carefully constructed by those with an interest in keeping inefficient road transport limping on to the bitter end. They are counting on us being stupid. We're far from stupid, and our analysis goes way beyond that of the average tabloid newspaper journalist! This is all about economics, and what journalist ever understood that subject LOL??
　
To be honest I'd rather congestion was the problem, but of course it will become less and less of a problem over the next few years. It would be, to me, a cop out to use this argument in a big way. I think perhaps pointing out the terrible inefficiency of road transport would be a better angle to take, although again that problem will diminish in time as the roads empty.

Congestion and capacity on the railways will be far more of an issue, and one that will need to be addressed. That's really what the New S&D is about, adding capacity to the network, as well as bringing more towns, currently lacking modern transport, back into the 21st century.

deadly serious

Swanage Railway.


Welsh Highland Railway.


Gartell Railway. (John Penny).


Jinty at Midsomer Norton 2005.

One of the oddest things about all this New S&D thing is that I still occasionally get asked 'Is this a serious scheme?' It's deadly serious. I have studied the economics of Peak Oil, of transport and of railways and I still can't see any way - short of apocalypse - that this can't happen.

Consider two futures. One in which - somehow - economic expansion continues and some sort of alternative/s to oil is found. Roads would become increasingly congested, towns would continue to expand. Already our railways are bursting at the seams - new lines are not just desirable but inevitable. And in this (extremely unlikely) scenario economic expansion could lead to increased carbon output. How long before every government finally 'gets' what the rest of us have for years - that fuel efficiency is one way of reducing atmospheric carbon? Railways are at least FOUR times as efficient as road transport, much more than four times as efficient as air travel (which even in this scenario is doomed). Light and ultra-light rail are even more efficient.

The other future, the far more realistic one, will see economic expansion halt and even contract, and the road system grind to a halt due to a mix of sky-high oil prices, deteriorating maintenance of roads and ever greater limits on carbon output. This could happen over decades, years or even weeks. In this scenario rail expansion won't only be desirable but a matter of life or death, for communities if not for individuals. New railways will be opening everywhere, not just totally reversing the Beeching cuts but reaching places that never got a railway first time round, because in this scenario no railway = no way of continuing as an economic community.

The New S&D has never been about dreams, but more about stopping a nightmare. A New S&D is already needed, many feel that the original line should never have closed, in twenty years time only a few rocking lunatics won't see the need for it.

What we need - HAVE - to do is get organised NOW, develop our networks and contacts, within the rail industry, among local people, at local, regional and national political levels. It will be a struggle to get resources, human and financial. We will be competing with hundreds or even thousands of other routes desperate to reopen before the oil runs out. Serious? You could say that!

bournemouth to portishead - by train!

One of those no-brainer schemes that is almost on my doorstep - and seems to be taking aeons to take off - is the proposal to return passenger trains to the Portishead branch. It can take up to three hours to do the Portishead to Bristol trip by car, which is all of seven miles. Most of the line is in place - restoration to a new station in Portishead will really be no trouble at all. This line acquired a brand new station in 1954 - probably a sure sign back in those mad days that the line was doomed!

But this does say a lot about the mentality of far too many of us in the dying days of the car. Even now a simple restoration like this takes far far longer than it should. This line should be up and running NOW, carrying hordes of commuters into Bristol (and keeping them OFF the roads) and, in summer at least, balancing hordes of day trippers to the seaside at Portishead (taking even more cars off the roads ...)

But at least this line is now seeing regular freight flows - including the one in the bottom picture, serendipitously snapped last Saturday afternoon from the Cifton side of the Avon Gorge.

And what a line it is making a majestic passage along the gorge and under the world-famous Clifton Suspension Bridge.

There is, of course, a supporters' society. Find out more here.

Hopefully in 20 or 30 years' time that trip from Bournemouth to Portishead (with a change of trains at Bristol TM) will be made possible! With perhaps an excursion south to Weston on a rebuilt WCPR ...

radstock 1967, 1968 and 2006

(Courtesy Jeffery Grayer)


Radstock was a classic location with two separate railways cutting through the town, offering services to Bath, Bournemouth, Bristol and Frome, as well as loads of freight. The top three shots are of coal workings from Writhlington to Portishead. Back in 67 and 68 these ran via Pensford, but the 1968 flood led to the closure of the line due to flood damage at Pensford. Surprisingly the A37 road, which also suffered major damage, was NOT abandoned. After the flood the section of line between Radstock and Mells Road was reopened for the Portishead coal traffic, a much more roundabout route.

The New S&D plans to restore the link to Bristol eventually, hopefully the superb viaduct is not too damaged by the 1968 flood. I suspect it was an excuse to close this valuable line rather than anything too scary!

Car drivers used to whinge about being caught at the crossings in Radstock, but at least they had the option of using the trains. Nowadays, in this strange hiatus between trains, it can sometimes take 20 minutes just to negotiate the double roundabouts near where the crossings used to be. As usual we have gone backwards.

we are definitely not alone!

(Bottom pic Mick Knox)

Just posted to the message board -

I'm afraid the problems with aiming at restoring any railway, seem to be people who have no interest in providing a SERVICE eventually. Its all about playing ( ! ) "choo - choo's" and thier own self importance. There are several railways where this attitude is prevelant.

To my way of thinking, the ULTIMATE aim should be LONG railways LINKING towns, villages and other population areas that will provide an alternative to overcrowded and unsuitable roads. I imagine quite a few people who are dead because of road traffic accidents on poorly maintained and overused roads would possibly be alive and well today HAD the railways been left and used, and they had the option of travelling by rail.

However, the point of the exercise above all else in 'preservation' should be, first and foremost, track mileage and the aqquisition of such mileage BEFORE any stock or buildings are envisioned. Maybe the East Somerset COULD have reached Wells or EVEN Cheddar by now HAD the priority been track miles as opposed to engine sheds etc! All very pretty, but what use is 2 miles of track which terminate NOWHERE ! People soon tire of the short little 'hops', but if the S&D could link, say Sturminster to Blandford for example, there would be a possibility of providing local people with regular, safe and reliable transport for shopping, business and leisure also, but not least: The railway would provide JOBS from staff, to engineering to all aspects of training YOUNG people towards a sustainable and progressive industry on the rails!

Ideally, the COMPLETE restoration of S&D metals to the south coast and Bristol Channel again, with ALL towns and cities LINKED once again. Wells, Glastonbury, Bridgwater, Wimborne, Blandford, Poole and Bournemouth with 'main line' rail links at Templecombe, Poole, Bristol and Highbridge so it would be possible to travel CONTINOUSLY by rail to say Minehead via GW and West Somerset or Portsmouth via Poole and Southern main line etc etc. In other words a new NETWORK.

the message spreads!

Recently posted as a comment on a VERY influential railwayman's blogsite by an S&D supporter (unfortunately not me!) -

Now is the time to reverse the Beeching\Marples closures .....

With the credit crunch well underway and the oil dependent Western countries facing depression now is the time to invest in a sustainable transport system for the good of the whole country, and by that I mean railways.

We had them once, and although the talk today is of having an integrated transport system, the closest we ever got to that was under the Big Four, and the wartime railway executive. British Railways lost out under the British Transport Commission, losing its road based and ancillary services and then, ever since Earnest Marples became Transport Minister in 1959 we have been a road obsessed country. Our railway network was slowly destroyed, and now all those years later we are all truly paying the cost for that era. As demand increases for rail services, and the network appearing to be at breaking point, now is the time to finally accept that much of the Beeching\Marples was a mistake, and therefore these old line formations need protecting, ready for reinstatement. It may seem a bit late to some people, but the longer this option is left, the more the cost will be in the future, because oil isn't going to last for ever, and we can't grow enough bio fuels to replace it. Oil may seem cheap once again after this summer’s excess, but as soon as the world recovers from the recession upwards the price will go. The country needs to have something to work for, and rebuilding them now makes sense, and alongside these railways we should lay the fibre optic cables for super fast internet connections, and we could have two sustainable transport systems for the future.

Or we could just sit in our cars on the motorway, more than likely, full of rage!